Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele Taraba

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking with Rashi Nayar, and she’s on a mission to shift humanity from lower states of consciousness to higher states of consciousness. Gissele: I’m so, so excited to talk to her today. We’re gonna have a great conversation and she’s gonna do a practice with me. Maybe you can tag along as well. So welcome Rashi. Hi Gissele: Rashi. Rashi: Hi Gissele. Rashi: I’m so honored to be here with you. Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being on the show. I’m really looking forward to it. Gissele: What led you to be on this mission to increase the consciousness of humanity? Rashi: My own path to increasing my own consciousness, you know, to operate from higher states of consciousness, which is peace, joy, and love. You know, these are actually who we are and we explore that more as we go along. Rashi: But I was very depressed for 18 years of my life, you know, since [00:01:00] 2007 when I lost my dog and in a car accident. And that was the first time I had experienced unconditional love that way, you know, someone loved me for who I am, not for, I had to prove myself or I had to perform. I had to be someone. Rashi: I could just be whatever. And he loved me that way, right? And it’s very beautiful to get that type of love from someone in that way. And when I lost him, he was only two years old and he met with a car accident and he died in my arms. But that was like it was like an opening. And it was like my heart broke for the very first time. Rashi: I had never experienced something like that before and I was grieving, but that was the first time I started asking questions like, who am I? Why am I here? What’s our true purpose? What is God? What is enlightenment? You know, all of that. Because what my soul was longing for was to connect back to that unconditional love that I had experienced from him. Rashi: But I didn’t know, [00:02:00] I was always looking outside, you know, outside myself. And I entered toxic relationships because I thought that other people were gonna give that to me. I was very disappointed and I was very depressed. I wasn’t chronically depressed. I was depressed, but I was also living in a low, low grade anxiety for a very, like, very long time until 2025. Rashi: This year when I lost another family member, I lost my aunt to ms. So that episode really shook me to the core and it forced me to sit in stillness with just with myself. Like no more reading books, no more going outwards, right? Because that’s what I always did. I would go to a spiritual retreat. Rashi: I would, you know, go outwards, read books, do therapies, you know, do coaching. I did a lot of work, technically a lot of healing work, and maybe that was required, but. Nothing really significantly changed. You know, I was still the same. I was [00:03:00] still living with low grade anxiety and I was still the same. And but this time I went inwards and I connected with the part of myself that is infinite, that is peaceful, that is love. Rashi: And I realized that everything that I thought about myself or the identity that was caring was actually not who I truly was or not, or not who I am. The identities or the masks that I was wearing, you know, the mom, the entrepreneur, and the aunt and the friend, all of those were really masks and identities that I was carrying. Rashi: But who I truly am, my most authentic self is actually free already. She’s already free. And it’s not even a, she, I wouldn’t even, we cannot really label, right? It’s, it’s. The vast infinite being that we are is inherently peaceful. Is [00:04:00] inherently open. Infinitely joyful. Infinitely blissful and loving. Rashi: Compassionate. That peaceful, that’s who we are inherently. And I, stayed in that high, right? Let’s just say I was in those higher states of consciousness for three days straight and I was floating. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rashi: Yeah. I was so high. But then came the day I went down, the anxiety was back again, and I was like, wait, I thought I was enlightened. Gissele: I did it. What happened? Rashi: But that is what what’s supposed to happen, because now. I could see the contrast, right? I had experienced something so profound, and now there’s the contrast or the lower states of consciousness, which is fear, anxiety, lack. I was back, I was back in the fully humanness, you know, the human part of me, but [00:05:00] now my aunts, so she passed away and three days later she, she was in my head, she kept telling me, Rashi, love yourself. Rashi: Rashi, love yourself rash. It’s like, it was constant. And I realized that I didn’t love the parts of me that were so-called dark or negative. I was trying to get rid of anxiety. I was trying to get rid of the darkness, right? I was trying to resist whatever I was experiencing in the moment, and that was profound because now my only job is to love myself unconditionally. Rashi: In all parts of myself, the shadows they call it in the psychology. But I realized that the parts that I’m trying to get rid of, the anxiety, the so-called depression, the low level depression that I was constantly feeling the numbness or the sometimes of sometimes just sadness, [00:06:00] like it would just come up. Rashi: What if I fell in love with those parts of myself? Then what would happen? And that became the journey that became the practice. And when I did that, I no longer resisted those. So it was just the experience and me in love with whatever what is right, whatever the experience is. And now I’m whole, now I’m not broken, you know, there’s some, nothing’s wrong with me. Rashi: You know, and that was the narrative that I lived with for 18 years. If something is wrong with me, I need to be fixed. I need the healing, I need the therapy. But really there is nothing inherently is wrong with me. We all experienced this human side of things and what if I fell in love with the humanness, Rashi: And that’s why the being that I experienced, so in those three days when I experienced the so-called enlightenment or the awakening, it was when I touched my being. And our being is inherently free. We who we are, our [00:07:00] authenticity, we are inherently free. We are peaceful. And yet the human side of things or you know, how we grow up, our conditioning, our identity, our beliefs that we carry, all of that is there. Rashi: And that is the conditioning. So the constructed itself or the human is still there, but we cannot try to get rid of it. It’s like, you know, the snake leaves its skin. By its own. We cannot force the skin. We cannot rip the skin out of the snake, you know? So it’s going to happen only when we fully and completely fall in love with who we are in the humanness. Rashi: And that brings me back to that connection, to that love, to that peace that resides within all of us. So that’s in a nutshell, that that’s the story. That’s why I do what I do. Gissele: beautifully said. First I wanna go back to the, the loss of your dog as a person who had a dog. Gissele: Never wanted a dog to be honest, but we got one for a family and felt completely in love with the dog. And after [00:08:00] 13 years to have lost him. And I realize now that he had to go the way that he did. But he did teach me about unconditional love and patience and forgiveness and joy. And so the grief that you experience after having that can feel very overwhelming. And so where I was going with this question is, the human experience can feel so real, I have sat with some really difficult emotions it’s almost as if your mind tells you that something’s gonna happen something bad or you’re gonna die. Gissele: What do you say to people that say, you know, This is all we are because this is what we can concretely see and touch and experience. How do you go from that to understanding and embodying the fact that we are more than this reality? Rashi: Yes. Oh, that’s such an important question. Something that I live with almost every day. Rashi: You know, there’s this low grade anxiety that I still experience on a daily basis. [00:09:00] The only thing that’s different is I’m no longer resisting it. Gissele: Hmm. Rashi: So, you know, and we human beings, we are either, we’re only living in two A states at all time. We’re either to attach to the state that we want, which has happiness, joy, love, bliss, or we are resisting the lower states of consciousness, which is anxiety. Rashi: We’re really in, in these two states or all times. So it’s like when we get that love from the dog or the baby, you know, I have two babies, two little girls. And I’m like, I want it all the time. Right. So now there’s attachment, because if she says something like, I have a 4-year-old, which is a, she’s a very mischievous toddler. Rashi: Right. When you say something that can feel like hurtful. I mean, I don’t take her things seriously because I know better, but Gissele: yeah, Rashi: for someone else it could feel like, what, what would just happen? Like we were in love and now, or the, the spouse says something, right? Like, I have my husband who really triggers me, so he’s, he’s like my [00:10:00] best enemy, right? Rashi: Like he’s my favorite person, so mm-hmm. He says some things that can feel hurtful, and in the beginning it really used to bother me because I would resist those things. I would resist the experience of whatever’s happening in the moment, right? But now I lean into it, and that’s the difference when we are getting this anxiety or when we are getting something and the experience doesn’t feel pleasant. Rashi: The mind itself because the mind is like that. Mind wants to go navigate towards pleasure and it wants to avoid pain. That’s how the mind is, right? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rashi: But we are not the mind though. So in the moment, if we can witness the mind’s neuros, whatever it does is like trying to resist. What we do is we say, first I love you mind. Rashi: Because the thing is the mind in itself is what it’s doing. It’s movement what it’s supposed to be doing. [00:11:00] And the second thing is, I love you, anxiety and that love it. It’s the experience that feels heavy, that feels not good, right? And that experience now is infused with love. So there’s no longer a problem with what is, with the experience itself. Rashi: And there’s a beautiful book written by Byron Kitty and her, the name of the book is Loving What Is, and apparently, you know, she’s enlightened, you know, every like, so she’s the enlightened being, right? We can talk in that way. I’m not enlightened for sure, but that’s what she meant. I didn’t understand it back then. Rashi: But this is what she means is whatever our experience is, if we are not attaching ourself to it, which means we are not craving more of that, or we are not resisting that, [00:12:00] then we have no problem with the experience. So the experience in itself is not a problem, Gissele. It’s our relationship with the experience that’s the problem. Rashi: So the anxiety in itself is not a problem. It’s how I relate to anxiety, how I see it. That in itself is the issue here. So if we’re like, okay, anxiety is here, can I love it? Can I lean into it? And when I do, and it can feel scary because some people might think that if I lean into that, that means it’s gonna expand, it’s gonna grow more. Rashi: Right? That’s sometimes where the belief is, and I definitely have that, but it’s actually what happens is the other way that anxiety or that bubble becomes love. And you know, there’s a great saint in India, I really, really respect him. He’s no longer in body and that’s, I always keep this picture over here. Rashi: Mm-hmm. [00:13:00] His name is named Carol Baba, and he was apparently he’s the same behind Apple. You know, Steve Jobs went to his temple. Rashi: I love him. I’ve never met him, but somehow I love him. Rashi: And, you know, love has no logic. Gissele: And it has no boundary either. It doesn’t, it doesn’t mean that you can’t love somebody who’s passing. And I think that’s the difficulty perception about, we think that when somebody crosses over that the love ends. I still love my dog bear and I still think about him. Gissele: I think about caressing him. I think about, I talk to him. But anyways, go on. Rashi: Yes, you’re right. Exactly. So, because love is unconditional and love is who we are. Mm-hmm. Which I’m going to take you back to so you can experience it yourself. But he used to say that suffering brings us closer to God. Rashi: Mm. And God is love. And so suffering, meaning anxiety, pain, whatever, chronic pain. I mean, people who are his devotees and people who have written books about him, they [00:14:00] said that, I’m so glad that there’s this pain in my life because it helps me take back to him love or God. And that’s exactly what we’re doing here, is we are saying, whatever comes to our experience, I love you. Rashi: Anxiety, I love you. Guilt, depression, grief, It can feel really hard in that moment, but that is the portal, the bridge between the lower states of consciousness, which is anxiety, fear, all of that to higher states of consciousness, which is love, peace, joy, abundance, that love and saying it mentally in the beginning it could feel like a mental repetition. Rashi: Everything is like, and then you’re like, I love you. I honor you. Even if you’re here, I love myself and I love, I mean, that’s loving kindness. The practice of loving kindness meta in Buddhism is loving ourselves and then loving people in our lives and loving [00:15:00] what is, you know, so that’s a tool that if people can use then, you know, I would love to hear how their life transforms. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. it’s definitely something that I use myself and what I realized was that the more love I had in my heart for myself, the more it overflowed to other people. Like I didn’t need them to be different. I didn’t need them to change ’cause I didn’t need them to give me anything. Gissele: I really resonated with what you’re talking about, resistance. I noticed that one thing about myself is when I encountered the most resistance to what was happening, my inability to accept and surrender, had to do with my belief that if I surrendered, I was giving up. Gissele: That was accepting. What is that? it’s like saying that there was no hope or no chance Rashi: Mm-hmm. Gissele: I didn’t realize that the deeper thinking behind my resistance had to do with that. This has power over me, so if I give into it, it’ll take me, it’ll do what it wants to do. Correct. And so when I let go of that story [00:16:00] and allowed myself to surrender, there was a level of peace, but it was hard to get there. Gissele: I just wanna acknowledge what you’re talking about is so brilliant, but it can feel really challenging. And it doesn’t have to, but it can. Because I remember when I would ask for guidance from my higher self God source universe, the guidance that I always got was Love it. Choose it. Gissele: And I’m like, well, I don’t wanna choose this. I don’t wanna accept this. And so, but I would lie to myself thinking that I was not in resistance, but I was in resistance. ’cause my body was so tight. Rashi: Yeah. Gissele: And so, it can feel difficult to let go of that resistance. And we are. Gissele: Not really taught to surrender. we’re doers. Rashi: I just gotta keep grinding it out and eventually this is gonna come through. Gissele: how is that counterintuitive to allow love? Rashi: I love that question because I was exactly what you’re describing. For 11 years of my life, I was a [00:17:00] serial entrepreneur. I’ve scaled my own businesses to seven figures plus. And I learned it from my dad. Rashi: You know, it’s a learned behavior. You keep pushing through, you just keep doing, you know, and that’s discipline. Yeah. And consistency. Like those words feel really good. Discipline, consistency and but it didn’t feel good to my body. Gissele: Oh, Rashi: right. It does. It feels like, oh, it, it felt like I’m choking, but I still kept pushing through and I burned out very much. Rashi: So that’s why, you know, I no longer do what I used to do for 11 years and it just didn’t feel aligned anymore. I wanted to open my heart. I wanted to lead from the heart. So, to answer your question, Gissele, when you say that you are the doer, I wanna take you into this is again, a constructed and identity. Gissele: Yeah. Rashi: Right. This is, again, something that we have [00:18:00] adopted from our environment and from our parents, maybe from our teachers, someone we really admired because they had this habit of keep going and it felt really inspiring, right? Because they accomplished so much and the narrative that we. Play in our head is if we keep doing that means, you know, we’re bring, we’re service. Rashi: This is service to humanity and we’re serving, we’re adding value. All of that feels really good, right? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rashi: And it feels like we’re in service. But the highest service, and I haven’t come to that point myself, but I get glimpses of that, is surrender. And I’ll tell you why. The highest service is surrender is because when we are surrendered, we are now the channel for God will to flow through us what God wants us. Rashi: And that is the path of least resistance. The [00:19:00] path of least resistance is when we are, it’s not my will, it’s God’s will. The problem. The problem, we don’t have a problem. The brain has a problem. And this is, now, let’s go back to scientifically, understanding the scientifically how this works is the brain wants to solve problems because our brain is from the ancestors we lived. Rashi: Our brain is coming from survival. You know, it, it doesn’t know how to thrive. It knows how to survive, right? And survival means keep pushing through. It means keep solving problems because there could be a line behind us and if we don’t solve problems, we are gonna die. So the brain is used to solving problems. Rashi: So it’s not necessarily you that wants to do, it’s your brain that wants to fix the problem. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rashi: So Rashi: once you understand who you are, then you don’t relate to your brain as yourself. That, and that’s what we do, is we relate to our brain’s [00:20:00] mechanism or our mind’s workings as ourselves. We identify that that’s who I am, but that’s not who we are. Rashi: when we realize who we are, then we are free. Then we can see the workings of the mind as the workings of the mind. And we’re like, ah, that’s what the mind wants us to do right now. But what do I wanna do? Which means I, the, which I’m gonna take you to let you experience that for yourself. So we can do that whenever you’re ready. Gissele: Yeah, of course. I just wanted to mention a couple more things. in my life surrender has been so fundamental. Mm-hmm. It’s led to some magical things happening. But what I noticed was that on the things that mattered the most to me, or had the most limiting beliefs about surrendering is really difficult. Gissele: Mm-hmm. I could surrender, like small things or things that I believed could happen, but the things that were bigger, that bigger than I thought I could hold in my container, I [00:21:00] had a hard time really releasing or surrendering. Rashi: Mm-hmm. Gissele: And so for me, the, the whole concept of surrendering has been a minute by minute step by step by step. Gissele: I’m surrendering a little bit more. ’cause people think, well, I just surrender and then it’s. But if you have limiting beliefs around it, surrender can feel really dangerous. It can feel, it can feel unsafe. And that was one of the things that, the word that came up for me every time I tried to surrender about the different things I was surrendering about is like, this feels unsafe. Gissele: This feels unsafe. So like you said, being able to soothe your mind in, in your emotions and saying, you’re safe. You know, we got this. Mm-hmm. we’re just taking a baby step. That, for me, has gone a long way, Gissele: I continue to surrender more and more every single day and it feels so good to not feel like you have to carry the whole world with you. That you have God, Source, Universe helping you. And usually things turn out way better than I even anticipated. but here’s how stubborn I am [00:22:00] or this ego person is. Gissele: That should have been enough. Like how many times does the universe have to show me, like these magical things. And I’m like, well, but not in this case. Gissele: I wanted to ask you a couple more questions. The first one is talking about who we are. I’ve heard many people that say that we are God because everything is God source energy. We are God, we are made from that. from the same source and that God’s will is our will and our will is God’s will. And I had to kind of grapple with that. Gissele: And the reason being is because it’s not that I think it’s like blasphemous or anything like that, is that I kind of fell into a pitfall where I thought I could force my will. Rashi: Yeah. Gissele: Rather than being like, what’s my genuine will? what’s my genuine identity? and if I truly believed it, I wouldn’t be resistant to anything. Gissele: If I truly believed I was a creator of my life, of my thoughts and emotions and [00:23:00] God was working through me and I’m made up of the same juice as everything else, and I wouldn’t resist anything in my life. I would just choose something else. Gissele: Just curious as to your thoughts about that. Rashi: Wow. Again, this is amazing because yes, we are God, but yes, we are also humans, you know? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rashi: God gave us this body, very limited body, right? I mean, where I come from, the Hindu culture, in our religion, we have flying gods. Rashi: You know, there’s a monkey, God called Hanman. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. He used to fly, right? And so he has completely crossed the gravity, right? He is broken all the laws. So neem, KLI, Baba, he was apparently the avatar of Numan because he could be in three different places at the same time. So people in Delhi were like Baba’s with us, but in people in Aaba, they, but Baba’s with us has that possible. Rashi: And then there’s people in Bombay, they’re like, but Baba’s with us. How is that possible? So he completely nullified [00:24:00] the, the laws of the universe, which is laws of gravity. And he was a, people used to say that he was God, and so he had commanded or he had done a lot of, or sadana, which is a lot of the yogic practices to come to that. Rashi: But we don’t do that. You know, we’re mothers and we live in a household, so obviously we don’t have that luxury to, you know, meditate first since morning until night. We can’t do that. Yeah. So, right. So we have to address, we have to understand that we are limited in the body sense, but we are also unlimited with our mindsets that what we can think we can create. Rashi: So in that sense, yes, we are God, but yes, we are also a human being. So the ego in itself is not a problem. That’s what I wanted to say is ego in itself is not a problem as long as we can witness. Stay as the witness and we can witness the ego play [00:25:00] out. Gissele: Yeah. Rashi: Ego, meaning the constructed self. And also if we talk about the brain, the brain has a certain neurological pathway, a neural pathway that has been established and the non-dualistic teachings, the avea, they call it the spider web. Rashi: or the veil. the Christians call it the veil, and it’s the neural pathway in the brain that has been established as our identity, our beliefs, our thoughts, our perceptions. Mm-hmm. All of who we think we are, the constructed self or the ego. We are getting away from that, you know, and I, at least I have 39 years of that to get away from that. Rashi: To collapse that completely and to come to higher states of consciousness, which is completely a new neural pathway. Establishing that is a muscle, it’s almost like lifting weights in the gym. It takes practice. So this is a practice, and like you said, the [00:26:00] surrender is not a one, one thing. I mean, Gissele: yeah. Rashi: I think Ekhart Tolle he’s written about this, that the surrender just happened and he just disappeared. Right. And he became enlightened just like that, which I thought I had experienced before. But there are some beings that have experienced that, and they stayed in that bliss and that joy, I don’t know what that is to feel like for me it’s a practice and I don’t have a problem with that. Rashi: I’ll tell you why. Because I’m able to see the constructed self and the neurosis that come with the constructed self itself for sad. You know? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rashi: I wanna see it like that. I want this to unfold as it is unfolding, because then the suffering, the ego is a portal. It becomes an invitation to come back to myself every single day. Rashi: Every single day. Now, I’m a conscious creator. I’m consciously choosing to [00:27:00] return to my original state, which is peace, which is love, which is joy, which is compassion. there’s a part of me, the ego, and I can still hear the voice be like, are you kidding? You? You not wanna be enlightened? Rashi: Like, forget about all of this. I’m no longer chasing it. For 11 years, I did chase the enlightenment. It becomes the shiny object, right? As we are chasing the seven figures, we wanna be a millionaire. It’s the same thing with spiritual money, which is enlightenment. Rashi: Everyone wants that. But what’s the problem with us right now? What if there is no problem with us as we are? That’s, you know what if the way you’re surrendering is the way you’re surrendering is the way you’re being, is the way you’re healing is the way you’re healing is exactly how it’s supposed to be. Rashi: It makes you whole and complete. It’s how the creator wants to experience herself through you with all the mess. It feels very [00:28:00] messy. Yeah, but what if that’s how it is supposed to be? And that is what is like if you’re not resist surrendering, that’s perfect. No, no problem with that. So. We can have a spiritual identity as well. Rashi: You know, spiritual people are high, right? That’s all of the identity They’re not supposed to resist, they’re supposed to surrender. That could be a contracted self as well. So what the invitation here is to just live as yourself completely and to love yourself and meet yourself for where you are. Rashi: And I think you’re doing a great Rashi: job at that Gissele.. Gissele: Thank you. you mentioned, spiritual people. I feel like what I chose to come here to learn was really to learn about love. Mm-hmm. Like true unconditional love and compassion. And Gissele: I understand it. I can say to you, we must love all including those who we deem as our enemies . In fact, some of our enemies are our [00:29:00] best friends because they are helping us remember who we are. Rashi: Okay. Gissele: And yet there is a small part of me that still believes that some people that behave in negative ways, that are very hurtful, that they should be fought or that we should fight injustice and fight oppression. Gissele: Even though to me that’s just another level of resistance. Right? But there’s like this little me, this little kid because of her family dynamics that still see somebody as like somebody needing that saving and other people needing to be less, selfish, And so, and that’s what I’m grappling with. Gissele: To create a true, loving, equitable, compassionate world for all. I have to emphasize the all, it has to include those who are most hurtful. It has to include people Yeah. Who are hurting other people And so I think that’s the thing I grapple with. On the one hand, [00:30:00] I can understand that we’re not really this reality, that this is just sort of like a play. Gissele: Right? And yet at the same time, it’s hard for me to witness the suffering of people who are, don’t believe that or are not experiencing that. And to see people suffer on a daily basis Rashi: Yeah, exactly. Rashi: Exactly. Very, very powerful what you just said. And I wanna ask you a question here. You said there’s a part of me. That still doesn’t really like that, you know? Gissele: Hmm. Rashi: There’s a part of me that doesn’t really, that’s resisting my invitation is what would happen if you really fell in love with this part of yourself that’s not loving? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rashi: because then there’s freedom to really be, we include all dualities within us. We do, we are the saint and we are the [00:31:00] sinner. Because the seed of whatever the other sinner is doing is within us as well. Rashi: It’s just, we’re not choosing to act on it. That’s all we’re doing, but the seed is there. I mean, we still get negative thoughts. I remember I used to get thoughts like hate hating other people. I would get jealous of other women or like all of that. Rashi: Right? So apparently less than wholly less than saintly. Right. That’s who I am. What’s the problem with that? that’s the thing. If I can accept and love the parts of me that don’t feel so holy, that don’t feel so loving, then what would happen? Then I’m free. Gissele: Hmm. Rashi: Right. So that’s the invitation, because the thing is who you are, Gissele everything is it? Rashi: It apparently looks like the world is happening outside of us. It looks like that. Like we have a body and the world like me. I’m happening outside of you in the Zoom room, but [00:32:00] actually I’m Happening within you. Because you are awareness who we are. We are pure awareness. let me take you back to when we are babies. Rashi: Right? So when the baby’s born fresh out of the mother’s womb, it never says I am Rashi. No. Right? It never says I’m a girl or a boy. It doesn’t say I’m zero years old. Nothing. Right? But what it, what? It’s in a state. It’s in pure being state. Pure being, which means aware or I am. Gissele: Hmm. Rashi: Just this.. I’m not this or that. Rashi: I am. And when we say this to ourself, and I would, I want to invite you, Gissele, to say this to yourself when you can even close your eyes because I really want you to experience this firsthand and even the listeners. Yeah, of course. Rashi: Okay, so, alright, so just close your [00:33:00] eyes. Okay, so now go back to when you were a baby, and I don’t want you to go back and track your memory because you might not have a memory of being a baby, but I want you to have this as an experience, like a direct experience and directly experience yourself as just being born Rashi: fresh. Rashi: No thoughts, no emotions, particularly no judgements, no perceptions. It’s just this pure state of I am Rashi: or I am aware. Rashi: Pure awareness, pure presence, pure being.[00:34:00] Rashi: See yourself, have a direct experience of yourself without any name, without form, without any identity. Just pure nothingness. And Rashi: let me know when you’re there. Gissele: Okay? Gissele: I’m there. Rashi: Okay. So stay as you are. This is your original nature, original state of being. Stay as you are. If any thought arrives or comes to your awareness, you can just ask it to wait outside. We’ll ask it to wait outside the zoom room for a bit and we can [00:35:00] take our thoughts later on. We can pick up our identity later on. Rashi: You can pick up your name, beliefs, everything later on. But for now, just stay as you are. I am. Rashi: And now I’m gonna ask you some questions about your true nature. So as you are just the state of I amness, just pure awareness, are you inherently peaceful or your inherently disturbed? Rashi: Mm-hmm. Yes. Okay. So as you are. I am. The other question is, are you open or you’re closed.[00:36:00] Gissele: Open. Rashi: Mm-hmm. Open right now. Stay as you are. Just empty, empty, empty. Stay as the awareness that you are Rashi: now as you are. The next question is, do you have an age? Gissele: No. Rashi: No? Okay. Hmm. Okay. Stay as you are. So if you don’t have an age, were you ever born? Rashi: Yes. Rashi: I want you to even bring your memories out. Take your memories outside the zoom room, keep them out, and just stay as you are. Come back to just pure awareness. [00:37:00] And the invitation here is to have a direct experience of who you are. So as you are, who doesn’t have an age, were you ever born? No. Mm. So if you were never born, will you ever die? Rashi: No. Yes, exactly. And stay as you are. We’re going to go deeper. Rashi: When you stay as you are direct experience, Rashi: are you finite? Which means can you be put into a box like a body, or you are infinite and the body is also within you. Just see this, see this very clearly, and I want you to have a direct experience. Your mind might tell you something else, but that’s [00:38:00] just a thought. So I want you to have a direct experience of this. Rashi: Stay as you are. Are you finite or you’re infinite? Rashi: Are there any boundaries Rashi: between you and the experience Rashi: as you are? Rashi: No. No. Right. Rashi: Hmm. Rashi: Are you naturally accepting as you are or you are naturally in resistance, Gissele: naturally accepting? Rashi: Hmm, yes. Rashi: As you are? [00:39:00] Is there a problem? Gissele: No. There are no problems. Rashi: There are no problems. So as you are, are you whole and complete Rashi: or do you need anything to complete you? Gissele: No. Rashi: Hmm. Okay. So whatever you just said, and I have coached so many people around this, I have taken so many people into this experience. Everyone had the same answer as you. So who we are is this infinite being that is inherently peaceful, that is inherently [00:40:00] infinite eternal, which means doesn’t die, was never born, and has no problems, is naturally accepting, doesn’t need anyone to complete her. Rashi: This whole is peaceful, accepting, loving. That’s a natural state of being, Rashi: and that makes us one, Rashi: that’s who the other person is as well. Rashi: And if you stay as you are, there’s a last question I wanna ask you come back to. I am. Do you even need God to fulfill you here as you are? [00:41:00] Gissele: No Rashi: Mm. So you need no one to complete you because in itself you are inherently complete. Rashi: So just now we’re gonna come out of the experience and you can just take your time just. Maybe rub your hands and slowly, when you’re ready, you can open your eyes. Gissele: Hmm. It’s interesting ’cause when I was in this class, I had an experience where I went into meditation and went into that same void and it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I don’t think I’ve ever shared this in this podcast. It was like, I wasn’t my body. I wasn’t anybody. and I had pretty bad anxiety in those times. Gissele: And I didn’t have anything. I didn’t have anxiety, I didn’t have anything. But I didn’t wanna return. And so I guess whoever was leading the class had to kind of bring me back and [00:42:00] then and that was really skeptical in those moments. And so I thought, well, maybe this is my imagination until I got home. Gissele: And, and the babysitter kept saying that my daughter was hysterical. ’cause she kept saying, mommy isn’t coming back. She isn’t coming back. Rashi: Oh. Gissele: And Gissele: so, yeah. So that, that was interesting. And so I thought to myself, well, I don’t ever wanna go that deeply into anything so that I don’t like the choice not to come back. Gissele: But and so I’ve been trying to go to that void. But it was surprisingly easy I think what helped me was really, like you said, keep your thoughts at the door, And that was helpful. It was surprising how much I could just not think of something. Mm-hmm. And then when I observed myself thinking something, I could just say, no, go back to the door. Gissele: But I was also at one point wanting to not even like, listen to your questions either. I was just gonna be like, okay, I wonder if I should keep everything at the door. Rashi: Yeah. Gissele: But then when I let your questions in sometimes, then I would move to something else. Then I would go to a thought, which [00:43:00] means I had to go back and go, Nope, you gotta go back to the door. Gissele: Yeah. But I was great and, and it’s so surprisingly simple to remember. I just find that sometimes like to go back and hold onto those identities of like, oh, this is hard, or I’m getting stuck in anxiety. Yeah, Rashi: sure. Rashi: Yeah, Gissele: so, I have to be really conscious of Gissele: A story I’m telling myself about myself, right? Like, how much of a story am I telling about what identity I hold or what I think should be? And so the more I create a distance between the stories of who I think I am and who other people are, the more than I find I open myself to seeing their divinity in myself and and other people. Gissele: But it took me a long time to figure out that the loving all wasn’t just myself and people. It was everything. Rashi: Mm-hmm. Gissele: It Gissele: was, it was those things that we struggle with, all of it. Yeah. and there’s certain parts of the journey that I’m learning to love [00:44:00] more. Gissele: like what I was talking about, seeing children suffer it’s hard to bear as a human, quote unquote. Rashi: Yeah. Gissele: And yet I have to remind myself that that doesn’t mean I don’t do the things that I came here to do. This is why my mission is not just to learn the love for myself, but also to share that with others, whether it be helpful for them or not, not from a place of I need you to change, but from a place of like, this could be helpful to you. Gissele: Yeah. But it’s an interesting journey, isn’t it? Rashi: It is. And you know, it’s hard to bear witness to the suffering of other people. That’s because we love so much. Yeah. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rashi: Right? And it is hard. But the thing is that. Sometimes we get into the trap that, you know, we are supposed to be loving people, so we should be loving everyone, right? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rashi: And when someone is doing less than loving things, we are like, oh, but I’m supposed to be loving person. I mean, I have this [00:45:00] podcast called Love and Compassion. I’m like, right, yeah. But those parts of us require the most loving, you know, there are times where, and it, this has been the hardest for me because my husband, like I said, is my biggest frenemy, right? Rashi: And he really triggers me. He shows me where I’m not free yet. So he says something and I’m not loving him in that moment, for sure. Rashi: Yeah. Rashi: Because he is pushing too many buttons, and I’m like, outta it. And the thing is, I have learned to love myself. Even when I’m not loving him now. There’s no resistance. Rashi: You know? Now I can see the neurosis of him and me, and there’s no problem. So he says something and then, you know, it’s so interesting what happens recently it started happening is when I’m like, you know, alright, I love you. Even if you’re not loving towards him in that moment, there’s a shift, there’s a very subtle shift. Rashi: It’s very [00:46:00] subtle. And now it, I’m not taking him so seriously, you know, all of this, the thing. And then he sees that I’m not taking it serious. And it’s very much in the heat of the moment, right? And he sees that, he sees presence, that I’m just quiet and I’m pouring love on myself right now. And somehow because I, the lens at which I, I’m seeing myself is changing the lens at what, how I’m seeing him as changing at the same time. Rashi: And now his lens at how he sees me and himself changes in that moment. And then he would laugh out of nowhere and, you know, and the whole serious thing becomes a funny thing now. And that’s the interesting part, is what the highest service we can do to humanity is to love all parts of ourselves, the non holy Rashi: parts, Rashi: the non loving parts. Rashi: If we can love those parts in which we like, I shouldn’t be like that. Oh, [00:47:00] actually, you know what, what? What if you love the part of you that’s being like that? Because who you are is inherently peaceful. It’s inherently loving, it’s inherently accepting. So in that moment, whatever is not accepting is the ego. Rashi: So the invitation here is to love the ego, the constructed self. Only then we can be free. Only then we can be free to be who we are, because the ego dissolves in that. When it’s seen with the light of awareness, shines on it seen and the constructed self is. Gone in that moment and then the construct itself comes again. Rashi: So this is a practice. Yeah. And at some point we’re like, you know, the Buddha used to say, we are like Bodhi, you know, we’re walking people home. That’s why we are here in this world is we’re not the Buddha yet. We’re not in like, because then we’re away from the Maya or the illusion, but we are part of the illusion so [00:48:00] that we can take people home together. Rashi: We’re walking each other home. That’s what Ram does used Rashi: to say. And yeah. I love Gissele: that. I love that. Mm-hmm. I’m doing something called Kriya yoga. Have you heard of it? Rashi: Kriya yoga? Gissele: Yeah. Rashi: With Yogananda Gissele: with yoga, yes. Yogananda. Yeah, that’s right. Rashi: Right. Gissele: I just started, yeah, Rashi: I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never done it. Rashi: So how is that going? Gissele: Fabulous. I just started But it’s interesting. Sometimes even very short practices have a big impact. Mm-hmm. it’s really interesting ’cause you don’t think like you’re doing anything. And to be honest, I came into it a little bit skeptical in terms of like, I’m used to meditating for two, three hours and I think you’re supposed to be doing like an ongoing, because I’m just learning it, I’m just starting with little practices. Gissele: But the little practices have been really powerful. Rashi: It’s the little ones that are more powerful, you know, the loving, the act of loving oneself and seeing parts [00:49:00] of us, it requires a very high level of self-awareness. You know, it’s just like we’re catching ourselves just before the ego has started to take control. Rashi: And that practice, I feel, if we can do it in action, because we live in such a busy life, right? Gissele: Yeah. Rashi: It’s a luxury to even sit in meditation for so long. You know? It’s so, I mean, it’s a privilege almost like these days, I wish, sometimes I wish I could go to these 10 day, the pasta meditation retreats and just like, yeah, Gissele: me too. Gissele: I wanna go to India. Rashi: Oh my God. Like, yeah. Rashi: If we can do meditation in action, I feel that that’s more effective then, you know, going uphill or sitting in a cave and you know, because then we come in the world anyway. Rashi: And I remember Ram Dass again used to say, if you think you’re enlightened, go and live with your family for the weekend and then come back and tell me how enlightened you are. Gissele: I don’t wanna say it’s was easier, but you can go to a cave somewhere and I think that’s what needed to happen with certain [00:50:00] yogis in terms of helping us lift the consciousness. Gissele: Sure. So that was what happened then. Exactly. But it is a lot harder, and I think I was reading this in Yogananda’s book, the, the path of the householder is much more difficult. ’cause you, you talked about the war within ourselves, there’s so many families that are in, like, they’re not talking to one another. Gissele: There’s so much conflict within Of course we have wars, the world, we’re in conflict with ourselves. And even with the people closest to us, we can’t even get to that point. How do we expect there to be no wars in the Gissele: world? right, exactly. it’s so hard to look at ourselves. At least it can feel that way, but. Being willing for me is like the beginning point. Okay. I just have to be willing. And for me, I’ve had to prioritize my time, even just to do a quick meditation, Gissele: it’s just as important as that email I gotta send orthat lecture I gotta put together. Rashi: and non I negotiative Rashi: practice. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And that’s the stage, that’s the season you’re [00:51:00] in. And I mean, I really wish I could get that time to just sit in meditation, be like, you know. Rashi: Yeah. And sometimes we just don’t get it. So. Gissele: Yeah. And that’s okay. I Rashi: mean, Gissele: it’s like you said, Gissele: the practice, the, the power of practicing in the moment I think is. Rashi: Very powerful. Gissele: Equally. Yeah, very powerful. Yeah. Rashi: Yeah. Gissele: Wow. So we’re reaching the end. I just wanted you to share where can people work with you? Gissele: Where can people find you? Anything you wanna share with the audience? Rashi: sure. So I, my website is called www.rashinayarwellness.com. And there’s an app that I have for people over there. It’s a free app. They can get download, it helps them return to who they are. And there’s a series of questions that can take them to just pause and reflect on. Rashi: And then the answer comes before there’s guidance and then there’s a specific meditation. So if people can find time to access that. And then there’s different options, you know, ways people can work with me. But I really wanna get this [00:52:00] app in as many hands as possible. I’m also writing my first book, which is called Living From Your Highest Frequency, which is, you know, love, right? Rashi: And it really talks about these lower states of. Everything that we talked about today. Yeah. And there’s tools that people can use, you know, in daily life when they don’t have time to meditate. When they don’t get that peaceful moment to themselves is to retreat within themselves on a moment to moment basis. Gissele: Mm. I love that. Rashi: Yeah. So go back to that piece because we are peace as we explored right now. So it’s the moment to moment returning back to who we are is what really can free us, can liberate us, and can really help us take bigger actions in this world. You know, without otherwise, some people can freeze and stay in anxiety for years and nothing’s happening. Rashi: So if we can live with those lower states of consciousness, but have no [00:53:00] resistance to them Gissele: mm-hmm. Then Rashi: automatically we’re in higher states of consciousness. That acceptance in itself takes us to higher places. From there, we are doing service. We are making an impact in the world without really judging ourselves because we are our biggest inner critic. Rashi: You know? So yeah. Gissele: What a perfect Gissele: way to end, because I think what you said is so, so critical, which is the minute we stop resisting something and go to acceptance, we’ve automatically shifted to something higher. Thank you so much, Rashi. You had such a great time. Gissele: Thank you for helping me remember who I really am and helping our audience as well. Please work with Rashi. Go check out her app and check out her book when it’s available. And thank you for joining us for another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Gissele: Today we’ll be chatting with Deidre Harris, who is a national leadership in highly effective teams development trainer and coach. She supports educational programs looking to enhance their administrative staff’s leadership skills and their teaching teams levels of effectiveness. Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Deidre. Deidre: Hi. Gissele: Hi. Hello. Welcome to the show. Oh, Deidre: thank you for inviting me. Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being here. This is definitely a topic of interest for me. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you got into this work. Deidre: Oh my gosh. To make a long story, very short that I’ve just been working in the education field for over 35 years [00:01:00] and through all of my very. Deidre: Various different positions. You know, leadership has just been coming up over and over and over again. And, and what does that look like? As a teacher working with children or as an assistant supporting that teacher or as a director or principal supporting staff. And so no matter what position I was in or what I was doing, leadership was just always, at the foundation of everything we did. So as I stepped out to do my own work, it just kept coming up more and more, and so I said, okay, there’s a need. Let me get out there and help to address it. Gissele: Wonderful. Wonderful. And what were some of the biggest leadership challenges you saw in the education system? Deidre: Well, gosh, I have to start with myself, Gissele right? So how did leadership show up in me? And a lot of times we kind of think about it and put it under the category of professionalism, but leadership. Actually goes [00:02:00] beyond professionalism to to be professional, to to show up with that hat, to do the work that you are hired to do in a manner that you know, that gives great outcomes for everybody. Deidre: That’s just one piece of it. When I go in and I talk about leadership, it’s really about mindset. And so I actually had to work on my own set. Who am I as a leader? And how do I get to show up in that leadership to, you know, to actually, again, get those outcomes that I’m looking for. And so, as I was, you know, as I started doing this work among myself, like I mentioned earlier, I started seeing it. Deidre: Elsewhere. And what I notice is that again, well, the biggest challenge, or the thing that I notice the most is everybody attributes leadership to a title. Gissele: Mm. Right? Mm-hmm. So yeah, you’re Deidre: either your administrator or like I said before. You’re a director or a principal or, you know, sit [00:03:00] somewhere where leadership is part of your, your title in the sense of authority. Deidre: And so that’s, I would say one of my, my biggest challenges and, and what I noticed and again, what’s, you know, motivated me to do this work because leadership, we’re all leaders. You know, regardless of our title, regardless of what we do, and because I have that belief, then going out there and helping people to see their leadership and then to start standing in their leadership, that’s, that’s been my ongoing challenge in work. Gissele: Hmm. Deidre: Yeah. Gissele: Thank you for that. Thank you. and I really appreciate that you said that you know, everyone or anyone is a leader, right? Including the children. And so as teachers who, step up into their own leadership can then model that for the kids themselves. But the school system isn’t always sort of designed that way. Gissele: Where leadership [00:04:00] can come from anywhere. It is at times designed in a very hierarchical, as many other systems that we have. How has the structure been sort of a little bit of a hindrance or help, around leadership? Deidre: Well, you know, I would say it’s definitely a hindrance or, a challenge, a barrier, and again, you nailed it. Deidre: The education field is very hierarchy driven. It’s very top down. We see that in our struggles with, being a teacher or wanting to be a teacher and having things. Put upon you that you have little to no control over and and hence some of the impact in terms of the severe teacher shortage that we’re in right now. Deidre: I mean, who wants to work under those demands. So absolutely. Going in and again, helping people to understand that when you take on and think about personal leadership, it takes you out of this space of feel, what I call victimhood [00:05:00] of feeling like, oh. I have no control, I have no influence. Deidre: I have no power. And really showing people just how much power they actually have, even when things are being put upon them. So how they address the situation, how do they stand up and use their voice? How do they actually go through and develop their skillsets? Those are things we all have Personal power. Deidre: Over and agency. And so therefore, we can stand in our leadership regardless of what’s going on around us. And in fact, when we’re truly grounded in our leadership, the outside world tends to impact us less. Meaning it’s not like things don’t happen, but our response, we tend to be more responsive and less reactive. Deidre: Yeah. Right. And, and ultimately that’s the goal. Gissele: And what you said is so, so important because I think you’re right. There’s times when we feel [00:06:00] helpless and so if you, if we really can reflect on where’s my power in this moment, even if it’s just in how I react to this particular experience, then we’ll feel more powerful then we feel like we’ll have more leadership Gissele: I just wanted to go back to your point about this this sort of shortage for teachers. Do you think that sort of the lack of funding or the lack of like, the amount of money that teachers are getting paid, it might be contributing? Because right now the cost of living seems to be not necessarily reflecting what people’s salaries are. Deidre: Absolutely Deidre: So wages and salaries are certainly part of that. And also, I mean, there’s a disparity even within the education field. So if you’re if you are part of a school district, then your salary tends to be higher. You have access to more resources. Including additional education that, you know, can be subsidized as well as benefits.[00:07:00] Deidre: But if you’re in early childhood, which is where I spend a lot of my time, where we’re working with teachers who are with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, many of them are in community schools and don’t have the same system set up. So their wages, their benefits, their resources are even less. And yet the expectations for their education are the same and we know how ex. Deidre: Expensive it is for college, right. To get that degree. And so even in early education, you need to have a degree. So now we’re asking people to take on a lot of debt, right? Yeah. Because most of us, how many of us can afford paying for it outright? So we’re taking on a lot of debt and coming out with very low wages. Deidre: Which means that, I mean, just the cost of living, but those dreams like owning a house, right? Or you know, things like that, providing for your family get whittled way down because of the amount of debt that you’re already coming out with. [00:08:00] And so, absolutely, that has a lot to do with the field. And as I mentioned earlier, again, because a lot of things are so top down driven, they’re, a lot of things, again, I use the word put upon because it is directed by people sometimes outside of the field who Have little understanding or have an expectation of an outcome and say, this is what you know we want you to do and this is how you, we want you to do it. All of that decreases the, motivation for becoming a teacher because they actually have taken the art away from it, and I don’t think people see, you know, realize that teaching is both the science. Deidre: And in art. Mm-hmm. And so we can go in and deliver a curriculum and the curriculum is the science part, but how we do it when we do it to, you know, to what degree we do it, what strategies are we doing when that’s the art piece. And many times things are so [00:09:00] structured that the art goes away. It, it’s no longer fun. Gissele: Yeah. I completely agree Absolutely. Yeah. sometimes I think to myself, we kind of live in a topsy-turvy world, right? Like, think about the people that make millions of dollars. Not that we should take anything away from people to play, football and movie stars Gissele: Wonderful. You know, you’re allowed your abundance, but important roles such as teaching and nursing they’re paid such, such a base level and it just doesn’t work. And we’re kind of in an interesting time. Gissele: I see it because we kind of have this gap. there was the baby boomers and people of my generation and even younger that kind of got sold a bag of goods, right? and it sort of worked for us during our time you could go to a good school, graduate, get a good job, get all the things that you thought you were going to get, but the new generation. Gissele: Even if they graduate, they come out with huge debt. They don’t have jobs that are going to pay them because some of these companies now are just wanting to not pay [00:10:00] benefits, not just give what people deserve. Mm-hmm. And so then you see this new generation that is like, I’m out. Gissele: Yes. I’m gonna live off grid. I’m gonna make money on social media. I’m just not gonna do those things. Yes. And so something’s gonna have to change, right? Like, I think we’re gonna have to prioritize. These sorts of positions and go back to the art and go back to the acknowledging the value that is being offered by these positions it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Gissele: I mean, these people can still say in their abundance, but the abundance of teachers and nurses should be elevated from my perspective. Deidre: Yes. I totally agree. I mean, and you know, we could spend weeks here on this topic alone. Right. just thinking about, you know, what are our priorities? Deidre: And when I go back and, and we know this because, [00:11:00] I mean, the research has come out over and over and over again, the return on investment, so. So I’m gonna bring it back to education because the return on investment, when we invest in our children, it’s something like 16 to 18% or times what the initial investment was. Deidre: So if we were to say to someone, Hey, if you invest, you know so much, you know, a hundred dollars and you’re gonna get a eight, 16 to 18% return, everyone would flock to that. Right? Yeah. Everyone would be buying shares in that company. So it’s really interesting how we look at it, the investment in that way. Deidre: Yet we don’t see the same type of investment in our children. And yet, look at our role today. Right. I mean, yeah. Yes. There’s great things happening and yes, there are, things happening. that we’ve never seen before in our lifetime. Yeah. And to go back to what you were saying, Gissele [00:12:00] this generation is the first generation that has done not as well as their parents’ generation. Deidre: So when you’re talking about they’re coming out with debt, that we have so many students coming out and having to live with their families because the jobs just aren’t out there paying what they would need to survive with inflation, or they have this huge mountain of debt that, you know, that they have to get up underneath of, and all of these other things. Deidre: So we get to. To look at that because what are we setting up for the generations who are, coming after us? what are we leaving them? Gissele: Yeah. and I totally agree with that, but, I have to reflect and I do believe that we’ve accepted certain things over time. Like one of the things I would hear often again and again is that, people. Gissele: Believe that like doing good, you don’t have to accept that much pay. Right? It should be free or it should be low. So I feel like there’s an element well, we’ve done this to ourselves, [00:13:00] and I feel like now is the time that we’re like no more. Because Gissele: that really allows you to then do more of that important work. there doesn’t have to be a trade off between you doing good and allowing your abundance to come into you. But I feel like we have, ’cause that was the one thing that I always heard, like people that are doing good and helping people, oh, it can’t cost that much. Gissele: It has to be free. And it’s like, okay, so this is why we’re in the situation we’re in. But like you said, we have power. We just have to say, well, we are not willing to take this low pay anymore. It’s done. So either pay us what we’re worth, or you’re gonna have systems shut down. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Because they’re not gonna have anyone to do the job. What are your thoughts? Deidre: so Gissele you take us right into the leadership mindset, and that’s why I’ve started doing that work. For just that reason is because you even said it. Deidre: It not that I wanna move into blaming or shaming, and yet we do get to [00:14:00] own that. When whoever we are in the helping field, whether it’s coaching in whatever area, or education or health, whatever that field is, it’s this idea of our money mindset. Right. Like, you know, money is the, the root of all evil or whatever. Deidre: We grew up with that somehow, and you said it, that somehow that when we attach money to helping others, now we’re wrong or we’re greedy, or we should do it from the love of our heart. And basically what we’re being asked to do is to subsidize. Other people’s wellbeing. And I think we have to really understand that, that really we’re being asked to subsidize, you know? Deidre: Somebody else’s health or somebody’s else is fitness or somebody else’s, you know, whatever that is. And so, like you said, when when we step into that leadership mindset and say, this is who [00:15:00] I am and this is how I wanna show up in the world, as soon as we fully own that, then the money doesn’t quite become an issue. Deidre: Or we start moving out of that and we start charging what we’re worth. Mm-hmm. And so that right there is, is just really huge. And again, as I bring it back to the education field, it not that you’re gonna go out and and demand a salary increase, but as you show up and, and we start advocating for ourselves and say. Deidre: Look, the, this is what we’re talking about. here’s your return on the investment. It FARs outweigh what, what you’re paying me. We get to start equalizing or leveling things up. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna disagree, Deidre. I do think that people should go out and ask for an increase the cost of living is so far above, and somebody did the numbers, I think it was on TikTok. Gissele: People are now spending almost like. 75% on their salary on living, [00:16:00] which doesn’t leave a lot to save. Whereas, you know, like many moons ago, it’s only about half. And so people were able to save for a house. We’re able to do all of these things. But let’s talk about worth. And I think that’s the thing. Gissele: Historically, we have not really valued our worth. I heard these two people talking about, how, they expect people to work nine to five, but they said come in for an eight o’clock meeting. Yes. and the person said, no, sorry, I’ve got this going on. Gissele: I can’t make it. And it was a huge deal. and they were, criticizing them and ostracizing them for doing stuff outside of work hours. And I think for many, many years we accepted that we thought it made us valuable and that somehow there’ll be a return on investment and it has not. Gissele: All it’s done is, oh look, we get a praise. And just praise is just not gonna cut it anymore. Which is why I think this younger generation is keep your praise. Yep. I’m gonna keep my money or I’m gonna keep my time. Right. And so I do [00:17:00] think it’s the time now to truly say, okay, what am I worth? And this is what I desire in terms of income. Gissele: What are your thoughts? Deidre: and I agree with that. So let me just go back and clarify. Deidre: ’cause I’m not saying don’t go out and advocate for yourself and financially, it’s just one way to do it. Mm-hmm. When you’re talking about stepping into your self worth. And again, the key is to own it. Yeah. So when you’re in your leadership, right and you’re owning your worth, that’s when the advocacy really happens. Deidre: And here’s what often happens is, is people will say I want you to do for me what I won’t even do for myself. Deidre: Fair Gissele: enough. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Deidre: So, when we’re grounded, when we’re in our leadership and we’re presenting ourselves as leaders, then that’s what I mean by that. The advocacy comes and absolutely, we still get to have those discussions and fight for [00:18:00] equal pay by all means, and not just as a group, but in. Deidre: Individuals, because not every person is equal. Right? Yeah. And what value we have is going to be different based on the work that we’re doing and who we’re doing that work with. So we get to be really clear about our value, and many of us aren’t. Yeah. So it’s really hard to go out and say, you know, I think I should have more money and not be able to answer the question of, well, what are you bringing to the table? Deidre: Hmm. And that’s where many of us are, as opposed to, you know, coming in and say, wow, when I come in, I’m able to do this, this, this, this, and this, and the benefits of this is this, this, this, this, and this. Now we have something to talk about and negotiate and discuss with. That’s us being in our leadership. Gissele: Mm, I understand. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Deidre: yeah. Gissele: [00:19:00] Thank you for that. And speaking of different values, Let’s talk about compassion in the education system and the challenges that may present themselves in terms of managing behavior problems and then where leadership would fit in those circumstances. Deidre: Yeah, this is me sighing Gissele becauseyou know, I’m a little speechless and the reason for that is because you would think of all fields. All fields, or at least like you said, one of the helping fields that compassion would be embedded. And I have to say it’s not now there’s gonna be, you know, listeners out there that are gonna disagree with me, you’re probably gonna get a flood. Deidre: What is she talking about? That’s okay. You know, where I work, there’s, you know, compassion, but I just mean generally speaking that. Again, if we’re talking about, say, teachers with children, it’s not that teachers don’t have compassion for children, but they’re fried. Yeah. They’re [00:20:00] burnt out because of the, the workload and what they’re asked to do. Deidre: Now you take workload and then you bring in children who have lots of challenges on a lot of different areas, whether it’s just, you know learning. Disabilities that they have. And so it, you know, it puts additional workload on the teacher to figure out how to support them, especially if they’re not able to receive services around that. Deidre: You have children coming in who definitely are coming from circumstances that are traumatic or neglectful. So now you have a lot of mental health that teachers are having to deal with and trying to support children in order for them to learn. And then in addition to that, now you have teachers being attacked both verbally and physically. Deidre: Yeah. By very young children all the way through you know, into our high schools and our colleges. So much to the point where, where we’re talking about, you know, teachers carrying [00:21:00] guns in school in order to protect themselves Wow. Or be in a position to. To protect children if somebody comes in. Deidre: Wow. So, so when you’re thinking about all of these pressures mm-hmm. That are there, it’s really hard to be compassionate. So it’s not that our teachers, our directors, our principals don’t want to be compassionate. It’s really hard when we have all of these external pressures. It, it just truly is now. Deidre: And then on top of that, think about again, just having compassion for ourselves, and that’s where that leadership comes in. So I always talk a lot about practicing grace. Gissele: Yeah. Deidre: So the practicing grace is for ourselves. And, and that gets to be embedded as part of our leadership. So, I mean, there’s great websites out there like I think it was one called self-compassion dot org. Deidre: So if anybody, you [00:22:00] know, wants to check that. That out. A wonderful woman who’s been in the field for a very long time provides lots of free resources on there. I tell everybody about it all the time because it’s something that we do get to practice. It’s a muscle. Having grace for oneself is a muscle that we get to build and we get to pour into to keep that muscle strong because we are typically our own worst enemies. Deidre: Right. You’ve heard that, right? that inner critic or that self critic, that voice in your head that comes up when you do something and they might say, you know, or You made a mistake. Well, that was stupid. Well, how dumb was that? Or that voice that comes up and says you know, who do you think you are? Deidre: You can’t do this. Keep your mouth shut. You don’t have anything to offer. That’s the voice that we’re talking about that we get to actually look at and say thank you. But no thank you. [00:23:00] I don’t need that advice today. I am practicing grace. Practicing grace means that we are owning, that we are fully human. Deidre: And so I say that as a as a recovering perfectionist. Mm-hmm. So I own that. I have to practice every single day to not get things to such a high degree. And then, you know, where I’m not getting things done or driving myself crazy. Instead, I get to practice grace and say, I’m human. It’s okay if I make a mistake. Deidre: Now, if I’m making that same mistake repeatedly, that’s. great feedback that I wanna go in and, and look at that. So I’m not saying, you know, go out and just be a hot mess all of the time, but just owning, you know, it’s not gonna be an if, it’s gonna be a when we’re gonna, we’re gonna make mistakes and if we’re going to learn and grow and practice that self-compassion, we need to practice grace. Deidre: Giving ourselves grace. [00:24:00] Yeah. And as soon as we’re able to really be compassionate. Then we become really genuine in stepping into compassion for others. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Absolutely, absolutely. I don’t think people realize that that critical voice, like internally is how they talk to other people as well. Some of the most critical people that I have met, that’s how they talk to themselves as well. Gissele: And so, here we talk about, when you. Fill up your bucket, right, and you give to love and compassion towards yourself, then you can give to others from your overflow, right? Yes. Then you have more than enough and when you give yourself love and compassion. You give yourself what you’re looking for externally. Gissele: You don’t need people to be different. You don’t need them to be a specific way. And so you can have that grace for yourself and other people. Mm-hmm. One of the things that I found, I was thinking about what you were saying around, you know, teachers carrying gun and so on is the role of fear [00:25:00] and the lack of. Gissele: Emotional regulation that has been taught, and I think that’s what compassion helps us do is regulate those difficult feelings. Mm-hmm. how has fear really impacted teachers’ abilities to really be in their leadership in those moments? Deidre: Well, fear shows up in a lot of different ways, and we know that, you know, fear is actually a secondary emotion, meaning something else is Happening and the result or the symptom is fear. So one of the things we get to look at is, what am I afraid of? So if I think about myself and me, as a perfectionist am I afraid of, of failing? Am I afraid of what people might think of me? I mean, it’s gonna look a little different for everyone, and that’s part of the self-discovery process is it’s what am I afraid of? Deidre: Because that’s really what I wanted. To look at. If I’m just saying, you know, I’m afraid, then [00:26:00] that’s, an outcome, that’s a symptom that’s telling us. Right? Yeah. And that kind of goes back to what you were saying about our emotions is that our emotions is our body’s feedback to us that something is going on. Deidre: And so listening to that feedback is critical to help us figure out What is it that’s going on? And you also said that earlier when you said that this isn’t something that’s taught. And so while we’re starting to do that, you know, we call it, you know, social emotional learning or development. We do that, you know, in our schools. Deidre: And that’s becoming prevalent again, especially after COVID. What people don’t realize is that our corporations are actually spending billions of dollars on training their people in emotional intelligence, which basically is social emotional development for grownups, right? So how do we manage those big emotions? Deidre: Right. [00:27:00] Anger, frustration, fear, resentment, jealousy. I mean, we can go on and on and on. How do we manage them? How do we regulate and how do we look at it in relationship to those people around me? So when I’m having. These emotions. Who else is it impacting? Because I, I get to look at that. And so one of the quotes that I absolutely love out there is live in the impact, not the intention. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Deidre: Yeah. And that’s huge, right? Because often we say, oh, well I didn’t mean to, or I intended to. and my question is, well, how did that turn out? And if we’re talking about something that, you know, didn’t turn out the way we expected to, that’s great feedback for us. That we get to go back and change or shift something and try it again to get closer to the outcome that we were wanting. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah, and I love how you frame that, and even this in what you had [00:28:00] said before, because there’s such an element of acceptance and not judgment. Even when you said, you know, I keep making the same mistake. If you keep doing the same behavior, you might not be aware that it’s serving you somehow. Gissele: Sometimes we may not like our behavior but it’s serving us ’cause otherwise we wouldn’t keep doing it. So maybe there’s a subconscious thing that we need to look at. So I love how you frame that in terms of, you know what, so these are just messages that we need to understand then, that are reflecting or mirroring back to us. Gissele: What we may need to heal, what we might need to address, which I think is so, so pivotal because we get stuck behind the shame, the criticism, the guilt, all of those difficult emotions and can’t get past them in order to be able to then to really understand the lesson. And I think that’s one of the reasons why we’re kind of in a little bit of a cancel culture because we can’t deal with just a little, those difficult feelings. Gissele: That was my nice way of saying like, what’s going [00:29:00] on? Because we can’t deal with those feelings of being triggered, of being in conversation when we disagree. Yes. And so how do we lean into those difficult feelings so that then we could lean into each other and not away from one another? What are your thoughts? Deidre: Yes. So I call that I have a problem and I want you to fix it. That’s, that’s exactly what it is. Right? Right. Because when I’m triggered, that’s my problem. But we’re so used to saying things like you make me so mad. Yeah. Right. And attributing our emotions to somebody else. and as soon as we do that, then we place right blame and shame and guilt and all of that judgment on somebody else as opposed to, and this is, it’s a radical thought, but yet it’s also a very freeing thought as opposed to owning it. Deidre: Our totally ourselves. Again, taking this back into our leadership when [00:30:00] I fully own my emotions. I am mad now that you know Gissele, you said something or you did something. And first thought is it made me mad, as opposed to, and I got mad. Yeah. So that’s feedback for me that there’s work that I get to do. Deidre: ’cause I am the one that’s mad. It’s crazy for me to say, Gissele you gotta change what you said or change what you did. So I don’t get mad anymore. Right. And what people don’t. Absolutely. Yeah. But, but we’ve been trained to do that. Yeah. And what people don’t realize is that as soon as you do that, you actually give all your power away to somebody. Deidre: Correct. ’cause now they have the power to, do this and make you do this, or do this and make you do this. And, and as soon as you see that and realize that’s where the freeing part comes in, because now, okay, if I’m fully owning my emotions, my feelings, my my [00:31:00] triggers, then. I now have the ability to change and shift it. Deidre: Yeah. And it’s doesn’t rely on anyone else. Gissele: Absolutely. And as soon Deidre: as that happens, like you said, that, you know, the, the cancel culture will start going away. It’s like, oh my gosh. Nobody can make mistakes anymore. Yeah. Nobody can make human or your whole life will be wiped out. Gissele: Yeah,I completely agree with what you said because I truly. Gissele: I truly believe that if something triggers me, I immediately think, okay, what’s what’s going on for me? Like what’s, because if somebody says something that is hurtful, I’m like, oh, that’s where they’re, but if I get triggered by it, that’s an immediate sign that there’s something going on within me because why am I giving that thought? Gissele: The power. Deidre: Yes. Gissele: but. We don’t wanna accept responsibility because then we are responsible for what we have created and therefore, and it expands that we’re responsible for everything we’ve created. [00:32:00] Yes. And then sometimes that’s hard to admit but like you said, it’s the first step towards making a change and stepping up into our leadership. Gissele: Right. Deidre: Yes. and you’re absolutely right about that. And that is part of that, that is really scary. ’cause like you said, as soon as I realize, okay, I’m being triggered, there’s something going on, I get to do some some work around that. So I always advocate for network. Right. Develop your network, develop your inner circle so that there are people around to help support you so that, you know, you can see and kind of process through this in whatever way, shape, or form that looks like. Deidre: But going in and, and understanding that you’re triggered and owning it is kind of like okay, I have work to do here and as soon as. You recognize It. It’s like, oh, okay, okay, I can do something around it. And then you look around and you’re [00:33:00] like, oh crap, I got a whole bunch of stuff I gotta clean up. Deidre: That’s where the work begins. It’s like now I gotta go in and and clean up. Right? So if I haven’t set boundaries right, really good boundaries. ’cause you talked about that a little bit earlier. And now I have all of these appointments and I’m overwhelmed. Okay. To stay in integrity, I’m gonna follow through, and that’s me cleaning up. Deidre: And how can I make sure that I don’t continue to do that for myself? But meanwhile, I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta clean that up, right? Yeah. Gissele: That we got in the shed that we don’t wanna see, or in the basement that we’re like, I’m gonna check that out later. In order for you to change your life, you have to look at that. Gissele: and I do think that what’s happening in the world is kind of like all of those boxes coming out and being like, hello, remember me? Deidre: Oh Gissele: yeah. But they’re coming up to be healed. Right? They’re coming up to be seen and then reone. Deidre: [00:34:00] Yes. Gissele: So, it’s a good thing. But like you said, it’s a scary thing. Gissele: because then nobody else is at fault, right? Then we can’t say, hey, it’s their fault. Right? And that causes us shame and guilt and all these difficult emotions, which we of course are, you know, managing with compassion. Let’s talk about the importance of boundaries in terms of having more compassion for oneself. Gissele: How does, how does having boundaries really reinforce that love for ourselves? Deidre: Yes, and you know, Brene Brown, who, many of us know and love, does a lot of work in this area, so you can check out some of her resources around it. But when we’re talking about, true self-compassion. It goes hand in hand with boundaries. Deidre: You can’t be self-compassionate and have no boundaries. Yeah, because basically what you’re doing is you’re literally giving all of yourself away, right? Yeah. Well, if you’re giving all yourself away, where’s the self in that? And [00:35:00] this is hard for many, many of us. And you know, myself included, and it’s going to always be ongoing work. Deidre: So when we talk about, you know, boundaries, and again, in having that self-compassion, you said it earlier, we wanna give from our overflow, right? So whether you think of it as a bucket or whether you think of it as a well, or however you think about it, you wanna. But pour into yourself so much that, like you said, you were giving from your overflow. Deidre: Not the bucket itself. The bucket is you. Yeah. And so it goes back to what they always keep telling us on the plane. And there’s a really, really important reason they tell. Yeah. Was on the plane. Yeah. Is you right? If you’re sitting with somebody, you know that you need to help you give the oxygen mask first because if you don’t, you’re gonna end up passing out and both of you or all of you are dead. Deidre: Yeah. Andwe don’t think about that in our day-to-day lives, [00:36:00] and we keep. Pulling from our internal wells, right? Or our internal bucket. And we wonder why we’re overwhelmed or burnt down and fried. So when we’re self-compassionate, self-compassion is really about saying no, right? and it’s not no to everybody and no to everything, but it’s being discerning. Deidre: So let’s set up some criteria And if you’re not comfortable with saying no, then I suggest setting up criteria for what you’re gonna say yes to. ’cause some of us aren’t quite in that place where we can, oh, I don’t like to say no, we don’t feel good. just. Means we get to do work there. And in the meantime, let’s work on criteria for saying yes. Deidre: What does yes feel like for you? And let’s be really clear so that when things come in, you take it through this framework of your yes. Yes. Gissele: Yes. I love that. I actually have a reframe what I say sometimes when I say it, I say, mentally says, [00:37:00] A no to you is a yes to myself. Yes. Because I’m like, okay, so I’m saying no to you because I can’t, it’s either not aligning with my values or I’m trying to scrape things for me. Gissele: Nevermind giving it. You. And so a no to you is a yes for me. but for those of you who might not be comfortable with that, I like. The thinking about, what are the things that I can say yes to? What are the things that really align with my highest joy and my values and everything else that I want to do? Deidre: Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And, and again, just thinking about that, right? It’s kind of like this idea of you know, who do I wanna be? And let’s face it when you’re showing up because you said yes when you really wanted to say no. That’s where the resentment comes in. Yeah. In fact, that’s one of the characteristics that there’s a boundary crossing. Deidre: Whether somebody crossed it or you, you gave that boundary away or you weren’t consistent in it, is when [00:38:00] you’re feeling resentful. That’s typically means, oh, boundary issue here. So, you know, just a thought out there for your listeners, but you know, you’re going to show up all cranked or, resentful Deidre: So is that who you want to be when you show up and you’re around people and, you’re precious again, it goes back to, Deidre: Self-worth. you’re just so absolutely precious. And because you are so precious, you get to again, be really discerning who you get to share yourself with. Gissele: Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you for saying that, that was so good. I I was thinking about, I’m in my general life, I’m very good at saying no when I don’t mean no, except for my kids. Gissele: but you’re right. when I say yes, and I mean, no, I do it in a resentful manner. Like I’ll say yes, but I’m like, I’ll cough and puff, and I’m like, okay, this is not how I wanted to do this. So that’s one of the areas that I’m working on is really saying no with my [00:39:00] kids. Gissele: Right? Yeah. Because I just have this. Desire to give them everything. And, I just love them so much but at the same time, I’m not teaching them to honor their boundaries when I don’t honor my boundaries. Deidre: Yes. Gissele: And so, and I Deidre: say that all the time, Yeah. No, I, I’m just agreeing with you. Right. Just raising my, own kids. Deidre: It’s like, you know, what do we want from them? And just remember we’re modeling 24 7. Yeah. So if we’re not, you know, honoring our boundaries and sharing with them And saying, no, I can’t do this, and this is why. Right. to help our children understand the why. Deidre: Because, you know, because I just have a really, hard week this week and I just don’t have, the energy. And if I go, I’m just gonna be really cranky and nasty and that’s not how I wanna be with you. I wanna go and just. Really enjoy myself. Can we make a rain check? [00:40:00] Yeah, I’m just making stuff up about No, no, this is, people need to write Gissele: this down, but Deidre: great. Deidre: What’s a great thing about a podcast, right? It’s recorded. You can go back and And listen to it. Exactly. You can go back Gissele: and listen to it. Yeah. Deidre: Yes, Gissele: absolutely. Absolutely. Deidre: But add the, the why there so that we’re helping our children to understand why we do what we’re doing, so that as they. Grow up and learn, they can start using again that same level of discernment and decision making and thought process for themselves. Gissele: Agreed. Agreed. And for me, I think it goes back to being socialized to think what makes a good mother. Being a good mother is an important thing for me, like making sure that my kids are, happy, healthy, provided for you know, it’s one of my dreams I guess, that my kids are, well, that they’re supported, that they feel loved, that they feel accepted, that they feel like they belong, that they have a safe space and that they have [00:41:00] what they need. Gissele: but I’ve had some misconceptions as to what that means. It doesn’t mean I deplete myself to give to them. It means that I, again, give from their overflow and show them how to fill their own cups, right? Mm-hmm. But I’ve had to unlearn that. I’ve had to unlearn that and. Gissele: Realize that they weren’t the problem. It was me like in the words of Taylor Swift, I’m the problem. It’s me. But in a compassionate way, obviously. Deidre: Yes. Gissele: Well, Deidre: well, and you’re talking about feedback, right? When you’re talking about that compassionate, it’s not blame or shame. Yeah. It’s, oh, this is feedback for me. Deidre: Yeah. So it gives me the opportunity to shift and change how I show up in the future. That’s self-compassion. Gissele: Yeah. Agree. Agree. So we’re coming up to the end. I have two more questions for you. The first one is, what is your definition of unconditional love? Deidre: I’m just gonna pick up right on self-compassion. Deidre: When we’re [00:42:00] truly grounded in it, then our love for ourselves and then for others becomes unconditional beautiful. So Im gonna pair those two together. Gissele: Beautiful. Where can people find you? Where can they come work with you? Where can they just reach out to you? So just let people know where they can. Gissele: Sure, find yourself. Deidre: So they can find me up on my website, which is www.teamagreements.com. Literally you spell it how it says team agreements.com or if you wanna reach out to me by email, it would be Deidre, D-E-I-D-R-E dot Harris, H-A-R-R-I-S at. Team agreements.com. Nice. Beautiful. And I’d love to hear from your listeners. Gissele: Oh yeah, definitely. Thank you so much, for this amazing conversation, I mean we could speak for weeks. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and I hope people do reach out to you. And join us once again for another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Deidre: Thank you. [00:43:00] Bye.

Gissele: [00:00:00] With Martin Luther King, Jr Wright, does love have the power to turn an enemy into a friend? Gissele: Does it have the power to heal? we’re creating an inspiring documentary, courage to love the Power of Compassion, which explores their extraordinary stories of those who have chosen to do the unthinkable, love and forgive even those who are most hurtful. Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness and love. Gissele: Have not only of those offering it, but also on those receiving it.  In addition, we’ll hear from experts who will explore whether love and compassion are part of our human nature. And how we can bridge divides with those with disagree with. If you’d like to support our film, please donate a www M-A-I-T-R-I-C-E-N-T-R e.com/documentary. Gissele: That’s olivedrab-lark-105184.hostingersite.com/documentary. Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion [00:01:00] Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about how love binds us with others, including those of crossed over. Gissele: We’ll be talking with Rebecca Schaper about communicating with animals on the other side after the sudden and unexpected passing of Rebecca Schaper dog’s. Gus. She consulted animal communicator Sonny Mann, beginning a lengthy and revealing correspondence. Gissele: Sonny reported her dialogue with Gus in the afterlife at various times throughout the next year. This moving story includes the transcripts of those psychic sessions, along with Rebecca’s notes from her daily journal as she responds to both the earthly and spiritual guidance from Gus. His spirit describes his life in both worlds. Gissele: He urges her to embrace fully her life contract as a Shamaic practitioner and healer. Please join me in [00:02:00] welcoming Rebecca. Gissele: Hi, Rebecca. Hi. Rebecca: Thank you so much for having me. I’m looking forward to this wonderful conversation. Gissele: Thank you so much for being on the show. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about how you started this journey of, communicating with Gus on the other side. Rebecca: Sure. 2023. My dog Gus died unexpectedly on December 7th. Mm-hmm. he was six years old. He was my co-pilot. He was definitely my soul dog. It was as though we knew each other in the past life and we communicated to each other telepathically, and of course it broke my heart wide open. To the point where I was worse than losing my parents by suicide and. Rebecca: I’ve never felt grief like that in my life. So in January of [00:03:00] 2024, which was a month after he had passed away, I decided to reach out to a pet communicator because I knew I needed help. and I knew I could not do this on my own. Normally, I can work through situations. I’ve had some real trauma in my life, which I’m grateful for. Rebecca: because it’s definitely led me to a lot of love and compassion like your show. But I knew at this point I definitely needed help. So I communicated with Sonny, asked her if she’d be willing to communicate with my dog, Guss. And what she would do is she would, go into some type of trance is the correct. Rebecca: Word to use, but she was just able to have that strong telepathic connection and she would ask him questions. And then after she was done, I mean it wore her out. She told me, she said, it’s [00:04:00] very taxing on the body. And so after she was done with that first session. I was blown away with what, with what the information she had told me. Rebecca: And so fast forward, we had 10 sessions, so she would transcribe ’em to me because she lived in Australia and the time zone was difficult. And a couple of times we chatted with each other and then I would journal my comments to the comments between Gus and Sonny this book is a three way conversation and so there you go. Rebecca: And it, she was really able to provide a lot of healing for me. And Gissele: what were some of the messages thatwere unique to you in Gus’s experience that most people wouldn’t have known? Rebecca: Yes, I will definitely share a few. One of ’em was she saw the word beck [00:05:00] and Gus said, that’s my mom, Beck, her brother David calls her Beck and. Rebecca: There’s no way that Sonny would’ve known that. I mean, there’s just no way. Because he was communicating to her. He said, yes, that’s my mom. Beck, her brother David calls her back. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rebecca: And then another one, which I felt was really profound. We hiked to Machu Picchu and the day one of the days was on my husband’s and i’s anniversary and I had to look down and there was, I wish I had it with me, but I think it’s on the altar table, Rebecca: it had a heart shaped stone. And I thought, oh my God, on that anniversary, how beautiful. So I kept it with me. Fast forward after Gus had passed away, I was sitting outside [00:06:00] and I was doing some meditation and just kind of working through, Rebecca: really tapping into the stone and some other stones I collected accidentally dropped the heart stone and it broken three pieces. Hmm. And I thought to myself, oh my gosh, is this a sign saying that my heart is broken? Of Gus. So I was devastated. Rebecca: The next day, I walked down, I go to this fire pit’s made outta stone and Guss and my daughter’s dog, Stella would always get on top of that fire pit and they would walk around it and try to find chipmunks. So this was like, you know, a constant thing. So anyway, I would go and put my bird seed on top of the rim of the fire pit so I could feed the birds. And I just happened to look down and there was a heart stone, almost the same shape and size. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rebecca: And, to me I [00:07:00] was like, that. So profound and so stunning and it just warmed my heart completely. And, another one, I’m at my beach house now. Rebecca: We have this area where you can look out over the marsh, and he would always be with me in a red chair is a cushion. And he talked about the red chair and the fire pit looking out over the marsh to her. Mm-hmm. So there’s many more, but that’s what comes to the forefront to me as of now. Gissele: Were there any messages from Sonny and Gus around the relationship between human beings and animals and even the connection and nature that we might have lost? Rebecca: Oh, most definitely. Rebecca: I felt like Gus was trying to communicate, saying they always want to be with you. Gissele: Hmm. Always. Rebecca: they’re always there, They definitely can talk to [00:08:00] you. even the most subtle ways. They speak to you, they can speak to you through songs, which Gus used to speak to me through songs. Rebecca: There’s one of my favorite songs over the Rainbow. And they were unbelievable synchronicities when that song would come on when I was grieving. Mm-hmm. And I knew that was him. They communicate through numbers, they communicate, they can communicate in so many ways. One of the key factors is, is being aware of it Rebecca: It’s to me. It has opened my eyes wide open to whole different realms of communication and not just dogs, cats, any type of animal in nature. Rebecca: ’cause I am very much in tune with nature and they are here to help us. We just have to open up our hearts. [00:09:00] Open up our hearts and listen. trust is a big issue. And one other thing every time I would get a message that I knew intuitively, I knew that was something from Gus. Rebecca: I felt it in my body. I would always say thank you. I would. Be very heartfelt in saying thank you because it’s a gift. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. It’s amazing how we’ve been taught that we are separate from animals and that there’s this hierarchy. Gissele: And so it probably is challenging for people to. To understand or believe that they can communicate with animals. there’s not this hierarchy that somehow human beings know better. Do you believe that people sort of have a contract or agreement even with their animals before they incarnate? Rebecca: Absolutely. Absolutely. I know I did with Gus and now we have a new dog, [00:10:00] Zeke. Gissele: Hmm. Rebecca: And he is from the same breed and from the same breeder, and how synchronicity led up to that. And he’s into my life for a reason as well. Mm. There is no doubt in my mind. I mean, I think about animals. You think about your family. Rebecca: I believe is a contract. Rebecca: if people will look for the lessons and the connection, or even if you’re out and about and you see somewhere and you’re like, God, that energy feels very similar. I feel like I know that person. Rebecca: That could be. A contract soul connection, but you just may not know at that time. Gissele: Yeah. is there some specific practices that you use to help you get in tune? Because sometimes our own emotions can get in the way. Gissele: I lost my dog last November and. I’m very, very grateful for the lessons and the being that he was. Gissele: But I also miss him a lot. [00:11:00] And I know my kids are eager to get another dog, but I’m just like, Gissele: It’s not the right time and I don’t want another dog. I want my dog back. Which is, can we pause Yeah. Rebecca: if you put that intention out Gissele: mm-hmm. Rebecca: Ask your dog. You can have your dog reincarnate and soul dog a new dog, but you’ll know. Gissele: True. Rebecca: you’ll know if you’re supposed to, and that dog, I promise, if you’re open and expanded to it and ask, it will happen. Gissele: my challenge Rebecca is, I also don’t wanna be the type of person that would hold back another soul for my own ego needs, right? Like my dog’s time with me was very, very special and he taught me so much. Gissele: But maybe his journey is to go on and do something else. Like I would never want to hold another soul hostage for my own needs. [00:12:00] And I think that’s what’s been preventing me from. Making that desire request. I’ve heard of from people, lots of different people like yourself included, talking about like, my dog has been reincarnated into this new dog. Gissele: I can feel it. And there signs and all of that stuff. That is wonderful. But I think one of the things my dog taught me was that, that loving without attachment and needing to hold onto the soul. the ability to be able to be grateful for the experiences we had and be open to different experiences. Gissele: I Rebecca: hear you and I validate exactly what you’re saying because I found myself the pain was so excruciating that I found myself forcing Gus to come back. Yeah. And I came to a point where I can’t do this. Gissele: Yeah. Rebecca: I can’t force it. If he’s supposed to come back, [00:13:00] then so be it. And I had to let go. Mm-hmm. So maybe in your situation, just say if, if it’s meant to be. It will be. If not, then you’re grateful for the time together. And that’s kind of how I’m at. Yeah. And I understand. Yeah. But I’ve heard people where their dogs have reincarnated. Rebecca: It’s pretty astounding some of the stories. Gissele: Mm-hmm. definitely. And I like what you said in terms of our willingness to let go because. Maybe my dog’s journey is to reincarnate and come back in a different way and have a different experience. Or maybe it’s not, I think it’s that willingness which I in the past have not had. Gissele: I think I it’s like you said, totally normal grieve those experiences. It was my first dog ever. and he was just so special And I didn’t wanna replace that dog and expect another dog to take that place, so, [00:14:00] Rebecca: exactly. Yeah. A lot of people feel guilty about Rebecca: that. Rebecca: And I felt guilty about that too. And I thought, okay, it’s amazing how Zeke, how everything aligned and am I going to love this dog as much as I did? Gus, am I gonna be fair Rebecca: to this? Rebecca: But it’s pretty incredible the gifts and the lessons that Zeke is showing us. And I do, I honestly say, and my husband feels this too, we do see Gus kind of soul dogging Zeke at times. Rebecca: I was told they’re brothers Gissele: Yeah, for sure. Rebecca: You’ll figure Speaker 9: it out. Gissele: How did compassion and love help you through the grieving process? Because every, all of us experience loss, Rebecca: My situation with Gus losing a dog or losing parents by suicide, that really opened up. My [00:15:00] heart opened up my compassion and to see other people suffering who have may have gone through that same trauma, Rebecca: it opens my heart up because I can hold space with that person. sometimes we wanna fix it for the individual, but it’s not our place to fix it. Gissele: did the fact that you don’t believe in death. I mean if you, if you went right away after your loss to find someone to communicate them, you must not believe in death. Gissele: Did that actually help you overcome ’cause to lose parents, to lose a dog that was your soul dog? Those, those are fairly significant losses. Did that awareness help you not feel grief in the same way? And what helped you gain that understanding that maybe there’s a little bit more to life than just this bag of bones in this particular experience and [00:16:00] time? Rebecca: Very good question. Rebecca: Mm-hmm. both of my parents dying by suicide and my brother passing away, I saw my mother at the doorway after she, passed away, I was able to connect with my father and my brother. There were ways that I could connect with him, so that helped me a lot because it gave me a sense that it’s not final. Rebecca: they’re still there. they’re the ones that still wanna help your path, your journey, your life here. And I believe that even though it was a difficult childhood, but I was same time, I was very blessed because it wouldn’t have been able to, do the documentary to help others, all of that. Rebecca: It, it was a curse, but a blessing in the same way. And I’m forever grateful for it. And I, to this day, and until I die, I will always believe [00:17:00] that. My life steps have been interesting situations, but it has just opened up so much more. And different ways to look at death. Rebecca: I do not think death is final Gissele: though. Yeah. And I think that’s one of like the biggest hurdles that humanity has to overcome. I think that our fear of death is so huge that I think if we could realize that there isn’t death, not death in the way that we perceive it to be, that we stop existing and we’re just nothing we think that’ll open up people to be more courageous and to truly live their dreams. Gissele: But I think people’s fear of death can feel really challenging and It’s hard for us to understand that there is much more beyond even if you’ve had spiritual experiences to truly believe that, this life is just one chapter in a larger book of this being that encompasses this [00:18:00] particular body. Rebecca: I’m one of those that I know I’ll reincarnate again. Think about our ancestors. Gissele: Yeah. Rebecca: they’re here to help. Even on the land of wherever you walk, everywhere you go, the ancestors are there to help. Rebecca: It’s just opening, opening and expanding yourself Gissele: to tune Rebecca: in. Gissele: Yeah, so were you aware before your communication with Gus that you had a life contract as a Shamanic practitioner and healer? Or was it something that you discovered in your communication with Gus, through Sonny or Personally? Rebecca: I’ve always wanted. To do that. you know, it’s interesting you say that ’cause I go back and look in my journals and I have written years and years that that’s what I wanted to [00:19:00] do. And so prior to Gus’s death, it was, 23 in October is when I started working with the shamans Rebecca: And when Gus passed away, he was pushing me on the other side I don’t know how he knew that. You know, here’s the thing. I think dogs, even though we’re, if I was standing in right here, and say, Zeke or Gus was here, they’re so in tune to what we do energetically Rebecca: I’m sure Gus was in tune to what I was doing Gissele: so what are some of the things you’ve learned from your shamanic teachers about sort of this consciousness evolution that human beings seem to be going through? Rebecca: it’s a balance between here and the upper world. Speaker 7: Mm-hmm. We Rebecca: try to walk that balance, and the best way I can explain for myself is just Exude as much light as I can and be the true [00:20:00] person that I am. Of course, there are days where I can be crunchy you know, I’m human, but I can get myself back into balance and I just, Rebecca: I don’t like focusing on all the chaos and bringing a negative energy to that because I think that exacerbates it. I just try to be a positive light and maybe just saying hello to some person you don’t know, a smile on their face, who’s to say you may have made their day. Rebecca: Simple things like that. Gissele: Yeah, and I think you said two key things. Number one is the balance. I think that if we, each of us individually on our journeys found a balance, then I think that then we could create systems that were more balanced than they currently are now, and have leaders that, you know, reflect that balance. Gissele: And you [00:21:00] mentioned the importance of. Little tiny things. People think, well, you know, we gotta fix the war in Gaza. Or, you know, there’s all these other wars that are happening that are not being reported. Just living a life of love and compassion and light and kindness towards others. Like you said has a ripple effect. Gissele: ’cause many people, they’re war within their own homes. Yes. They’re in war, within their own relationships and they, they’re not willing to fix war, fix it Rebecca: themselves. Gissele: Yeah. And they’re not willing to fix that. But then they wanna fix the world, which really doesn’t make a lot of sense because the world really is a mirror of all of us. Gissele: And so fixing ourselves I think would go a long way and, and really. Helping us heal as, as a humanity, right? Rebecca: Yes. And, I also believe we’re having to, go through all this Hmm. To get to the light. [00:22:00] Truly, this is a very phenomenal time right now in history. It certainly feels phenomenal. Rebecca: but, it’s like clearing all the stuff to get to where we really wanna be. I know it’s tough, but Yeah. We just have to stay strong and stay in joy. Try to stay in joy. I go in nature all the time. Mm-hmm. that’s my balanced place. Nature. Gissele: Yeah. Rebecca: Yeah. And no doubt. Gissele: Yeah, definitely. And what helps you stay in Joy when it feels like sometimes the world is so chaotic, or When our minds are so chaotic. What helps you stay in joy? You mentioned nature. Are there any other things that you do to keep Rebecca: your joy? my dog, my husband, my family. Rebecca: Of course, when I wake up and I look at the sunrise, it’s just an experience that I have and that brings me such joy and [00:23:00] I’m make it a point to do that every day and close the evening. Same way watching the sunset. Rebecca: Mm-hmm. Because it’s very important to me. Gissele: Yeah. appreciating all the beauty, yes. That already exists that’s one of the issues with electronics, right? Like people really focus on their social media or electronics, but we’re missing all the beauty and the wonder that is outside, that is present right now. Rebecca: Yes. It’s, even the subtle things in life. Mm-hmm. Yes. It’s like stepping out and seeing an incredible cardinal. The coloring. Gissele: Yeah. So going back to the conversation with animals. So did the relationship with Sonny and in conversation with Gus help you then become more attuned with communicating with other animals? Rebecca: Yes. Gissele: What about insects? I Rebecca: I struggle with the insects. I have to be honest here and I, ’cause I’m very honest. [00:24:00] Speaker 7: Yeah. I often Rebecca: since insects except for fleas, mosquitoes and roaches and ticks. I’ll just try to scoop it up and put it outside. Rebecca: Mm-hmm. Somewhere I got a tick on the back of me two weeks ago, I know they’re all part of creation, but there’s just something about that. Gissele: nice. There’s a real struggle there’s an aspect of me that is like everything is of God and source universe, right? Gissele: And I’m not separate from anything. And at the same time, there’s a small part of me that still sees herself as a victim, which is like, that could bite me and has bit me. that could hurt me So I don’t wanna experience that. And so that memory, it’s hard for me to be in that kind of harmony with nature in that sense and see myself as not separate from it. Rebecca: I really try to get in that mindset, but when that insect does something Rebecca: to my [00:25:00] animal, to my dog, I, Rebecca: Do what I gotta do. Gissele: I wonder why they cause so much chaos. My husband and I were talking about this like where did this mosquitoes come from? Gissele: There’s this country that doesn’t have mosquitoes. I can’t remember which country it is. Apparently they’ve Rebecca: really weird. Yeah, Gissele: that’s what I was trying to remember. I don’t know. I saw it on social media. Gissele: I don’t know is it possible for us to live in harmony with all beings? Rebecca: That’s a really good question, and I think it’s a really. Tough one for a lot of people because you know, if you’re being infested by mosquitoes or stinging flies. Rebecca: That’s, yeah. Well, Gissele: my daughter was saying, because we go for walks, If you wear a dragonfly hat, the bugs will not bug you because Dragonflies are a natural predator. Oh yeah, because, so I order some from Amazon. Rebecca: Oh my God. Gissele: What is it called? Share [00:26:00] Dragon. Fly clips. So this was all over TikTok just a fake dragonfly that you can clip on your hat or you can clip it somewhere in your body and they will not come near you because they’ll think that it’s a real dragonfly and dragonflies are natural predators and so they won’t come near you. Gissele: Yeah. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ve ordered it Rebecca: I do use, use all natural repellents like garlic. Yeah. Or apple cider vinegar. I’ve heard that works. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, Gissele: There’s hope. There is absolutely hope so that we don’t have to harm them and they can leave us alone. Gissele: So, yeah, it’s like, hopefully that works because I don’t wanna kill them and I don’t wanna put bug off stuff on my person. they have a right to exist. I just have a right to not be bitten. So if the dragonflies can help me, that would be good. Rebecca: I’m going to get that. Rebecca: I love it. Gissele: So tell us a little bit about your book. When does it come out? Rebecca: Okay. It, it was published April 9th. Oh, nice. Gissele: Okay. Rebecca: And it’s on Amazon. People can order it on [00:27:00] Amazon, and if people wanna reach out to me, it’s rebeccaschaper.com. Gissele: Sounds good. and you have a previous book you said. Rebecca: Yes, it’s the backbone of the Sister’s Call documentary that I had a calling to. Rebecca: That’s a whole different story. And then the light in his soul lessons from my brother’s schizophrenia. here’s one thing I would love for your audience to take away, is you think you’re going down one way with your career. I had no idea. I’m not a filmmaker. Rebecca: I’m not a writer. I had never written a book, any of that, but I had people walk into my life. So you have people. That help you for your purpose, and the universe will course correct you. You’re like, okay, I got this calling, so I need to listen and I need to make it happen. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. I totally agree with that. Gissele: That has been [00:28:00] my experience as well, in terms of being called to do something. I never thought like this podcast is one of ’em, right. I thought I was gonna be working within the child welfare system until the day that I died. And so, yeah, like doing some of the things I’ve done were sort of like a higher calling, but not anything that my ego self had thought or desired. Gissele: Right. Right. none of these things were in my plan. Rebecca: Yeah. It comes totally unexpected. You’re like, what? It’s like a download and Gissele: Yeah, and, The interesting part is that sometimes it doesn’t mean what you think it means either, right? so like you was guided to write a book and then I thought, well, maybe the book is it. Gissele: This is what I’m gonna do, and it did well. But then that wasn’t supposed to be the thing. Because then because of the book, I did a TEDx talk and because of the TEDx talk, I’m now doing this documentary, so it’s steps I couldn’t have put [00:29:00] together. and what you had said earlier, it takes an enormous amount of trust. Gissele: Yes. even with communicating with animals on the other side. It takes trust because it goes against the grain of what we’ve been taught. We’ve been taught that, you know, seeing is believing, right? it’s only what I can physically touch or feel with my senses that is real or truth. what helped you gain trust in your life in that inner guidance or voice? Rebecca: Doing the documentary, it took 14 years. Gissele: Oh, wow. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about it? Rebecca: Sure. It’s a documentary about my families when I was growing up. There’s sexual abuse in there. there’s alcoholism talked about in there. There’s suicide talked about in there. And mental health. Both my mother and brother were quote. Rebecca: Diagnosed with [00:30:00] paranoid schizophrenia, and to this day, I’ll never believe that. I think they were hearing other dimensions, but anyway. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rebecca: My brother left and was missing for 20 years, but I always knew he was alive, always, and through a miracle. It was time for us to find each other and he was the catalyst of the film. Rebecca: And that’s when I got this calling. And I wanted to, express to people that he’s not this diagnosis. He is a person’s he is an incredible loving individual very. Observant and he passed away 2012. his contract was up and but the thing is, I learned so much through doing all of this and I hope that people were, able to relate [00:31:00] that. Rebecca: having, medication isn’t always the cure and I fought for that for a long time. So it’s a very vulnerable, very transparent, it speaks the truth and it’s a tough film to watch but it’s a also a very happy film.And it gives people hope and it’s through forgiveness and compassion. Gissele: Which I feel are very important messages. It’s interesting. I used to work at somewhere called cmh, which was a center for mental health and addictions. And I used to help as a student run a social program for people who were diagnosed with schizophrenia. And I remember having a conversation with individuals and they would talk about how. Gissele: The awareness that they had when they would have episodes some of the reasons why they didn’t take their medication, especially young women, they would gain weight. And so they didn’t feel that the doctors always understood the [00:32:00] other impacts of the medication and the stigma that they felt that was out there like every person who is diagnosed with schizophrenia is violent. Gissele: And somehow it’s gonna lead to them killing someone, which was not true at all. These people were very kind and generous, and, compassionate. and vulnerable. They were more vulnerable to harm themselves than to harm someone else. But there’s always this misconception because there’s always so much fear you know, fear causes us to kind of dehumanize others, right? Gissele: Because we’re so stuck in survival. Documentaries like yours and conversations really help us have more compassion for others when we have greater understanding that just because somebody’s going through something does not mean that they’re gonna harm someone else. Gissele: And so I think that’s a very important message. Rebecca: Absolutely. And I felt like that with the voices that he was hearing, because he was extremely empathic. [00:33:00] Gissele: Mm-hmm. And Rebecca: he was just tuning in. And my mother, same thing. They were tuning in and they didn’t know how to channel all these voices that they were hearing from dimensions. Gissele: of course. Yeah, So last question. What is your definition of unconditional love? Rebecca: Oh, that’s such a good question. Hmm. Seeing the person for who they really are Gissele: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Rebecca: Let them be seen for who they really are without any judgment. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. You could remove the lens of judgment. We could see each other as as authentically as we truly are. Exactly the beautiful way to end. Rebecca: Thank you, and I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Yeah. I’m so glad we could connect. Gissele: Yes, me too. Thank you so, so much for being [00:34:00] on the show, and thank you for those who tune into the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele Rebecca: Bye bye. Thank you.

Gissele: [00:00:00] was Martin Luther King, Jr. Wright, does love have the power to transform an enemy into a friend. We’re currently working on a documentary showcasing people doing extraordinary things such as loving. Those who are most hurtful in this documentary will showcase extraordinary stories of forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformation. You’d like to find out more about our documentary, www M-A-I-T-R-I-C-E-N-T-R-E com slash documentary.  Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking with Larry Rosen about whether enemies can come together in dialogue. Larry is the founder of a mediation law practice. Through understanding he has helped thousands craft enduring solutions to [00:01:00] crippling conflicts, millions have watched this popular TEDx talk with secret understanding humans whose insights informs the enemy’s project. From 2024, Larry completed writing the novel, the Enemy Dance, posing the question, must the society riven by tribalism descend into war or can it heal itself? Larry is a graduate of UCLA School of Law, where he served as editor of the Law Review and received numerous academic awards. Growing up, Larry was both the bully and the bullied. The one who was cruel and the one who was kind, he was sometimes popular. And sometimes friendless. He had many fist fights with kids who became his friends. He had his very own chair at the principal’s office. He believes that his peacemaking today is born out of the callousness and empathy that he knew as childhood. [00:02:00] Please join me in welcoming Larry. Hi, Larry. Larry: Hi there. That, it’s funny because that la last piece that you read about my, you know, the, the principal’s office that’s on my website, I’ve never had someone read that back to me and it brought me a little bit to tears, like, oh, that poor kid. Yeah, I, I don’t hear that very often. So anyway, Gissele: yeah. Oh, I really loved it when I saw it, and I could relate to it because I’ve also been both. when we hurt other people, we wanna be forgiven, but when people hurt us, you don’t always wanna forgive, right? Mm-hmm. So it gives you the different perspective. I’m so thrilled to have you on the show. And how I actually came to know about your project is, so I’m a professor at a university and I teach research and ethics. And, what I had discovered about my students is that many of them don’t come with the ability to do the critical thinking, to be able to hold both sides. Many of them come thinking there’s gotta be a right answer, and there’s a right way of doing things. Just tell us what the answer is. [00:03:00] And so for my students, I get them to write a paper where they tell me the things they feel really strongly about. Then they’re researching the opposing perspective using credible sources. because trolls are easy to dismiss, right? So credible sources, the opposing perspective, and then they are supposed to, so tell me what are their main points? You know, like why do they believe what they do? And and are you really that different? Right? And then the last part of the paper is. Talk about the emotions you feel and throughout the year I prepare them in terms of being able to handle it. So I teach them mindfulness, I teach them self-compassion so that they can hold because it’s really difficult to hold posing perspective. What? It’s research and ethics.  I do it for my, ’cause one of my research interests is compassion. And so, and I was a director of one of the departments I had was hr. And what I noticed was when people had conflict, it was the inability to regulate themselves, to sit in a [00:04:00] conversation that prevented them from going anywhere. And so what I do in my classes, like I’ll do like a minute, like maybe five minutes, three minutes, right before the start of class, I’ll teach mindfulness or like a self-compassion practice and we talk about it all year. And then at the end of the year they’ll do a, a paper where they do the opposing perspective. Then at the end they talk about the emotions they feel. So, and, and they can do that through music. They could do that through a photograph. They could do that through an art project or they just use text. They say, oh, I felt this. I felt that. And so it was in my students researching for their papers that they encountered your project. And they were blown away. They were so, so happy about it. And I like, I’ve watched the episodes. They were amazing . And so that’s why I wanted to have you on the show. And so I was wondering if you could start by telling the audience a little bit about the Enemies project and how you got inspired to do this work. Larry: So the Enemies Project is a [00:05:00] docuseries where I bring together people who are essentially enemies, people of really dramatically different viewpoints, who pretty much don’t like each other. And so an example is a trans woman and a, a woman who is maga who believes trans people belong to mental institutions a Palestinian and a Zionist Jew and, and lots of other combinations. And the goal is not to debate. There are lots of places where you can see debates and I allow them to argue it out for a few minutes to, to show what doesn’t work. And then I bring them through kind of a different process where they. Understand each other deeply, which basically means live in each other’s viewpoint, really ultimately be able to, like you’re trying to do in your class as well. Have them express each other’s viewpoint. And that is a transforming process for them. Usually when they do it in each other’s presence. And it, you know, it has hiccups which is part of the process, but it goes really [00:06:00] deep. And so ultimately these people who hate each other end up almost always saying, I really admire you. I like you. I would be your friend. And sometimes they say, I love you. And usually they hug and there’s deep affection for each other at the end. And they’re saying to the camera or to, you know, their viewers, like, please be kind to this person. This person’s now my friend. And that is for me important because. Like you probably, and probably most of your listeners, I’m tired of what’s happening in society. I am tired of being manipulated. I think we’re all being manipulated by what I call enemy makers. People who profit from division financially, politically they’re usually political leaders and media leaders. And we’re all being taken. And the big lie at the center of it is that people on the other side, ordinary people on the other side are bad or evil. That’s the, the dark heart lie at the [00:07:00] center of it. And if we believe that we’ll follow these leaders, we’ll follow them because we all want to defeat evil. We all must defeat evil. And so what I’m trying to do in this project is unravel that lie by showing that people on the other side are just us. Yeah. And they too have been manipulated and we’ve been manipulated. So and it’s gone well, it’s gone really well. You know, there have been, we’ve been, we’ve done eight or nine episodes and we have in various forms of media, been seen tens of millions of times in the last five months. And we have, I think, 175,000 followers on different media. And the comments are just really, from my perspective, surprisingly, kind of off the chart powerful. Like this has changed tens of thousands of comments of just this is, this is in. Sometimes I’ve, I cried throughout or it’s actually changed my life. I see people differently. So it’s, it is been really, it’s really great to have that feedback and, and then we have plans for the future, which I can tell you [00:08:00] about later. But yeah, but that’s, that’s the basic background. The reason I got into it I don’t know if you have kids, but for me, kids are the great motivator. You know, the next generation, probably people who don’t have kids also are motivated for the next generation as well. We, I care deeply about what I’m leaving my kids and other people’s kids, you know, they all touch my heart and I, I feel really terrible about the mess we’re believing them in, and I feel terrible about what humanity is inheriting. And so I want to have an influence on that. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things I love about your docuseries is that the intent isn’t to change anyone’s mind. The intent is for people to feel heard and seen, and that is so, so powerful. It makes me think of Daryl Davis about how he went. Do you know the story of Daryl Davis? I don’t like jazz musician. So he’s a black jazz musician who when, since he was little, he wondered why people were racist. So what he did was actually go [00:09:00] to KKK rallies and speak to KKK leaders. Yeah, Larry: I have heard, yeah. Gissele: Yeah. He didn’t mean to change anyone. He just wanted to offer them respect, which you, as you say, is fundamental and just wanted to understand. And in that understanding, he created those conditions too that led people to change . And so I think that’s the same thing that your docuseries is offering. Larry: Absolutely. I mean, you can see it so easily that Yeah, as soon as one person hears the other person, the person who was heard is the one who changes.  you don’t change the other person by telling them your story and by convincing them of anything. It’s when you hear them and hear what their true intention has been and what’s going on in their life, that’s when they change. It’s the fastest road to their change really. But if you go in with that objective, then they won’t change. So there’s kind of a, you know, an irony or a paradox embedded in this, but usually both people move [00:10:00] toward each other, is what happens. Yeah. Gissele: I want the audience to understand how brilliant this is because, I don’t know if you know Deeyah Khan, she’s a documentarian and she interviewed people from the KKK And one of the things we noticed in all those interviews was that many people hate others. They’re people that they’ve never met. They’ve never met people in that group, but they hate them. So, Larry: yeah, that’s, that’s really interesting just to hear that. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. So how does the Enemies project help challenge misconceptions about groups that have never met each other, carry beliefs about the other? Larry: Well, so far really hasn’t because everybody who we’ve done a show with has met people from the other side. Gissele: Oh, Larry: okay. You know, it’s not like because thus far with the, with I think one or two exceptions, everyone’s been an American. So in, in the United States, everybody’s gonna meet somebody else. they’re not friends with them, they’re not deeply connected with them. But from my perspective it, it doesn’t [00:11:00] matter. You know, you can be from the most different tribes who’ve never met each other, we’re all gonna be the same. the process never differs. we don’t start with politics. My view is that starting with politics, which is how some, some people who try to bring others together to find common ground, start with politics, and that’s not going to work. What I start with is rapport. You know, as soon as you start with something that a person is defensive over, you’re gonna put up, they’re gonna be wearing armor, and they’re going to try to defeat the other person. So we exit that process and we really just help them understand what’s beautiful in each other’s lives, what’s challenging in each other’s lives, and they, there’s no question that as soon as you see what’s beautiful in someone else’s life or challenging, you’re gonna identify with it because you’re gonna have very similar points of beauty and challenge yourself. And then we fold. Politics into it about why politics really are important [00:12:00] to the other person. And we do it in a way where it’s a true exploration. And once that happens, people connect deeply.  so it doesn’t matter from, in my experience, how different the people are, how extreme the people are.  you’re going to be able to bring them together, you know? And so if they haven’t met each other, it’s really interesting what you said that people hate, people a haven’t met, which is like a, such a obvious statement. And it is really profound just to hear that, like, it’s so absurd. Yeah, and I would say that in my experience, the most profound or the deepest sessions are with people who are really dramatically surprised that the other person’s a human being. So if they, if they haven’t met each other, if they haven’t met someone like that, it’s gonna be an easy one. Yeah. ’cause because the shock is gonna be [00:13:00] so huge. Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. And Larry: so, and so full, it’s when the people have had experiences with the other side that it’s, that it is, it’s still powerful, but it can be a little bit more intellectual than, than in the heart because when you’re shocked by someone’s humanity, because you couldn’t imagine it at all, it, it really crushes your thoughts about them. Gissele: What I love about the process is that that’s the part you really focus on. You masterfully, are able to get people to really get to the root of their humanity and make that connection and then reengage in the dialogue , which is, is amazing. So who individuals selected and what’s support needs to happen before they can engage in the dialogue? And I ask that because each individual has to be able to hold the discussion. Because sometimes it’s, sometimes it can feel so hurtful, and I’m thinking in particular, even Nancy. So they’ve gotta be able to regulate enough to stay in the dialogue. Otherwise, what [00:14:00] I have seen is people will eject, they’ll fight, they’ll just kind of flee. So what preparation needs to happen and how do you select people? Larry: So on the selection front, it’s different now than when I started, you know, when I started filming about a year ago, I didn’t have any choices. You know, it wasn’t like anyone knew who I was or they had seen my shows, so I would go, I would live in the Bay Area and it’s really hard to find conservatives in the Bay Area, but all the conservatives in, in the San Francisco Bay Area congregate, they have like clubs. Mm-hmm. And so I would go on hikes with, in conservative clubs and I would speak to them and I just would try to find people who were interested. There were no criteria beyond that. Now, having said that, it’s not entirely true. I did interview some people who I just were like, they’re two intellectual, they just wanted to talk about economic issues or stuff, something like that.  and then for liberals, it was actually harder, [00:15:00] believe it or not, to find people in the Bay Area who wanted to participate. I could find tons of liberals and progressives, but they had zero interest in speaking to a conservative person. And I wasn’t sure if that was a Bay Area phenomena, because liberals are so much in the majority, they don’t really care to speak to the other side, whereas the other side wants to be heard, or whether that’s a progressive kind of liberal thing. I have my views that have developed over time, but it was hard to find liberal people. And so really at the beginning it was just people who were willing to do it. There weren’t criteria beyond that. At this point, you know we’ve received some that people know what we’re doing and people want to be on the show and we receive applications and my daughter. Who runs this with me, my daughter Sadie, who’s 20 years old and in college. She is the person who finds people now, and you might have seen the episode a white cop and a black activist. I don’t know if you’ve seen that one, but, you know, she found those two people and they were [00:16:00] great. And the way she found them is she searched the map on the internet. It’s a little different now because by searching people on the internet, we find people who have a little bit of an audience. Mm. And that could be a bit of a problem. But it’s also like so much less time consuming for us. And so. You know, if we had a lot of money, we would spend more money on casting, but we don’t, and so mm-hmm. But we were able to find pretty good people. I’d say the main criteria for me, in addition to them having to have some passion about this, this particular show that they’re on, whether it’s about abortion or Israel, Gaza, the main criteria for me that’s developed is, do I want to hang out with this person? Because if I do, if the person, not whether they’re nice. Okay. Not whether they’re kind. That’s not it. I want them to have passion and I want to like them personally, because if I, it’s not that I don’t like the, some of the people, I like them all, but I don’t [00:17:00] want to hang out with them. If I do, it’s gonna be a great show because I know that they’re gonna be dynamic people and that their passion will flip.  they’re gonna connect in some way and people who are really cordial and kind, they’re not, they’re not going to connect as deeply. The transformation’s not going to be as powerful for them or for the audience. Gissele: Hmm. Really interesting. I wanna touch base on something you said, you know, like that most people listen to debate. And I like Valerie Kaur’s perspective, which is to listen, to understand is to be willing to change your mind and heart. And I also like what you said, which is listening is to love someone. Can you explain what you mean by that? Larry: I think it more is the, it’s received as love than it, than necessarily it’s given as love. It doesn’t mean that you love the other person when you’re listening, but all of us, I would say if we think of the people [00:18:00] that we believe love us the most, they get us. Yeah. We receive it that way and, and they don’t judge us. And so when an enemy does that for you, the thought that they are a bad person melts away. Because if somebody loves us, and that’s the way it’s received, it’s not really an intellectual thing, we just receive it that way. They can’t be a bad person. Like somebody who loves me cannot be a bad person. And so it’s probably the most powerful thing that you can do to flip the feeling of the other side, is to listen to them, not to convince them of anything and to listen to them with curiosity, not just kind of blankly to listen to them without judgment. That’s a real critical piece. And if you do, you know, you can see on the show, it’s just like, you can see the switch flip. It’s really interesting. You can almost watch when it [00:19:00] happens and all of a sudden. The person likes the other person and now they’re listening to each other. It was really interesting. I was on a show one of the episodes is called I forget what it’s called. It’s the Guns episode. How To Stop The Bleed or something. It was these two women, and one of them has a podcast that she had me on and she said what was really interesting to her was that given how the show was laid out, like the first part of the show, they’re arguing, like usually doing a debate and they don’t really hear each other. But she said, given how the show was laid out, she was not preparing her responses in her mind like she always does. When speaking to somebody else, she was not thinking about what she was going to say. Her job in her mind was to understand the other person, to really get the other person. She said it was a total shift in the way she was acting internally. Like, like, and she said she noticed it. Like, I am not even thinking about what I’m going to say. And then she said afterwards she thought a lot about it, [00:20:00] and that was a dramatic shift from anything she’s been involved with. And that’s another way to put it. You know, I don’t, I didn’t think of that when, you know that the people wouldn’t be preparing for their response like we usually do. But that is definitely what happens when you concentrate on listening, and so yeah, it’s received really warmly and it’s transforming. Gissele: Yeah, and I think it, a lot of it has to do with how you manage the conversations, right? Like the tools that you use. I noticed they use the who am I right? To try to get people to go down to their core level to talk about themselves, the whole flipping side, identity confusion, which we’ll talk about in a minute. So are these based on particular frameworks that you use to mediate conversations since you have a history of mediation? Or is this something that you sort of came up on your own? Larry: It is something that I came up with on my own for the most part. I mean, I do a type of mediation in the law. I’m a lawyer where it’s unusual because [00:21:00] I’m doing like a personal mediation in a legal context. It’s kind of weird. for people. Yeah, but I only do the types of mediations where people know each other, like I don’t do between two companies, because there’s not really a human element to it. It’s, it really is about money for the most part. But, but when it’s two human beings, the money is a proxy for something else, always. Mm-hmm. Yeah. and so I’m used to being able to connect people. I do, you know, divorce founders of companies, neighbors family members who are caring for another family member. People who, where there wouldn’t be a legal issue if their relationship wasn’t broken. And so they already know each other. I don’t have to do that really deep rapport building. I do have to do some, but not really deep. but my theory was that when starting this project, which is mostly political, and people who don’t know each other, that there would be a piece missing. You know, like I wasn’t sure if what I’d do would do would work. What I do with clients would work in this. Political context, and I want them to [00:22:00] know, my thought was how do I build that rapport, even if it’s broken in the personal relationship, like they’re craving that they want that healing, but here, like they don’t know the other person. So it was really just me think thinking about how do powerful things that I want to know about other people. Speaker 3: Yeah. Larry: And so I really just tried it. I mean, like, you know, what is most, what would I most powerfully want from another person? and I develop a list of questions that really worked well, but I’m really practiced in keeping people focused on the questions at hand and not allowing them to deviate from what it is that I’ve designed. So that’s something that, you know, I’ve been doing for 20 years, and it takes some skill to even know whether the person’s deviating, whether they’re sneaking in their own judgment or they’re, you know, they’re asking a question, but it’s [00:23:00] really designed to convince the other person. So I’ve good at detecting that from, from a fair amount of experience, and I’ve developed skills in how I can reel them back in without triggering them. Gissele: Yeah. I’ve watched it, like you’re very good at navigating people back and it’s very soft and very humane. can I just bring you back here? So there’s no like judgment or minimizing of what they say. They’re just like, well, can I just get you back on this track? It’s, it’s very beautiful how you do that . Larry: Thank you. and you ask how I prepare people. It’s interesting because what I do is I interview them for an hour and a half to see if they’re a match for the show, an hour and a half to two hours. And I get to know them during that and, and me asking all these questions, gets them liking me. Right. The same process happens between us. Yeah, Gissele: yeah, yeah, yeah. Larry: Smart. [00:24:00] and then before the show, I spend another, hour with them again over, it’s over video. I’ve never met these people in person, just repairing them for what’s going to happen, what my objectives are helping them understand that we’re going to start with conflict. It’s not where we’re going to go. Just really helping them understand the trajectory and answering their questions. And so they come in with some level of rapport. For me, it’s not like we know each other really well, so a lot of times it’s just us starting together. But they do trust me to some extent. There’s no, like, and you said, how do I get them to regulate? I don’t. there’s no preparation for that. It’s just that I, from so much experience with this, you know, thousands of conversations with people over the years, it’s easy to get a person to calm down, which is, you know, you just take a break from the other person to say, hold on a second, I’m gonna listen to you.[00:25:00] And then they calm down. And, those skills, you know, the whole, the whole identity confusion and the layout of the questions, that’s kind of my stuff. But the skills that I use are not mine. I’ve developed them over the years, but a lot of them come from nonviolent communication. Mm-hmm. And Marshall Rosenberg. And I got my first training in nonviolent communication probably 25 years ago. But I remember well the person’s saying, you’re moderating a conversation between, between two people. You prov you apply emergency first aid ’cause one person can’t, can’t hear. And you as the intermediate intermediary can apply that. And it, so it becomes quite easy, you know, with that thought in mind that I can heal in the moment, whatever’s going on. Gissele: Mm, mm-hmm. Beautiful. I wanna talk a little bit about the flipping side. ’cause I think it’s so, so important. Why do you get people to, with opposing [00:26:00] perspectives, to flip sides and then just reiterate the viewpoints from their perspective. I know sometimes it can be confusing to the people themselves, but why do you get them to flip sides? Larry: Yeah. So, so it might be helpful to view it through, you know, a real example. Let’s take. Eve and Nancy, which is, you know, a really powerful episode for your, wow. Your listeners who haven’t watched or heard any, any of these, Eve is a transgender woman. Fully transitioned. Nancy is what, what she called a gender fundamentalist wearing a MAGA hat. She comes in and she’s saying stuff like people who are trans belong in mental institutions. She tells Eve to her face that you’re a genetically modified man. Eve is saying, you know, you people don’t have empathy for other people. They’re really far apart. Let’s just say it’s not gone well. [00:27:00] Eve is very empathetic, however, you know, like she is unusually empathetic. And able to hear Nancy, and that is transforming for Nancy. I mean, I can’t express the degree to which Eve’s own nature and intention transformed this. You know, I helped, but it is an unbelievable example of me listening to you will transform you. And where I take them ultimately is I’m preparing them as they’re understanding each other for switching roles. Because what happens when we switch roles? I mean, my thought is that human beings can easily, you might, it might be weird to this, this point, but we, we often say you can walk in the shoes of another person. How is that even possible? If you, if you think about it, we, we have totally different upbringings, you know, how can you experience what another person experiences if we have totally different upbringings, [00:28:00] different philosophies. Like, how is that possible? And yet almost everybody can do it. And it’s because we have the same internal machinery, we have the same internal drives. We just have different ways of achieving them. And so if you can slowly build your understanding of a person’s history and their beliefs, like a belief might be that there’s Christ who is love and will save me. That’s a belief. If you identify the person’s history and their beliefs and you occupy that belief, you can understand why it’s important to them. If you have that be, why would that be? Well, it’s important to me now if I really believe that, because I wanna live forever. I can be with the people I love forever, I can help save other people. Like can there be anything more powerful than saving somebody’s soul? Like once you enter their belief, and the reason we’re able to do [00:29:00] that is because we are the same internally, we have the same desires. So the whole show is a buildup toward getting them to understand each other’s beliefs and experience and then occupy them. And once we do and we start advocating on the other person’s behalf, we become confused who we are. And that’s really powerful. Like, I don’t even know who I am and I’m doing this legitimately, like I’m totally advocating for you. I’m saying stuff you didn’t even say. Yeah. And then you are listening to me do that, and you’re blown away like you’ve never been heard so deeply. And particularly not by someone you consider an enemy. And so that is transforming. What I will say is that I use this process a lot in mediation. For a different reason. My mediations are not meant to repair relationships. This is meant to repair relationships my mediations are meant to solve issues. Gissele: Hmm. Larry: In, in this show, I [00:30:00] specifically tell them, you are not here to solve the issues. Like, how are they gonna solve the Palestine Israel issue? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And it’s too big of a burden and no one’s gonna listen to them. Mm-hmm. The goal is to show the audience that people should not be enemies. That they’re the same people on the other side. That’s my goal. So I try to keep them away from solution seeking because they will be disappointed. People won’t listen to them and things could fall apart. And that’s, it’s not the point of the show. But what’s interesting is that in my mediations, I use this tool of having them switch identities to solve issues because once they do occupy the other person’s perspective fully, they are then. Solving the issue because they understand that an internal level, the other person and what drives them, and they have no resistance to that and they understand themselves. They already understand themselves. And so during that process, solutions emerge because [00:31:00] they’ve never been able to hold both perspectives at the same time. And I heard you say that when we were opening the show, I don’t remember what the context was about holding both perspectives at the same time. But you, you said that, that that’s something that you do. Yes. Gissele: So so when, when students are taught research or even like thinking about ethical considerations, right? When you’re doing research, you’ve gotta be able to hold differing perspectives, understand differing views, understand research that might invalidate your perspectives, right? And so if you come already into the conversation thinking that there’s a right way or there’s a right perspective, and I heard you say this in your TEDx talk, I think you were talking about like, we can only win if we defeat the other side. That perspective that there’s only one side, one perspective prevents us then from engaging in dialogue and holding opposing views. Larry: and the holding the opposing views for, in my mind is not an intellectual process. Like you might think that if I, if I list all the [00:32:00] desires and the goals on both and on a spreadsheet, then I’ll be able to solve it. No chance. Yeah. It’s not a conscious intellectual process. It’s when you get it both sides deeply without resistance that your subconscious produces solutions. So we don’t consciously produce solutions. And what I found is that that is the most powerful tool to bring people to solutions where they are themselves and the other person at the same time where both people are doing this and then one person just suggests something that never occurred to any of us. And it solves it. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Now, that doesn’t Larry: happen in, in the show because I’m specifically telling them not to seek solutions, but it does happen in mediation. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. And What you’re doing is so fundamental too, sometimes it’s not even about finding a solution. Sometimes it’s even just about finding the humanity in each other. And that is such a great beginning. You know, people wanna solve war. Yeah, of course we all wanna [00:33:00] eliminate war, but sometimes there’s war within families with neighbors. So why are we worried about the larger war where we’re not even in able to engage and hold space for each other’s humanity within our homes? And so I think what you’re inviting people to do is, can we sit with each other in dialogue without the need to change each other, just with respect, which you’ve mentioned is fundamental, just with presence, just remembering each other’s humanity. And I think that’s all fundamental. Larry: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. I wanted to also mention, you know, one of the things that I noticed in, the conversations is how you focus people on disarming, and one of the ways that you get them to disarm is to take their uniforms off. Can you talk about a little bit about how uniforms show up in these conversations? Larry: Yeah. Some people come with like a MAGA hat or a pin or bracelets or something like that, that show which side they’re on, and I don’t discourage that. You know, [00:34:00] it’s part of the process for the audience from my perspective, because at a certain point, if they do come that way, I ask ’em not to wear a shirt that they can’t take off, but they might wear a hat. And if they, when they do take that off, eventually when we, when we stop the argument, when we stop the debate portion and we enter into another. Portion of the discussion, you can see the effect on the other person. And you can even see the effect on the person who took like the most dramatic is Nancy. Gissele: Yep. Nancy is wearing a, that’s the one I was Larry: thinking. MAGA hat. Yeah. And then she puts on Nancy is is from Kenya and she puts on a Kenyan headdress because her hair is, that’s so beautiful. A little messed up from the hat. And she’s like, I’ll put this on. and I asked her like, wow, you look really happy when you have that on. And she’s like, yeah, this is my crown. And she is almost like a different person and you know, uniforms basically divide, I mean they announced to the other side [00:35:00] essentially. I don’t care about you whether consciously or not. it’s interpreted as I will defeat you at any cost. You just don’t matter. I am on this side and I will crush you. And, and when she took that off, you could really actually see the difference in her and in Eve. Gissele: Yeah, absolutely. It was truly transformative. ‘Cause I noticed that when she had the hat you can even see it in the body language. There was a big protection. And she use it as a protection in terms of like, well, my group but when she used her headdress, it was so beautiful and it was just more her, it was just her. It wasn’t all of these other people. When I think about, you know, the Holocaust and how people got into these roles. ’cause you know, in my class we talk about the vanity of evil, right? Like how people, some people were hairdressers and butchers before the Holocaust. They came, they did these roles, and then they went back to doing that after the war. And it’s like, how does that make sense? And, and to put a uniform on, to [00:36:00] put a role on and then fully accept it, like you said, creates that division, creates that separation between human beings. Whereas what you’re doing is you’re asking them to disarm and to go back to the essence of their own humanity, which I think is really powerful. But it was really interesting the whole discussion on, on uniforms, right? Larry: Yeah, yeah. it is one of the many ways we separate ourselves, that we separate ourselves, that we perceive ourselves as different than them, and that they view us as a threat. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I heard you say that enemies are not enemies, it’s just us on the other side. What do you mean by that? Larry: I mean the ordinary people of the enemy. I believe enemy makers, if you can think of who you might consider an enemy maker. They are political leaders and they are media leaders. And they wouldn’t exist. They wouldn’t have any [00:37:00] power. People wouldn’t vote for them. People wouldn’t watch them if they didn’t create an enemy. If they didn’t foster the idea that there is an enemy. And the enemy has got to be broad. It can’t just be one person. It’s got to be a people that I’m fighting against. It’s gotta be a big threat. And so they paint people who are ordinary people on the other side as a threat. All the time. Yeah. and so that’s the, big lie at the center of it, that they’re a threat. And what happens is, there’s the psychological process that the, brain goes through. The mind goes through that where once we’re under threat, that’s a cascade that is exists in every human being. And that results in us going to war with the other side once we’re under threat. But this is an us choosing a leader. But this is a very fundamental basic process and [00:38:00] fundamental, basic lie that that autocrats and demagogues and people who just want power have been using forever with human beings, I imagine. And it’s extremely powerful. And so what I intend to show is that that is a lie. Gissele: Hmm. Larry: That is just not the truth because at the core of this psychological process is the thought that you’re a threat to me. And then this whole cascade happens internally for me. If I no longer believe you are a threat, the cascade unwinds and the power of the enemy maker unwins, it can all flip on that one lie. And so I want people to understand that ordinary people on the other side are just them. Like, I can’t tell you how many times people on the show are, are just like, holy cow. Yeah, I see myself in you. Like I, that’s exactly what I’m experiencing. And it’s revelatory for [00:39:00] them. Like how could that be? Like how could we be opposed to each other? This is crazy. Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Gissele: And you know, it’s amazing how when we truly understand somebody’s reasons for believing what they do, their history, their beliefs, why they believe makes sense, right? Yeah. Like, I saw it a lot in children in care, in the child protection system. Their behaviors seem reallymisbehaved. they shut down. They, act out. in some cases, that’s how those kids survived, these abusive homes, right? And so to them they’re still always on survival mode. Yeah. Makes sense. That’s what helped them survive. And so you, when you understand the other person’s perspective makes sense. Yeah. And you know, as you were talking, I was thinking what is going on for those demagogues and those authoritarian people that believe that that’s the only way that they can get what they need.  you mean the leaders themselves? The leaders themselves, like so powerful people, people that are in their power, feel, love, feel [00:40:00] fulfilled, don’t need to disempower others, they don’t. In fact, the more that you love yourself at least that has been my experience, the more I have compassion for myself, the more I love myself, the more I’m in that state, the less I wanna hurt other people. The more I care about other people actually. So what is going on for them? That they think that this is the only way to get their needs met? Larry: I’ve thought a lot about this, you know, because the goal of this show is to show that people aren’t enemies, but there are enemy makers. And to me they are the enemy. like of all of the rest of us, all of us who are just trying to exist in the world, who prefer a world where we’re working together, you know? Yeah. It’s these people on the extreme who are, who are basically consciously sucking the goodwill out of society that I couldn’t care less about that because they get power. So is there something different about them? Is there, I have a few conclusions. One is [00:41:00] that there are people who are different that, that they are born, you know, all of us are born with the same internal desires and almost all of us get pleasure from seeing other people happy. That’s just born into us. Like, you know, almost everyone who’s an activist who comes onto the show, everyone actually is doing it because they want to other people to be happy. They, they don’t want people to experience the same pain that they’ve been in their life, but there are people who are born without or have extremely dialed down the pleasure that they get, the happiness that they get from seeing other people happy and healed. It’s not that the rest of us always want to see other people happy, but it, it’s one of our greatest sources of pleasure. There are people who are born without that. We call them sociopaths, Some leaders are sociopaths. They, don’t, I believe, obtain pleasure from other people’s happiness and they’re able to manipulate us quite often very well. And it’s these people who in peace time, [00:42:00] we wouldn’t even sit next to, we wouldn’t invite them over for Thanksgiving. Those are the people we choose, that it’s, it Gissele: doesn’t make biological sense. Larry: Well, they’re the people we choose when we’re at war, they are the people we choose. So, so think about this, okay? There is a virus, and the virus will kill 95% of human beings. And you have a leader who says there’s someone in power who says, we understand that people who are infected are going to infect other people, that as a society, we need to euthanize them. We actually need to do that as a society to save other people. Mm-hmm. There might be a leader who is empathetic, who says, I can’t do that. That, that feels wrong to me. almost all of us turn to the someone else who is a tyrant. Gissele: Who’s willing to do [00:43:00] what needs to be done to save us, right, exactly. Larry: To defeat evil, to kill, you know, when there’s a big enough threat, we will turn to the tyrant. And so people who are sociopaths and who in normal society would be rejected as a person who’s extremely dangerous, are the very people we turn to in times of war, when evil needs to be defeated. And so if you’re a sociopath and you want power, there’s no other way to power, you’re not going to follow the route of cooperation. You’re not going to follow the route of, you know, building alliance with the other side. You’re, if it, you’ll go the route of creating an enemy. And so that’s what we’ve, we’ve found. In our society, there are people who rise to power, who are the very people we would want nothing to do with in peace time. And that [00:44:00] people turn to, because they believe the other side is an enemy. They believe they are the virus that will kill 95% of people. So you can think of any leader and you might say, how could people follow this person? How could they possibly, what kind of evil is in people that they would follow this person, given what this person is doing? And the answer is obvious. They’ve been convinced that the other side is evil. Gissele: Yeah. Larry: And they truly, truly believe it. Gissele: This makes me think Hitler would’ve been a lone nut if 10 million people hadn’t followed him. Right? Larry: Right. And they believed, right. Gissele: They believed, I Speaker 4: mean. Larry: That, that Jews were, were incredible danger. They also ignored it and, you know, wanted to get along in society and, and be with the people they cared about. But, they truly believed that Jews were evil. Yeah. And if you, if you can convince them of that, you can lead a people. Gissele: Yeah. So the, it goes to the [00:45:00] question of like the reflexivity, like, so what is people’s own responsibility to constantly examine their own biases, beliefs, and viewpoints? Right. I gotta applaud the people that are on your show because they have to be willing to engage in a dialogue. So there’s an element of them that is willing to be wrong, right? or willing to kind of engage in that perspective. And we struggle so much. Yeah, with being wrong, like the mind always wants to be, right. We want to be on the side of good. And that’s one of the things that I was so reflecting on, I think I was listening to the conversation with, proud Boy, and the, in the progressive. The, yeah, progressive And that’s one of the episodes, by the way, for people. Yeah. That’s one of the episodes. And, and I, I love the follow up by the way. That was also amazing. It’s so funny because I was like, oh, is there a follow up? And I were like, went to search for it. Just to see how both sides feel that they’re right. And on the side of good, on the side of like positive for humanity, I think was really puzzling to me we have different ways [00:46:00] of getting there. You know, the people that for Trump really truly believe that some of the stuff he’s doing is very beneficial. The people that are against, they truly believe that what he’s doing is horrible. And to see those perspectives that at the core of it is a love or a care about humanity was really kind of mind blowing. Larry: Yeah, that is mind blowing. Gissele: Yeah, Larry: it is mind blowing. And what is infuriating to me is that we are manipulated to not pair with these other people because then these leaders would lose their power, you know, it’s a huge manipulation. Gissele: So this is why it’s up to each of us to do that work, to do the coming together, the engaging in the conversation, even though sometimes it feels difficult. And, having a willingness to listen And that’s the thing, that’s the thing about your beautiful show, which is like, you don’t have to agree at the end. You just have to see each other’s humanity, right? to let go of enemies, let go, to let Larry: go of that we have to agree that’s a real problem for me as well. Like when I get into a conversation with someone, [00:47:00] it’s like, how do we conclude the conversation if we don’t agree? It’s almost like it’s, it’s a forced imperative that is a mistake. Like that’s the point of the conversation. Yeah. for the most part, let go of that because I see now that that was just a mistake. Like we never had to agree. Gissele: Yeah. I so let’s talk about then, since we’re talking about disagreement, let’s talk about censorship, So because of the class that I teach, because I want them to understand different perspectives. One of the things I say in these papers is like, look, you can be pro-choice or pro-life. You can be pro Trump or against, I’m not judging you. That doesn’t matter. The exercise is to view the other side. That’s it, right? But it’s amazing how some of these dialogues in institutions have been diminished because there’s the belief that if we have these conversations, we’re supporting it, right? But the truth of the matter is that dialogue goes underground. It doesn’t disappear. It [00:48:00] doesn’t mean like, oh, everybody now believes this. It just goes covert, right? And these dialogues about these opposing perspectives are happening. And so I think I’d rather have these conversations up. And so that we can engage in dialogue and see what people are believing. I mean, there’s this undercurrent of racism, it seems, from my perspective, it it that that has existed for such a long time. It used to exist very, like visually in terms of slavery, but now there is still underground racism, right? Like it’s covert people may be able to vocalize the importance of diversity, but some people don’t believe it. So let’s talk about it rather than kind of like try to get those people to disappear and pretend it’s not there. What are your thoughts? Larry: Yeah. You know, there’s been a criticism that comes from the left a lot on the show, from people, from in comments is that we platformed bad guys. Like, you should not, you should not be giving a [00:49:00] stage to a proud boy. Well, if you listen to the Proud Boy’s perspective, this guy is like completely reasonable. He, he, you know, from people on the left, they’re even confused that he’s a proud boy. I think he might be confused about why he is a proud boy, I’m not sure. but he’s completely reasonable. So to, to just reflexively reject this person. He’s not there to represent the proud boys. He’s there to represent himself and to reflexively reject this person is to miss out on really a, a beautiful person and an interesting perspective. I’ve given a lot of thought to the criticism, however, because there’s a guy I’m considering having on the show who is a self-described fascist, a white supremacist, and I’ve had conversations with him and it is amazing how. The reason he is a white supremacist is he truly believes that white people are in danger and that he will be rejected. There will be no opportunities for them, and that he [00:50:00] is possibly in physical danger. He truly believes this. And if I believe that, you know I might do the same thing. And, I had a three hour interview with him where I really liked him, but I’m probably not gonna put him on the show. And, I’ve really thought a lot about whether to platform people and, I’ve kind of developed my own philosophy on whether it’s worth whether I should be airing viewpoints or not. And my thought is that a bridge goes both ways. So I can build a bridge where I walk him back.  I am confident that I can have someone hear him out and him develop a relationship with them where he then becomes less extreme in his viewpoints. Gissele: I was gonna say, I think you should have him on the show. here’s is my perspective. Okay? Again, this is so similar to what Darrell David said, right? his intent wasn’t to change. It was to [00:51:00] understand, I think if we understood why people were afraid of us or hated, I’m Latino, by the way, right? We understood then we, can have the dialogue. The thing is like. People are giving like a one-sided propaganda. And it’s true, like if you actually hear the rhetoric of many separate groups is the fear of the other. Even though when you look at the population stats, right, even in the US black people make up 4%. Indigenous people make up 2% of the population. Like I think white people make up 57% of the population of the US and it’s higher in Canada. But it’s the fears, even though they might not be based on reality. That’s the rhetoric that these groups use. They use the rhetoric of we’re in danger, that these people are out to get us to destroy us. Thatsomehow it’s better for us to be isolated and separated. And they use the rhetoric of belonging. They use the rhetoric of love. They [00:52:00] use a co-opt it I don’t even think it’s rhetoric Larry: for them. It’s truth for them. Okay, Gissele: thank you. Yeah, so if you have people who are engaging in those different dialogues, like Darrell did, people don’t understand why they believe that the way that they do. Right? Because, because it’s real. Right? Now that rhetoric is happening, whether people wanna face it or not, that’s the problem. So Larry: I you completely, and when I first started this, I said to myself, there’s no question that I’m gonna have a Nazi on the show. There’s no question. But as I’ve thought about the critique that’s been offered, I’ve kind of drawn a line for myself at least present. And, and that’s fair. but I’ll tell you why I haven’t, I haven’t said why yet, which is A bridge goes both ways and, while I believe it’s really important to hear people, them out, because you walk people on both sides back from the extreme, toward the majority when you hear them out because they don’t see people as a threat anymore. As much. [00:53:00] What happens is by building the bridge, you provide an opportunity for many people to walk out toward them. When you give them an opportunity to hear, hear them out publicly, and my thought is that I will hear anybody out who has a large following because they already are being heard. Mm-hmm. They already have people walking out to them, and my goal is to bring them toward the rest of us so that we can function as a society. Mm-hmm. But I’m not gonna hear somebody who’s 0.1%, who’s because. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Okay. Larry: I understand me walk because they’re, I can walk them back, but maybe I walk 20 people out to them. Gissele: And it creates Larry: a bigger problem. And so, in my own view  it’s about how big their following is already. Mm. Even though, yes, it’s, we can walk them back by hearing them. Gissele: Mm. Yeah. So, yeah. It’s, [00:54:00] it’s so interesting. I was just thinking about Deeyah Khan And Darryl David’s the same. And one of the things I noticed about their work is that, and I noticed it in yours too, is sometimes what happens in these sort of circumstances is that the people that they are exposed to might become the exception to the rule. Have you heard of the, the exception to the rule? So let’s say I meet someone who’s anti-Latino, but they’re like, but then they like me. And so they’ll do, like, you are all right. Speaker 4: Yeah. Gissele: I still don’t like other Latinos. Right. And so in the beginning that used to irk me so much. Right? Then I realized after watching all of this, information and I observed it in your show and I thought about it, is that’s the beginning of re humanization. Larry: I agree with that. It’s like it’s a dial, it’s not a switch. Yeah. Gissele: Yes. And so it begins with, oh, this is the exception to the rule, and then this next person’s the exception to the rule, and then this next person, and then, then the brain can’t handle it. Like how many exceptions to the rule can there [00:55:00] be?  They couldn’t hold the exception to the rule anymore. Right. It had to be that their belief was wrong Right. Which is, it’s really interesting. And, and Larry: it’s another, another interesting thing I often say, which I get negative feedback about this statement that we don’t choose our beliefs. we don’t have any power over them. They just exist. Mm-hmm. And we can’t choose. Not if I think that. A certain race is dangerous to me. I can’t just choose not to. You can call me racist, whatever. I just can’t choose my thought about it. I have an experience. People have told me things. That’s my belief. That belief gets eroded. It doesn’t get changed. Gissele: Mm-hmm. It, Larry: it happens not consciously. Life experiences change our beliefs, we don’t just suddenly love white people. if we’ve experienced, brutality from white people or from white cops, you don’t just change your belief about it. You have to get, you have to slowly be [00:56:00] exposed. You have to, or be deeply exposed.  so these types of things erode our other beliefs. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Larry: And, and my goal is not, you know, like Nancy came in, I would say as a nine or a 10 with her. Dislike for trans people when she left. Just to be clear, ’cause people I think are mistaken about this, who watch this show, she does not think still that trans people should be around kids.  She still thinks it’s dangerous, but she thinks trans people themselves are okay. That they can be beautiful, that they do not belong in mental institutions. And as she said, I would drink outta the same glass from you Eve and I would protect you. So she went from a 10 to a seven, let’s say? Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. Larry: And she’s still out there. She still there. She used the word Gissele: she. Larry: Mm-hmm. Yeah. She used the word SHE and she’s still out there advocating for keeping trans people away from kids. and [00:57:00] people are like, so she’s a hypocrite. She’s, no, she has moved so far and. Eve moved toward, I shouldn’t paint Nancy as the wrong one. Eve moved toward Nancy understanding that Nancy really is worried about kids, and Nancy brought up some things that really concerned Eve when she heard it, about the exposure that kids have to various concepts. I guess my point is that people who get dialed down from a 10 to a six or a seven can deal with each other. They can run a society together. Mm-hmm. They don’t, they don’t invest all of their energy in defeating the other side, which is where all of our energy is now. I call it issues zero. You care about climate change, or you care about poverty, you care about mass migration, you care about nuclear per proliferation, you care about ai. Forget it. None of these are getting solved. Zero. Yeah. Unless we learn to cooperate with each other, and if [00:58:00] we’re dedicating all of our energy to defeating the other side, every single one of these issues goes unaddressed. And so my goal is to dial the vitriol down so that we can actually solve some human problems so that the next generation doesn’t inherit this mess that we’ve created. Gissele: Mm-hmm. You once said, I, I may be misquoting you, so please correct me. Revenge is a need for understanding. Can you explain that further? Larry: Yeah. I said that in in my TEDx, mm-hmm. if someone has been hurt by another person, they often seek revenge. And that desire for revenge will go away actually when they’re understood. If you’re under and you deny that you want to be understood by your enemy. You’d say like, that is baloney. they deserve to be punished and they need to be punished to provide disincentive for other people in society so that they don’t do this terrible thing. People [00:59:00] would deny that they want understanding from their enemy, but when they receive it, the desire for revenge goes away.  I mean, I’ve seen that innumerable times. So how does the need for understanding help us live beyond the need to punish one another? Well, I think that if someone’s seeking revenge against you, if someone’s trying to injure you, you can unravel that by understanding them,  whether we, people agree that that human beings seek revenge as a need or not, you can unravel it pretty, not easily, but you can pretty reliably. Very often people who seek revenge against each other, like in my mediations, once they’re understood by the other person, once they have some connection, They go through some kind of healing process with the other person. They don’t even understand why they were seeking revenge themselves, like they are [01:00:00] completely transformed. they were like, that would be a total travesty of justice if you were hurt Now. Gissele: Yeah.  I love the fact that these conversations get at the core of human needs, which is they need to be seen, they need to be understood, they need to be loved, they need to be accepted, they need to be long. And so I think these conversations that you’re facilitating get to those needs, you kind of like go through all of the, the fluff to get to the, okay, what are the needs that need to be met? and how can we connect to one another through those needs? And then, and then from that, you go back to the conversation on the topic. And really it’s about fears at the core of it, right? Like the fear that my children are gonna be confused or forced into something or, the fear that somebody’s gonna have a say over my body and tell me that I have to do something. All of those fears are at the core and conversations get at those needs, not at the surface. Yeah. It’s not to say Larry: I should say that. It’s not to say that the fears are irrational. Yeah. They might be rational. But you know, it’s also a [01:01:00] self-fulfilling prophecy that if we fear somebody, they’re going to think of us as a threat. We’re gonna do stuff that creates the world that we fear. And it’s obvious with certain issues like between two peoples. You know, like if you fear that the other people are going to attack you, you might preemptively attack them or you might treat them in a, in a way that is really bad. And, and so you start this war and that happens between human beings on an individual basis and between peoples, yeah. It’s less obvious, with an issue, let’s say abortion. my fear is not creating the issue on the other side. but many of our interactions with other human beings, it is our fear that triggers them. We create the world we fear. Gissele: Yeah. And I think that goes back to the self-responsibility, right? to what extent are we responsible for looking at ourselves, looking at our biases, looking at our prejudice, looking at our fear and how our [01:02:00] fear is causing us to hurt other people. What responsibility do we have to engage in dialogue or be willing to see somebody’s humanity, right? It’s Larry: just this better strategy. Even if you think of it as, yeah, you know, people sometimes say these two sides. I get this criticism a lot, and this, by the way, these criticisms come from the left mostly that these two sides are not, are not Equivalent. Oh, okay. how could you equate Nancy and Eve, Eve just wants to live. Nancy’s trying to control her, the left views, the right is trying to control them and oppress them and so they’re not moral equivalent. And my point is always, I’m not making a point that they’re morally equivalent. That’s for you to decide, okay? If you want to. I’m saying morally judging them is not effective. It’s just not gonna produce the world that you want. So, you know, it’s just really effective [01:03:00] to hear them out, to take their concerns seriously, even if you think that it’s not fair. But you’ll then create the world you want. And if you don’t do that, if you poo poo them, even if they’re wrong, you believe they’re completely wrong, and you think that mm-hmm you know, there is good and evil and they are completely the evil one, you are going to exacerbate their evil by morally rebuking them. And I want to say that like as clearly as possible, I haven’t made this point e enough on the show. I’m really kind of building a base before I go into more sophisticated, what I would consider a more nuanced. Philosophy, but if you judge somebody, it is the greatest threat to a human being. Just understand that we evolved in groups and moral judgment was the way we got kicked out of groups. If you were a bad person, you were gone, you were dead. [01:04:00] And so all of us respond very, very negatively to being judged as selfish. I’ve had clients threaten to kill each other. Not as powerful as when one call person calls another person selfish. That is a knife at someone’s neck. And so if you wanna motivate your enemy, call them a name, call them a racist, see what happens. You think that’s effective in convincing them of anything? You’re building a war and you’re building your own resistance. And so I’m not saying they’re morally equivalent to two sides. I’m saying people are creating their own hell. Gissele: So powerful. I completely agree. I observed that as well. Like, it’s so amazingwhen you call people, oh, that’s your immoral, your, you racist, like goes to their core values, goes to their own identity, right? and I think the thought process might [01:05:00] be like, Am I not worthy? Am I not lovable? Am I not gonna be accept? Am I gonna get rejected, like you said, from the community, right? And so that’s why people will go into defensive mode immediately, because any of us will immediately, yeah, yeah, Larry: absolutely. There’s no human being who won’t. There may be some people who can regulate it themselves, calm down, try to hear, but there’s no person who won’t view that as a knife at the neck. Gissele: Yeah. Agreed. Have you ever had an episode that didn’t go as planned? Larry: Yeah. And what did you Gissele: learn? Larry: the guns episode didn’t go as I planned. Mm-hmm. I mean, I don’t Did you see that one by any chance? Gissele: No. I don’t think I saw that one. No. Larry: it’s these two women, it is unbelievably powerful Beginning. These two women both grew up in terrible situations where they saw family members get shot. one woman saw, you know, saw her brother get shot in the head and was holding him as he was saying, don’t let me die. And the other woman, you know, her [01:06:00] dad was shot and then she believed she was facing home invaders and she was protecting her brother by putting her body over his, I mean, both of them had very similar upbringings and really tragic, and they went in different directions. one ended up being a gun advocate, believing that guns are necessary because the police aren’t gonna come, no one’s gonna protect us. And the other one believes that guns do incredible damage to societies and that their cause of terrible pain. And so they started out telling their story, you know, they arguing and it was, it was pretty, pretty dramatic. And then they go to this next stage where they’re understanding each other, telling their personal stories. And it looks like they’re really developing empathy. But one of the women who is an incredible person, she’s dedicated her entire per life, essentially to helping people whose kids were killed heal from that pain. And for advocating for them. She could not believe in the goodness of the other side, even though they had [01:07:00] such similar backgrounds. Mm-hmm. She was just like constantly like, I don’t believe you, I don’t believe you’re interested in human life. You know, she was expressing her doubt for the other person. And after they shared this really incredibly warm or powerful stories of their childhood, and the other person said,I just feel this relational empathy. We’ve been through so much together. And the other one was like, really? I don’t think of you as a bad person now. You know, it was just so that level of, and I can understand how she ends up here, how she doesn’t trust the other side at all.  but she did not get to the place where she was really trusting the other person. And so the woman who was trying, the pro-gun person who was really trying, eventually said in her own mind, I’m done. Like, I’ve tried really hard and I didn’t really see this going on. I thought it was going great, but then I could see like in the identity confusion when I had them switch roles, it wasn’t going as well as I thought, like, you [01:08:00] know, it was kind of cordial. Now it turns out that the pro gun woman did a really good job of, of trying in the identity confusion part. And the woman who was anti-guns felt really well understood. And so then she flipped and really felt like they were making progress and felt really warmly to the other person, but the other woman was done. So it was a series of rejection back and forth. Mm-hmm. And in some ways you might say, oh, this is not really relevant to our national politics. this is really personal between them, that I couldn’t get them to deeply empathize with each other. I mean, there was cordial at the end, but it wasn’t warm.  but it does show to me how fragile our empathy for each other is because we have these deep ideas about the other side that can, that are so hard to, to unravel. You know, and that as soon as [01:09:00] we feel judged by the other side, but we’re, it’s happening individually in our own personal psychology that as soon as we believe we’re judged by the other side, we freaking can’t stand them and we consider them a threat. Mm-hmm. You know, like Hillary Clinton from my perspective, lost the election when she called Republicans a basket of deplorables. That’s a threat that is so deep. You will hate the person who said that. Call the middle of the country. Flyover country. Ah, it’s funny. People on the east and west coast, we call it flyover country, that is a freaking threat. Yeah. They will not forgive you for that and you wouldn’t forgive them either by dismissing them. By being dismissed like that. Mm-hmm. Sothat these two women experienced this rejection back and forth and couldn’t come to understanding in some ways is very personal and in some ways is just [01:10:00] like, that’s the reality.  and our differences are not as much about policy as they are about believing the other side is, is bad. And what we hear is that them saying bad things about us and that’s gonna make us infuriated and convince us that they are evil and that we must follow whatever leader is on our side to defeat those really, those evil people. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you for that. The majority of your conversations are about 3.5 to five hours I saw with a mediator, obviously that has had 20 years of like mediation experience. What are some practical tools listeners can use to create a space when engaging in difficult or divisive topics? Larry: You know I think that it depends whether we’re talking about politics or we’re talking about something in our personal lives. ’cause in our personal lives, very often we do need solutions. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Larry: Politics, we don’t [01:11:00] with the, with the other person. And so I, I think that listening, like just realizing what the goal is here, which is to maintain my relationship with you, that that is more important than solving national issues between the two of us. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Larry: Is a really good place to start. And then. If you can get yourself to being really curious, like, wow, you are a freaking puzzle. I wanna understand you. Like I’m not gonna try and convince you, you are a puzzle that I wanna understand and I’m not gonna judge you. I’m not gonna ask you questions like, well, if you believe that, why don’t you believe this? That’s a persuasion. People have to understand that in themselves that they’re trying to persuade and they’re judging the other person in that moment. If you ask it as, that’s really interesting. I wanna understand what seems to me to be some difference between your two positions, but I really wanna understand, ’cause I know there’s a reason that’s different. And so if you can [01:12:00] get your self to really not think that you have to come to a conclusion, but that you’re just trying to understand them, they’re gonna move toward you. Don’t try to solve the issue. That’s my my thought. Just don’t even try to solve it. There’s what’s gonna happen if the two of you solve the abortion issue? Oh, we have a solution. Like, who is gonna listen to you? Not no one. Now in terms of personal relationships, you know, it, very often we need a solution. And so listening does do a lot because sometimes it’s just like we are in our personal relationships not feeling understood, and we feel judged and unappreciated. So that is key as well. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Larry: The hard part in the personal re relationship thing is that, with somebody on a, political issue, what if they don’t reciprocate? So I listen to you and you don’t reciprocate, and you don’t listen to me. I can handle that. Like I learned a lot.  I know that you move toward me. I know that you feel [01:13:00] better about me, actually, but it gets pretty tiring if you’re the one who’s listening in a personal relationship and the other person’s judging you and doesn’t participate in that way. Yeah. And I don’t know what the solution is to that if it endures for a very, very long time, because it does take two people to have a healthy relationship.  but it’s very likely that you’re caught in what I call the enemy dance. In the personal relationship where both people feel threatened. I didn’t go into this with, but it’s like the critical piece, which is called the enemy trance, the critical psychological piece. When we feel threatened any human being, our empathy for the other side shuts down is adaptive. you’re not gonna feel empathy for somebody who’s pointing a gun at your head. you wanna defeat them. And so it’s adaptive that our empathy such shuts down. And once our empathy shuts down, it’s really interesting what happens. Not only do we not care about the other side, like not only am I willing to punch the guy in the face [01:14:00] who’s pointing a gun at me, I actually lose my ability to understand what’s going on inside of him. Because without empathy, we can’t feel what they’re feeling. And most of our understanding of how other human beings is unconscious, we’re mirroring them in some way. We’re feeling what they feel. It’s not a conscious process. And so when empathy shuts down, when you threaten me, I’m in this place where I don’t even understand you. And I think that you’re a bad person. I’m left with no understanding, except that you’re intending to do this to me. That’s my understanding.  You want me to suffer, you wanna hurt me? You want to control me? That’s what people conclude in personal relationships all the time. and it’s happening both ways. Both people are caught in the enemy trance and then they start dancing. This dance where it’s confirmed over time. And maybe you can get the, the understand that if the other person thinks bad things about you, almost definitely they see you as a threat. And so their empathy inside of them shut down and they can’t understand you. Like they have no [01:15:00] control over that. That’s what happened. They’re caught in that. And so maybe you can restart the system by understanding them, that you can rekindle the relationship by, expressing some warmth and really just understanding them without judgment. And maybe you can’t. Gissele: Yeah. I really like what you said. I’ve said that to my kids before, that the relationship has to be more important than being Right. Right. Like it has to be more important. Larry: Yeah. Gissele: Just, yeah. and then the other part is as well that to me, like listening without judgment really is the stepping stone to compassion, right? Like, we can’t have compassion for other people if we don’t really understand them or understand their story. And so it enables us to connect to that aspect of ourselves. Mm-hmm. Which I think is critical. What does success look like for the enemy’s project, both short term or long term? Larry: So there’s, success, which is that it’s a [01:16:00] project and success for a documentary series has certain markers, but that I’m not doing this because I want to be in the entertainment world. Or because I care about, you know, number of people who watch or something like that. success for me means actually having an impact on politics. and that our ability to work together in society and between cultures, between societies, Gissele: mm, that’s successful. Larry: That’s a really long and ambitious goal. But the way that we get there from my perspective is yes, these shows are watched and you know, right now, maybe, millions have seen them, but it’s a blip in the ocean. It’s a little, little ripple in the ocean of vitriol. And it’s true that I’m very grateful to have [01:17:00] an impact on individuals where they can look at life with hope but ultimately, if, if I’m judging the success of the project, I want there to be a tidal wave, not. Not just one tiny little voice with all this hatred everywhere. And there are at least two ways that I’m seeing that happen. One is that these conversations that we’re hosting where 50 million people are watching where it’s Mark Ruffo and Mel Gibson, where it’s cultural icons who represent our proxies for this deep misunderstanding and who believe the other side is bad and, there’s not just one of those. There’s many of those where we’re having cultural conversations, where we come to the conclusion that we are being manipulated. We are actually brothers and sisters. I think that has a transforming effect on American politics. If we can raise it to that [01:18:00] level. The other way that, I see in effect is that we are going to be starting an effort to have this in every high school. That that is that people watch these episodes and essentially go through a process where they go through an identity confusion process with the other side and where they learn a different way of interacting with the other side, where it’s not debate. You know, what they’re, what we’re being taught is to debate and to defeat ideas. And it’s completely, excuse my language. Ask backwards in terms of persuasion. Gissele: Yeah. It Larry: never works. And so that the goal is to be in every high school in the country where they do this for a week in different classes and that in every college political science department has a class on something like this. And you know, we’re developing relationships where that actually can be realistic. So it’s [01:19:00] to affect millions, tens of millions of people. I mean, the interesting thing in society is that a lot of research shows that if you convince the middle three point half percent of something society follows.  and so you don’t need to convince everybody, you know, a movement like this needs in the United States 30 million people, 20 million people, to really feel passionately about this. And it affects politics. Politicians, in my view, don’t lead. They follow, and it’s not, it’s not wise right now to work with the other side. And, my goal is to change that. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. And, and I like how you are focusing on young people because really that’s the generation that is going to grow up. That’s the generation that is looking to do things differently. I don’t wanna blanket statement everyone, right? There are older people that want to do something different as well. what have you seen Larry: as the, as the effects of your efforts in school? Gissele: thank you for asking that [01:20:00] question. So I’ve seen actually some shifts in people. So one of the things I’ve seen, it’s interesting to even observe it in a paper because the way that I do it. I do it on purpose so that people won’t try to debate. ’cause before I thought maybe have them interview someone. ’cause interviewing is part of like research, right? And I’m like, they can’t. Some of my students just can’t hold that. So I’m like, that’s too much. I have to scale it down. So for them, I’m like, find credible sources of an opposing perspective. Give me your view, then give me what are the opposing perspective? What are their views? Why do they believe what they believe? And are you, are you really opposing? Right? And then talk to me about your feelings and emotions and what came up. And sometimes you’ll see in the middle of the paper where they have, with the opposing views, they’ll debate in that paper. You’ll see them go, like, they’ll give a little bit of the opposing perspective and then I’ll push back and go, no, just give me what the opposing perspective is. And I get lots of thank yous, I get lots of thank yous, even from people that were [01:21:00] really challenged ’cause that also is part of their role. So I teach social workers, right? And so social workers are supposed to, if you look at the code of social workers, you have to, make sure that everyone has their perspective supported and respected, that we treat all people with respect it’s part of the code. So that’s my justification you’ve gotta be able to hold those perspectives. ’cause what if you work with someone who believes in white supremacy and you are their clinical counselor? What are you gonna do? How are you gonna manage that? How, like what, what needs to happen? And so what I see with students is I see lots of gratitude. Some people will shift, they will actually say, oh my gosh, I can’t believe that we are not really that opposite. Like that. They will hear people on podcasts, but it, again, it has to be credible. I don’t, I don’t want my students to be exposed to troll because I won’t be there to help them manage those difficult conversations. And so I say find credible sources of people like your show would be a credible source, right? You are, you are from UCLA, you are a lawyer, you’re a mediator. And so I say find credible sources and listen to the other [01:22:00] perspective. So I’ve seen some students completely shift. Other students say, I haven’t changed my perspective, but I can understand why they believe what they do. Larry: Mm-hmm. So, which is a big deal. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. And some students aren’t there. I’ve had students who like, God bless ’em. ’cause that’s the most they can give. So instead of going to an opposing perspective, like let’s say they have this perspective, they feel strongly about, they’ll move this way. the opposing perspective is like, they’ll move just an inch. And I’m like, this is not an opposing perspective. And they can’t hold it. Like, I’ll push back and say, let’s talk about what you might perceive as an opposing perspective. And it doesn’t compute. It really doesn’t. And for them, them even just looking this little far is enough, right? Uhhuh, okay, that’s what you can hold. And so that’s what I’ve seen. I’ve gotten lots of like, positive feedback around the assignments. I was a little nervous in the beginning. Very nervous. But I was like, you know what? I’m going to do this and see how it goes. And however it goes, it goes. And I’ve had nothing but positive feedback. That’s [01:23:00] why I expanded it. I only was doing it in one course, and then I expanded it to all my, so my master’s students and my bachelor students both do these assignments. Yeah. Larry: Wow. That’s really neat. Gissele: It really is quite cool. And so, you know, I totally support having this, engaging in this dialogue in high school and with students mm-hmm. I think is so important for them to be able to understand that we’re not as divided as we think. We are not the core. We are really, really all human beings, and we’ve forgotten, you know, each other’s humanity. And, and the other shift too is that. We need to be able to have conversations together. Like everybody is constantly canceling one another and that only causes more division. So how can we come, how can we come closer together? So Larry: it’s really, it’s crazy and, and I mean, it really is a crazy way to run a society except nobody’s running it. And, all the stuff that’s popular, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the show Jubilee but it’s basically the anti enemies project. I mean, it is like they pit people who are [01:24:00] opposites against each other and they fight and they’ve been out there for like, I don’t know, seven years and they have like 10 million subscribers and they, just beat the crap out of each other. And that’s what kids are watching and they’re just cheering their side on and that’s just reinforces what they believe. Gissele: Yeah. People want reinforcement education. That’s why like for my, for that part of the paper where I say gimme the opposing perspectives. Mm-hmm. It’s basically like, put yourself in their shoes, but not really. Just tell me what their points are. Just list what their points are and why they believe what they do. And that does have  bin of a brain tweak. ’cause they have to put themselves like understand their perspective Absolutely. So that they can write about it. Larry: I mean, there’s been this research done with lawyers that show that lawyers will take any position. Yeah. ’cause they’re hired by aside. And they come to believe it. But they, but they’ve [01:25:00] shown that if they simply are hired by somebody else, they’ll actually believe the o the others, they’ll actually believe it. Like they won’t just like, you know, it’s like argue the side. They’ll believe it and you can get people to believe it. Either side of it, pretty much anything where they start is a big deal. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The Larry: the one that you tell them they’re advocating for first has a bigger impact on them than the one they’re advocating for. Second, but it’s like we’re completely shiftable. Like we can, we can just do either one. We can just just have this belief or that belief and, and then we can play the role. Gissele: That’s why I love that your show flips it, right? Like sit in each other’s shoes and each other’s perspectives and just be able to vocalize. I love how people were able to kind of do that. I was like, wow. Like I was so impressed. People’s ability. Yeah. Larry: Just, I mean, what, and I, I said [01:26:00] this before, but I didn’t tell you that when I do identity shifting for people in clients, I have them argue for a solution, like find solutions as the other person. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Larry: It is so freaking confusing to them. It is. They have no idea who they are. They have no idea what’s going on, but as the other person, they come up with stuff. It’s really interesting. Gissele: Yeah, I saw that in your show. Like some people were coming up with things they hadn’t said before, but was even a better way to vocalize. I’m like, they heard they were listening. Oh. Just such an amazing show. Thanks. Okay, couple of more questions, just wrapping it up. So for this season, I’m asking all of my guests what their definition of self love is. Larry: Oh gosh. That’s, that’s a powerful question and I wish I had an easy answer to that definition. I would say that for me, [01:27:00] is what makes me the most happy. and that is really dialing down for myself. I’m a very analytical person. I’m a really like philosophical person who did really well in law school. ’cause I, that’s the way my mind thinks. Yeah. And it doesn’t bring me a lot of happiness to think through issues all the time and, and always be solving problems. So just being present. Gissele: Hmm. Larry: And I mean that like, when I’m walking down the street, really making sure that I’m not solving any issue that is, oh my God, for me, the deepest Happiness. Gissele: Oh, true. presence is love. Oh yeah. Last question. Where can people find you? Where can people work with you? Right here. When’s the book coming out? Larry: So it’s The Enemies Project on YouTube. We also are on social media. http://www.theenemiesproject.org is the [01:28:00] website, and you can read a lot about us. The book is coming out. It’s interesting because I started The Enemies Project in part because I wanted a vehicle for the book. Nice. Okay. And, I submitted it to a few agents. I didn’t get any responses. I mean, they didn’t look at it. They didn’t look at my letter and I was just like, you know, I need to be well known first. Gissele: Mm. Larry: The book is I something I worked on for 10 years. And, and from my standpoint, it is more powerful than the Enemy’s project. Oh, wow. I, that’s my say a Gissele: little bit. Can you say a little bit more about it or No. Larry: it’s called the Enemy Dance. And it’s the story of an orphan Akbar who is born 500 years ago or so in a mythical land called the Himballah, which is a mountainous region where Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists are at war forever.[01:29:00] Gissele: Mm. And Larry: he is born to Muslims and is brought up in a Hindu village by an old woman. And he is abused, he is rejected because He is Muslim among Hindus. Yeah. And it’s his effort to try to create peace in this area that has never known peace, because he wants acceptance and it becomes the story of those people  who want the same as him from land to land and their effort to transform this world and whether it’s possible. Gissele: Hmm. That’s beautiful. Larry: and my view is that nobody, or almost nobody is interested in education. And you probably are because you are an academic and a, probably highly philosophical, intellectual person. But most people aren’t interested in education, very few. They’re interested in entertainment. And that education has [01:30:00] to ride the tails of entertainment in order to be effective. And so I wrote a novel, which I considered to be, you know, my best work. And contained all of the philosophy. And I worked on it for a very long time. And and so now that I have probably an audience, it’s not quite big enough yet. But, hopefully will be within six months or so. You know, where we have half million followers or something like that, I’ll then, I probably won’t even seek a publisher at that point. I’ll self-publish and it is for me, you know, my life’s work. We’ll see what happens with it. Gissele: Wow. Oh, that’s because it could be a movie. There’s lots of exciting possibilities maybe, but it, yeah. Well, you know, what I thought about is I thought about the Hunger Games. the books like Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, they were, commentaries about society, commentaries about people, commentaries about separation and mental health and all of those [01:31:00] things people are more receptive to than, it’s almost as if it gets through the facade of like the right and wrong through entertainment to education. Yeah. And that’s been used. Think about it. One of the thingsI think you said, in your TEDx. Yeah, you, you talked in your TEDx that we can only win if we defeat the other side mentality is causing division. What I thought about is look at movies . The good guys use the same strategy. The good guys still kill, still punish, still want revenge. Like, so even our perspectives of who the good guy is, it’s the same strategy that they’re using, which is that punishment. You are helping us move away from that. How can we move away from that perspective and come closer together and not see each other as enemies Larry: Yeah. and I can see that, there are a lot of different ways to promote that world and you’re doing that by bringing on your show, lots of people who kind of share this philosophy and are going about it in different ways. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you so much for being on the show. [01:32:00] This was incredible. And thank you for staying with episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele.

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking with Barry Adkins after losing his 18-year-old son, Kevin, to alcohol poisoning. Barry saw that he had two choices. He could curl up in the corner and allow himself to become a victim, or he could get out and tell as many people as possible about what happened to his son, Kevin. Barry chose the latter in an effort to raise awareness of the dangers of binge drinking. Barry set out on an Epic 1400 mile journey on foot from Arizona to Montana. His son’s ashes in his backpack, stopping at numerous schools, churches in treatment facilities along the way to share his story. Larry’s presentation describes in powerful detail the night his son died.[00:01:00] The quiet morning that he got the knock on the door and how he came up with the idea to walk from Arizona to Montana.Barry’s message is both powerful inspiration and a warning about the consequences of even one night of binge drinking. Barry has shared his story with over 200,000 students and parents. He has been a featured speaker at numerous high schools, community events, and town hall meetings. Barry has also been featured in numerous media outlets, including Reader’s Digest, the Dr. Gina Show and the Leon Fonte Show. Please join me in welcoming Barry. Hi Barry. Barry: Oh, thanks for having me on. Gissele Gissele: Ah, thank you for being on the show. I was wondering if you could share with the audience a little bit about the story of your son’s passing and how that led you to actually decide to become this powerful messenger on the dangers of pitch drinking. Barry: Well, Gissele, I probably should start by kind of telling you, you know, what led up to that. [00:02:00] Yeah, let’s start with that. So he had just graduated from high school. He struggled in high school. He was actually flunking his English class in March of his senior year in high school. And he needed it for graduation, right? Mm-hmm. And I would always talk to him about it and, you know, he would tell me to quit bothering him about it. He’d take care of it. But at the end of the day, he did graduate, and I remember at his high school graduation ceremony, he gave me a hug and whispered, thanks for not giving up on me, dad. Gissele: Hmm. Barry: And shortly thereafter suffice to say he saved up enough money and I agree to co-sign a loan so he could buy a new truck. And if you have listeners that work at dealerships, I apologize, but I have a healthy dislike for that process, right? Mm-hmm. Because they’re gonna try to sell me something I don’t want or need. He found one of the dealerships, so I gotta go in and sign papers, right? Gissele: Mm-hmm. I Barry: sit down in the, the dealerships. You know, in their [00:03:00] office, and the first thing this guy says to me is, how about some life insurance? And I’m like, 18-year-old boys don’t need life insurance. They don’t die. But I was wrong. They do die. He wouldn’t live long enough to make a single payment on that truck. So a few weeks later. I remember him sitting down in our living room and talking about how he couldn’t believe his life was finally beginning and he wanted to move out, and I did my best to discourage him because we honestly never really had any problems with him. His high school principal didn’t even know who he was. I didn’t have any luck talking out of it. So a couple weeks later, his buddy Craig came over and they started moving him out. You know, he’s 18 years old. His definition of moving out was throwing a bed, a tv, and a dresser in the back of his truck. Mm-hmm. I remember him coming back in and he came into the living room and he said something I’ll never forget. He said he wasn’t [00:04:00] gonna take his toothbrush with him. He’d be back tomorrow and grab it. I walked out front with him like I normally do, gave him a hug, told him that, be careful, and I loved him and watched him drive away. It was the last time I saw him alive that night. His friends decided to throw a house warming party for him. Started with a keg of beer and moved on to shots. He left a voicemail for his sister that night talking about how much fun they were having and how drunk he was. After he left that voicemail, he passed out his friends laid him in his bed on his side in case he vomited, but the party was still going on. They actually went in and shaved his head and his legs while he was passed out because he’s just passed out, right? Gissele: Yeah. But Barry: his buddy Craig, was worried about him, kept going back into check on him around 4:00 AM calls started coming into 9 1 1. First calls were difficulty [00:05:00] breathing. Next calls. Not breathing. My son died alone in a hospital. Well, I slept peacefully in my bed. The next morning was Sunday morning. My wife and I are sitting around talking about what we’re not gonna do that day or do that day. Eight 30 in the morning. The doorbell rings. And we’re looking at each other because we weren’t expecting company. And I open the door and I see two police officers and somebody in plain clothes at my front door. Should have been a big red flag, right? It should have been, but I’m that guy. It didn’t even occur to me, Gissele, that something bad had happened. I actually joked with them as they came in thinking this had to have something to do with a dog or a parked car, but they didn’t laugh at any of my jokes. One of the officers in the plain clothes stayed at the front door. The other officer walked in and stood in front of the chair that Kevin had sat in [00:06:00] two weeks before and talked about how his life was finally beginning. He said There had been an accident and your son is dead. We asked who, because we have a number of children, they said it was Kevin and they handed me his driver’s license. Yeah, there is something pretty final about it when a police officer hands you your child’s driver’s license because until that exact moment in time, you’re holding out hope that this is all a big mistake. You’ve misspelled the last name, but once they hand you, your child’s driver’s license, you know he is gone and he is never coming back. Gissele: That must have been so devastating. Barry: Yeah, people say it’s impossible to know what it feels like to lose a child, and they’re right until it happens to [00:07:00] you. It’s a life changing event. There’s no two ways about that. Mm-hmm. Gissele: And so what was the journey between hearing that your son had died to one, you had determined to spread the message to save the lives of other young people. Barry: Well, I’ll tell you a little bit about the process. Honestly, I was angry with God and I told him so I simply didn’t understand why  a kind God would. You know, let my son die. And I tried to bargain with him and said, Hey, back up time, you’re God, take me, let him live. And I don’t think, as a parent, I’m unusual. That’s not, I don’t think that would be an unusual thought for anybody. Right? Gissele: No. Barry: But a couple days later, I had another life changing event. This is a little bit difficult for me to describe, but I’ll do my best. I was [00:08:00] laying in bed, it was about four o’clock in the morning and I was awake, and I just had this sense that someone had just came in the room, you know? Yeah. You have that feeling. Did somebody just walk in behind me or something? And then there was a light. A light I’ve never seen before and I haven’t seen since, and there was a message, and the message was that he didn’t suffer. And something very good would come from this. And I didn’t get a chance to say anything. it’s not words you hear, it’s just things, you know. I, it’s really Gissele: mm-hmm. Barry: I’m not a seance guy or anything like that. I just, that’s what happened. And I’m not here to tell everybody that that made everything okay. ’cause it didn’t. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Barry: But it gave me a mission. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Barry: Right. And then we had to go pick up his [00:09:00] ashes. I remember going down to pick up his ashes and I walked in, you know, into a funeral home. They’ve got, you know, pictures on the wall and they’re playing music in the background. They take me into an office, sit me down in a big comfortable chair, or the desk in front of me. The funeral director walks in. Sets an urn down in front of me, an urn that held all the remain of the kid that I burped. I changed his diapers. I coached all kinds of different sports. I taught him to shoot a gun, swing, a golf club. All the remains of him were sitting in an urn in front of me. And at that moment I knew one thing, and that was that I didn’t want to be a victim. Because the world doesn’t need any more victims. We’ve got plenty already. The world needs people who take something bad and they make something good come from it. Gissele: This [00:10:00] might be a difficult question, so you can skip it if you want to, but what was your wife’s reaction like? Barry: that’s another part about grief. Right. She has been incredibly supportive of everything. Yeah. Was she terrified when I said I wanted to walk to Montana? Yes, we both were, but I knew. That’s what I wanted to do and. I had a lot of people try to talk me out of it. Gissele, right? Well-meaning people that I think they were afraid I was gonna fail. and you get that right? Yeah. Who do you think you are? Right? That’s a long ways of walk. But I had another guy that I talked to that said something that kind of sealed the deal. I really wasn’t gonna get talked out of it, but he said, well, how do you think you’d feel about it in 10 years if you don’t do it? Gissele: Ooh, perfect. Barry: Was it easy? No. [00:11:00] But I knew it didn’t matter. This was, this was what I needed to do. Gissele: So did you, you plan out the whole trip or was it like you were kind of just allowing yourself to be led where your next destination was? Barry: so the idea for the walk, first of all for those. Older individuals in your audience came from the movie Lonesome Dove. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, has Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duval. That was Kevin’s favorite movie. I won’t give away the ending of the movie. Mm-hmm. But I will tell you that that’s where the idea came from. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Barry: But then you gotta figure out, you know, in the movie somebody did something on horseback, not like this, but something similar. Right. I knew I wasn’t gonna do it on horseback initially. I was gonna walk the Continental divide. But then I knew I wouldn’t be able to do the speaking stuff. Okay. So I’m gonna do the speaking stuff now. I need to get some help. Yeah. And I reached [00:12:00] out to people to sponsor me. I got a lot of. Nah, no thanks. But a nonprofit here in town, notmykid.org I spoke to them and they were in they set up all of the speaking engagements, but you can imagine the logistics around this we’re mm-hmm. Pretty challenging because they said, okay, well you gotta tell me what day you’re gonna be in all these towns. Yeah. So I had to give them a schedule. Of how, you know, how many miles am I gonna walk a week? When do I think I’m gonna be in this town? When do I think I’m gonna be in this town? And we got it figured out. I did. Were you a big walker before? I’ve ran marathons. Oh, okay. But walking was a different thing.  one thing to say, I’m gonna go out tomorrow and walk 15 miles, right? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Barry: But it’s the wear and tear mm-hmm. Of every single day. And you can, I kind of [00:13:00] prepared for that by, on the weekends I’d go out and walk, you know, 15 miles each day or 20 miles each day. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Barry: Kind of get a sense of what it was gonna feel like. But it’s. Pretty hard to judge what it’s gonna feel like repetitively. Right? There were ingrown toenails had plantar fasciitis, had knee issues. But I never took a single day off. I ended up walking seven days a week. I found it to be easier to just walk seven days a week. And there’s days I didn’t feel like going, but I always thought, eh, I might feel worse tomorrow. Maybe I better go try. And usually when I got out there I felt better. Gissele: Wow. So how did you find the messaging was received in the conversations that you had with young people because, drinking is kind of part of the culture, if you may. What were some of their comments or questions? [00:14:00] Barry: You know, my messaging has changed a lot through the years. In the beginning, Gissele, I was actually just reading it and I rationalized that, I don’t know if I told you about this before, but I rationalized this by saying, well, Martin Luther King read I Have a Dream Speech. Speaker 2: He read Barry: the whole thing and it was good, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Barry: So I had it written out. But. I had so many places where teachers and principals would come up later and say, I have never seen those kids that quiet ever. And as it evolved, one of the things I started doing was telling the audience, but I’m not here to tell ’em how to live their life. I’m just here to tell you a story. And I really believe for students especially, and everybody, nobody wants to be told how to live their life, right? Who are you to get Speaker 4: up Barry: here? Tell me how to live my life. [00:15:00] I’m just here to tell you a story. And like I said there was some standing ovations in a few of them. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But for me, when they’re that quiet you know, something’s going on. Gissele: Definitely. I’m sure I know that you’ve saved some lives  Because I don’t know if kids are often educated on like how to drink, how to learn, how much. Alcohol to take? Like had your son had experience with alcohol before or was that really like the first time that he was out? Barry: He, there was a couple times where I suspected it and that, you know, one of the questions I often get asked is, you know, did you ever talk to him about alcohol? I didn’t talk to him much, any of the kids much about alcohol, but I did about drugs because we have an alcoholic in the family. And he always talked about how stupid he was and how he wasn’t ever gonna let that happen to him. You know, so in hindsight, [00:16:00] should I have done more of that? Yeah. and the question comes up, so when do you start talking to your kids about that? And my answer is, whatever you do, don’t wait until it’s too late. Gissele: Yeah. I think conversations about like. Sex, alcohol, drugs, all of that stuff. Ongoing conversations with children are important, and at the same time, we’re doing the best we can as parents, right? We don’t always anticipate, like you said, your son said that he wouldn’t do that sort of thing, right? Like sometimes you can’t anticipate. But as parents, we go back and question ourselves and say, could I have done that differently? Could I have done that better? What role did self-forgiveness have in your ability to undertake this journey? Barry: It was a big part of it, right? One of [00:17:00] the first things we did was agree that we’re not gonna play the blame game, right? I’m not gonna blame anybody at the party. I’m not gonna blame anyone. But, but the forgiveness part of it. Takes a while, especially forgiving yourself. I heard a pastor describe it best once, ’cause forgiveness is one of the things that’s one of my key takeaways is forgiveness. And what I tell everybody is anger and vengeance is only gonna lead to one thing. Destruction, forgiveness, leads to healing, and sometimes the most important person you need to forgive. Yourself. We all make mistakes. It’s the way you handle it. That really matters. ’cause I can’t change the past. I can only change the future. Gissele: Yeah. Barry: And that takes a long time to come to grips with Gissele. Right? That’s, it does. That’s not something the day after you’re, you’re [00:18:00] there. That’s about 19 years in the rear view mirror for me. Gissele: Yeah, definitely because we as parents put so much pressure on ourselves, we feel it’s our responsibility to keep our children safe. Even though your son had left home, there’s still that sense of,  responsibility. it can feel definitely overwhelming, especially since like the thought is always, well, we’re gonna pass away before our children do. And so it’s not anything we’re gonna have to manage. They’re gonna have to manage our loss. But when it’s the reverse, you’re like, oh, this is not what I prepared for. And what you’re helping us learn is, is. It’s not about trying to avoid the things in life that causes suffering, but alchemizing the difficult moments into something where it could be a positive out of it. That doesn’t diminish the grief. It just helps us not hurt ourselves because I do [00:19:00] feel like path to grieve and the path to blaming and the path to punishment hurts us as much as it hurts the other people as well. Barry: it a hundred percent does. And one of my other key things for takeaways is about adversity. Yeah. Bad stuff happens to everybody. The way you respond to adversity is gonna define your life. And I’m living proof of that. divorces, whatever, you know, make the list, your boyfriend broke up with you, whatever. All of these things happen. And the way you handle them, they’re gonna define your life. They just are, it’s not the A’s and b’s in school generally. Mm-hmm. Its the way you handle adversity. Gissele: I wanna go back to that instance where you heard the voice say that something positive was gonna come. ’cause I’m sure there was a level of, reassurance did that help you rethink the whole concept of life or death [00:20:00] and whether or not things are final? Barry: You know I’m a Christian and we all believe that God is out there. We have to push the believe button. But when something like this happens you know he’s there. Right. And again, that, you know, you’ve heard people describe it, but I can’t describe that light. Gissele: Yeah. Barry: And I just knew. You know, it was God and it was kind of his voice, but I knew God was part of it and for me it moved. Gissele: You mean like Kevin’s voice? Barry: Yeah. Kind of his you know, because it seemed like he was pretty excited about it. Gissele: Hmm Barry: mm-hmm. Right. And it, it moved it from the theoretical to Oh yeah, he’s really there. He really [00:21:00] is. I mean, sometimes it’s you start to wonder if he’s really there, right? You start to wonder, well, is there really something there? And after this I can say, yeah, there’s life there. Gissele: Yeah, and and what you were saying, it takes it from a theoretical ’cause I think often we think of like God out there and we’re over here and we can feel so separate and so alone. And when you look at the state of the world, you wonder why things are the way that they are. And I think there is sort of a grander. Purpose and a grander picture that sometimes we don’t often see. But I think to have that reassurance, I myself have had a number of spiritual events that make you think, oh wait, here’s an experience to everything that I’ve been reading or wondering about, which makes you question. How final is death? now that doesn’t lessen the loss any less. we are [00:22:00] still in this physical experience where you don’t get to experience your son in the same way. Have you had any other interactions, like through dreams or any other ways where you have been able to connect? Barry: Well, I have no doubt that God was part of this process. And the reason I say that is I’m not the right guy to be doing this. I was never a public speaker. Mm-hmm. I’m a stay at home. I was telling somebody the other day, I had a really good month. ’cause I think I only put 50 miles on my car in a month. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Barry: I’m not that way, but I feel like it’s what He wants me to do. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Barry: Right. And another interesting thing for me is that. You need to be quiet to really feel [00:23:00] where God might be pushing you. And I remember I I was up in the Bob Marshall wilderness up in, up in Montana, out in the middle of nowhere. I was sitting on top of this mountain with my uncle, and it was just, you know, utter silence. Right. Just. As quiet as it can be. And I turned to him and I whispered, man, it’s quiet up here. And he said, yeah. And it’s got a lot to say. Gissele: Mm mm-hmm. I love that. Barry: Yeah, because you have to understand it. I think we don’t have enough quiet time in our lives. Anymore. We’re just bombarded every single day with stuff. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. There’s constant messaging and there’s constant looking on social media, and I think what you’re talking about is really the path inward to be able to address all of the difficult things you were talking about, to deal with grief [00:24:00] and not let it consume you, to deal with forgiveness and allow yourself to open up to that. You have to. Go through the emotions, right? Like you have to have felt the grief. You have to have felt the difficulty in forgiving because the mind immediately goes to, well, who was there, who could have taken care? Why didn’t they check more? And all of those things. Absolutely. Yeah. Barry: was there blame to go around? Yeah. The, the guy at the party was a 28-year-old this house that he moved into. There was a 28-year-old there who was renting the house rooms to 18 year olds. Right. So, you know, it is probably good situation, but was it Mikey’s fault? No. It, this was Kevin’s choice. This was his decision. Yeah. And that’s my third point is the two most important decisions you’re ever gonna make apart from following Jesus are about drugs and alcohol. It isn’t even close. [00:25:00] We all know stories. Right. You just, you need to educate yourselves as if your life and the lives of your kill children depend upon it. Speaker 2: Because Barry: it does, it just does. These are, these are society. We don’t talk a lot about how big this problem is. I googled it recently to find out how big the rehab industry is, and I believe the number was, people can look it up. I think it was around $35 billion a year. Wow. And it’s projected to grow at 5% a year. Gissele: it doesn’t, help. That’s alcohol in particular is, a legal drug, right. And the interesting thing that I observed during the pandemic was in Canada in particular, I don’t know about any other countries how they made alcohol more accessible, but of all the things they could have done during COVID, making alcohol more accessible, made me curious.[00:26:00] I’m like like what is it that you’re promoting or saying? it’s sort of like different departments working on different things. Like you’ve got a public health that tells you, like do things in moderation, take care of your body, eat. Then you’ve got another department that is like making alcohol more accessible.  it doesn’t make sense. Barry: It’s a business, right? The alcohol industry is a business and they want to grow their industry and every opportunity they get to do that. Of course they’re gonna do it. Mm. You know do I blame them? No, not really, because it’s every, it’s your choice, right? Mm. It just, Gissele: yeah, for sure. It’s the Barry: education part of it. I think the prevention, you know, as I said, $35 billion a year on rehab. I guarantee you they don’t spend 35 billion a year on prevention. It’s largely onesie, twosie things. it’s a PowerPoint in one class at school. [00:27:00] And, and it takes a lot of different angles to get to kids, to students. You know, am I one part of it? Yeah. Is that the only part? Absolutely not. There are other things that help click with kids. You know, I’m not the only thing, but you know, some kids might click when you start talking about the chemical things that happen. I don’t know. But mm-hmm. There should be a little more, in my opinion, more focus on that prevention part. Gissele: Yeah. Agree. And I think that’s the beauty of the conversations you’re opening up space for. And also the opportunity for parents to not expect the school system or all these other systems to educate kids, right? Like we have conversations with our kids and I, gotta give credit to my husband. I was always one of the, the complete abstinence. We’re not gonna do drugs, we’re not gonna do anything. My husband’s like, well, that’s not realistic. Right? Yeah. Like, so just because you, that’s a choice you made for [00:28:00] yourself years ago. Doesn’t mean that that’s the thing they’re gonna make. The best thing we can do is arm them with information and tell them like, here, and Okay, this is what alcohol feels like in your body. This is what it tastes like. You know, you should pace yourself. Like see what it does to your body. See how long it takes in your body so that you can become familiar. So it’s not a thing that like kids go out in. and want to explore like in large quantities. My husband was telling me when we were having these conversations, as our kids were younger, he would say to me that the ones, the children whose parents oppressed them more like about like, you can’t do this. You can’t do that. Were the ones who probably explored it the most. He said when they were outside, they were the ones who were the binge drinkers. They were the ones, and he saw it and he was like. You know this, this person is hiding it. Whereas his mom, she used to have a drink with her when he came, home from high school. And so he learned how to [00:29:00] maneuver and how it felt in his body. And so he would never like get drunk or pass out or do any of that because he knew, he started to experiment and see, oh, okay, this is how it impacts. I observe other people. And so he started to get familiar with, okay, what it does, what it doesn’t do in my body. And what you’re talking about and the beautiful part about it is increasing their awareness of, okay, what’s my maximum? What’s the dangers? You don’t know? ’cause if you’re just taking shots and drinking, you’re not waiting for your body to process the alcohol, so you don’t know how much you’ve taken. Barry: You know, for me, and you know, nobody ever likes to talk about peer pressure when you’re younger, but mm-hmm. Peer pressure is there. The thing for me, and everybody’s different about this but for me you think, well, I need to impress these. My high school friends, I have one friend [00:30:00] that I still know from high school. I don’t know how many you have that you stay in contact with, but you know, my daughter said, well, I have ’em on Facebook. I said, well, you do, but how many are your friends? Mm-hmm. Oh. Two, three. Yeah. One. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that kind of thing. So you think you need to impress these people and you don’t, and that comes with age. You just start realizing that I don’t really care what they think of me. Gissele: Yeah. Barry: That’s the beauty of it is you get older, Yeah. Gissele: So thank you for raising this. ’cause I think this is really important, sort of the reasons why people take. Substances. Like sometimes people just wanna experiment. Their people are addressing pain, right? If their home life is an issue, or if they have experienced trauma sometimes, and the peer pressure thing I think is so fundamental.  I remember this about myself when I was in my teens, I cared so much what people thought about me, and I [00:31:00] thought people were constantly thinking about me, which is not even true. They were only thinking about themselves. And that’s why I tell my kids, when I was in my twenties I thought, oh, all these people are looking at me. All these people are thinking of me And I’m like, they were not, yeah, they didn’t care about me. They were thinking about themselves and what other people were thinking about them. Yeah. And so I think that’s an important thing in terms of what helps young people develop that inner confidence. Remember that inner worthiness, Speaker 2: the worthiness of it. Yeah. Gissele: they don’t need to succumb to peer pressure, they are just enough as they are and to be of their authentic selves. And if you look at the school system, and I’m not complaining about the school system, but we are taught conformity. There is a right answer and wrong answer. Everybody should sit and be quiet. So the kids that struggle the most are the kids who are the most aberrant, right? Who don’t think the same way, who have struggles sitting down all day, because That’s not kids’ natural nature to [00:32:00] sit all day, right? And so what we’re taught to conform to this box and that there is this right answer versus wrong answer and color inside the lines. And so it shifts away from authenticity ’cause the need to belong, the need to fit in, the need to align. And so then later on we’re like, oh yeah, be yourself. Be authentically. well, I don’t know how to do that. I was only taught to conform and belong. Where is the role for the authentic in schools and for the divergence and difference Barry: and, and everybody learns differently. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Barry: Right? Just so many things there. I barely got outta high school. Speaker 2: Hmm. Barry: I simply didn’t understand the point. Speaker 2: Yeah, Barry: and I, I was only, it was only by the fear of my parents. That I got outta high school. I mean, it turns out, you know, once I went to college and I was paying for it, I got straight A’s, [00:33:00] but I just didn’t see the point. And I’ve realized through the years that everybody matures differently and everybody learns differently because there’s a lot of pressure on kids today to decide, okay, what are you gonna do with your life? What are you gonna be, I didn’t decide, I ended up waiting two or three years before I went to college. Mm-hmm. Because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Right. And Speaker 2: yeah, and I Barry: think you have to know when you’re 18 years old because you’re 18 years old, and I think adults tend to forget that not everybody matures and in general girls mature before boys, let’s just call it what it is. But you need to give them time. They kind of figure it out. Gissele: absolutely. And I think that’s, a really important conversation.  we need to give them time to explore all the things that they’re passionate about, that they really want to [00:34:00] do. Rather than trying to push them into a profession because I don’t know, like I changed my mind a lot. Like first I was gonna be a lawyer, then I ended up in child welfare, and now I’m doing something different. So there’s the opportunity to explore, the opportunity to find out what their real passions are, and to make a decision when you’re 18, 19, about the rest of your life, just doesn’t. make a lot of sense, right? what you’re passionate about now, but with the cost of education, that’s a huge investment you’re making or something you might not end up liking. So it just doesn’t seem to make sense. Right? Barry: Yeah. I think there are tests out there that can I’ve heard of some that can kind of tell you what you’re good at. Speaker 2: Hmm. Which Barry: kind of will help for me. I actually, short story. I actually got my pilot’s license before I got outta high school. Gissele: Oh, that’s cool. Barry: Yeah, because I had a class where the guy said, well, if you pass the private [00:35:00] pilot written, you can have an A in the class for the whole year and you don’t have to show up. So suffice to say, I ended up with my pilot pilot’s license. Yes. But I wanted to be in the Air Force. I wanted to fly jets and, and we took the tests and they said, well, you’d be good at electronics. I wanted to be a pilot. They wouldn’t let me do that. But I didn’t forget that they said I might be good at electronics. And so that’s what I did. Engineering stuff. And I’ve been in the same industry for 44 years. Mm-hmm. Because I found something that I kind of like doing this stuff. I mean, the job is a job, right. But I kinda like doing this stuff. Gissele: And that’s, that’s what I say to my children. I say, explore the world. Explore all the things that you’re excited about now. Right. Because, and that’ll get you through the path, even if it’s just like the next step, like you said, okay, this guy said you don’t have to come to class. I’d rather have some flying lessons. I [00:36:00] think that’s a great. Wait, have you ever flown since? Well, Barry: I got my pilot’s license, but I couldn’t afford to keep flying. Right. Mm-hmm. My dad paid for it as part of my graduation gift ’cause he didn’t think I would pass the p private pilot written. Oh. Because he said, well, if you do that, I’ll pay for your flight instruction. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Barry: So, but, you know, you talk about getting to places one of the questions I get asked is, did I ever think about quitting? On the walk. Yeah. The answer to that is no, but, but I started wondering what I got myself into. Speaker 2: Hmm. I Barry: wasn’t even outta Arizona. I was probably 150 miles into it, you know, like I said, this hurts, this hurts. and the problem I had was I was thinking about 1400 miles every day. I thought about, man, I got. 1300 miles to go. And so I just changed my mindset to I’m gonna walk [00:37:00] another three miles or four miles, take a break, see where we go from there. And it’s these baby steps that take you a long way. ’cause you look at something and say, well, I could never get that degree, or I could never get to that position where I would be able to do that in my life. But if you take these baby steps. You focus on those baby steps, then the next thing you know you’re in Montana. Gissele: Yeah, Barry: right. I mean, that’s really the way I thought of it is I didn’t want, because you think about, oh my gosh, I gotta do this every day for the next four months. And I just started thinking, all right, my wife Bev met me about every three or four miles. She’d go up there and park and I’d go up and take a little break and then move on. And it’s a great metaphor for life, I think. Gissele: Yeah, absolutely. I have a friend who would say, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. [00:38:00] Barry: Yes. When you are thinking Gissele: about the whole elephant, you’re gonna be full. But if you just take it one bite at a time, and like you said, That’s definitely a great metaphor for life. Is that how long it took you? Four months? Barry: Yeah. It took about four months. I averaged about 90 miles a week. Just met a lot of wonderful people along the way. Mm-hmm. It just. The world is a little bit jaded, but there’s a lot of wonderful people out there that, that just want to help. I had people bring me brownies and milk. People stopped every day and asked if I needed a ride. You know, what are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere? You know, it’s raining and, ’cause I, I walked in a fair amount of rain and get in the car. I’m like, no, I’m good. Whatcha doing out here? So then I have to tell ’em the story and yeah. But you meet a lot of wonderful people. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. It made me think of like, gump when he started running and there was a whole bunch of people that were running behind him. Yeah. And they’re like, what are running for? Barry: You get [00:39:00] that, you get a lot of people. I think it was a lot easier to do. I’ve actually driven the route, just drove it here a couple months ago. A fair amount of it. There really wasn’t nearly as much traffic as there is on those roads today. Gissele: Oh wow. Barry: You know, two lane roads, you’re walking that whole thing and you. It’s, it’s busy now. It wasn’t nearly as busy 20 years ago. Gissele: Yeah. And was it all gravelly? Like some of those roads are usually gravelly where you walk, like there’s not paved. Barry: These were all paved roads. They were all two lane roads. I kind of wanted to walk on the freeway because it was a straighter shot, but I could not get the Department of Public Safety in any of the states to tell me. They wouldn’t kick me off the freeway. So I had to stay on two lane roads, which added a few miles to it. But you get to see a lot of country too when you do that. Mm-hmm. Gissele: I mean, Barry: you get to let your mind wander and Oh wow. Look at that over there. You know, when you [00:40:00] drive by stuff, you don’t really see it. You just doing 70 miles an hour down the road. You don’t see it. But it was, and I tell everybody. Like, if I can pull off something like this, imagine what you can do. I’m not all that clever. I it’s just one of those things that I tell students you could do something even cooler, I’m sure of it. Gissele: Hmm. How did it feel when you reached the end? It’s a very emotional when you got to the end, what was that like? Barry: You know, it’s funny you asked that question. So I wrote the book, it’s Kevin’s Last Walk. It’s on Amazon. But when I wrote the book, I wanted to get feedback and this is where I’m going with this. And I had a, a group of book club. I printed it out and let ’em read it and I said, okay, I need everybody to tell me one thing you didn’t like about the book. One of ’em said, you told me more about your shoe selection than you did about how you felt when you finished the walk. [00:41:00] Because I hadn’t really, it was a relief physically, but at that point I didn’t know what was next and people would ask me, what’s next for you? And I’m like, I don’t know. But it turned out that. Now I can go tell the story about going on the walk and all the things that led up to going on the walk. And it’s evolved a lot through the years because my wife Bev was really helpful because when you, with the books, if you ever write a book, don’t have any family or friends read it because they’ll read it and say it was great. Speaker 2: Hmm. Barry: Mm-hmm. That’s the same way my wife Bev would tell me. ’cause she would sit in the back of the room and tell me, now you lost the audience with that. You need to either redo it or get rid of it. Speaker 2: Yeah. Barry: And so that helped me to [00:42:00] refine. Things because you need people that’ll actually, you need people in your life that’ll actually give you honest criticism. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Barry: Right? And, she did. She’s like, you lost them with that. You know, and that’s, that’s how it’s evolved into what it is today. Gissele: Mm. That’s beautiful. Barry: Yeah. Gissele: Thinking about your children, I mean, you talk about how you and your wife sort of manage the grief. What were your children’s journeys in losing a sibling? And did your journey itself help them cope with a loss? Barry: I think it did. One of the things that we did that not every family does, is we didn’t stop talking about Kevin. Because sometimes when a someone loses a child, nobody wants to talk about it anymore, which to me, and again, I have a different perspective on this.[00:43:00] Yeah. That’s not healthy because that person was a part of your life for the last however many years. You don’t just stop talking about him. And I think that’s a healthy way to manage the grief. Right. we all talked about we’re not gonna play the blame game. Right. We talked about that stuff. My one daughter, he had, Kevin had left a message for her that night, and I don’t know if to this day if she turns her phone off at night. I think she might, I’ll have to ask her. ’cause the last time I talked about it, she said, you know, I haven’t turned my phone off since then. when she goes to bed, she doesn’t put it on silent. Because she missed that voicemail. Would she have done anything about it? Speaker 2: Yeah. I Barry: dunno. Right. But I think it’s kind of been probably been therapeutic for all of ’em, although I will say that I don’t know that any of ’em have read the book Gissele: If you had something to [00:44:00] say to young people about the dangers of binge drinking what would that be Barry: for me is to just know that it can happen to you. Nobody ever believes, including me, is that it’s ever gonna happen to you. I never believed anything would happen to him. And, you know, he had an attitude of, you know, 10 feet tall and bulletproof. Right? Most people do. It can happen to you. don’t worry about what other people think about you. Yeah. If you think it’s the right thing to do, then you should do it right. Don’t worry about it. Because like you said, those people are worried about themselves, not you. Gissele: [00:45:00] Yeah. Barry: Yeah. Gissele: Last few questions. So I ask all my guests what their definition of love or unconditional love is. Barry: For me you have to have humility to be able to really bond with somebody. I think you need to let go and not have to be right about everything. In marriage and in life. You know, if you become one of those people that has to be right about everything. That’s, that’s harder to love. But really loving everyone is about caring about them and setting an example and setting an example of love. Gissele: I think that’s what you’re doing with these presentations in the book and all the work that you do. I think coming at it from [00:46:00] a place of, I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just sharing my story in hopes that it will help you, that it’ll be of benefit to you. I think it’s the ultimate sort of act of love for your son. So last question. Where can people find you? Where can they find the book? Where can they work with you or listen to your presentations? Please share anything. Barry: The book is on Amazon. if you just search for my name, Barry Adkins, it should come up pretty close to the top. What I tell my big message is I still speak at schools. And I would love to come to your school. I just need to get connected and we’ll make it happen. On Facebook. It’s Kevin’s last walk. You can certainly message me there, or it’s http://www.kevinslastwalk.com. Just reach out. Most of the stuff I do is. I end up getting speaking opportunities through podcasts. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Barry: People will reach out, or the podcaster Speaker 2: mm-hmm. Barry: Will [00:47:00] connect me with someone. And I’ve done a few of ’em that way, where we made the connections and we make it happen. and the big thing there is that I’m not looking to make money on this, Gissele, if I have to travel, there’s travel costs, but. There isn’t a big speaker fee on that. I just want to come and tell the story and I don’t want money to be in the way. Gissele: Yeah, Barry: bring me in. We’ll do it. Gissele: Sounds great. Thank you everyone for listening to another episode of Love and Compassion with Gissele. Thank you Barry for being on the show and sharing your wisdom. And thank you to everyone to tune in. Have a great day.

TRANSCRIPT video1290704010 Gissele : [00:00:00] Was Martin Luther King Jr. Right? Does love have the power to turn an enemy into a friend? Does it have the power to heal? We are creating an inspiring documentary called Courage to Love. The Power of Compassion explores the extraordinary stories of individuals who have chosen to do the unthinkable, love and forgive even those who have caused the most deep harm. Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness and love, not only on those offering it, but also on those receiving it. In addition, we’ll hear from experts who will explore whether loving compassion are part of our human nature and how we can bridge divides with those we disagree with. If you’d like to support our film, please donate at www MAI tt R-I-C-E-N-T-R e.com/documentary. [00:01:00] Hello and welcome to The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about not feeling good enough and what we can do to start feeling better. Our guest today is Sabrina Trobak Based out of Fort St. John BC Canada is a registered clinical counselor and author of the book, not Good enough, understanding Your Core Belief in Anxiety. She’s also a clinical supervisor, public speaker, and holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology. Before establishing her practice, she dedicated over 20 years to education, serving as a teacher, vice principal, school counselor across three school divisions. Sabrina, has extensive training in addressing trauma in its effects on daily life, [00:02:00] including anxiety and the core beliefs. Of not being good enough, not important, not valued. Her counseling agency Trobak. Holistic counseling aims to help individuals identify, challenge, and transform these core beliefs into being good enough, important enough, and value. Please join me in welcoming Sabrina. Hi, Sabrina. Sabrina: Hi. Nice to be here. It’s nice to meet you. Gissele : Oh, nice to meet you too. Thank you for being on the show. I was wondering if you could start by telling the audience what sort of led you to do this sort of work? Sabrina: I always wanted to be a teacher, you know, even in kindergarten, I was the kindergartner helper that helped other kids tie their shoes. Just was always something I wanted to do is be a teacher. Towards the end of my teaching career, I was a school counselor. And even as a teacher, I was a learning assistant teacher, so I did a lot of work in smaller groups, working more individually with students. So you get [00:03:00] to create a much deeper connection because you’re working one-on-one as opposed to a class size of, you know, 25, 30, 35, whatever it might be. And so then I went into counseling. Same thing. You really get to build that relationship. And then I went to a workshop on suicide. That was looking at suicide, more of a symptom of that core belief. Feeling not good enough. Not important, not valued. At the end of the workshop, I just thought, this is what I need to do. So the presenter, Tony Martins taught me his model of therapy. I quit teaching and started my own private practice, which really uses that as the focus point. So really going back and helping people understand and support and challenge that core belief. I started my own private practice in 2010. And within about six months I had a waiting list and I hated having to turn people away. The model I practice where we’re really addressing that core belief is a long-term model of [00:04:00] therapy. So a lot of my clients are with me a year and a half, two years, sometimes even longer. And so I decided to write the book not good enough as a way to provide a resource for people who can access counseling for whatever reason. Gissele : That’s beautiful. Thank you. And reflecting on your teaching experience, did you find that students were suffering from not feeling good enough? And do you think that’s changed? Sabrina: Students, teachers, parents, administration, support staff? Yeah, it’s kind of a worldwide thing. You know, I think it’s been there for a really long time. I think what we’re seeing a difference in is. People are talking more about mental health. So rather it being this thing that we just kept down and suppressed and pretended wasn’t an issue. Now we’re talking about it and the problem with that is we don’t necessarily know what to do with it now that we’re talking about it. So it seems like it’s kind of imploding all over the place. But you know, I think it’s been going on forever and [00:05:00] ever, and ever and ever. In fact, your core belief develops based on your parents’ core belief. If your parents’ core belief was not good enough, not important, not valued, they can’t really teach you anything else. So that means that was that generation. Well, where did they get it from? Their generation, and it just kind of goes on and on and on and on. Gissele : I really appreciated that you said that. ’cause that has been my experience that we are just now vocalizing the fact that we have these feelings. And to some people it’s like, we didn’t have these things before. That’s just simply not true. It’s just that now it’s feeling safer to talk about it. We want to address the issues and want to understand where this sort of came from. I wanted to really. Touch on the concept of not good enough. Because at least in my experience, I wasn’t that sort of person that criticized themselves. I didn’t say call myself a loser. My not good enough actually showed up in a very different way, in a [00:06:00] very covert way. I would say in terms of limiting my dreams or really negative thinking in terms of like catastrophizing.  how does not feeling good enough show in different people? is there specific patterns or is it just very different depending on the person? Sabrina: I think the main pattern is it holds you back. it doesn’t allow you to feel content, feel peaceful, feel confident. That would be a common pattern, but what that can look like can vary significantly. Also, the degree of your core belief can play a significant role as well. You might be feeling, you know, actually pretty good enough, important and valued just once in a while. That not good enough, not important, not value comes up. All the way to the other where really everything, every thought you have is reinforcing and supporting that not good enough, not important, not valued. So it can look like a variety of different ways. We get clients who come into counseling for all kinds of different things. [00:07:00] Relationship issues, anxiety, depression. They can’t really sleep. They’re having nightmares. Pornography gambling, alcohol, drugs, cheating, lying you name it, all kinds of different things. What we say is. These aren’t really the problem. These are the symptoms of that core belief. If your core belief is not good enough, not important, not valued, you need to distract, but you’re gonna be going to things that allow you to distract that ultimately end up reinforcing that core belief because it gives you something to beat yourself up over. Hmm. So it can look like a variety of different behaviors For sure. Gissele : Do you ever see people with like health issues? Sabrina: Oh, all the time, for sure. Mm-hmm. Stomach issues, headaches, sore aches and pains. What happens when with that core belief not good enough? it creates a lot of self-doubt and insecurity. Anxiety is lack of [00:08:00] confidence. Not believing in yourself. You can handle something. A lot of people think anxiety is about the trigger, right? I have anxiety of driving on the highway. If it really was about driving on the highway, then no one would be driving on the highway. So it’s not about that. It’s about my belief and my ability to handle it. So if I believe I can handle driving on the highway, I’m not gonna have anxiety. If I can’t, I believe I can’t handle it. I will have anxiety. So that anxiety, that self-doubt, every time we go into anxiety, that fight, flight, freeze, adrenaline gets dumped into our body. That gives us that boost of energy to fight or to run away. But if I’m creating all of this anxiety in my head through my own thoughts, or it’s creating a sense of danger, I think I’m in danger, but I’m not really in danger. It’s the catastrophizing thoughts, the negative thoughts, the beating yourself up, the what if scenarios. Every time you go into that fight, flight, freeze, that adrenaline, that energy has to come from somewhere.[00:09:00] So what happens is it zaps all of our non-vital organs. Stomach, bladder, pancreas, kidney, liver, skin all of our non-vital organs get zap of energy. So if you have really high anxiety where you’re going into this fight, flight, freeze response, hundreds of times a day, you are going to see a physical impact. Absolutely. You know, if your stomach is being zapped a hundred times a day, don’t expect it to digest food properly. That’s, it’s just not gonna work. Gissele : Oh, thank you for that. I really appreciate that. That also got me to think about my experiences with trust.  I used to have huge trust issues ’cause I was raised with like, my parents also had views and trauma and, it was when I realized that I didn’t trust myself to deal with people’s betrayal, not necessarily trusting the other people, that things shifted for me. It was me realizing that it was like, oh, this is about me. This isn’t about them. And their behavior, whatever they choose to do, is [00:10:00] entirely up to them. if they choose to betray me, well then that’s their choice. But it was about me. What are some things that can help someone become more aware of whether or not. They’re not feeling good enough. Sabrina: You know, I think that one, the one that you just kind of said where you don’t trust, you think you can’t trust in other people. Anything where you’re doing, where you’re focusing on others, blaming others caring to others, people pleasing for others, judging others, gossiping about others. All that time that you spend focusing on other people is all time. You’re not spending on yourself. Why is that? It’s usually because that core belief is there. We don’t like ourselves, we don’t wanna deal with it, so we’re focusing on all these outward things. As long as you’re fo focusing outward, there’s likely a bit of that core belief going there, and it’s not gonna get better until you focus more inward. Gissele : Mm, [00:11:00] yeah. To what extent do you feel like the systems we’ve created also perpetuate that, continue that belief? So not only the belief that kids were taught from their parents, but also when entering in these different systems that we have created. Sabrina: You know, I think a, a lot of our systems are very symptom based. So, you know, I have anxiety. Okay, we’ll do these things to deal with the, anxiety you have depression. Okay, we’ll do these things to deal with the depression. You have anger, okay, here’s some anger management strategies, rather than really looking at why is it there in the first place. What’s fueling those things? So our society in general often has a very bandaid, approach. Just put a bandaid on it. But if you have a wound and you just put bandaids on top of bandaids, on top of bandaids, that wound doesn’t just not heal. It gets worse, it gets more infected, it becomes more painful. It creates more stress, more anxiety. [00:12:00] And so we really need to take that bandaid off. But our society, you know, even medical right? I have a sore throat, they just address the throat rather than looking at is there something going on that’s feeding that right? Yeah. our, policing system is all very reactive and again, very kind of punitive and system based rather than really what’s going on here, what’s feeding all of this underlying stuff. Gissele : Yeah, and I think it comes from the separation from within ourselves, right? Like not really understanding or seeing ourselves holistically and our separation from each other and from nature. And I think that’s kind of why we have these systems. Sabrina: And I think part of why we even have that system is because if I deal with the surface doesn’t create a lot of emotion. Mm. If I go a bit deeper, ooh, that creates more emotion, vulnerability, fear. Abandoned. Lonely. I don’t like to feel those emotions, so keep it surface. Minimal emotions have to play. One of the [00:13:00] big things that drives that core belief and a big issue in our society is. We don’t really feel our emotions again, I think we’re getting better at talking about them, but now it’s almost like, oh, I’ve got emotion. I need to stop rather than I’ve got emotion. I need to feel it so I can move through it. And so that emotion piece is massive. We keep things very surface, so we don’t really have to feel. Gissele : Yeah, absolutely, as children, some of us were taught like, don’t feel or only limit the scope of emotions. You can feel these emotions are okay, these emotions are not. And this took me a long while to realize that the reason why my emotions were limited, at least by my parents and people in my life. They didn’t have the emotional girth to be able to hold space for my difficult feelings. So they did not teach me how to hold space for my difficult feelings and how to hold space for my kids’ difficult feelings. And so it was a journey where I really had to understand and it took me shifting my [00:14:00] perspective because I think originally I felt it was my fault, right? As I got older and became a parent, I realized, oh, they didn’t have the space, so they had to squash my emotions in order for them not to feel uncomfortable because they couldn’t cope with it. Sabrina: If I’m as a parent, if I don’t like to feel my emotions, now my child is feeling emotion, well that creates emotion in me, but I don’t wanna feel my emotions, so I need to shut my child down. It’s okay. It’s not really that big of a deal. It’s fine. You’ll get over it. You know, you’re worrying about nothing. Minimize, minimize, minimize, which is teaching your child shut down and suppress their emotions as well. Where did they learn it from? Right. You know, if we’re not learning how to feel our emotions, we are learning how to suppress our emotions. Gissele : Yeah. Yeah. And then that comes out in a different way, in the worst parts of my journey in learning to love myself and, step into that worthiness was I realized a pattern  I had some unexpected things [00:15:00] happen in my life that were shocking to me. they had such a traumatic effect that I would actually, with my negative thinking, create negative experiences so that I could control them. does that make sense? Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Gissele : but I wasn’t aware that I was doing that,  So that uncertainty was very frightening for me and it’s very frightening for very many people. I’m just curious as to your thoughts about that. Sabrina: You know what I think uncertainty. Again, what feeds that is that core belief. So we can have all kind of experiences happening. If I don’t believe I can handle them there, there’s gonna be a lot of stress over all these situations. But if my core belief is good enough, important and valued, whatever comes up, I think o okay. I got it. this isn’t gonna be easy. This is gonna be a lot of work, but I can handle it. I can figure it out. But when there’s that uncertainty and that self-doubt often, rather than again, working inward on what do I need to do to build my confidence? We work look outward on how do [00:16:00] I control these things. And of course you can’t control anything but yourself. So you may have these things under control for a period of time, but eventually things are gonna collapse and then you can go, oh, see, no one cares reinforces and support’s not good enough. So as long as you’re using control as a way to try to. Try to kind of handle situations. It, it’s not gonna be highly successful. It’s about within yourself, building that confidence within yourself. Mm-hmm. Gissele : What has been your experience with surrender? I have found in my life and my experience that the more I surrender, the less resistance I have to things, the less I need to control. the more things work out, sort of in a very smooth way. does surrender have a role Sabrina: what we kind of refer to it as is responsibility. Do I have responsibility in this? If I do, then what’s my role? If I don’t, then it’s okay to me, for me to just remove [00:17:00] myself from it. And so we wanna look at that. if I have something that I do need to be accountable, I will take accountability for my part. But I’m not gonna worry about taking accountability for everyone else’s part. And if I have someone in my life who refuses accountability over and over and over again, then I need to learn from that and realize my expectations for this person need to look very different. Maybe I choose not to have them in my life. Maybe I do. But those boundaries look a bit different rather than constantly trying to get them to take responsibility. I realize that that’s not my place. I need to just figure out me. That’s it. Hmm. Gissele : Are there any sort of behaviors that don’t outwardly seem as issues of not being good enough but are or might be? Sabrina: Busyness is a big one. You know, it’s almost a bit of a bragging rights in our society to be busy, right? Oh, I’m so busy. I got this activity, I got this, I got my kids, I got this, I got this, I got [00:18:00] this. Busyness is not good. Mm-hmm. Busyness is a distraction. As long as I’m, again, running around focusing on all these things, you know, out in front of me, that’s all time I can use to avoid and distract from what’s really going on within me. So we often see that as a pretty significant symptom. Same with control. Micromanaging. A lot of people may see that as a healthy coping strategy, but it really is not a healthy coping strategy. You know, when we look at coping strategies, one of the things we talk about is, you know, a coping strategy in itself is not really healthy or unhealthy. It’s how I choose to use it, right? Mm-hmm. So if I go out and have a drink of wine with, you know, a couple girlfriends once every couple weeks or whatever, it’s probably a healthy coping strategy. But if I’m drinking because I’m feeling emotions and I need to numb everything, and I’m drinking way too much, and it’s damaging relationships. Then it’s more of an [00:19:00] unhealthy coping strategy. So we really need to look at why are we using it, if we’re using it so that at the end we feel good, we feel content. It makes us feel proud of how we’re handling things. It’s allowing us to feel our emotions sort through things. Probably healthy coping strategy. Unhealthy usually is used to the extreme, either way too extreme or we shut it off and don’t do it at all. Like exercise Now I’m not exercising at all. And so it’s used to the extreme. It’s used to escape and avoid dealing with things. It’s used to numb our emotions so we don’t have to feel our emotions. It ultimately, after we do it, we feel guilt, bad regret, reinforcing and supporting. Not good enough, not important, not valued. So rather than looking specifically at the behavior, we need to look at why am I using it? That’s gonna give you more idea of which core belief you are reinforcing. Gissele : So what do you think the role of compassion is in [00:20:00] helping somebody go through the difficult emotions? Because as a person who has done it, who sat with probably the most challenging emotions that she has faced, a lot of the fears, it can feel really overwhelming. What helps people sort of titrate or stay in it long enough to get to the other side of it? Sabrina: You know, I think like most things, it’s really about practice. The more you practice it, the more comfortable it becomes. You know, with a lot of my clients that are in their thirties, forties, fifties, you know, my oldest clients are in their seventies. They’ve spent decades avoiding feeling emotion. And so how do you start to feel emotion where that doesn’t feel absolutely overwhelming? ’cause most of them are full up with emotion. So the thought of feeling emotion is just too much. So we always go back and start very, very small. You know, I have a emotions list on my website, but really if you Google Emotions list, you’ll, you’ll find a hundred of them. I tell my clients, print them off, [00:21:00] put them all over your house. Then when you start feeling angry, overwhelmed, just kind of off like something’s bothering you, pick up the emotion list and just read through it. The emotions that you are feeling, you’ll recognize. So now you’re starting. Don’t even have to say it out loud, just read it. So you allow yourself to feel the emotion just a little tiny bit. Doesn’t feel quite as overwhelming. Then after you’ve done that a few times, then you can say the words out loud. ’cause even saying sad out loud creates a bit of sadness. So now I’m feeling a bit more confident. I keep using that for a while, then I get to that place where I can just stop and think about what I’m feeling in the moment. But it takes time and practice. You gotta build that up. So I think a big part of compassion is. Confidence. I have to believe in myself. I can handle being compassionate to myself and to others. Once we build that confidence, then that compassion almost just seems to more just kind [00:22:00] of naturally flow because we can let our own defenses down and really just be present and in the moment with ourselves or with others. Gissele : so thank you for that. I really appreciated that. what are some of the things or signs that will help them know that they’re changing, for example, that they’re starting to feel more good enough? Because I think sometimes we are very good at saying, these are the signposts of things that aren’t working, but what are some signposts of things where people are like, yeah, you know what? Things are changing. You’re changing. Sabrina: You don’t feel as stressed at the end of the day. Mm-hmm. You’re sleeping a little bit better, you smile a bit more. Mm-hmm. You are open to other people’s opinions, thoughts. criticism, feedback you’re not as defensive. You’re able to kind of just listen to what someone else is saying. You’re getting better at feeling your emotions and sorting through your emotions. You are [00:23:00] using more healthier coping strategies that at the end of it, you feel proud of yourself. Right. Whether it’s going for a walk or listening to music or doing some journaling, at the end of it, you feel like, wow, I, you know, I, I handled that really well. You are more patient, you are more calm. you are more open to other people’s suggestions. All those kind of things are suggesting you believing more in yourself. You can handle more. That means that core belief is shifting. You’re willing to take risks, try new things, listening to podcasts, different things like that where you’re stepping outta your comfort zone, creating new opportunities and experiences. Gissele : Yeah. Yeah. Somebody that I was talking to was saying that they’re gonna take two things that make them uncomfortable, like two risks a day. I thought that was pretty cool. Like a pretty cool idea to become more, much more comfortable with discomfort, right? Sabrina: For sure. [00:24:00] Remember, anxiety is lack of confidence, not believing in yourself. You can handle something, so every time you try something new. There should be more anxiety because it’s something you haven’t done before. Mm-hmm. Right. Even just building your confidence in taking risks and trying something new where now, oh, it’s scary, but I know I can handle it. ’cause I’ve stepped outta my comfort zone many times as well. One of the things we say in this model of therapy is nothing really stays the same. Yeah. So if you are not challenging and stepping outta your comfort zone, it’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. Gissele : Yeah. Thank you for mentioning that. I’ve had many conversations with different people in my life and one of the things it’s like. I don’t like to say pick your hard but it is sort of like that if you face your, difficult emotions now, later on, it gets easier. The more that you choose from fear, the more you constrict and constraint, the smaller and smaller and smaller your world becomes. And it [00:25:00] feels much more difficult to do it. Later on do you find that your older clients tend to struggle a little bit more or is it just sort of buried? Sabrina: Well, okay. That’s a good question. So a lot of it is buried, but once we start opening it up, then yeah. And one of the things that the older clients have to recognize and acknowledge. Is the hurt they’ve caused to their adult children, their grandchildren, maybe even their great grandchildren, whereas someone who’s in their twenties and thirties, they haven’t had nearly enough time to hurt as many people. And so there’s not as much of that kind of responsibility piece with it, for sure.  you know, hurt people, hurt people. So if I was hurting, the chances that I did things to hurt other people is really, really high. Part of the counseling that we do is we need to acknowledge it and sort through that. ’cause as long as I’m carrying a bunch of stuff where I’ve hurt other people, why would I believe I have the right to a happy content life?  it’s not [00:26:00] balanced. So I need to deal with all those things that I’ve done to hurt people in order to really, truly heal. Hmm. Gissele : Yeah. And that’s very powerful. Shame and guilt can feel really overwhelming, right? people that don’t know how to regulate their emotions will do almost anything to avoid the feeling of shame, right? Because underneath there there’s a belief that you won’t be loved. And so what helps people work through the whole concept of shame? Sabrina: You know, I think shame loves not good enough and not good enough loves shame. They just feed off of each other for sure. And so it often is this thing that we’ve done that we feel bad about doing, and rather than just acknowledging it and addressing it, and understanding why we made the choices that we did. We just hold onto it. and as long as you’re carrying a lot of shame, you’re not gonna feel happy and content in your life. they just don’t balance out. Shame is significant. So one of the things you wanna do is, first, manage some of those other emotions. [00:27:00] Get better at feeling, you know vulnerability, loved, connected powerless, vulnerable, unheard and then start looking into the shame after you’ve had some experience feeling some of those other ones. If you start off with shame it’s almost too overwhelming and we just end up shutting it off. Then you have to acknowledge and allow yourself to feel that, take responsibility for the actions that created that shame, and then you can start to kind of move on. You know, guilt’s another one. a lot of us were raised with parents who used guilt as a parenting coping strategy. So it’s ingrained in our head that we just automatically feel guilty about everything because that’s how our parents tried to control our behaviors. So that’s a really ingrained thinking pattern more than an emotion. It is a thinking pattern. Mm-hmm. The good thing about that is we can go back and change it. The definition we use of guilt is [00:28:00] not living up to someone’s expectations, usually our own. Hmm. So once I challenge those expectations and change the expectations, the guilt goes down. So, for example, if I was always taught, you never say no, you please everyone don’t ever wanna upset or make anyone else unhappy. That’s my pattern of thinking, sacrifice to make everyone else happy. But now I’m thinking I wanna have a voice. I wanna start saying, no, I wanna start taking care of myself. Well, those collide. Yeah. I can’t say no and make everyone else happy. So I have to change and adjust my expectations. So my expectation now is I need to be respectful when I say no, but it is okay if I have a voice and it is inconvenience or awkward for the other person. That’s for them to figure out. Now as I tell myself that I’m not gonna feel guilty because I’m expecting that this may be uncomfortable for them, and that’s okay. That [00:29:00] guilt dissipates guilt’s more of a thought than it really is an emotion. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Yeah. You mentioned the difference between thoughts and emotions. And, and this is just my perspective, I usually find that. All emotions begin with a thought. So you usually have a thought first, which you have interpreted, and then some somehow have a big emotion about or not. Right? And so is it accurate that The habits that are formed from just your thoughts are easier to manage than ones that are based on thoughts and emotions. Sabrina: That’s how emotions are created. So what happens is we have a thought that creates a chemical reaction that we then feel physiologically in our body creating the emotion. Our thoughts create our emotions. So the good thing about that is if I’m feeling really anxious and I challenge and control my thoughts, the anxiety goes away. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Sabrina: Right? If I’m [00:30:00] feeling really angry and I can stop and go, what are my thoughts? And I can realize, oh yeah, those thoughts are gonna create anger, challenge, and change those thoughts, the anger goes away. So neutral thoughts gonna create neutral emotions. But if we’re having thoughts of people hurting us, of feeling taken advantage of feeling you know, of being unappreciated, that is going to create emotions that we then feel physiologically in our body. Gissele : Mm-hmm. you mentioned that whole concept of not good enough. Where does self-love fit into the whole concept of good enough? Sabrina: the more you feel good enough, important and valued, the more you feel loved and content, right? Our kind of end goal is that contentment. You just feel peace within yourself. you love yourself. I’m always a bit cautious around the word love. Because it has been warped in many situations. Yeah. I’ve heard [00:31:00] clients tell me love means taking abuse. Mm-hmm. Love means sacrificing myself to not cause any, issues. Love means keeping secrets. Yeah. Right. Then we have the other extreme where we say, I love you now almost too much. It’s almost like, hi. Like I’ll say, oh, you know I love you. Oh, and I love spaghetti. Well, Gissele : yeah. Sabrina: So what does that really mean? So I think we need to even be aware of what is my definition of love? Is it a healthy definition or is it more of an unhealthy definition? And then what? What else does that look like? Contentment. Peace, calm thoughts. You know it, you’ve gotta define it. love is almost a bit of that symptom word. We need to go deeper. We’ve gone through generation, you know, my parents were never said, I love you. Never said it at all. and didn’t have to, didn’t create any emotions. But now we still don’t wanna say feel emotions, so now we [00:32:00] say, I love you a thousand times. So it really still doesn’t create a lot of emotion. Mm-hmm. So I find that balance and really be careful of what that word means to us, for sure. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you for that. And so using whatever different term you’re gonna use, as long as you’re getting at the same thing which is about thriving, I think is really important. You mentioned that anxiety is lack of confidence. What’s depression? Sabrina: they go together in a cycle, right? Mm-hmm. So anxiety is that fight, flight, freeze on guard, ready to attack. Well, you can only do that for so long and it’s exhausting. So then we kind of slip into the depression where I just don’t have to feel anything. I can curl up in a bit of a ball. I don’t have to deal with anything, but then that kind of passes I feel a bit better. So I come out of that, but now I’m in that fight flight freeze again. So we often see depression and anxiety often working together in a cycle for sure. Depression, you know, is [00:33:00] another way of reinforcing and supporting that not good enough if I feel not good enough. Not important, not valued. What’s the point? Why bother? So, you know, just like we talked about how that core belief can present in alcohol, drugs, gambling, anxiety is one. Depression is one as well. Gissele : I also wanted to emphasize the fact that, you know, the work that you’re doing is focusing on people feeling good enough from within. Many people try to find it from outside, whether it be through overworking, like you mentioned, through acquiring all the things they think they should have or by acquiring love from outside. What sort of the mindset shift that needs to happen for people to realize that? It’s something that they can give to themselves from within versus from without. Because if you look at this world, everything in this world that we teach is get it from the external. Sabrina: if my core belief is not good enough, not important, not [00:34:00] valued, I don’t believe I have much to offer even to myself. But if I get it in a car, a big house, if I get a new dirt bike, if I have the best, whatever it is mm-hmm. Then I’ll be good enough. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Sabrina: As long as you’re looking externally, you’re not going to find it. But if I don’t believe in myself, I don’t really believe that I have it within even myself. So I think that’s one of the first stages, is really becoming more aware of where is my core belief at. How much do I really give myself that opportunity to feel good enough, important and valued. Once you become aware, even just becoming aware starts to develop that core belief good enough, important and valued. ’cause now you know what’s there and you’re willing to challenge it. Honestly, if I don’t think I can even handle doing that, I’m not going to. So once we even start to become aware of it, that core belief is shifting. Once that core belief shifts, then we can continue to build on it little tiny step at a time where we start to find more of our own worth and [00:35:00] value within ourselves. As we do that, we just naturally start to kind of look more inward and don’t worry so much about the outside stuff. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. Gissele : But the journey towards. Shifting from not feeling good enough to feeling good enough can sometimes feel very challenging, right? Because you are dealing with difficult emotions. What are some of the things that keep people moving forward? Sabrina: it can be absolutely terrifying, you know? Mm-hmm. I’ll say to my clients, going through and challenging and changing this core belief is going to be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. The only thing maybe harder is living the way you’ve been living. Yeah. Right. But the only way to really keep is you gotta let all that stuff out. Well, letting all that stuff out sucks. Mm-hmm. It is lot fun. It’s terrifying. It’s a lot of work. It’s exhausting, but going very, very [00:36:00] slow helps you build confidence so you feel more in yourself. You can handle it. Reminding yourself that to heal, I gotta let this out. The more you let it out, the better it is. You are never going to feel emotion that you aren’t carrying. So if there’s emotion there, let it out. Mm-hmm. Every time you do that, it gets a little bit easier and you feel a bit better. Right? Mm-hmm. We have a good cry. We always feel a bit of a sense of relief the next day. Continuing to do that. They work hand in hand. So as you practice, you’re learning more, you’re understanding more, but you’re also feeling better, feeling more content, feeling more good enough, important and valued, feeling more pride. So they feed off of each other and you can continue to move forward. But they’re definitely, I know for my clients, every single client, there are days where they think I don’t wanna do this. Like, what’s the point? You said I was gonna get better? I feel worse than I did before. Because you’re in it, right? Part of moving and getting healthy [00:37:00] is you may have a bit of an idea of what you wanna work towards, but you haven’t figured out how to get there yet. That is frustrating, but you have to keep practicing and practicing and practicing hope. You know, I think hope is okay for a period of time, but we need much more than hope. You know, if I’m going hiking in the Outback and I say to my guide. Do you know where we’re going? And he says, I hope so. I’m probably not going with them. Right. And so hope can can get us over that lip a little bit, but we need to have a plan. We need to have practice behaviors so we know what we’re doing, not just hoping. Gissele : Mm-hmm. And you know, as you were talking, I was thinking People who have done hard things, the people that overcame, you know, the Holocaust, they saw themselves beyond that experience. They might have died, but they needed to see themselves beyond that experience. So there is an element of belief that you can do it. There is that element [00:38:00] of desire to say, I don’t know how, I don’t know when, when I’m gonna get through this, this hurdle. What do you think the role of affirmations are in helping people gain more confidence and feel more good enough? Sabrina: You know what, again, it can be a surface level thing, right? I can tell myself a thousand times that I am good enough, but if I don’t believe it, it’s not going to do any good. So what we talk about with all those kind of. Tools is, it really is just a tool. It’s up to you how much you wanna apply it. So I can have an affirmation that I say, I, you know, I stick on a sticky note on my bathroom and I see it every day. But we all know after about five days, we don’t even really notice it there anymore. It’s not, gonna be of benefit, but if I’m using that affirmation to remind myself, to reframe my thinking, to challenge myself, to see things differently. Then they can have an impact. So it’s not so much about the tool, it’s about how [00:39:00] am I using it? Am I using it to make changes to believe in myself or am I using it to actually beat myself up? Gissele : Yeah. Yeah. Are there any other tools that you think that are helpful in helping people start on their journey? Sabrina: I think there’s two really important pieces. First one is breathing. So when we’re going into that fight, flight, freeze response, and we’ve got adrenaline being dumped into our body, we also have a chemical called cortisol being dumped into our brain. Cortisol stops us from thinking we can’t use logic and reason, understand consequences feel our emotions. It has a massive impact in our brain. Breathing stops that fight, flight, freeze response from happening. So if I’m in danger, we often hold our breath shallow breathing. When I take nice deep breaths, my brain goes. Oh, we’re not in danger. And so it is a really effective tool in helping to stop and [00:40:00] break that fight, flight, freeze response from happening. What I usually say to my clients is don’t wait until your anxiety is a 10 outta 10 to breathe. You definitely need to Breathe outta 10, outta 10, but start breathing regularly throughout the day. It just brings everything back down. So breathing is a really, really effective coping strategy for sure. But the other one is make a plan. Remember, anxiety is a lack of confidence. Well, if I have a plan of how I’m gonna handle something, I’m going to feel way more confident in handling it. So a lot of times we have those worry thoughts, those what if scenarios, we just let them repeat over and over and over and over and over in our head. We say, take that thought, write it down on a piece of paper and figure out what do I do if this happens? Once we have a plan, we realize, oh, I could handle it. That anxious thought goes away. If it’s still there a little bit, it’s gonna be much less. But then you [00:41:00] just remind myself, no, I just do A, B, and C, and I would handle it. Even taking that to worst case scenario. Right. So, you know, let’s say I’m working with a student who is worried about failing a test. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Sabrina: So we can make a plan about what do you do to not fail the test. But that’s not the worry thought. The worry thought is what if I fail? So what if, if you fail your test, what do you do? You talk to the teacher, you know, you see if you can rewrite, you study more for the next ones. You do really well on your presentations so that you are bringing your markup, okay, so I can handle failing this test. Worst case scenario, what if I fail the whole course? So what do you do? You retake it. Maybe you drop out and you start working. Even the worst case scenario we could handle. So once we start making a plan, we can really help believe in ourselves more that we would handle it. [00:42:00] Might not be fun, might not be great. I probably won’t even be very graceful in doing it, but it will happen. We are way more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. You. Think about all the experiences you’ve been through in your life. You’ve survived them ’cause you’re here now. Mm-hmm. We need to stop and look at that. I’ve handled all these things. Can I handle failing a test? Yep. Probably. Mm-hmm. Won’t be fun. Mm-hmm. It’s gonna create emotion that I don’t wanna feel, but yeah, I can handle it. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Sabrina: So I think those are two really important strategies. Breathing and make plans. Mm-hmm. Gissele : Is there a level of detachment that should happen when you create a plan? during the time. When I was challenged the most creating that plan might’ve introduced a lot of resistance in me if it didn’t come through the way that I had planned. And so I think that would’ve generated a little bit more fear in me. Is there a level of detachment or maybe different options that would’ve helped and [00:43:00] the other thing that would probably have arisen in me was well, I’m feeding that experience. I’m saying that that’s gonna happen. Sabrina: Yeah. Right. Well, well, and the problem is, you probably are already thinking that’s gonna happen a thousand times in your head. Yeah. So let’s just acknowledge it and say, okay, what do, if it happens? Mm-hmm. With a lot of our anxious thoughts, they never even really happen. So we don’t even have to put the plan into place. But in knowing we have a plan builds confidence, which means those anxious thoughts are going to go down. You know, when we first start doing it, well, I think even after we’ve been doing it for a really long time. We can have a plan and the chances that it’s gonna go exactly the way our plan is, is laid out not very high. That’s just not the way life works. Mm-hmm. So the first few ones can be, frustrating, but after you’ve made plan 10, 15, 20 times, you start realizing, okay, I can adapt that piece and I can challenge that piece. And I never even thought about that, but I figured out how to handle it because it’s not even really about the plan. It’s about [00:44:00] building confidence, helping me realize I got this, I can handle it, I can figure it out. And so over time, that happens. But the, the plan is often more thought based than emotion based. It doesn’t have to be, but often it is. It’s more, you know, I’m thinking through more than I am really feeling through. Gissele : Hmm. I was just thinking of a quote that I had heard about how people with good mental health are people that are the most flexible. Flexible and flowing who are willing to go with life. It’s not that life doesn’t give you adversity or things don’t happen. it’s the willingness to be flexible and the ability to bend. And it really is the people that are the most in resistance and struggle the most, or the people that are want to control and are not. Able to adjust, Sabrina: right? More. My core belief is good enough. The more confident I’m gonna be. So the more, no matter what comes up, I got it. I’ll figure it out. Core belief, not [00:45:00] good enough. More insecurity. I don’t trust in myself that I can handle any of these things, so it’s gotta go exactly like plan. Mm-hmm. And so it’s, it’s building that we, you know, we don’t want that plan to be like a routine where it has to go A, B, C, D. It’s more about how do I handle these kind of scenarios and building that confidence rather than creating more rigid plans. For sure. Gissele : Yeah. And that flexible and flowing can make you feel like. Right. Because when you stop controlling things in your life, there’s an openness, there’s a sense of, oh, I don’t have to do all of that. I don’t have to control life anymore. I can just allow it. And that doesn’t mean that things aren’t gonna happen. You know, there’s a difference between pain and suffering, right? Everybody experiences pain, whether we choose to. Suffer is optional. Like when I think about my experiences, many times I [00:46:00] experienced pain, but I was the one who was causing myself suffering by repeating those same thoughts and constricting and all of that stuff. But it’s hard for us to acknowledge that we are doing that to ourselves. Right? Right. Sabrina: It’s that responsibility piece. I think same with the word stress, right? People often talk about how everything is so stressful. You create your own stress. If you go into it thinking, I can’t handle this, yeah, you’re gonna be stressed out. But if you go in feeling confident, knowing that no matter what comes, you’ll figure it out and you will handle it. It’s not as stressful. there are varying things for sure, something really significant happen. It may create more stress than other things, but if we’re really stressed all the time, you are creating your own stress by how you are thinking about how you’re gonna handle the event. Not the event itself. Gissele : Hmm. Yeah. Thank you. So I wanted to give you an opportunity to share where can people find you? Where can they work [00:47:00] with you? Tell us a little bit more about your book. Sabrina: Sure. So my book is not good enough. Understanding Your Core Belief and Anxiety. It’s available on Amazon’s. It is a handbook. So you’re reading about core belief and in general, but then you do an activity where you’re applying that information to your own personal experiences. So it’s a, a book about self-reflection, learning more, understanding more about your core belief, and then how is it, you know, showing up in your life. And then what do you do? What are some things you can do to challenge yourself? To start to feel more and more good enough, important and valued. I am also on on most social media. I am Sabrina Trobak on YouTube and on LinkedIn. I am NGE. So not good enough. Understand. NGE_Trobak on Instagram and NGE_CoreBelief on TikTok. And then I’m on Facebook as well in [00:48:00] Trobak holistic counseling. Mm-hmm. Wonderful I have a website, http://www.trobakholistic.org. On my website is a page to my book. It’s got a blog section, which is just short, two to four minute reads about everything. Also got a link, a page that links all of the podcast interviews that I’ve done as well. Gissele : Hmm. Beautiful. So one final question. I ask this of all my guests. What is your definition of love? Sabrina: I, I would say my definition of love is. Probably just one word. Acceptance. Mm-hmm. Acceptance of self and others. And, and sometimes that means giving love and sometimes that means moving on. Gissele : Hmm. I like that. I like that. Even acceptance of situations. Right. If you have the confidence to believe that you can overcome anything, it’s just acceptance. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Sabrina, for being on the show and for sharing your wisdom with [00:49:00] us, and thank you to those who tuned into love and compassion with Gissele Stay tuned for another episode.

TRANSCRIPT Gissele : [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele.  We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking to Krysti Beckett, who’s a passionate plus size personal trainer and pelvic fitness specialist. Her goal is to get moms to move with confidence and build strength at any size without worrying about their size or weight. Krysti resides in Burford, Ontario with her husband, three children and beloved dog Ozzy. Please join me in welcoming Krysti Hi Krysti. Krysti Beckett: Hi. Thanks so much for having me. Gissele : No, thank you for being with us. I wanted to ask you if you could tell the audience how you got started in this business that you’re in. Krysti Beckett: Yeah, I mean, as a young person, fitness was not [00:01:00] really on my radar. I’ve been a plus size my whole life, but I actually was a nanny in my early twenties and one of the women I was a nanny for had a fitness business and she said, you know, you’d be really good at this. So I kind of started doing admin work and then I got certified as an instructor and really like, found movement that I liked. ’cause I think for a lot of women I grew up. Just doing fitness, like you exercise to be skinny. And it had to be hard and it had to be uncomfortable. But I kind of fell in love with it, trying different things and decided that that was the career path I would take. So I became a personal trainer and I kind of did follow the grain for a long time with the fitness industry and selling weight loss and teaching people how to basically always be on the journey to lose weight And then I kind of understood and, and saw some research that showed that [00:02:00] most diets are actually designed to fail. That’s how we make our money. And started to learn more about. The benefits of strength training for longevity to relieve pain. the benefits for your bones, all sorts of things that have nothing to do with the scale whatsoever. And through that, also becoming a mother at the, around the same time learning about pelvic health. So as a pelvic fitness specialist, I’m working with women to overcome things like pain, leaking, painful sex something called prolapse, where your pelvic floor, if it’s not supportive enough, the organs can actually descend from your body. And it’s actually fairly common, but it’s, it’s something we just don’t talk about enough. Gissele : Mm mm I love everything you just said. Krysti Beckett: Thanks. Gissele : The first thing is really that, you know, reflecting on as a society we’re very plus size phobic, right? Like we, we think that skinny is the place to [00:03:00] be in. When you think about. You know how much we try to get everyone to fit in a box, right? Even like plastic surgery, everything. Everybody has the same nose, everybody has the same face, everybody has to have the same body, and that is such a disservice. What sort of messaging did you see around the fitness industry about people embracing their own sort of like body shape? Krysti Beckett: So unfortunately, I think the industry as a whole doesn’t, if you were to Google Fitness, if you were to Google Gym, you’ll find young, white, thin bodies.  that’s the general representation that comes to the fitness industry. But it’s interesting because first of all, we white people, I mean, I’m a white person. We are the global minority. It’s people of color, the global majority, and yet this [00:04:00] industry has only reflected that in, you know, visually especially it’s become an aesthetic rather than about health. There are certainly other professionals like myself that serve as health at any size or fitness at any size, but there’s comparatively very few of us. Gissele : Hmm. You just got to triggering in my head, when I think about fitness and I think about what you were just talking about, I envision sort of the Lululemon. Yes. Even like yoga has sort of been sort of taking over. ’cause yo yoga’s supposed to be a spiritual practice as well as a physical one. Krysti Beckett: Mm-hmm. Gissele : Right? But then you, and then I’m not trying to judge the Lululemon wearing. Yoga people. It’s just that, you know, I sort of envisioning how everyone’s trying to fit that mold. And if you don’t have workout gear, that makes you look acceptable. I was one of [00:05:00] those, I never had workout gear that would be presentable, right? I half the time didn’t remember to shave my legs And so, yeah, the messaging that people are receiving is that they’re not good enough, right? Krysti Beckett: A hundred, a hundred percent. And to tie in into what you just mentioned a lot of traditional practices that belong to other cultures. Like yoga have been whitewashed. And so there’s this, I can’t even think of the comedian’s name, but she is East Indian and she has this hilarious bit where she talks about like, if you are rushing to yoga, you are doing it wrong. The whole purpose of yoga is to slow down and restore yourself, and it’s something people do in their pajamas. But in our western culture, it’s people hustling to get to class and they’re taking their fancy yoga mat and they have to, like you said, the Lululemon [00:06:00] clothes. And it’s you know, on, on Instagram, especially when we see these influencers, they’re very thin. They’re wearing all the fancy gear and, and doing the very extreme poses, handstands and floating and, it’s incredible the things we can do with our bodies, but it’s also an, that’s an ableist perspective. Most of the population cannot move their body that way, could they? With training and display, I mean, it’s very possible, but for most people, that’s not what their bodies do, and that’s not necessarily what fitness looks like for them. Gissele : Yeah. And I was just contemplating on the fact that there have been now yoga studios that do drinking and yoga, right? Krysti Beckett: Oh yeah. Gissele : And so they do drinking and yoga, and then they do like the puppy and that, that’s all great. Like if that’s what you wanna do. But like you said, like, are we abiding by the true essence of [00:07:00] the practice? Right? Right. And are we creating environments that are. Open to different body shapes, different sizes, and let me know your thoughts about this, because I always thought these sorts of things are just a mirror of us, how we reject ourselves, right?  plastic surgery these are billions of dollars. So these are people that are realizing or thinking that they’re not enough, that they need to look a certain way. the diet industry is billions of dollars. Ozempic, I’m interested in all your thoughts. Krysti Beckett: Yeah. I, so to start off, culturally, we are people that expect instant everything. I mean, we no longer wonder or search for information in our brain. Like, what was that actor’s name again? Or what was that thing that happened last week in the news? We instantly can pull up our phones and we can get the [00:08:00] answer in seconds. And so when it comes to something like our bodies, everything takes time, everything. And so to expect that you can change your body, particularly in appearance instantaneously, is not realistic. And. Unfortunately, I think a lot of pressure is put on us. One of the ways that the diet indu industry really messes with our heads is before and after pictures. And though the intention maybe, and I did, I used them for a time as a personal trainer. The, the intention was to show if you put in the work, you will get results. But that’s not what it ends up doing. What it ends up doing is telling our brains, here’s a body ideal. Here’s what you have. It’s not enough, it’s not worthy. Here’s what you can [00:09:00] have that is worthy. You will be a better person. We will respect you more. We will see you as far more valuable if you have a smaller, more chiseled body. And with Ozempic it’s such a weird time for us. In the states, especially celebrities can market pharmaceuticals. So we have Gissele : mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: These beautiful people Gissele : mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Who may or may not be using the drug being paid to market it. So using their influence in order to sell it. And I’ve had three clients that were on ozempic, two of them for diabetes but all three with the goal of weight loss. All three of them women in their fifties and no, maybe sixties have come off it because even though they did say it did help them reduce their eating, they found that they were always overeating and they were always thinking about food. They all reported low [00:10:00] energy and muscle loss. And no one is talking about this because especially after 50 perimenopause, when your estrogen drops, it is harder to keep your muscle, let alone, to grow it, to make more muscle. Mm-hmm. With ozempic. You are making it astronomically harder because it’s actually removing some of that muscle. And above and and above that there are other things that people are reporting. It’s hard, it’s hard to really know what the, the landscape is going to look like. Yeah. Over the next decade or two because it is so popular and seeing the effects. But every single medication out there, and I’m not knocking medication. I have used medication, you know that is a discussion between you and your doctor. But that discussion should always, always include the risks. And there are always risks to medication. You have to make that decision with your doctor. Is the risk worth it? Are [00:11:00] you going to get significant benefits to improve your health and your life? Right? But going on Ozempic because you saw a celebrity selling it because you think it’s going to solve all your problems with weight loss. I don’t know. I don’t know that it is. Gissele : Yeah. And I think one of the things that you just mentioned, which triggered in my head, it’s one thing to take a pill to help yourself, like as a stepping stone, But if it’s impacting your ability to create healthy habits, that you can continue beyond that pill, I think that’s where I start to wonder whether or not it’s really helping. Right? So if you take for example, something that can help you, manage your pain so you can start walking and out there and getting more physically fit, Krysti Beckett: right? Gissele : That makes sense, right? You wanna manage the, the symptom in the moment. But if it’s impacting your ability in the long term, and you and I have chatted before about Blue Zones [00:12:00] and about the importance of movement, right? And so if that’s preventing you from moving and creating those long-term habits, it’s would be concerning to me that that’s an option. Krysti Beckett: I think even, and speaking from experience with you know, having seasons of debilitating mental health, there were periods of time where I did need medication to function. I did need medication to get out of bed to be able to think clearly without I go back to the word debilitating, right? There are seasons of our lives where we need this, and of course there are, you know, lifelong chronic struggles where people are dependent on medication, and I’m so grateful that we live in a time where so much is available, but again, we have to have those discussions with knowledgeable professionals to know what we’re getting into because it can, it can lead [00:13:00] to alternatives that maybe we weren’t anticipating or thinking about. Gissele : Yeah. Yeah. I just wanna clarify for my listeners, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to change, right? Like, so there’s nothing wrong with, you know, wanting to be thin or wanting to be plus size or wanting to be fitter. Mm-hmm. It’s the way that it is marketed, the way that the messaging is you are not enough. Krysti Beckett: Mm-hmm. If Gissele : you are not thin, you’re not enough. If you don’t look a certain way. I think that’s probably the most damaging thing, that we accept those messages and then change ourselves because it is okay to love and accept yourself and choose to change. Krysti Beckett: Absolutely. Gissele : Right. And say, you know what, because I, I dye my hair, I just like my hair darker right now. It doesn’t mean I, I don’t like my gray hair. And sometimes I grow up my roots quite a bit. I’m not rejecting myself either way. I [00:14:00] just have a preference, but it’s not gonna make or break me if I don’t go a month or two months without dying my hair. what has been your experience around the women that you have supported about their worthiness, around weight issues? Krysti Beckett: Yeah, it’s interesting ’cause what you just said about being content with who you are, but also wanting something different is, is not a bad thing. And I a hundred percent agree with you. It is a very uncomfortable conversation to have with yourself, to sit with the reasons why you’re doing something when it comes to your body. When you really start to think about, am I doing this because I want it? Or am I doing this because someone said something? Am I doing this because my mom commented on what’s on my plate at Thanksgiving? Am I doing this? Because every time I look at my pre-pregnancy jeans, I cry, am I [00:15:00] doing this because I saw another ad on my phone that’s telling me that I can lose 20 pounds in just six weeks? And why can’t I just do this on my own already?  the conversations I have with my clients are truly, is it what you want or do you need to set boundaries with your mom? Is it what you want? Or do you need to get rid of those jeans and just spend the money and buy jeans That feel good? Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Is it what you want or do you need to tell that ad on your social media? No more? Like, what is that function where you’re Gissele : like, I don’t Krysti Beckett: wanna Gissele : see this kind of ad anymore. Krysti Beckett: there are things that we can do. We do have choices. And understanding that you can take that power back. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: You can. You can. And it’s, again, it’s uncomfortable, which I think is why it stops us. I’m totally guilty of not being assertive to somebody [00:16:00] in the moment and saying, I don’t like what you’re saying to me. Sometimes I go back, sometimes I let it fester. Like I’m gonna be totally honest, right? Gissele : Like, yeah, yeah, we do that. Yeah, Krysti Beckett: we, we do that. And that’s, Gissele : mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Some of it’s human nature. Some of it’s how we were raised, some of it is cultural. Women are not to be loud. If we are if we are assertive, like we are called a bitch, like it’s Gissele : mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Right? Like there are just things that culturally are not acceptable or that we’ve just learned to act a certain way. And so sometimes with my clients, it’s before they gain the confidence to do something different, they have to sit with that discomfort and give themselves permission to do whatever the heck they want and what’s actually going to benefit them. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Bravo I think figuring out like whose voice are we listening to, and is [00:17:00] it our true desire from our heart or is it someone else’s criticism of us that we’re listening to and maybe some people were raised with parents that, taught them those self-regulation skills. I certainly was not, my parents really didn’t know how to emotionally regulate themselves, and so I was not taught how to sit with those uncomfortable feelings. for you, what do you find helps you sit longer in that conversation or dialogue without pushing the eject button? Krysti Beckett: Ooh, I find that journaling is helpful because otherwise I ruminate. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: And one of my. Funny enough, one of the, the pelvic physios that I’ve had and her assistant were like, absolutely life changing because they came at pelvic health and physiotherapy from a perspective of rest. Gissele : Mm. Krysti Beckett: So it wasn’t about what can you do to fix this? It was about [00:18:00] slowing down and breathing and releasing tension before you went to the exercises. And Al Pat is her name and she taught me the phrase, rest is productive. And so in our sessions sometimes she would walk me through a meditation and then she’d say, whatever came up for you right now, let’s journal it. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: What came up for you in that time? Where did your brain wander? And she presented me with this concept that I didn’t realize how often I do it, but she called it time traveling.  So like chopping vegetables, I’ll be standing at the counter chopping vegetables and I’ll start to think about that thing I said to that person in the grocery store that I was really embarrassed about. Or I’ll start worrying about what my kid is going to do at that play date with that other kid that he’s been fighting. You know what I mean? Like, we start to either worry about things that have happened that we can’t change or worry about things that have [00:19:00] not even happened yet, or maybe they won’t ever happen. We, we are really good at this. Gissele : Yeah. Krysti Beckett: And so journaling and just bringing ourselves back to the present and telling ourselves, Nope, I’m not thinking about that right now. No, I don’t need to think about that right now. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you for that. It’s interesting ’cause one of the things I’ve learned about myself is that. What I find when I do too much past, it kind of leads me to feel more depressed and too much future can cause anxiety. So really being in the present moment is important. And I love what you said about those monotonous behaviors because I now use my monotonous behaviors to envision my ideal life. Krysti Beckett: Ooh, Gissele : I love that. So if I’m doing something, the socks, either I’m listening to someone that is inspiring, or I am daydreaming I’m going to use that time to think about what I wanna create, to think about the things that are exciting me, because I used to do the same thing. It was like that constant [00:20:00] back and forth past future, past, future, past, future, in my mind was not kind to me, right? Like it would go to the most negative thing. So I’m like, you know what? I’m wasting my energy. I’m wasting my time. That time could be better spent planting the seeds that I want to create. Right. Krysti Beckett: Yeah, absolutely. Gissele : Yeah. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about pelvic health. Krysti Beckett: Hmm. Gissele : Because, and that’s obviously related to movement because like you said, it’s something that’s not really talked about in women unless you live in like Denmark or something, or one of those Scandinavian countries where they actually apparently invest in women’s pelvic health. Why do you think we don’t talk about it? Why is it so taboo? Krysti Beckett: Oh gosh. Okay. So yes, you are right in some European countries, including France. Oh, of Gissele : France. That’s the one. Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Krysti Beckett: So France is like, they are like the topnotch country, in my opinion, when it comes to pelvic health. Mm, Gissele : [00:21:00] mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Women postpartum are given 12 weeks of pelvic physio. Women in France do not pee their pants. They do not deal with incontinence. It is part of their healthcare system. And here in Canada and the US physical therapy is generally not part of our healthcare. It occasionally is part of a surgical rehab. Although major abdominal surgery, like C-sections, hysterectomies, my ectomies, there is no rehabilitation investment whatsoever from our healthcare system, which is mind blowing, considering how small, how common it’s, Gissele : yep. Krysti Beckett: But when it comes to our healthcare system and, pelvic health, I think we don’t talk about it, number one, because it’s quite honestly, it affects women The most. Men have pelvises. They can have pelvic dysfunction, they can leak, yeah, they can [00:22:00] have pain during sex, things like that. But generally speaking, it’s not as big of a male issue. It is a female health issue. And when it comes to all the research that we have, women get a smidgen, they get like a little bit. And even the stuff that we do have, it’s geared towards, again, white women. And a lot of the standards that we have are, are based on the general population and not even for women. So for example menopause. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Had men included in the studies up until the nineties. Gissele : Wow. Krysti Beckett: So only the research. Yes. The research that we have for menopause. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Only in the last 30 years was it exclusively women. Gissele : Wow. talk about not generalizing to your target population. Krysti Beckett: When you think you, you think about the struggles that women have in health [00:23:00] and we’ve been taught not to complain and the common complaints are incontinence, so leaking pee when you don’t want to. So jumping, running, sneezing, laughing, coughing or painful sex, which is talked about even less. Gissele : Yeah. Krysti Beckett: And then prolapse I mentioned, or just pain in general in the pelvic area. They’ve become very common jokes in our culture. Like now that you’ve had a baby, you’re gonna have to wear Depends. Gissele : I was just gonna say that. How, how have we come to just accept that now there’s a diaper aisle for people? Krysti Beckett: Yeah. Gissele : Like, have you seen those commercials that are just basically like, here’s a diaper. Oh, this one feels comfortable. Like, why are we accepting that Krysti Beckett: and they market them sexy. Why are we Gissele : accepting that? Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: They market them as sexy, like the, the, it’s like invisible panty lines, but it’s like invisible diapers. Like you can’t tell that you’re wearing it underneath [00:24:00] Gissele : diaper. Krysti Beckett: Yeah. Yeah, it’s, it’s really interesting and I think the quick answer is that anything that can be capitalized is. Like truly, Gissele : ah, that’s, Krysti Beckett: yeah. Gissele : We’re accepting it, like you said. Krysti Beckett: Yeah. Gissele : We are giving it power. We are choosing to just use that instead of saying, no, I’m gonna heal this. Right. Yeah. The only advice I got post having two babies that like to some real movement down there and it, it was basically just do like as many Kegels as you can during the day. And I gotta be honest, that’s so freaking uncomfortable. I would never do them. I would never, ever do them. Like I’m telling you, it’s, it was until I started having some issues and then I’m like trying to kele myself to death. Right. And there are some tools out there that you can use, right? There’s the, there’s like a thing that you can like. [00:25:00] Exercise, right? There’s like that. Oh Krysti Beckett: yeah, yeah, Gissele : yeah. Krysti Beckett: So there’s, there’s lots of things out there, whether or not they’re beneficial, mm-hmm. To everyone’s situation. Really, really depends.  so Kegels, for anyone that’s listening or watching and doesn’t know what that is, but that is the term for the pelvic contraction of the muscle. So the tightening, and you have several muscles in there. Think of them as like, think of your pelvis. Your pelvis is actually two bones that joins at. Your spine think of that as like a basket. And the lining of the basket is a whole set of muscles and they have many functions. But they do hold in your urine and your feces and they do provide sexual function and pleasure. They hold up your organs, they actually contribute to blood flow in your body to help return blood flow back to your heart. So they, they do have a lot of functions and just like any other muscle. Every [00:26:00] muscle that functions in your body needs to be able to lengthen and contract. So when you’re feeding yourself cereal, when you reach for the spoon, you’re lengthening. And when you’re pulling the spoon towards your face, you’re contracting. Okay? When you do a bicep curl, you lower the weight. That’s a lengthen. When you bring it towards you, that’s contracting. You’re making the muscles shorter. So when we do Kegels, when we tighten them, that’s making the muscles short and strong. What happens to a lot of women and a lot, a lot of women, whether they’re doing Kegels or not, we tend to have an imbalanced pelvic floor. We tend to be very tight on one side and not tight enough in another, and that’s what causes the dysfunction. So dysfunction is anything that is not working properly. So to tell someone to just do Kegels, well, if you’re already too tight and you add more strengthening. It’s going to not help, it might [00:27:00] even make the problem worse. So in that case, that person might need to do some relaxation to release the muscles. And I don’t know about you, but having children is not relaxing most of the time. So for most women who have had children and over 85% of women will become mothers. Mm-hmm. They will have pregnancies and births. They need to manage their pelvic floor rather than worrying about being too tight or tight enough or pleasing their partner with their pelvic floor, which is another really awful message in our culture that pleasure is only for the man. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Sex should not hurt like ever. Gissele : No. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I’m glad you said that. I just wanted to go back to what you had said that your mentor had said about relaxing before doing the Kegels. Krysti Beckett: Yeah. Gissele : Can you talk a little bit about that? Krysti Beckett: Sure. So, a common thing that we do when we are stressed is we tense [00:28:00] muscles. Mm-hmm. We might not be conscious of how we do it, I’ll talk about three of the most common ones that affect your pelvic floor. One of them, which you can kind of think might directly relate is you actually clench your butt. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: So your glute muscles are not part of the pelvic floor, but every single muscle in the body does not work on its own. Every single muscle works with other systems, with other muscles. So there, there groups and there are pairs. And so your glutes, your butt muscles support your pelvic floor. Well, by clenching the butt we cause an imbalance. So that’s one area of tension. Another area of tension. Gissele : Sorry to interrupt you, but if, if somebody has constipation, that could also be indicative of Krysti Beckett: Oh yeah. Gissele : Yeah. Krysti Beckett: Okay. Constipation is a pelvic floor killer too. ’cause it causes a lot of pressure and strain on the pelvic floor. Gissele : Mm. Krysti Beckett: Yeah, there’s a lot. And dehydration contributes to that as well. Mm-hmm. Yeah, [00:29:00] that’s another one. Another area of tension is a lot of us like to clench our jaws. Gissele : Mm. Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: And there is fascia. Fascia is like like a netting, like a saran wrap that kind of covers our muscles that intertwine through our whole body. It’s a really amazing thing in our body. Mm-hmm. When we clench our jaw, that fascia runs from our jaw. There is fascia that runs from our jaw down our spine directly to our pelvic floor. And so they together. Gissele : Oh, Krysti Beckett: tighten. Another one is breath holding. So every time you breathe in your diaphragm, which is your breathing muscle under your lungs, it actually works like a sub pump with your pelvic floor. And when we hold our breath, whether that’s just thinking and ruminating, or maybe it’s every time we lift the laundry basket or, or lift our toddler or whatever, if we hold our breath, we create pressure in that canister. And by not releasing the air, by not breathing [00:30:00] through activities, by not breathing through our stress, we are creating tension. And again, that pressure can lead to other issues as well. So honestly, the, the best thing we can do is rest. To relieve tension, to breathe. And I think it’s such a, it’s become such a cliche thing. Oh, just breathe. Oh, just relax. And if somebody tells you that when you’re stressed out, we just get more mad. It’s not helpful. Fair enough. But, but truly, if we allowed ourselves to slow down, to breathe to rest, to actually believe that rest is productive mm-hmm. It would help us regulate our nervous systems. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: It would help us relax these tight muscles. It would allow us to actually be present, be in the moment, and [00:31:00] enjoy what’s going on, rather than always worrying about what’s next and worrying about how to fix something. Because sometimes the things that we need to fix start with stopping and slowing down. Gissele : Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. I always thought there was a connection with, especially with like incontinence, that there might be an association with a fear or, or Right. Because think about kids when they’re young. Like if they have fears, they usually will pee the bed or they have nightmares, right? So like is there an emotional component to the pelvic? Krysti Beckett: So the, the kids part. So from a physiological standpoint, it’s incredibly common. More so in boys. Mm-hmm. Up to 2% of boys with what? The bed until 14 years old. And the highest contributor to that is actually constipation. Oh, so poor diet or you mentioned fears and I have [00:32:00] heard people say, well, it’s ’cause it’s strict parenting. But like, I think you kind of have to see, you have to know kind of your research before making. Gissele : Yeah, of course. Those, Krysti Beckett: those things. But from a physiological standpoint,  Or they might be afraid of what might happen in the bathroom. And these are real fears. I mean, I was just talking with my clients in a class recently about how. Do you remember in middle school, like hiding the pad in your pocket and then when you got to the bathroom, you waited till the bathroom was completely empty to open the wrapper. Like you, we couldn’t mm-hmm. Have anyone know that we were menstruating. We like, it was just so, it embarrassing. So we’ve created kind of these conversations as young people. And then to add to that, I think that a lot of people generally have a, distrust and a shame when it comes to their pelvises, when it comes [00:33:00] to their genitals, because we over sexualize bodies. Gissele : Mm. Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: And so it no longer becomes, you know even the simple concept of saying the words penis and vagina, these are not dirty words, these are anatomy. Gissele : Yeah. But we didn’t even call it that before. Krysti Beckett: No. Gissele : Right. Like Coie and Chacha and all these other words. Yeah. We have, I think now our kids are, yeah. Before, like during my time, people didn’t really talk about it. And I love what you just said about it’s, it’s so true. This is part of our anatomy, but we have shamed ourselves.  I think this is why we have so much shame and guilt in, in the antidote to that is to have compassion for ourselves and to be kinder to ourselves when it comes to that discomfort that comes from having these conversations, which is why I love that we’re having it, we’re talking about, you know, pelvises and the importance of that health and, but you are right, like we are so used to [00:34:00] fighting these aspects of ourselves that we don’t talk about it and then we suffer in silence. Like, how many of us are suffering in silence, not knowing anything about pelvic health or not anything about the things that women are going through, right? Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: I think so many of us were taught messages, you know, like, you know, starting from a young age, you have private parts, you don’t show anyone else. Well, for some of us that led to hiding in change rooms. Gissele : Yeah. Krysti Beckett: No one’s allowed to see this and you’re not allowed, like, don’t look. Mm-hmm. And then going into sexual relationships and not understanding that painful sex is not normal. Gissele : Yeah. Krysti Beckett: Or understanding that like. Self, like self lubrication, like your body does to an extent, makes some, but if it doesn’t, like using a lubricant [00:35:00] is 100% okay. And encouraged so that you can actually enjoy being intimate on top of that. Self pleasuring is not a bad thing, it’s not a shameful thing. Mm-hmm. You can enjoy that beautiful body you have. And if, if you were raised in a church like I was, guess what God gave you that amazing body. Yes. And he gave you all those amazing functions. And guess what? It’s okay to enjoy what he gave you. Gissele : Yeah. And then you think that if we made like masturbation and all those things. Okay. Like if we, if there was a messaging then, then maybe people might be less likely to experiment with like penetration, maybe leading to less pregnancies.  I think it would open up the likelihood that women are more likely to have full expressive orgasms and have those like great experience and probably lead to less risky behavior. I don’t know. What do you think? [00:36:00] Krysti Beckett: I think, I think maybe it’s a bold statement, but I think men would be too afraid of how powerful we would be if we had complete control and enjoyment of our bodies. It’s a bold statement, Gissele : You know, there’s lots of people talking about like, the key to manifesting is using the O method. Have you heard of that? Krysti Beckett: I have not heard Gissele : this. Using an, using an orgasm to manifest your Right. Well, you’re about to orgasm. You think about your manifestation. If you just Krysti Beckett: wanna manifest orgasms, can you start there? Gissele : Exactly. That was brilliant. I gotta take my hat off of that one. In terms of pelvic health, are you seeing sort of a shift in terms of people engaging in more conversations with less shame and guilt over their bodies? Krysti Beckett: I think once women become aware of what is normal and what is common, like leaking is common. But a healthy pelvic floor, [00:37:00] you can control, you can pee when you want to. And you can enjoy sex and live pain free pain is your alarm system, right? So once people kinda hear, oh, I can do something about this. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: I do find that more women are taking those steps to book their assessment with a pelvic physiotherapist to understand how they need to change some habits to feel better. And for some women it’s as simple as drinking more water. And for some women it is a little bit more work like doing the exercises. And of course there are still barriers, physiotherapy, like I said, it’s not covered in our healthcare system. And as a fitness professional, I can’t diagnose your symptoms. I can help you improve your symptoms with my knowledge, but I can’t do an internal exam or anything like that. [00:38:00] So there still are going to be barriers where women will just not have the money to go get an exam. But we do the best with what we can. And I’m really glad to see the conversation shift that women are open to having these discussions, that they’re open to saying, okay, yeah, I did have painful sex, or I am having painful sex. Mm-hmm. And I would, I would like to not like to actually enjoy it again. Gissele : Yeah. Do you find certain ages are more open and receptive to talk about things like pelvic health? Krysti Beckett: Yeah, there’s a lot of women I think in the childbearing ages because you do tend to talk about your symptoms a lot in the pre postpartum period with your healthcare professional. When women start to talk and compare their experiences, that’s happening a lot and I’m seeing it a lot now, [00:39:00] particularly in women over 40 in perimenopause, which is also something that was very taboo. We just kind of had these stories about what women did and how they acted in menopause and you feared them. They were angry women with hot flashes, right? Mm-hmm. But, but now we’re seeing more women come, come forward and talk about their experiences and. I think that’s not only changing our healthcare, but it’s changing our communities as women, because we need that connection. We need to support each other. Hmm. And you know, your body, you’re gonna have it your entire life. Right. We have to learn how, how to manage it. And so having these conversations can not only validate you in your experience, [00:40:00] but it can open up doors to find what can help you through your experience. And even if there isn’t a remedy, then maybe it can at least help you understand that, okay, this, this is normal and I can manage it. Gissele : as you were talking, I was reflecting on something you said. Which really stuck out to me, which is we used to have all this secrecy about our bodies but secrecy is what leads to abuse, right? Like keep it secret, don’t tell anyone. Whereas making it out in the open forming community like you are. Putting people together as a support system, I think goes a long way in helping us lift each other up and support each other through our most challenging circumstances. I think there we’re sort of in a epidemic of loneliness and isolation that people are feeling I have to suffer through this alone in these opportunities of bringing women together in conversation, in discussion, in support, I [00:41:00] think are so amazing and I think something that definitely should be done, especially about, what people consider taboo topics, right? Like pelvic health. Yeah. Krysti Beckett: And when you know you’re right, secrecy can contribute to abuse. Absolutely. But also when you are suffering with something in your body, and even if it involves absolutely no one else, keeping it to yourself, often spirals into shame. And I have had clients who stopped having sex with their partners because it was uncomfortable and they didn’t feel comfortable having that conversation with their partner. So they just stopped. And that created disconnect in their relationship. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Because it wasn’t just about being in the bedroom. Right. Sex and intimacy is not just physical, it’s about the relationship above and beyond that. Mm-hmm. You [00:42:00] know, when. The second leading cause of being put into a senior’s home is incontinence. The first is dementia and Alzheimer’s. Gissele : Really? Wow. Krysti Beckett: Yeah. So I mean, you’re, our health is incredibly intricate, but also so huge. Like it’s intricate in that there’s so many different things going on, so many systems and our bodies really are so amazing how they work for us every single day. But in that same token it is just one part of you. Like we are multifaceted beings and so Gissele : mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Your mental health, your emotional health, your physical health, all of those. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Like those three categories even have like several subcategories. Your physical health, your pelvic health is not like independent of you. It’s connected. So if you [00:43:00] tend to clench your jaw, ’cause your stress relates to your pelvic health, and then maybe that’s causing your leaking or your pain, and then maybe that leaking your pain is stopping you from going out with the girls on Saturday night. And then that contributes to your mental health too, because you’re not connecting with your friends. So you’ve got like all these steps and they’re all connected because you yourself are a multifaceted being and you need. Not just physical care, but emotional care, mental care. And, and I think that’s another thing that we don’t do very well culturally, or at least I wasn’t raised that way, was to really look at you as a whole person. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And, but that’s how the medical system is, right? Like, again, not to judge it, it has, does very like a number of things really well, which is deal with like sort of acute problems, right? Like you get a cut, you need pain meds. All of those are amazing, grateful to have it right, but it doesn’t do well [00:44:00] with chronic.  and it’s all symptom management, right? I’m handling this symptom, but I might give you this pill for this other symptom. And sometimes like multiple pills you’re taking for this symptom and that symptom, it doesn’t treat historically the whole person, at least not the North American model. I know that models in other countries are different, so we’re seen as just body parts. Right. That we’re treating instead of seeing holistically the whole person. Right. What’s going on for you stress wise that might be leading to this particular physical reaction? like people acknowledge that there is the research out there to connects things like stress with heart disease But we are still sort of treated as limbs as part of a body instead of a whole being that has all of these social relationships. Was it you who was talking to me about like the doctors answer? if you’re a, a person who’s plus size, the doctor’s first answer is always lose weight. Krysti Beckett: Oh, yeah, Gissele : yeah, yeah. Okay. Share that story. That’s so [00:45:00] important. Krysti Beckett: Yeah. It’s very common, especially for women that if they go to their doctor with a health concern. And the doctor will usually go through a series of questions, do you do this? Do you do this? And usually if they can’t come up with a quick answer, they’re almost always the answer is just lose weight. And in my experience, I haven’t had my current doctor tell me that. But there was a conversation where I was struggling with low energy and we’re going through the markers. And now I was, I don’t remember how many months or years postpartum I was, but I was inexplicably tired. I was getting enough rest. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: And at the time he’s, he said, well, let’s do some blood work. And when it came back, everything was like, textbook or better than textbook. And he said to me, your triglycerides are better than [00:46:00] textbook. And he’s like, did you forget to tell me about a medication you were on? And I was like did you not hear the part where I weight train and I teach five fitness classes a week? Like I’m incredibly active. It’s not abnormal for someone who’s physically active as me to have load triglycerides like that. They should be, you know? Yeah. But, but no, it was though, though, not a direct accusation, but I did feel as though he was saying that I had lied or failed to share some information. And I have had clients, you know, report things like neck or back pain and inexplicable. So they were told just lose weight. Where, you know, they are strength training, they’re walking, they’re doing whatever, and, mm-hmm. In one case, it was a client. She needed she finally got an MRI, she had degenerative discs. Something that cannot be fixed by dieting. So there’s, [00:47:00] there’s so many things out there, and unfortunately between pharmaceuticals, between the diet industry, which is often supported by pharmaceuticals our, our doctors are often kind of, that’s what they’re trained in. Yeah, Gissele : yeah, yeah. And like you said, as consumers, we should be looking for more holistic approaches in trying to find people that are creating the whole body and supporting the whole body. I love the idea of interprofessional workers together. Like I would want as a woman to have a pelvic health specialist with my gynecologist, with all of these different individuals working together to talk about. The whole me. Krysti Beckett: Mm-hmm. Gissele : Rather than having me go with all these different individuals separately and have to spend that money separately to come together to have, to figure out how to put all these plans together. [00:48:00] I think as a society, I’d hope that we move to having all of these individuals supporting the whole body, and also the need for physiotherapy and all of these other, additional therapies to be supported by our, healthcare. Mm-hmm. Like if we’re truly having inclusive healthcare, all of these options should be available. For individuals. Right. So I do hope that we get there. Krysti Beckett: I would love that too. I mean, if, if you have a good job with benefits, fortunately, you know, my husband’s benefits provide so much for us in that way. I’m able to have a lot of my physiotherapy, massage therapy, osteopathy, naturopathy chiropractor. Like there are lots of things that are covered. But again, that’s because of his work benefits. It’s not covered by our healthcare. Not yet anyways. Gissele : Right. And so if people don’t have work that provides those benefits, then who might you punish? Are you punishing people that are [00:49:00] more vulnerable that don’t have those, those that kind of employment that might be higher paying, better wages? So from that perspective, we have to wonder, ’cause I kind of have this belief that the quality of the government. Is demonstrated by its ability to take care of its most vulnerable citizens. Krysti Beckett: what an incredible place we would be in if, everyone made a living wage. Yeah. Gissele : Yeah. They talked about basic income, but I guess that went the way of the dodo.  because the research on basic income. and there’s certain, European countries that do basic income and people that don’t need it actually say, oh, I don’t want it, right? Krysti Beckett: Mm-hmm. Gissele : But they give it to the majority of their citizens. And people have a higher standard of living, more likely to be better educated. So people don’t use that just to sit around. Krysti Beckett: No. Gissele : Right. Like there’s this perception, the research and it was Canadian research [00:50:00] prove that people’s lives improve when they were outta survival and they had more income. And so there, there was a contemplation that it was something that they were considering applying. But then that just kind of quietly went away. At least here in Canada. But who knows? But yeah, it would be fabulous to have, those, those sort of options for different people. There’s also like countries that do away with homelessness by providing people homes, right? Yeah. They give people little tiny homes that they can have space and they’re more likely to then wanna take it to the next step in terms of getting jobs, getting off drugs, and all of those things. So I think when we, when we reach out and help people and see them as a whole being and care about their wellbeing, I think that’s what societies improve and get better about. Krysti Beckett: There’s really no downside to investing in people. Gissele : Yeah. Krysti Beckett: I mean, I’m so grateful in Canada that [00:51:00] we have a mat leave, which Wow. Seems like, so in my mind, basic because. we’ve had it for so long. Yeah. But then when I take on a client from the states and they tell me that Gissele : Yeah, Krysti Beckett: at the most, at the most they get 12 weeks. Gissele : Yeah. Krysti Beckett: And a lot of it depends on either what state you’re in or what your employer allows. It may or may not be paid. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: But wow. Like in one case I was supporting a mom, a c-section after twins, and she was going back at 12 weeks postpartum as a neonatal nurse. So she’s leaving her babies behind to go take care of other babies. Meanwhile, she’s had major abdominal surgery and she’s gonna be on her feet for like, 12 hour [00:52:00] shifts. So she needs her body. And here like. Their system was not supporting her. So I just feel so grateful for where we live and that we, you know, even as a self-employed person, I didn’t get a mat leave for my third birth, mm-hmm. But I still had culturally here, the understanding that I was postpartum, I was stepping back, I was doing things differently and I was well supported during that time. Yeah. You know, by family, by clients. You know, certainly the respect of understanding that that was happening, no expectation for me to rush back into things. Mm-hmm. But like, what a different world we would be in if we, if we set kind of those bare minimums, those standards of taking care of people. Gissele : Mm-hmm. Yeah. I was thinking about the time when I had my first baby and I returned back to work, it was [00:53:00] like. Like you opened up floodgates. I was crying all the time. I was crying at work. This was a year after, like Right. I had been for a whole year with my baby. Right. I can’t even imagine having, giving birth. And then a few weeks later it just like, well, okay, I gotta go. Oh my God. I think I, I think I might’ve quit.So a couple of more questions. I ask all my guests what their definition of unconditional love is. Krysti Beckett: Ah, unconditional love is being able to give when you are at Any season really at your absolute worst, at your absolute best, but being able to still give no matter what kind of resources you have. Gissele : Hmm. Krysti Beckett: [00:54:00] Emotional or other. Gissele : Hmm. Thank you for that. So last question. Where can people work with you? Where can they find you? Tell us about your website, anything you wanna share with the audience? Krysti Beckett: Sure. Yeah. My website is http://www.theconfidentmama.ca and I have a blog and I have free core guides and things like that. You can always message me for a free consult. I love meeting people. I love chatting about health and, and whether it’s working with me or just getting connected to somebody that can help you. I really do love having those conversations. I am on social media and LinkedIn, so if you’re looking for the Confident Mama and yeah, and if you’re in Southwestern Ontario yeah, hit me up. Brant Burford. I’m often in Kitchener and gray Bruce area and Niagara Gissele : Do you support people in both the physical activity part and the pelvic health as well? Krysti Beckett: Yes. So I’m a personal [00:55:00] trainer with pelvic fitness specialty, so whether virtual or in person, I offer coaching and personal training, so I work one-on-one. I also have fitness classes here in Burford. But if, if somebody needs help getting started or doing something differently in their fitness, I certainly can help them with an exercise program. Or if they just need coaching so that they can feel better in their bodies, feel more confident make their health a priority, then I’m your gal. Gissele : Oh, amazing. Thank you so much, Krysti for such an awesome conversation. I’m so, so excited for our listeners to, to listen to this conversation because we’ve been talking about things that have been taboo and haven’t really been talked about.  So thank you so much for being on the show, and please join us for another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Krysti Beckett: Thanks. Have a good night. Gissele : Bye.

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content today. We’re wondering can we be trained to be more compassionate? And our guest today is Dr. Olga Klimecki who is a neuroscientist and a psychologist who earned her doctorate degree in the University of Zurich Olga’s, a psychologist and neuroscientist who’s interested in understanding the neural mechanisms that shape our social emotions in adaptive ways. Her doctoral research investigated neural behavior and emotional plasticity induced by training social emotions like compassion and empathy. The results of these longitudinal studies in adults provided evidence for the plasticity of social emotions spanning the levels of neural function, emotional resilience, and helping behavior are her current interests include meditation and [00:01:00] promoting conflict resolution through compassion. Please join me in welcoming the amazing Dr. Olga Klimecki. Hi Olga. Dr. Klimecki: Hi. Thank you for having me here. Thank you for the invitation. Gissele: Oh, thank you for being on the show. I’ve been a big fan of your work for a very, very long time. I was so excited when you published with Tanya Singer, your work on the difference between, empathetic distress and compassion and all of the work that you’re doing on aging. I mean, it’s just, it’s just phenomenal work. I was wondering if you could tell the listeners what actually got you started on your journey. Like, what drew you to study empathy and compassion? Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. Thank you for the question. it’s a longer journey. It’s started in my student years. I had a friend who was meditating and I found that idea of going to a place and being silent for a week. Very intriguing and I felt like trying it out myself. And so with my background [00:02:00] interest in psychology and in neuroscience, I finally found a PhD possibility where I could study not only. Psychological mechanisms and the brain, but also with a link to meditation, which I found very exciting. And even though in the beginning of my PhD I tried out different forms of socio-emotional training, including nonviolent communication and others, I was most drawn to the meditation indeed, which I started at the same time practicing meditation as I started investigating meditation. So That’s Gissele: beautiful Dr. Klimecki: background story. Yeah. Gissele: in terms of your research, how have you found that meditation has helped you  has your meditation practice helped you understand some of the findings Dr. Klimecki: Yeah, definitely. I think it’s really interwoven. Like sometimes I get ideas through the practice. Gissele: And also about the [00:03:00] limitations. And sometimes the research I read or I do also informs me about potential limitations. For instance, what I learned from the research, which something I cannot never learn from my own practice, is the diversity of responses in our different participants. Dr. Klimecki: So in the papers, we always report mean results, whereas the diversity of how people experience it. It’s very large. So in all our studies, there are people who improve, who get worse, who don’t change much. And working with the participants, I really got to hear their different stories, their different angles. And over time, I, because we all go through different stages in life, I also experienced some of these benefits. Sometimes I experienced some of the adverse effects of meditation and sometimes it doesn’t change my wellbeing or my daily life much so with time I, I feel like I’m getting to that diversity experience, for [00:04:00] instance. But I’ve, I’ve seen it in the research before and there were other things that I saw in my personal practice before and then I could research it. So, so it’s really a, a bit of an interwoven. Yeah, pattern. And for instance, what I found in my, own practice and something I haven’t really researched yet much, is that it’s really important to start in, in the meditation wherever you are at. Like, I I once tried to cultivate loving kindness and it was really hard for me. And when I, when I started at the place where I actually was emotionally, then it could, it could develop and evolve and, and flourish. But yeah, it’s, there are different starting paths. This is what I learned through my practice. Yeah. But it’s, it’s really interwoven. Gissele: I really appreciate the fact that you mentioned that compassion can sometimes can feel negative. I’ve also been on a long-term com meditation journey myself, and the expectation that it has to feel [00:05:00] good all of the time instead of acknowledging that sometimes difficult emotions will arise and, and to be able to sit with them was definitely something I had to learn. But I think that’s kind of the belief that meditation and even these practices like loving kindness are supposed to feel good, whereas sometimes it’s really hard to cultivate in the beginning. So, so I Dr. Klimecki: thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. And something I, for instance, learned in the theory before I learned it in my own practice is that sometimes it’s not the time to meditate. Yeah. and so I knew this on an intellectual level, but I’ve been able to meditate for many, many years and then I had a period in my life that was particularly difficult and I even. With that knowledge in the back of my head, I could tell myself, okay, it’s fine if you, if you don’t meditate for a few weeks or months, it’s okay. It, it’s fine. Gissele: Yeah. Dr. Klimecki: Sometimes there are times like these, so it’s a diverse experience. Yeah. Gissele: Hmm. And I love that you do research on compassion, but you [00:06:00] also practice it for yourself because saying to yourself I’m meeting myself where I’m at is one of the most compassionate things you can do. And so you are living and researching compassion, which I think is so, so powerful. I was wondering if you could, for the audience, describe the difference between empathy and compassion. ’cause I think people use it interchangeably and you know, some of your research seems to indicate that there are differences. Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. So there are many different researchers who use very different definitions of empathy and compassion and so on. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Dr. Klimecki: And what I find useful is to basically dissociate them a little bit. So when we speak of empathy, we speak of the sharing of another person’s emotion, and it’s a kind of isomorphic sharing, which means it’s the same kind of emotion. So when I meet a friend and she’s happy, I can share her happiness. When I, sometimes I can even share the anger of a friend. I, I even experienced that there was a friend who was very angry at the, at the [00:07:00] system, and I could really share that anger at the system. So you can share a lot of emotions of other people knowing that the source of the emotion is the other person. This is called empathy. And then when we speak of compassion, we mean relating to another person’s suffering. So it’s very specific. It’s not for all emotions, but it’s for negative emotions relating to another person’s suffering with care and benevolence and with that wish to alleviate that suffering to contribute to an improvement for that person. So it’s really titling to that pro-social motivation. Gissele: One of the things that I discovered in your work is, so this is how I understood it, so correct me if I’m wrong is that empathy is more like the mirror neurons, like you’re mirroring their behavior. But whereas the compassion enables you to sort of, I use the boat analogy to stay on the boat and not drown with people to actually want to, to help people, but also [00:08:00] understand that if they’re not wanting your help, that that’s. Too. And so it, taps into a different area of the brain, like you were talking about more pro-social, that it extends that caring and love without the judgment. Because I teach social work students and we often talk about how sometimes when you’re in those helping professions, you wanna rescue people, you want to force your perspective on them and say, well, I know best, this is how it’s gonna help you. And then you tend to drown with them. What are your thoughts about about that difference? Am I on the right track or, Dr. Klimecki: yeah, yeah, I agree with that difference. That, so in empathy, what we see is that both, well meta-analysis of empathy for pain have shown certain areas in the brain activated, namely the. Anterior insular, which is the kind of interceptive cortex. So the interceptive cortex means it’s a place of the brain where we feel what we are experiencing so we can feel cold or hot or pain, or [00:09:00] all sorts of bodily sensations. So we tend to activate areas of our brain when we feel with other people that are the same areas as when we feel or experience our own sensations. So we kind of simulate the other person’s experience. And so this is empathy. But when we, and we have shown that when you train empathy, you can strengthen activations in these brain areas, and the anterior cingulate cortex, which belongs to that empathy for pain network. However, compassion on the neural level is different. So when we train compassion, we strengthen activations in the prefrontal cortex and in the stratum and the prefrontal cortex is very important for regulating thoughts. Behaviors and emotions. And it’s also important for positive emotions in general. And the stratium is very important for learning, for reward, for feeling affiliated, for feeling close to others, for feeling connected. So [00:10:00] it’s a different set of brain areas that’s being activated. And then when it comes to the experience, I, I agree that in empathy, sometimes you can merge with that person too much. And then we call it empathic distress when you lose that self other distinction that you usually have when you empathize with others. And then in compassion, I feel that one of the most powerful forms of compassion, especially when you are in a healthcare professional, when you’re in a caring professional or social worker, or no matter what the situation is, is to just be able to hold the space. Gissele: Yeah. To Dr. Klimecki: just be there in a benevolent stance. Just hold the space. And that’s a very tricky one. It sounds easy, but it isn’t as, I guess all of us have experienced it. Sometimes we want to hold the space and we can manage for a while, and then at some point maybe we want, we just want it to be over and to be better or whatever, but to really be present and benevolent that [00:11:00] sometimes all it, all it takes. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. And I think this is why your work is so powerful, because one of the things I’ve noticed is that I’ve seen so much burnout in social work. I’ve seen so such burnout in like, you know, the child welfare system and all these different systems and we have not been taught. By our parents, by systems, how do you sit with difficult emotions, how to have compassion for ourselves and then be able to hold space for other people. And so we think that we need to hold space for other people when we are actually have no idea what to do with those difficult feelings. We do run away from them. I know I’ve run away from my feelings for a very long time, and it was only when I was able to sit with them, with the fear, with the anger, with the, with the jealousy, with the everything. Not make it wrong, that I was then able to hold space for other people’s feelings when they felt those difficult feelings. Right. Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. It’s really [00:12:00] interesting. A lot of your work talks about neuroplasticity. So what does neuroplasticity mean for emotions? And can people really change how they respond to others? Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. So the way we can measure neuroplasticity in humans is different than how we can measure it in animals or how it is measured in animals. So when we speak about neuroplasticity in humans, what we mean is either changes in neural functions or changes in brain structure. So in neural functions, we mean that some neurons might communicate more strongly or more weekly with each other. So the kind of different areas just tend to communicate more or less with different interventions or with time. And then structural plasticity means that the thickness of certain parts of brain increases. And this can also happen as a result of interventions or of training. This is the neuroplasticity that we can [00:13:00] measure. Gissele: And so, talking about training, what does compassion training look like in practice? can you give us like a short example Dr. Klimecki: Yeah, so we kind of modify the training every now and then. So not every training is exactly the same, but in general, our participants are in a meditative space. So we set up a room with cushions and chairs and they can sit on cushions or they can sit on chairs and they are. Instructed to basically first focus their attention on their breath, to stabilize their attention, and they learn basics of mindfulness to really be present for their sensations, for their thoughts, for their experiences. And then with time they gradually built on that and they learned, or they practice cultivating the compassion that is innate to them. we believe that people are born with that compassionate stance, but we, we invite them to reactivate it. And [00:14:00] very often we invite them to think of a beloved person of a person that has been kind to them. And this can be a parent, a grandparent, a friend. It can be a spiritual figure. And also for many of our participants, it’s an animal. So they think of their cat at home or their dog or another favorite animal. So any, any being really that evokes the sense of, of care, of love, and, and also maybe of care they have received. And then we in, after inviting them to visualize this person or this animal they can practice with sentences and either they can practice wishes for that person or animal. Like, may you be, well, may you be healthy, may you be safe. Or they can envision how that person or animal is wishing them well. And then we also pay, invite them to pay attention to their sensations as they cultivate compassion and sometimes they put their hands on [00:15:00] their heart or we modify this a bit and we also invite them to. Be present with difficult emotions with compassion and care. And then we move through a series of people. So usually we have this benefactor this can be this animal or person that they love and care about. And then we do the practice for oneself. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Dr. Klimecki: And then sometimes we also add other people, like a friend, a neutral person, a difficult person. But in the latest studies we have mainly focused on the benefactor, on the self, and then on all beings. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Dr. Klimecki: And then basically we go through it step by step. And we also do include practices that include walking, meditation, or everyday practices, like wishing people well, while you stand in the queue at the supermarket or while you wait for the bus. And, we try to make it. [00:16:00] Fun and diverse because people in my experience also react to different aspects of the training. So some really like the sentences and some like the physical touch and some like the visualization of the person. And for some it’s enough to focus on their own experience. So it’s very diverse and we try to offer a range of practices to really speak to people as broadly as we can. Gissele: Yeah. And I just wanna emphasize how powerful these exercises are. because even having people think about people in the supermarket. What you’re doing is decreasing that emotional distance. Like what creates the distance is seeing people as other, but when you start to connect with them on a heart level and start to send them good wishes, you start sort of breaking that separation. The other key part is when you’re inviting people to think about a loved one, and especially allowing people to focus on a pet when people have a hard time with other people, right? Like I’ve had [00:17:00] PE conversations with people where they’re like, I don’t feel it. I can’t feel love for my parents. I can’t feel love from anybody. But then when you say something like a pet, immediately, it’s that connection. It’s there. There doesn’t seem to be those blocks. And so you are using that as the gateway. Get them to then expand to other people. It starts with your pet, and maybe they can start thinking of an aunt or uncle, and then maybe you can expand that circle of care, which I think is so important. Yeah, Dr. Klimecki: yeah, yeah. Maybe I can, I can tell one little story about Gissele: Yeah. That Dr. Klimecki: be phenomenal. First time I tried this exercise of practicing wishing others well on the street. It was, it was quite funny. we were doing a study in the Netherlands, in the City of Maastricht, and the teacher had included this exercise where we just were invited to go out in the streets and we were basically being there during the training. So I also went out in the streets and I also tried out this exercise [00:18:00] of just sending good wishes to another person. And so the first person I saw on the street was a drug dealer, and I was pretty like, Ooh, Gissele: nice. Dr. Klimecki: I could see the shift, like as I approached him and I, I was like, may you be, well, may you be happy, may you be safe. And I really felt like hugging him when, when I walked past him actually. So I I also agree it is a powerful exercise and it’s also fun to include it in everyday life. So when, when you’re queuing in the supermarket or when you’re in your car, in the traffic jam, it’s a really good exercise. Gissele: So if I may also share my own example, I’ve found people shift, like that has been my personal experience. Like when I’ve had conflict with people, rather than contribute my negative energy to the conflict, I will do that. I will actually say, you know, out of this situation, only good will come. And I envision, I send like love to that other person and then I envision it resolving. [00:19:00] And there’s been so many times when the things just naturally resolve. And there was like. On the physical level, there was conflict. Like the person had sent me a really nasty email and they’re like, well, I don’t want this, I don’t like that. Then just even the practice of me sending the love and I did it not to alter them, but to alter myself so that I wouldn’t make things worse so that I could come at them and, and responded in a way that was like, look, you, this is important to me. Like the relationship is more important than being right, right? I’m willing to talk about this. I’m willing to get together and there’s softening that happens. Like even if I don’t physically do anything, there’s a softening that happens, I think, ’cause I soften and therefore they soften and it’s been a really powerful tool in my experience, even just practicing, because even if you, if the other person doesn’t wanna soften, that’s okay. How you approach them is different, so you don’t escalate things. To me, that’s why that those kind of practices are so powerful. And I hope our listeners start to practice even at the grocery store, even at the gas [00:20:00] station, even wherever they are and especially to themselves. So often we are our own worst enemies. So often it’s ourselves that we are treating with that disdain, with that judgment, with that lack of forgiveness. And so to be able to transform just even how we treat ourselves, I think is so powerful. Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. we see these transfer effects, right? So we did one study, Patricia another my former PhD student did this study on the impact of compassion on conflict. And we just did the very simple training, just, you know, compassion for a loved one for yourself and for all human beings, nothing to do with any conflict whatsoever. And then people chose their own difficult person so they could choose a person they were in conflict with. And we measured it there. Attitudes towards that person before and after the conflict. And we saw that just by practicing compassion for themselves and for a beloved person and for all beings shifted [00:21:00] how they felt towards that person they were in conflict with. So it’s not even necessary to practice with that person you have, you’re having a conflict with. Yeah. But you can just practice for yourself and trust that this will also contribute to shifting things in a conflict situation. And we find this transfer effect very powerful because people then felt closer to that difficult person and they reported feeling more compassionate towards them. And they reported feeling less malicious joy when they imagined something bad happened to that person. Is, is Gissele: that short and frog? Sh I’m not saying it right. Dr. Klimecki: And yeah. Gissele: Shout and frog joy of somebody suffering. Do you think that you’re tapping into forgiveness? Dr. Klimecki: Maybe not yet. So I’m not sure we tap into forgiveness because forgiveness is a complex issue and I haven’t researched it yet. I Okay. I’ve meditated with forgiveness though. Yeah. And one thing I learned [00:22:00] from my, from my meditation teacher is not to force forgiveness. Gissele: Yes. Dr. Klimecki: Agreed. So this was a powerful teaching that great. Sometimes it’s sufficient to just practice, may I forgive this person one day and then when it becomes too hard, just leave it aside for a bit. Focus on other things and not to force forgiveness. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. I just wanna go back to what you said, if I understood you correctly. You don’t have to practice compassion for a difficult person. It’s enough to practice for yourself and for your loved ones.  the fact that your research seems to indicate that you don’t even have to go there, it just naturally happens when you fill your own bucket, like it overflows and then that kind of impacts those difficult people. I think that is extraordinary. Extraordinary. Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. It’s a much simpler way. Oh yeah. Because you don’t have to go through all these difficulties of remembering the situation of. [00:23:00] Reliving it, et cetera. Yeah. Gissele: Re-traumatizing yourself. Right? Dr. Klimecki: Exactly. Exactly. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I know my listeners are gonna ask me, how long does the training need to be before people notice change? Like how long on average were your trainings in your research? Dr. Klimecki: They were a very different duration. So the shortest trainings we have done are about a week long. So a full day followed by several evening sessions, and even after this relatively short timeframe we see changes in the brain functions. We see changes in behavior. We see changes in participants’ wellbeing and their resilience to difficult situations. So. This is very fast, so to say. And then on the other hand, we’ve had very long trainings. We’ve had everything ranging from one week to 18 months where participants practice for one and a half years, weekly. And they had half day retreats and, and so on. So we studied very diff [00:24:00] different durations, but in general, I think what we can say is that even the short. Interventions, they help shifting attitudes, feelings, et cetera. So even if you do a like one month course or two month course, you might feel the benefits. And if you don’t feel the benefits, I think maybe it’s not the time to practice meditation, maybe there will be another time to practice it or there might be a different strategy for you. And, and this is, I think also what we learned from our interventions is a different reactions of people and at different times as well. Gissele: Yeah. Great. Great. Thank you for that. Are there limits to compassion? I know again, my listeners will be asking that. Are there limits, Dr. Klimecki: are there limits to compassion? I think it, it depends right who you are. If you are a mortal normal practitioner like me, there are limits and I’m constantly bouncing [00:25:00] into my limits. You know, there are a few supposedly enlightened masters who report that there are almost no limits. And, and I also have witnessed some people who never meditated and who were extremely compassionate and forgiving and extraordinary persons who seemed boundless in their capacity to care for others for themselves. So there certainly are examples. I guess that most of us find that there are limits and that the. Really fun of the practices to just work on these limits and to face them every now and then to see, okay, this is my limit today and maybe it’ll be different tomorrow. Maybe my limit will be more tight tomorrow. Maybe it will be my limit will be larger and it can really change. and I think the beauty of it is that we are alive and that things are changing and it’s very exciting to be with that. Gissele: Yeah, [00:26:00] definitely. I know in my meditation and compassion journey for me, like, you said, there was times when I could sit with myself and sit with those emotions. There’s times when I couldn’t. But I noticed something really strange. And because I’ve been meditating for like over 20 years. Something shifts. You don’t know what date. So it’s sort of like planting seeds when you meditate and something happens on the nth day, but I can’t tell you what day. And so I remember having an experience where I woke up in the middle of the night and I just felt so whole and complete and so loved and worthy and I had been meditating and trying to get there and all of those things. And, it’s not like I fully arrived, but in that moment I managed to, or to awaken something in me that I hadn’t before. They couldn’t tell you what day it was. And, so I think for some people, practice could awaken something in them like very quickly. Other people, they could be meditating for like 50 years and still [00:27:00] potentially not arrive or, maybe arrive the next day. I don’t know. it’s hard to tell it. Dr. Klimecki: Have you had that experience I, yeah. Yeah. I think we experience it a lot in, in the people we study with in the community. And I really enjoy the book of Jack Kornfield after the Ecstasy, the laundry where, where he’s describing this phenomenon. Sometimes in the meditation practice you might have that experience of being very far. And I’ve certainly had these moments where I’ve felt connected with everything, with the trees, with the flowers, with like, I felt like there was no boundary between me and things and life around me. And then, you know, years later, I’m in my everyday life and yes. I, it’s only a memory I can tap into. And living with that with these shifts is sometimes challenging, but it’s also exciting in this book after the [00:28:00] Ecstasy of the Laundry, he describes many of these stories where people have these extraordinary experiences and then they come back to their lives and they’re like, okay, now I have all this work and I have all these, yeah, exactly. I gotta clean my Gissele: house. I gotta Dr. Klimecki: do laundry. Yeah. And, and how, the other challenge is to really incorporate it in our daily lives and to, to be okay with not being perfect and to find a way that sustains the practice. Yeah, but it’s a journey. Gissele: It is the, it’s definitely a journey. And I think that’s what I know going into the meditation in the beginning, I did it like a job. I committed to it like a job. I showed up every day and I’m like, why am I not changing? It was like, I should see immediate results. I put in this work. When’s it gonna change? And it was when I allowed myself to just be with the experience without judgment, without needing to have a mystical experience, without needing to have change, without needing to fix [00:29:00] myself, without needing to even be more compassionate to myself and other people. That’s when I noticed the shift, because I was open. I was open to what was happening in the moment, and I was honest with myself about what I was feeling. And that’s the other thing. Instead of trying to hammer in like a puzzle piece, I was actually just showing up for myself. And I think that probably is what led to the most transformation in my life. Rather than trying to, okay, I’m showing up every day, this better work. One of the things I love and appreciate about your work is the, social and political implications. You know, it seems like there’s so much division in the world and there’s so much conflict. I love the idea that potentially training on compassion, that we don’t have to necessarily believe that we are compassionate beings from birth or, or whatever. The fact that we can actually train the brain to be more caring, I think has incredible implications. Can you share a little bit more about your other work in terms of the, the [00:30:00] disliked person? Dr. Klimecki: Yes. Yes. I mean, we have done work on conflicts in different settings, so we have also done it in couples, for instance. So we’ve had couples who either both joined compassion meditation training also five weeks, or they did a five week training in regulating their emotions. So when something bad happens, you can also appreciate the good sides of it. Like when it rains, you can appreciate the plants who get watered. And we also had another group of couples who did an Italian training. Wow. And then we, they, they learned a foreign language as a control group, and then we invited them to the lab and told them, okay, now you’re having a conflict discussion. And we measured how how they were on that conflict discussion. And we saw that participants in the. Compassion group, they were more satisfied. But importantly, and I think most [00:31:00] importantly for me, they were also more able to defend their own priorities in the conflict discussion. And that’s really important in couples that when you’ve try to find solutions for difficulties that it’s not one person who, who says, okay, we’re going to do it like this. And the other person just saying, yes, yes, yes to every suggestion that is being made. But for a solution to be really durable and long lasting, it’s important that you find a good compromise. And so it’s also important to stand in for your own interests, and we were very happy to see. That the compassion training actually strengthened participants’ capacity to stand in for their own interests in that conflict discussion. Yeah, so this was, this was in that context, and we also studied the Israeli Palestinian context. So this was during the pandemic actually, so 2020 [00:32:00] before the current conflict, but still we know that it’s, it’s a region with ongoing tensions. And so we wanted to know whether a group that. Cultivates compassion for themselves, for a beloved person and for all beings will change their attitudes and their readiness for helping behavior in the form of humanitarian support for Palestinians. And the control group did a memory training. And so what we saw is that in and of itself, if we had only researched a compassion group, we did see an improvement in attitudes towards Palestinians of the Israelis who did the training. But when we compared it to the active control group who did the memory training, this difference was no longer significant, which is interesting. So, oh wow. We actually yeah. The lines were pretty parallel. And then we also only saw a trend towards more support for humanitarian action [00:33:00] and support for Palestinians. And it was not significant either. So it seems that potentially it could work in these intractable conflicts, but it doesn’t seem to be as strong as in everyday conflict. And but again, we think that our approach, the basic approach of just practicing something for yourself and then letting, giving it the possibility to transfer might be promising. And then also our trainings were just three weeks long and we had to do it online because the pandemic just broke out. So who knows, maybe with a different format. It could contribute to changes. Of course, it will not solve everything, but it could contribute to changes potentially. Gissele: Yeah. So I just also wanna point out something again, very powerful that you’re mentioning which is, you know so I’ve interviewed many different people, some people that have done some extraordinary things on this podcast, and one of them is my friend [00:34:00] Rukiye Abdul Mutakallim, who not only forgave her son’s killer, but also chose to love him and help him in any way that she could.  one of the most powerful things she said to me was, so many people wanna resolve war and didn’t wanna resolve this conflict on a large scale. But so many of those same people are having so much war within themselves and with their people in their own lives So most people can’t resolve the conflicts in their homes, and they’re wanting to go out there and resolve things like war resolve the inner. The, the inner compassion, the, the conflicts within families, and then that will lead to the resolution on a larger scale. And so I think what you’re saying is so interesting to me because that’s what popped into my head and it lives in my head especially when I talk to her she talks about how, you know, we worry so much about the war out there, but there’s an inner war that’s happening within our hearts and in our lives that we’re not addressing. And we can’t fix the war out [00:35:00] there until we fix the war in here. And so, and from my perspective, I feel like that’s what you’re doing with your work as you’re helping us fix the war in here and in our lives with our loved ones, so that then you, we can do the heavy work of looking at ourselves and seeing who are we as a humanity and why do we need to fight and have that, that kind of war. But I dunno if we can go there without going internally. If you know what I. Yeah. Based on what you said. Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. Are there cultural differences in how compassion is expressed or cultivated? Dr. Klimecki: Yes. I mean, probably there are very many cultural differences. I think one we tend to notice over and over again when we compare the more original teachings from Asia to the way compassion is being taught in Europe and Northern America. And the main difference we see is that in Asia it seems to be [00:36:00] very easy to start with oneself. There, they don’t start with a benefactor, they start immediately Okay. Just feel compassion for yourself or just feel kindness for yourself, depending on what they train. And people seem to do it more naturally than in the so-called Western countries where we all, always, in our trainings, we tend to go either through the benefactor or through an animal to even reactivate this emotional stance of benevolence and care. Yeah. Gissele: You’re blowing my mind a little bit. The reason being is because I know like in Japan in particular, they’re very collectivists, right? I know people that live in Japan, and the perspective really is about the collective. I mean, you have individual rights, but they kind of stop at the collective, I mean, Japan is super clean and they’re very respectful and have all these rules to restrict rights. But so them starting with themselves blows me away considering how individualist North America is [00:37:00] and yet the, the challenge in being able to go inward, that blew my mind a little bit. Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. I gotta Gissele: be honest, Dr. Klimecki: I feel it’s an, it’s an individualistic culture that is very performative. I mean, I grew up in Europe as well, so it, I feel okay, it’s individualistic, yes. But it’s tied to a performance and it’s very hard to be. Caring and benevolent just no matter what. Right. So this is something I, I was facing for many years in my meditations as I was, would kind of like bump into that performance wall over and over and over and over again. I’d be like, why are you not more performing? Why? And until it started to soften. But it really took a very, very long time and I’m not sure it’s gone. So I think it’s still, it’s still there, but it’s not as, as present as it used to be, but I am. Gissele: Wow. I love that you said that because it’s so true. in my journey, I’ve [00:38:00] discovered how we’re not living our authentic selves.  we’re performing so much thinking about what, who we should be, what we should have, what our life should look like, that we’re not really tapping into who we really are and what we really love and enjoy. Yeah, I think that’s so true. And I think that’s be, yeah, yeah. How we should be, be natural. Yeah. I forgot to ask, I was gonna ask about your recent research with young people in compassion training to include people in the outer group. ’cause I think that’s sort of built, the lessons you learn about othering, the lessons that you learned about, in groups and out groups. I was wondering if you could share a little bit about the work that you’re doing with young people. Dr. Klimecki: Yeah, yeah. I can share about our work with young people. So we, here with the young people, we worked with an approach that centered on humanitarian values. So these values are adopted by over 190 countries and they include values like [00:39:00] humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. And so the main idea was to train. Young people in these values because they have been adopted by so many cultures. And we did then research. So there was a two year training for the teachers and educators who basically learned how they can transport these values in their classrooms or in their communities. And then we followed them in different countries. So we did a study in Russia, in Belarus, in Armenia, in The Gambia, in South Sudan and in Zambia. we wanted to see whether this kind of training would affect the young participants’ readiness to help people from a minority. And this minority could be immigrants or it could be a local minority within the country. And to really be there for them and spend time helping them. And what we saw is that on average the training did [00:40:00] not have an effect compared to the control group who did not receive the training. But what we saw is to the degree that the training increased compassion, so this sense of care and benevolence for the other being to that degree, it also increased the helping behavior. And yes, there were differences between countries. However, currently we don’t know yet whether these are truly between country differences or whether they are due to that particular setting. We chose because we only measured one kind of community per country and with one educator or teacher. So we’d have to really sample across different places in each country and so on to be sure about the country effect. But we saw many differences between countries. But the overall message, I think is that emotions. Are a strong motivator for social behavior and especially for pro-social behavior. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. So just to [00:41:00] clarify so the training led to just greater compassion and greater benevolence but not necessarily helping behavior. Can you just, can Dr. Klimecki: you just give that a result of it? Maybe I should say it differently. So, to the degree that the training increased compassion, it increased helping behavior. So again, the responses of participants were very different. Some participants, as a result of the training increased their compassion. Some participants did not increase their compassion as a result of the training. And for those participants where it increased the compassion, they were then more pro-social. So it really seems important to have that feeling shift before you have the behavioral shift. Gissele: Hmm. Okay. Thank you. That’s, very helpful.  I’d like to go on the other side of it, which is with the aging population. ’cause I know you’ve done some research on the aging population. How might compassion benefit some of these older adults? Dr. Klimecki: Yeah, so we conducted a series of studies [00:42:00] in Europe where we looked at a combined training, mindfulness and compassion in older adults. And what we see is the following. For instance, we did one study in four countries, in four European countries with people who have subjective cognitive declines. So they report having memory problems, but they are not measurable yet on tests. So they certainly have memory problems but they’re not very strong. And so what we saw is that in this population, eight week training helped to decrease anxiety. anxiety is also a risk factor for then developing dementia later on, for instance. And it’s in general also not great when you’re very anxious. So it helped to decrease anxiety and this decrease in anxiety was lasting. So we measured that this decrease was maintained at six month follow up. So this was great. And it also, the training also increased cognitive skills in participants. And the increase in [00:43:00] cognitive skills was also maintained. However, I should say, we compared the mindfulness and compassion training with an active control group who learned about health behaviors. And that control group also improved. So they also improved their cognition and they reduced their anxiety. So this is why. I think our recommendation would be okay. Meditation is certainly useful also for promoting healthy aging. But when you feel like doing something else, when you feel like doing sports or when you feel like working on your health in general, this is also a very good way to go because there are several risk factors and there are also sometimes specific pathways. So we, we observed for instance, that the meditation training increased self-compassion, so this capacity to be caring towards yourself also in the older adults and that the health education increased physical activity. So when they learned about what’s good for your health, they exercise more. So it can impact [00:44:00] healthy aging through different routes and sometimes through the same route as we saw, for instance, with the cognition or with anxiety. And then we also did this study in just one country in France. With older adults, and there we train them for 18 months. And we also see certain benefits like reduced loneliness after 18 months of meditation training, including mindfulness and compassion. However, we also see a reduction in loneliness after 18 months of learning and non-native language. So of course, you know, doing things in a group is fun and then they, they get to know other people. So there are different ways of promoting healthy aging and meditation can be one of them. if you’re prone to meditation, because again, we always see a big diversity of responses, some people improving, some people not changing much, and some people reporting even feeling worse after the training. So if you, if you feel that meditation is not for you, maybe just try something else. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. Thank you for that [00:45:00] many of your studies, did you use a wait list control? Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. So in the, in the study with 18 months meditation intervention and the non-native language training, we also have a wait list control. Gissele: Oh, okay. But so the wait list control had no impact, I love what you’re saying in terms of, there are other options that people can do to, to have the same effect. Right. Which I think is important for people ’cause they think it’s a meditation or nothing. Not necessarily. There’s so many different things that you can do to help yourself feel more connected, feel more, compassion, more, positive feelings. Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. Gissele: So I think, I think that’s really, really great. I wanted to ask about your intellectual or spiritual role models in this work that you’re doing. I mean, you mentioned Jack Canfield. Is there anyone that you’re really kind of modeling your work after? Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. I think there have very many people who have inspired my work. [00:46:00] Of course, yeah. Jack Kornfield Sharon Salzburg. Gissele: Mm. Dr. Klimecki: Then in Switzerland, of course, Catherine Feida. there’s a whole series of spiritual people. And then on the intellectual level, I mean in the conflict world, Ken Cloak, for instance, who’s a mediator in California, and, also my colleague. I really admire her. So we’ve been working on this aging project together. Yeah, and I, I really admire her for her capacity to lead very huge trials and teams. And there other colleagues Susanna Graf, who was inspiring the humanitarian education work. And yeah, I think I could go on it on, but Gissele: yeah, Dr. Klimecki: very many people who, who inspired this path. Gissele: I I love the fact that you’re also looking at the aging population because I think we tend to forget people. Who are aging until we’re aging, right? we kinda have this [00:47:00] created this interesting world where we no longer live in communities. We no longer live with our elders, and we don’t live, you know, we don’t raise our children together. Like, at least in North America, it just feels so separated. Every, you know, the home is in nuclear family, but that really doesn’t extend much and so to think about how we can reconnect with one another and reconnect a community and reconnect as individuals and our elderly people how can we help them have healthy aging, have a healthy end to their life that doesn’t necessarily have to mean like dementia and all these other like, negative things, I think is really, really powerful. Yeah. Do you have any recommendations for schools or workplaces in terms of how they could start incorporating some more compassion training? To help maybe their students or in the workplace? Dr. Klimecki: Hmm. I would do it on a voluntary basis, I guess if I was running a workplace or a school, I [00:48:00] would offer places or groups where people could practice meditation, but also offer a huge variety of other choices. So I think sports is important. I think other group activities that are a bit more communicative are important. So for instance, we have last year we have started an intervention or we completed the study, but we included dance and music and movement with mindfulness practices because we think it’s, also maybe important to move and to incorporate it in your, in your daily life. So I think workplace and schools could offer meditation, but I wouldn’t. Make it mandatory. I would really just make it one of several possibilities of connecting with oneself and others that is entirely on a voluntary basis and that is not being monitored by whoever is your superior or supervisor or a teacher.[00:49:00] Yeah. To make it an optional. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you. What do you think about shifting the, the focus on systems, for example, school systems to be more heart-based rather than content-based? ’cause my perspective is like, you know, AI is gonna take care of the content. So could we shift into more heart based like learning for students? Dr. Klimecki: I’m not sure about art based per se, because again, I think I would offer it in a modular way. I have, I have a son who doesn’t like arts. He’s like, why do I have to do arts and music? I think people are very different and, and I mean, if it was up to him, he would be playing soccer the whole day. And of course playing soccer the whole day might not be the good solution. But I think really offering a range of activities and inviting children to try out a range of activities. Art, even for those who don’t like arts music, even for those who don’t like music, but just to give them different options. And I think in general [00:50:00] for the future, social and emotional skills will become important. So we are currently collaborating with the PISA team who are evaluating children’s progress they are mainly known for evaluating children’s. Competencies on hard subjects like math or languages, but they also started evaluating social and emotional capacities. And I think this is really where we should go to cultivate more social and emotional skills in school, because of course it’s important to have an understanding of math and of languages and so on, but also to have an understanding of how can we resolve conflicts in a constructive way. How can we regulate our emotions? And I think there are huge differences between countries with some countries being very advanced in these subjects and and really incorporating them in their curricula and other countries not being [00:51:00] as advanced in these subjects. And, I think this is a future of our education. Gissele: Which one are some of those countries that are more advanced? Would it be like Finland or, Dr. Klimecki: yeah, Gissele: yeah. Yeah. I wanted to know what is the most surprising thing you’ve learned from doing this long-term research on compassion and empathy? Dr. Klimecki: What’s the most surprising thing? Mm. I think there are different things that, that were surprising to me. One is that empathic distress is also important. And I think I, what I learned with time is that all emotions have their place and they’re importance. Gissele: Mm. Dr. Klimecki: So for instance, in that study with young people, we also saw that as empathic distress increase their helping behavior for. Others of different cultures increased. So this was also a predictor. and there many different surprises I’ve had. Also, one of the big [00:52:00] surprises was that initially when, when I started doing the work on conflict resolution, I thought, okay, I’ll just tell people to empathize with each other. And it sounds as naive as it was because it totally backfired. So when I invited participants to the lab to discuss issues around immigration, and one of them was pro and the other was against immigration, then telling them to empathize with each other just make the conflict worse. So this is why then we moved in our research to work with these indirect regulation techniques where you. Train compassion for yourself and for loved ones, and then we, you can transfer it to the difficult situation whenever you are ready as a participant. So this, this seems to work much better. And then also another thing I learned through my research is the diversity of participants responses. So that really, it’s not one size fits all. And the more I’ve been doing this, these intervention studies, the [00:53:00] more I realize it’s so important to train participants in a trauma sensitive way. To give them options of pausing the meditation of not, also not meditating at all. And not to sell meditation as a panacea for everything because it isn’t, and it’s hard work sometimes, and it can bring up difficulties to really yeah, create a space that is safe. And I think for the future I think very diverse. Offers would be better. This is why we have started incorporating music and movement and dance with the meditation because some people might respond to the meditation and some people might respond to music and others to movement. And then I think if we offer a broader range of options, maybe then people can pick whatever aspect suits them in their current situation and they still have the other aspects to explore later on if they wish to do so. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. Thank you. I love that you said [00:54:00] that. Having worked in the child welfare system many people do not feel safe in their body. So to ask them to sit with their body is just not gonna be not gonna be good. And so for them meditating on something distant or even like doing it in different strategy, so we’ve had young people that were transformed by having an indigenous walk, with an elder who’s teaching them about nature. Or horse therapy, so things that are necessarily body focused aren’t always for people with trauma. But finding a way to make that connection can. And so you really have to know who you’re working with and work in a way that is gonna help them feel safe. Because especially people with trauma, they’re working to feel safe in our body and to go straight to the body and say, sit with all of these unsafe feelings can feel very triggering and they won’t do, once you get to the point where you’re so dysregulated, you’re out, you’re not gonna be able to sit through.  it’s not the growth zone is the danger zone. Right? Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. And, and another thing I’ve learned is the [00:55:00] prevalence of trauma is really high. I mean, the prevalence of trauma is very high, but even the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder is very high. So, I think there are some estimates that it’s around 30%, and I can confirm that when I included mindfulness in my university teachings, I sometimes had questionnaires where I check just for some symptoms, like, I can’t sleep at night or I can’t focus because something is really stressing me out so much. I, I cannot focus at all for days and days. And I find that even among students at university, it’s about one third who self-report having PTSD symptoms. And so it’s a very large proportion even in places where I would not have expected this proportion to be so large. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. I also teach mindfulness and. Compassion practices for my students, it’s optional. Like, so we’ll do a little tiny practice in the beginning because I [00:56:00] teach ethics, but I also teach research. And some social work students get very stressed out about research. They’re like, oh my god. And so I will do a little tiny practices, but if they don’t wanna practice, they don’t move too. But I can’t tell you the number of times the students come up to me and they’re like, oh my God, I’ve been having such horrible experiences. Or even just like the things that will email me or, or let me know in assignments about how much, how much trauma our students are carrying and how difficult, yeah. And how sometimes our systems in terms of like even the schooling system, the punitive ways that we mark that, the way we discount marks and so on and so forth. Sometimes that inflexibility adds to their feelings of stress instead of making it more flexible. that’s obviously person dependent. But I think sometimes. as an educator, trying to find a way to extend that compassion and the flexibility, I think, goes a long way to helping students Dr. Klimecki: yeah. Gissele: Yeah, yeah. So last two questions. I asking all of my guests what [00:57:00] their definition of self-love is. Dr. Klimecki: Okay. That’s an interesting one. I haven’t thought about it yet. What is my definition of self-love? I guess for me it would include loving all aspects of myself the bright ones, the dark ones, the ones maybe that I wouldn’t list among my top favorite, but loving them as well, nonetheless. I think that would be important for me. And then it would also include a sense of shared humanity. I feel that the times when I feel truly connected with myself, I also feel truly connected with [00:58:00] others and with other human beings and with nature. And so for me, self-love is linked to this sense of Oh, like connectedness and, community. Gissele: Yeah. Oneness. I know exactly what you’re talking about. Yeah. Last questions. where can our listeners learn more about you, more about your research many of our listeners that wanna find out more about your work. Where can they find that information Where can they, get in contact with you? Dr. Klimecki: Okay. I have a website, http://www.olgaklimecki.com, where I try to put links to some of the podcasts that exists with me or some of the YouTube videos of my talks. And of course there is a list of our publications there, and sometimes there are direct links to them and sometimes not, I think. But in general there is a list of publications and there’s an overview of, of [00:59:00] radio and Gissele: Beautiful Dr. Klimecki: video material that. People could listen to or tap into. And I think I also have one or two things on Inside Timer, but not much, Gissele: Thank you. Thank you. I know our listeners are gonna be checking that out. Thank you. Thank you Olga, so much for your time. This was like jawdropping at the same time. it just filled my heart and I’m so, so grateful for your work and for the impact that it’s making. The fact that we’re even considering thinking about how can compassion be trained and possible implications of that in our world, I think is so powerful. So thank you for the work that you’re doing. Thank you on the behalf of my listeners. And thank you to those who listened to this episode for joining us here at Love and Compassion with Gissele Dr. Klimecki: Bye. Thank you for inviting me. Bye.

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: was Martin Luther King Jr. right? does love have the power to turn an enemy into a friend? Does it have the power to heal? This year, we’re creating an inspiring documentary called Courage to Love The Power of Compassion, which explores the extraordinary stories of those who have chosen to do the unthinkable, love and forgive even those who have caused them deep harm. Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness and love, not only to those offering it, but also on those receiving it. In addition, we’ll hear from experts who will explore whether love and compassion part of our human nature, and how we can bridge divides with those we disagree with. If you’d like to support our film, please donate at www [00:01:00] olivedrab-lark-105184.hostingersite.com/documentary. That’s Maitricentre documentary. Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about the power of play in relationships, and we’re chatting with Peter Anderson. Peter Anderson is our relationship mentor performer, an author of the Playful Couple love, laughter, and lasting con connection. He helps couples rediscover the joy, spontaneity, and emotional safety that keep love vibrant, growing on decades of coaching. Neuroscience, improv theater and therapy tools like IFS and Holy Vagal Theory. He teaches partners how to transform communication, reignite intimacy, and co-create a playful, passionate bond. His journey spans from professional dance and comedy [00:02:00] improv to transformational leadership coaching, all of which now fuel the playful couple experience. He believes love isn’t something you manage, it’s something you create moment to moment through laughter, curiosity, and trust. Whether helping partners shift from conflict into connection or routine into romance, he loves sharing practical, heartfelt tools that invite couples to fall in love again with each other and with life. Please join me in welcoming Peter. Hi Peter. Peter: Hello. Thank you so much for having me. A lovely introduction. Gissele: Thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. can you start by telling the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work? Peter: Well, I suppose I’ve always been interested in the physicality, the connection with the body and that drew me to become a professional dancer and how that [00:03:00] connection, although on a performance level could really give to an audience somehow internally. I didn’t quite have that wisdom yet. And as I went on and I had relationships that were very, fun, exciting, playful relationships, but there was a loneliness in there, a sense of, holding back that I wasn’t completely safe to be who I truly was. And to get to that point when I had to untangle many different, avenues within my own self. And that led me to studying NLP, mindfulness,nonviolent communication, timeline therapy, Thai massage, craniosacral therapy. I just went just, I was like, I have to figure this out, because I felt that there was, in my family environment, which was very caring, there was an element missing that my mom and father weren’t really in love. [00:04:00] And if that was my education, how do I go and find that for myself? There was something that was missing that I needed to untangle. And so. As I went along, I was doing the coaching for people and individual coaching. I did business coaching. I had events and networks and, and they were, they were fulfilling, but something I wasn’t really firing from my deep heart passion. Mm-hmm. And it’s when I did the work and I finally had, a healthy relationship myself, and it was no longer the sense that I thought, I may not get this fantasy. Or is it just a fantasy of you find somebody and you really hold and build together? I like, I didn’t have that pure sense of what that was. And then I did, and it was a little bit like, imagine to win the lottery. It’s like, got it. And [00:05:00] I, that means I’m gonna spend some time on this planet. Knowing that I had it and what it was and what the poetry’s about and what the films are about and what all this stuff that I, I yearn for and I couldn’t quite get there. And, and then, my work started to turn, couples started coming to me and I started working with couples and, and I found that it wasn’t, we, you do work where you go in and you find, traumas and you untangle them, but there’s also the playfulness of the couple there. Yeah. What techniques do we have in therapy to be playful? I don’t think there are any, and because of comedy improvisation, it’s whole structure is on play and connection and listening and building and giving presence, I thought what a wonderful way to marry those two ways of growing. So that’s how it came across to where I’m today. Gissele: Hmm. Beautiful, beautiful. I was just thinking, last night I [00:06:00] just watched a movie on improv comedians that actually turn into,I, I guess they get sort of caught up in this, world of like, drugs. Oh, okay. It’s actually a really great comedy. I, I strongly suggest you watch it. Oh, okay. Peter: I might look into that. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. It’s, it’s about improv comedians that actually end up sort of getting caught because they weren’t making any money cut into this. I don’t wanna give any too much away, but it’s, it’s actually quite funny. Yeah. I wanna go back to what you mentioned about your parents. so, so why do you think they were together? Do you think that they were together out of obligation? They were together out of like habit? Like what was it that you were picking up that clearly they were together? Not out of love, but out of what? Peter: Yes. I, I think it’s that big question about what is love? I think it gets into a real deep get with people, and we believe that we are in love, but if there’s a certain level of discomfort, it’s probably not, unconditional love. And I think, and [00:07:00] especially, in their era, there was no YouTube, there was no, you can’t get, there’s no self health books. There was, it was like you just learn from your environment. So. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Peter: for me, they both supported each other in a very special way. my dad was very calm, very good in, events, dangerous events and things like that. He was, he could really, my mom wasn’t so good in that, way, but my mom was very structured. my dad wasn’t so structured, so they, they kind of balanced off their, their weak points to, to become stronger together. And they were fond of each other and they still are today. I mean, we still have big family parties where everyone comes together. So there’s still a sense of, of bonding. But the in, and, and I think this is where it echoes back to me, but the, there was a loneliness with the two of them that they didn’t really gel outside those things that supported each other. And, I didn’t want to be, I [00:08:00] didn’t wanna spend my life with that type of, and it wasn’t major, it was like niggling conflict. It was just unhappy. So there wasn’t any major thing going on that you could write home about or in the newspapers. It was constant, just lack. And unfortunately, I went and did the same thing in my relationships. Hmm. my mom and dad are quite fun together, when they’re in the right space. And I found partners that we were really fun together in the right space. Gissele: Hmm. Peter: But again, that, that sense of being truly who you are and feeling vibrant from that space, took a long time to unlearn that. Gissele: Hmm hmm. And when I think about my own experiences  I came into my relationships with a lot of, like all of my baggage, right? And then my partners all came with their baggage. How important do you think it is for us to address our own baggage ourselves before we even.[00:09:00] Come into these relationships and how early should we be addressing our baggage? Peter: Yes. Now this is a very interesting question that I’ve pondered over quite a bit. ’cause there was one part, if we work on ourselves too much, we get focused on that we’re not enough and that we’re damaged. And I, if I just learn one more thing, if I just learn another more thing, if I break, oh, there’s another trauma, I’ll fix that. I’ll do this course, I’ll read that. And you can get lost in this cycle of trying to heal. And it can almost become an addiction in itself. Mm-hmm. That you don’t get to the core issue because you’re constantly trying to scrabble around with, and sometimes just being who you are is enough. And in other times, that trauma just keeps on knocking at the door and it doesn’t allow you to be who you are. It’s visiting that trauma and getting to know it with compassion [00:10:00] and without judgment, and that caring of that younger part of yourself and, and giving it the support and the love that it needed so it can, it can release that, that grip that it has within the darkness. So I was on the school of thought, well, my passion was I was gonna work on myself and I was gonna make sure, and I wasn’t gonna have another relationship until I was completely healed. So I didn’t wanna go through the pain again. And I took full responsibility for it. And I worked and I worked. And when I met my partner, I was hesitant to get into the relationship. I didn’t trust my, my own radar. I was like, I dunno, by just pulling in the same, I’m in love with the same trauma and I, I haven’t learned, I haven’t,the Phoenix hasn’t risen from the ashes. I’ve still got water. So I didn’t, I was nervous and she was just like, we’re just learn together. Gissele: Mm. Peter: And for me, that was [00:11:00] awakening in myself. ’cause I’d always tried to do it on my own. but now I was with somebody who said, yeah, I’ve got stuff that I need to work on. let’s be together. Let’s not harm each other. Let’s take responsibility of what we need to work on and just let’s hold the space and find a way of learning that when it does come in, that we are safe enough to express it without harming the other person. And that meant that in this relationship we could actually evolve. And sometimes there’s challenging parts, but we never raised our voices. We never got irritated, we never walked out of the house. We’ve never done any of that because we’ve formed a foundation where we can be safe within our communication. So going back to your fundamental question, I think it depends on the individual where you are. But there is a way that, and I think that’s where the premise of what I’m doing is, is if you learn to speak lovingly with each other, you can grow together. And then that sense of, that, that connection, the oxytocin [00:12:00] of holding somebody or holding the space for somebody or your nervous system, balancing off with somebody else and growing within that atmosphere can be very powerful. And I found when I was doing all the learning on my own, there was a, an emptiness, a loneliness, which some of it had to be done, but still there was a quality with somebody else that made it a little bit more vibrant. Gissele: I like that.what helped you create that sense of safety within the relationship? you were talking about that you both felt safe to be able to be authentic and make mistakes and all that stuff. Mm. So what helped you create that level of safety? Peter: Well, there’s a few things. I, there’s an internal sense and there’s an external sense, so mm-hmm. Internally, when the triggers come off, when, when they’re fired off, it can send you offline. So there’s, I, there’s, I’m not sure, are you familiar with the ACEs research the adverse childhood? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the researcher talks about how [00:13:00] when the cold saw floods, the mind, how, you get younger and younger, the more stressed you get, the younger you get. So if you’re aware that, oh, I’m getting stressed, I’m going offline, I’m now. 15, I’m now, yeah, 12, I’m now four and I’m stamping and having a, if you can observe that, emotional state, you start to learn your nervous system. So when the IT triggers you go, okay, I’m gonna just bring myself back. What I’m feeling isn’t, I’m under attack. I’m not at deaths door and I need to fight for my survival. It’s a reaction that I’m having in my body and I’m gonna just sit with that discomfort. So when you both are able to sit with the trigger, you don’t attack each other. So that creates a sense of safety already just holding the energy of a trigger. And it’s not easy ’cause they come in hard and they can really push and they can come in fast as well. Mm-hmm. So that [00:14:00] is a learning in itself and just learning to do that will start to give a foundation of safety. And then you have your language. And unfortunately we don’t have an education in how to speak lovingly to each other. Gissele: Yeah, agreed. Peter: So if you have, like in nonviolent communication, they, they make it very clear this type of violent language that we, we use that will get a negative reaction. So if you are blaming, if you’re shaming, if you’re generalizing, if you’re judging, if you are comparing, if you’re doing these things. And I hear it with couples stroke, bang, fire, fire. And in, in about three sentences, they could have five loaded weapons that attack. And they’re like, why are they reacting? I just, and they can say it really calmly. You can say, you are a really horrible person and I hate you so much and I really wish that you would just leave my [00:15:00] life. You can. It, just because you say something with a a soft tone doesn’t mean that it’s not full of violent, unintentional communication. So being conscious of your language and that if you want to, achieve connection, if you strike somebody, it’s gonna make that chance of connection a lot harder. So it’s taking responsibility in your language. If I want that connection, I can’t say it’s because of you, you make me, I feel that you make me angry. So just those kind of languages going. Another one that I find that is really fundamental for feeling safe in communication is that what you have to say, you put on pause for a moment and you go into the other person’s world and you become curious about what’s going on for them. So if they’ve done something that is you don’t, [00:16:00] doesn’t work for you, you try and understand what is going on for them, where the decisions came from, what that was going on. And when the person feels completely understood, a very wonderful thing happens. It’s like all the tension just goes. And again, you’re in a safe environment and then you can say, this is what’s going on for me. This is how it feels. And it’s not about being nice because I have been nice many times in my life that’s caused me a lot of, destruction. Because I haven’t been true to, to really mm-hmm. What I want to do. I’m trying to be nice to the situation, to somebody else. And so I, I am not a, a big fan of being nice, but a big fan of being compassionate. Gissele: Mm-hmm. And, Peter: and finding a way to, to listen, to understand. And then also there are days we are human that it just goes absolutely wrong. Yeah. Lack of sleep a problem at work. things [00:17:00] aren’t working one after the other, after the other after. And this is just the final straw. Some days are just not good. And then you have, you’ve got that rupture and then you’ve got the repair. And how you repair is an, can be an amazing way to take your relationship to another level as well. Gissele: I completely agree with that. I think that’s what I found. You know, like there, people think that there should ever be conflict. The truth of the matter is we’re so different. Like there’s so much diversity in the world that it’s not about never having some level of conflict. It is about, like you said, curiosity as a stepping stone to compassion and then the, the willingness to come together. Like I always say to my children, you know, the relationship has to be more valuable than being right, right? Mm-hmm. It has to be more important than being right because we can really get stuck in our right is in our need to be right and our need to push our agenda, but then we [00:18:00] are then fracturing the relationship. So like you said, that coming together I think kind of can create a level of depth in our relationships when we can kind of get to the other side. Peter: I think the, the need to be right to win in, in an argument, you’ve, if people ask themselves what, what is the, the, the prize? Gissele: Mm mm-hmm. The Peter: prize is us being together then, or is the prize I wanna win and I wanna see them crumble, I wanna make sure that I leave here and they are weaker than I am. Gissele: Yeah. So what I was gonna say was, one of the things I’ve discovered in, in sort of being in, in working with people that have that mentality of being right, there’s underneath that there’s a sense of like, if I’m not right, I’m not valued. If I’m not right, I’m not worthy if I’m not right. And so there’s this a level of, so this is why there’s a level, [00:19:00] sometimes a level of shame. When they’re not right. And so that’s hence the fight to be, right? Mm-hmm. And it’s like once you let go of the association between realism and value, people can start to feel more comfortable in being, oh, that’s okay. It’s, I made a mistake. That’s when you look at our society, we have not reinforced being wrong or making mistakes or being vulnerable even in the school system, right? Children are taught there’s one right way of doing things and this is the right answer and this is the, and so it’s all about the right. And so people get really stuck in that mode. And his, yeah. Go ahead. Peter: Oh no, you just reminded me of something that was very interesting. I remember, I was performing in, I think it was, you know, Beijing or something, and we had an audience and we had a discussion afterwards and this person in the audience said what she saw from. The show and she says is right. And I found that very [00:20:00] interesting because for me the arts is somewhere where right and wrong don’t need to exist. Your feeling or your interpretation of it is correct. And I had this discussion with her about, like you’re saying about the school system. And this is why I feel that the arts needs to be more in the school system. So we get that balance of mentality. ’cause there is a time where if it’s a mass equation, I dunno, I’m not great a mass, but right there is a clear right and wrong. And if you don’t then it’s not gonna work and everything else falls apart. But within the arts and comedy improvisation, you are looking for the mistakes. You are waiting for the mistakes because there the gold dust that give you something unique to take you in a direction past your consciousness or your your paradigm. It’s the mistakes that open up the possibility. And I feel. We have something missing in the, in training our minds when we only have the wrong and right and we’re not training the [00:21:00] possibilities that come. Allowing mistakes. Looking for mistakes. Gissele: Yeah. And, and it prevents us from really critically thinking, right? Like, again, we just look for the right and wrong. But when you’re thinking about the arts, even in how arts are taught in the school system, it’s still very much in the box color within the lines, do this, structure this way. So that’s why I will say like, there’s a level of courage that comes from improv, like in terms of being able to think on your feet and to be able to be vulnerable and make a mistake and sort, and yeah. So I, I really, appreciate that. Peter: Yeah. I remember I was teaching in university, it was a, a dance course. I was doing choreography and, I didn’t realize that I had to mark them. I thought I was just, I hadn’t done my, I hadn’t had a proper discussion, so I said, yeah, you need to, to mark the students. I was like, I, I can’t do that. Gissele: Mm. Peter: And they were like, no, but for them to pass the course, I said, I can’t, I can’t mark them. because they may be creating something, they may be becoming far [00:22:00] more influential artists than I am. And I go to them from my perspective and go, oh no, you haven’t done what I wanted. But they may be growing in a direction that I don’t even know what tomorrow as an artist will be expressing. So to Mark, somebody could kill off an artist or the potential of an artist. Gissele: Mm-hmm. And I had a Peter: really hard time about it. And then we came to an agreement and what I did is I said, okay, if everyone hits this, this, this, and this, and this. What I want, based on what I am delivering. Then you’ll get your marks. So everyone hits it and everyone got a nine. So I, I said they wanna chase me up about it, it’s fine. Gissele: Wow. That’s awesome. Going back to our conversation about couples. Mm-hmm. you know, so when you started your relationship, you started, sort of started obviously from a place of growth. ’cause you, ’cause you had done a lot of work on yourself and your partner obviously was in a particular journey. What do you say to couples that have already, who might have met, like earlier when [00:23:00] they had all those traumas and whatever, and who might have gone on the journey where there might be resentment, whether, whether there might be that lack of safety. How do you then start carving away to get to where. You trust each other more, you can be more playful and so on. Peter: Yeah. Yeah. there’s, and this is something where my approach may be different than a therapist’s approach. ’cause a therapist’s approach is to generally is to heal the couples. Mm. Come back and to be happily together. You are broken. I will fix you. Mm-hmm. Yes. My approach is slightly different. My approach is we need you both to be the full potential of who you are. And when you become the full potential of who you are, are you still the right match? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Peter: So it may mean when you truly let go of your trauma or your resentment or something, you may find that you’re not actually the right match. Yeah. And if [00:24:00] that’s, and then what does that mean to lovingly go on your way to find the right match? Because if you’ve come together for your trauma, you may, when you’ve untangled the trauma, the dance may stop. Yeah. So yeah, it’s a hard thing to, ’cause when you are there, sometimes you’ve got that connection. You don’t wanna let it go. But sometimes it takes the courage and go, this is actually, we are not actually the love that we want to have on this planet. We are not the two that are gonna give it. And so for me it’s, I say, let’s do the work. Let’s find out what’s going on. Let’s release as much as we can. Let’s do the playfulness. Let’s, and let’s see what happens when you get to, when the resentment’s gone, when the anger’s gone, and when the, let’s see who we are today. And if. You ask in a loving, unconditional, loving space, then great. Let’s just add, add a little bit more spice in there. Let’s just get the flavor just right so the ingredients can [00:25:00] bake into a nice, yeah. A nice cake or something. Gissele: Mm-hmm. But Peter: it’s, so it’s, for me, it’s not so much everybody, it’s not a sense, like a therapist will try and go, okay, I will fix you, and you all go together and it may not be the case. Gissele: Yeah. And that’s, that’s very honest. And, and I think for, for some people, like, especially if you have children, Peter: yeah. Gissele: That might be a bit of a challenge. You know, it’s a huge, huge Peter: challenge. Yeah. Gissele: It’s, it’s a huge challenge because then if the children are happy, then you are impacting, like, it’s one thing to be on your own and you’re dating someone, or you’re married someone. But without children, you can easily say, well, it’s been nice to know you. I’ve grown, you’ve grown. Bye-bye. Then when you have additionally other people in the role. Then it makes that more challenging because then now you’re impacting other people’s. Peter: Absolutely. Gissele: Happiness. So when do you say to couples who might struggle with them? Peter: Yeah, there’s a, there’s a few things. It’s again, a choice. mm-hmm. I [00:26:00] think if, well there’s this research, if you are unhappily together and you just stay together and you’re unhappy, the kids are gonna feel that and they’re learning what a relationship is for their future. So you’re giving them an education of, for a generation to repeat a pattern. if you can be together, not really as just for the children, you say, okay, there’s not so much, and there’s all sorts of relationships nowadays, how people find ways of surviving. They may find that intimacy elsewhere and be together, co-parent within the house and love each other as friends, but not, and so. For each individual, there’s a very complex way of finding out what is true for the, for each couple. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Peter: but if you are being violent towards each other verbally, it is better that you separate lovingly and create a loving coexistence with respect and kindness [00:27:00] that your kids can see that and feel that then to be brought up in a, verbally violent, place. But then you ask some kids what they want and they said, I don’t care. I just want my parents to be together and that the separation is gonna have, its, its trauma within itself. And then they’re gonna have to unpack that for years to come. So I think for each individual, it’s always, there’s not a, a template. For, a relationship. Each human is complexed and each dynamic within the family is complex. Gissele: Peter: and so you have to investigate what is your dynamic, what is your, your culture within your, your home, and how does that culture best survive? Is it best surviving, being together? If you’re not loving, how do you create a culture that you can still to together and be loving? Or does that mean moving apart? And if you moving apart, how do you stay loving? So the, for me, the fundamental [00:28:00] is how do we stay in love or in loving, compassionate mindset with our tribe? What is the best choice to make for the children and for ourselves? So it’s a un, like you said, it’s not like individuals making choices. It’s how do we come together for the best, for ourselves and the children? Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I the past I had been in relationships where I thought I was happy and then I didn’t realize how unhappy I was. Like I was not in awareness of like, how do people know if they’re truly, like you said, in in in the best relationship for themselves? Peter: Yeah. Yeah. When you were in that relationship and you weren’t aware, what was the pain level in that relationship compared to the love level Gissele: High. Peter: And what was the sense of connection with compared to loneliness Gissele: High.  and I only found out from external people. ’cause I, I guess I didn’t have the awareness to be able to tell myself. [00:29:00] Yeah. And so like, life is a mirror, is it not? It’s such a beautiful, beautiful life. Yeah. People were by mirror and we’re saying like, this isn’t quite right. Like the, you are not like happy, you’re not like blah, blah, blah. And yeah. But these are things I wouldn’t tell myself. I, I didn’t, I was like quietly suffering. I didn’t know. Yeah. But Peter, I was also quietly suffering because underneath all that, and that’s why that relationship was so helpful. Underneath all that was a lack of self worth. I didn’t think I was worthy. I, I didn’t think I was ever enough. Yeah. And so I was waiting for the other person to just go away. So for me it was a huge awakening. Sorry. Go ahead. Peter: Yeah. And I think that’s what, I think these are clues waiting for the other person to go away. Gissele: Yeah. Peter: That’s those little whispers. Gissele: mm-hmm. there was another one that came to my mind when you said that. but yeah, just, I [00:30:00] mean, just at that, those, it’s the whispers that come, come up that if I, or if if I work a little bit harder, if I come a little bit better or they become, if they do something different, then it’ll be okay. Peter: Yes. Gissele: There’s like Peter: a condition into the future. Gissele: Yeah. It was always about the other person, what they weren’t doing for me. Peter: Yeah. Gissele: Like they’re doing this to me. They’re doing this thought they’re doing. Yeah. Like I was constantly in that victim mode and Yeah. And they Peter: would just change. Yes. They would just change. Yeah. Yeah. Gissele: If they would just be better, then it would be fine. Would make relationship. Mm-hmm. Peter: Mm-hmm. These are all the clues that come along that you are not in a loving relationship. Gissele: Yeah. Peter: When you’re in a loving relationship, it’s not about them changing tomorrow. They’re absolutely fine right now. Gissele: Yeah. Peter: And even if, that’s one of the Gissele: things I had to learn. Sorry, go ahead. Peter: Yeah. Yeah. And even if they irritate you with some things mm-hmm. It’s just like, oh, there we go again. But it’s not like I, if I will only love them when they change that behavior. [00:31:00] Yeah. Gissele: And that was one of the fundamental things I had to learn, which is I like, I didn’t wanna marry someone that I had to change. Peter: Yes. Yeah. Gissele: Like I, and the other thing too is because like relationships haven’t flow, right? Peter: Yeah. Gissele: And so I remember there was a situation for me where I was like, okay, stay or go stay, go. I was like, whatever I decide, I have to fully decide Can’t ‘ cause Have you found this in terms of ambivalence? Ambivalence is the worst thing that you can experience, which is like you stay but you wanna leave. Yeah. Or you, you are there, but you want the person to be different. Like, or you go, but you want like, it’s that, it’s that indecision that I think causes a lot of suffering. I think when you fully make a choice, if you’re choosing to forgive someone’s, for example, infidelity, then choose to forgive, right? Yeah. But to stay with someone and then resent them [00:32:00] for the rest of their life. Peter: Yeah. Gissele: That causes a lot of, Peter: and I think especially with something like infidelity, I think you’ve both gotta come together and say the relationship is over, it’s finished. Mm. Doesn’t mean that we may not be together in the future. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Peter: Or the relationship that we thought I thought we had, or you may have not thought that we had, but it wasn’t clear. But whatever that relationship is finished. Yeah. Then you make a decision. If we’re staying together, we have to build what our rules are and are we, are we abiding by those rules and building a trust on the new creation of what’s going on? And if there was something in the old relationship that led that you either, you need to do this and that has to become a conversation that you are not, just one and one person is not for you. And I would choose whether I’m okay with that or not okay with that. Or if, you were hurt in a certain way that you, that you felt lonely or there’s something inside you that isn’t okay that you need to sort out, but that is [00:33:00] over. You have broken the trust of that relationship. And we have to make a decision how we go forward from here and what are the rules and not the rules of society, but what rules do we feel comfortable with and that each person doesn’t compromise how they need to be loved. Gissele: Hmm. Do you know what I, I love that you said that. The reason why is because of the people that I know that have experienced that it’s usually one person making the rules mm-hmm. For them to be safe. Mm-hmm. And the other person has to abide by the rules or leave the relationship. I, this is the first time. And it could be that other therapists have said that or whatever, but this is the first time I’m hearing that even the person who committed the perpetration has a right to say what is working or, or is gonna work for them moving forward. Peter: Yeah. Gissele: And I think that’s very fair because then there’s usually the setup that person is in perpetually being punished for. And then the other person is perpetually seeing themselves as the victim or impacted by the behavior. And [00:34:00] neither of them feel free or neither of them feel that love. Peter: yeah, and I think like, it’s like with all, it’s, every single story almost has its own backbone to it or its own. Mm, mm-hmm. And some infidelity is because somebody doesn’t care about anybody else and they just do what they want. Other people are trying, they’re in a loveless relationship and they need to try and find love somewhere else so they can actually stay with the playlist. There’s so many different ways of, so just to go, oh, it’s good or bad, it is missing the nuances of, of starting a new relationship if you choose to stay together because like you said, you could stay together and one person could either be in fear that they’ll never be able to trust them again. Or another person feel like they’re gonna shame me for the rest of my life and I didn’t really wanna do this, but it happened. And so it’s like, whatever. your experiences. It’s, it’s listening to each other, understanding and going back to the core of who you are and how you need to be loved in order to, to recreate a [00:35:00] relationship. Gissele: Hmm. I love that. let’s talk about play. Peter: Yeah. Gissele: Because I don’t know about you. I never saw my parents really playing around. Periodically, they would like play with one another in terms of words or sarcasm and whatever, like, you know, as a way of coming together. But for the most part, the marriage was like, my parents loved each other very much and do, they’re still both alive. but, there was always a sense of responsibility. Like it’s work, it’s responsibility, it’s right. And when I see my husband’s parents, it was the same. It was that responsibility. There was no, there is no, like, I didn’t see a lot of joy, right? Like, I didn’t see a lot of that. So what are some things that people can start doing to start bringing out more of that play in light of all of the responsibilities that people feel, right? Peter: Yeah. I think especially in a household with lots of children, there’s mm-hmm. It’s a, every other [00:36:00] moment there’s a stressor that you’re dealing with. Gissele: yeah. Especially teens. Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Teens. Sometimes I Gissele: love my teens, but sometimes like Yeah, sometimes they, they definitely challenge me. Peter: Yeah. You have to move and swift and, and dive and also not take things personally. Zigzag. Gissele: Yeah, Peter: exactly. You zag Z you gotta be fucking weave and die. Gissele: Dodge. Peter: Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. Peter: oh, I forgot the question I’ve got. Oh yeah. Play. yes. So one of the things with, And I think it’s so important. I find not everybody is playful and that’s okay as well. Gissele: Yeah. Oh, Peter: I like that when I, yeah. Yeah. ’cause the, the playful couple are for people that want to play. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Some Peter: people may be very happy, you know, I don’t know. In a drama class, some kids, I don’t wanna do drama. I just wanna sit down and do my master equation. Yeah. Yeah. And I get my happiness from that. And so it’s Gissele: mm-hmm. Peter: The playful couple won’t be for all couples. This is for couples that want, enjoy that connection and either don’t quite know how to get it, [00:37:00] or have lost them, or they had it mm-hmm. Know what they had. Yeah. And they’re doing what they did, and they don’t understand why it changed. And all it is is remind ’em, you were doing this, you were doing that. Oh yeah. So let’s, let’s bring that back in again. Mm-hmm. I Gissele: love that. Mm-hmm. Peter: So there’s one thing that I find that play does play. Has a turning towards each other. It’s a acknowledgement of each other. And so when, and this is from comedy improvisation, which I think is really beautiful, is, when you give a gift, a playful gift. And I just, just, I think sometimes people gotta be careful of humor. ’cause humor can be quite aggressive and quite,violent in its own structure. It can really be putting down shaming. And so sometimes people hide behind, humor as a form of connection when it actually knocks somebody away. And that’s why playfulness for me is very important. ’cause in play. Mm-hmm. [00:38:00] You’re not knocking anybody down at the, at the expense of a laugh. Oh, I found that funny. It’s not about, I, it’s about, we find it funny. So I love Gissele: that you said that. ’cause you know, there there is this whole argument about comedy and does it need to be so basing of other people? Peter: Yeah. Many different ways. Yeah. And it’s, it is a tough one, isn’t it? ’cause it’s almost, and I find the difference between maybe a relationship and a, like a comedian is a comedian’s on stage. Mm. They performing and it comes to an end and you something like you paid a ticket or you turn on the tv, you’ve made a choice to engage. And you may not like it and you turn it off, or you walk out mm-hmm. In your relationship. If you want the relationship, you can’t walk away. You can’t hide, you can’t. So the performance isn’t over. You Gissele: turn the person off. Peter: You turn them off. Gissele: Where’s that mute? Where’s that mute? Yeah, go ahead. Yes, Peter: please, Frank. [00:39:00] so you ha it’s a, it’s a consistent relationship. It’s a marathon as a, it keeps on going. So, if you turn off the comedian and go, I’m not watching that person again, and then it’s gone. But in your relationship, if you hit with harsh humor, that puts people down. There’s only so much hits you can have before it starts to drain your energy. And what do you, again, again, what do you want to win? Do you wanna win a quick laugh that you feel, ha ha, that was funny. Oh, stop being so sensitive. Gissele: So sensitive. Yeah. Peter: Yeah. But what does it mean to play that we have fun together? That it’s a shared experience and the, it comes back with so much more energetically when mm-hmm. You give somebody a gift, a playful gift, they take it, they go, oh, this is fun. And they give it back with a slight little bit of that exaggeration and the other person takes it and goes, oh, that was funny. Here, I’ll give it back with a little bit more exaggeration on there. Oh, is that all you’re giving me? [00:40:00] What? And you get into this and it can be so simple as,I’m just gonna try and find an example of something simple. And I didn’t have one on the top of my head, but it can be a very simple interaction. Gissele: Yeah. I think what you’re talking about is reciprocity, right? Like you’re talking about. Yes. Yeah. Like, it’s like what you said, and I think it’s very important. So I’m gonna repeat it. Yeah. Which is, it’s, it’s the we are playing. Yeah. The, we are having fun, not just one person at the extent of another, hoping that the other person will accept they’re, Peter: yeah. Gissele: Their humor, right? Peter: What, what I find very interesting when like researching into the polyvagal theory and understanding how, and also this, ’cause this came a lot when I was studying craniosacral therapy and you’re going into the nervous system a lot and the brain stem and, and then how energetically we balance each other off. We regulate each other for our nervous system. And that when you are [00:41:00] playing and you’re turning into each other, that you can almost get a sense that your nervous system is pulsating when you are, when you are connected. And it’s very hard to get physical intimacy in your life if you’re not having that nervous of your nervous system pulsating in rhythm together. So some people are making so-called love together when it’s either a chore or it’s like, well, we haven’t done it for a long time. Or, you’ve had, it is like you’re not really in the same zone, but somebody’s got a, a chemical thing that’s going for their body, but is it really? Are you together? And it’s that sense. The more you are together, the more your physical intimacy will be in that flow. You’re not kind of stop and starting, oh, it’s Saturday, or it’s it’s your birthday. Or it’s like, it’s just we are playing and today we want to take that into deeper intimacy. And it [00:42:00] just keeps that connection and it becomes more, yeah, I think, yeah, it is just that flow, that flow within the relationship. Gissele: Mm-hmm. It’s funny that you, you mentioned that I was thinking about. The difference sometimes between men and women, and not all men and not all women, right? Mm-hmm. But the, the examples I had growing up, which was the women crave more of that intimate one-on-one connection and time together, whereas sometimes for the men in my family was just more the, intimacy, the physical intimacy. And it’s like, well, how do you marry the two so that everyone gets what they need? Right? Yeah. Like how do you combine, instead of it being like the whining about like, oh, we just don’t spend enough time together. How do you meld the two so that everyone, like you said, everyone feels loved, and what does it take for each of us to feel loved? Which I think is an amazing question. Peter: Yeah. And I think the, for [00:43:00] me and people who enjoy a playful relationship that, that you are spending time together. But you’re not just sitting down. And, I remember when I was in my teens, I had crushes on girls and things like that, but the idea of walking around, holding their hand brought the daylights out of me that, I want a girlfriend to climb trees with me. It was the, it was a, I needed to be active while some people sit and they can just have a glass of wine and it’s very romantic, but if you want to sit, and discuss and that you’re being playful at the same time, if you’ve got different types of energies, both can get the same thing. You’ve got that intimacy, that connection, and you’ve got the playfulness that something active is happening as well. And it can bridge to energetic worlds. So both feel that they’re getting exactly what they want at the same time. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Let’s talk a little [00:44:00] bit about, conflict in relationships. cause you know, one of the most beautiful things I heard, from friends is like, you know, we we’re looking at this world that where there’s so much conflict, there’s so much division between people, there’s so much, you know, like so many issues, so much separation. And yet many people don’t acknowledge that within their own family systems, within their family units, there’s so much division, there’s so much conflict, right? Yeah. Like, we’re trying to solve the world’s problems, but we can’t even solve the problems of like, I’m not talking to so and so, or, or I’m in constant resistance. It’s that, it’s, it’s, it’s for me that the feeling of disharmony and resistance between, what are some things that people can do in order to sort of ease that resistance and start to connect a little bit more? Peter: Again, there’s quite, there’s quite a lot to it we can do, but I think I. Outside some of the things we discussed already. I think, one thing that also opened my mind up quite a lot when I did [00:45:00] NLP is there’s parts of it that’s based on gestalt therapy and how we have different parts and how we communicate with those parts. And then I studied a bit of,internal family systems and it was, almost a more expansive understanding of parts than I had previously, learned. And there was an interest in, in helping with conflict within that, that when I sometimes work with couples. A couple might come out and go, I don’t like what you’re doing. This is this, this, this. And then the other person’s like, what are they talking about? They do it as well. They, we do it together. Well, what do you mean you don’t like that? I don’t understand. It’s the, and then when you have understanding that we’re not a one person Gissele: mm-hmm. Peter: That we’re a one identity and you can just put us into a box and that we’re always that, that, that thing that we are a clo complex, diverse being within ourselves. Gissele: Yeah. Peter: And that sometimes we may, [00:46:00] a part of us may feel one way and another part may be completely contradictory to that and feel the other way. So when we understand we are not a one, type of person, it also opens up compassion a little bit more. The sense that, yeah. Hold on a second. Who am I speaking to at this moment? I’m not gonna say, but you just said this, you said that earlier. Or it’s like, okay, this is right, you’re saying right now, let me hear it, let me get to know it so that we start to understand the parts of the individuals, the different characters within the individuals. So it’s almost like that everybody in your system feels loved, not just the one, fantasy image we have of how we’ve condensed that person into there. Mm-hmm. So I think it’s broadening our perspective on who, what a human being is. mm-hmm. Like when we have politicians and I, I find myself doing this, they make decisions where I’m just like, I have done in the past that I hate [00:47:00] you. Gissele: Mm. Peter: That they have signed off bombing in a country as if it’s just, A celebration. Yeah. A celebration of technical advancements and power. Yeah. And I just find it re but then I found when I go, I hate you for your decision. I have activated the same kind of energy. Gissele: Yeah. Peter: On a very small, yes. But I’ve activated the same hatred. Gissele: So Yeah, the same dehumanization the same. Yeah. Yeah. Peter: Yeah. So that’s where compassion gets really challenging. It’s like, okay, their decision goes against everything I believe in. How do I understand the different parts of them? How do I understand their fear? How do I understand their protection? How do I understand, even though I may not agree with it, how do I open them up to not be a one dimensional character, but a human who’s making decisions that you could actually then get in a conversation with, if that was the possibility, that you ever allowed that [00:48:00] possibility. Whether it make any change, I don’t know. Sometimes change takes hundreds of years, but it’s, I think we’ve got more possibility when we acknowledge that people are more complex and more, they’re not, I, I don’t like them. I do like them. category that you put them in. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. And again, I think it goes back to how what we’ve conditioned is right or wrong, right? Like, we don’t understand our interconnection, we don’t understand that. our wellness is interconnected with the wellness of other beings. What do you think the role of self-love and self-compassion is in, in being able to have love and compassion for others, especially our partners? Peter: this is a journey I went on fundamentally. Like, this for me, was the core that changed a lot. it, I first discovered something when I separated. I think I was about 16, seven years, 17 years with the, the mother of my two girls. And I remember thinking what went wrong i’s like, I wanted a, I don’t want another relationship. I wanted just one person to the end of my life. That was what I wanted. Yeah. And [00:49:00] didn’t happen. It just was an absolute mess. And I remember I just studied,timeline therapy where you go along your timelines and you look at the, the, the injuries that you’ve had and you, you heal them. And I went along and I found all this anger and I thought, I’m not an angry person. And I found anger and anger and anger and I was like, that’s weird. And the more I delved with inside the, the person I projected outside of who I believed I wanted to be inside was very different. It. And there came a point where I said to myself, do I love myself? And their voice says, no, you don’t. And I shocked myself from that ’cause I thought I was a loving person. I tried to be. And my intention was to be a loving person. And I was doing my best to try and be nice in the world and, and help people and do what I could. And I was like, oh dear, I don’t have a great foundation here. And the journey began [00:50:00] and what that meant to find love within myself took quite a long time. But when I did. And it was, I still catch myself. ’cause there’s certain, I was the insults to myself, which were horrendous. I remember, writing down all the insults. I said to myself, I’m stupid. I’m thick, I’m useless. I’m whatever it is. Or, and I was looked at him and I wrote them down on a piece of paper and I, I put them on my phone every time it came up, I put them down, I put ’em, I gathered them together and I saw them and I was like, oh my word. If I got a person and said that to them, I would be taken to prison for abuse. And I do that to myself. Gissele: Wow. Peter: And it was a real realization of my own self violence. And I was like, this needs to stop. And so I just, mindfulness was really great. I did the, stress reduction, mindfulness. I can’t remember what it is. I’m [00:51:00] terrible remembering names, but it’s an amazing, form of mindfulness where I just ev all day long. I was just tracking my emotional self and where I was and being present and catching the, the, the feelings. And I really got to learn my internal, structure. And I started putting compassion in there and kindness. And when I found these parts, I didn’t push them away. I invited them in and got to know them and accepted them, and their self-acceptance for everything unconditionally. Even if I had thoughts that I do not agree with, I accept them as they’re okay. I just won’t attach them, but I just, even if I just invite them in, it’s like, oh, that thought, I don’t want to be part of my personality, but it’s there, so let’s have a look. What’s going on here? And it, it just year after year after year, it got to a place where I was like, this vibration feels a lot better. And it may be a lifelong [00:52:00] journey because, and ‘ cause everything fluctuates and changes and moves and so there’s Yeah, constant, Gissele: everything ebbs and flows. Yeah. Peter: Yeah. But the general vibration was, was at a higher frequency than it was before. And I was like, okay. And then I could see, you know, you’re saying externally, your mirror. I could see my relationship changing and what people were saying to me was changing, and it was a bit hard to take some of the compliments as well. I was like, Ooh, that’s another thing I’ve gotta lead. I can’t actually handle everyone saying these nice compliments, and that makes me feel uncomfortable back to the drawing board and untangle that stuff. But for, for me personally, I felt that that was the foundation of me gaining a healthier relationship later and also not attacking or defending when it was getting, emotionally uncomfortable, that just being okay, like as I was with myself, with all my shadows and everything to be okay with somebody else’s [00:53:00] shadows. So, and like I said, some days are better than others, but when it’s good, it really feels this wonderful connection. And, and that’s what I encourage people to do when we’re working is you’ve got the interconnection with the relationship and then you’ve got that internal loving compassion for yourself, which when it vibrates from the inside out just becomes a beacon, almost an attraction of, of bringing that energy towards yourself. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. Oh, I love that you said that. Number one, I love the fact that you said, you know, it’s, it’s an everyday journey, right? Like it ebbs and flows, right? Mm-hmm. Like we we’re not looking for perfection here. Everybody thinks, oh, I gotta be the Dalai Lama, I gotta be Nelson Mandalah. Or like, I got, you know what I mean? I gotta be Jesus. No, you don’t. You can just, Peter: yeah, Gissele: just, just choose love. Yeah. Every day and every moment. And some days you’re gonna stumble and that’s okay. We don’t have to be perfect. Sorry, you were gonna say Peter: No, I just got very excited for a moment. ’cause I think that what you said was so true. There [00:54:00] we’re not the Dalai Lama and we’re not Nelson and d the Dalai Lama, remember him saying, well, yeah, I get angry sometimes. It just, and then it’s gone. And then, Nelson Mandela, I mean, he was a fighter. I mean, he, he was a, a resistance fighter. they will have their human struggles. And, they won’t be perfection either. And so sometimes when we use these icons of the, the image that we’re given of peace and compassion, the individual I am guessing, was complexed and challenged from day to day with what, and sometimes they were very spiritual and left in advertis. They may have tantrums and not be as spiritual as they were another day, even if they’ve meditated on a hill for 25 years. I just, I just see it in the people that I’ve, I’ve come across. They’re like, the day changes, like the seasons, and there’s times when we’re a higher flow and we’re a lower one. Even if the, you’re not as low as maybe somebody [00:55:00] else who hasn’t done the work, you still have your own wave that you go through. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s a setup, right? Because like, think if we, when we expect, and this is just another way of people expecting perfection. oh, I gotta be as perfect as them. Right? not realizing that the purpose is for all of us to do it. Yeah. Purpose is, we are all taking this journey. That’s the purpose. The purpose is to be more loving and compassionate to ourselves. And I found the same thing, exactly what you were talking about. The more love and compassion I have for myself, the more I don’t need other people to act differently. When I’m lacking in my own self-love and self-compassion, the more I try to, to force or navigate or, or struggle with other people’s behavior. And it’s about a choice. Like what do I wanna feel and who do I wanna be every single day? Someday I stumble, other days I, I feel great, which then I can express myself the most lovingly. And so again, perfection need not apply. We’re all just [00:56:00] making a choice constantly. And that’s what I, I loved about your blurb, which is like it’s moment to moment and it’s continuing to choose to get curious, continuing to choose to be loving, continuing to choose. And I think that is the path that can get us to creating a more loving world. Peter: Yes, absolutely. Mm-hmm. And you, you reminded, I remember I saw the Dalai Lama speak once and mm-hmm. And the person in the audience asked them, I’m having difficulty in my relationship. What, what do you advise? And he said, well, let me find myself a partner, be with them for 20 years, have a few children, see their through their children. And then I can tell you right now, I don’t know, and I thought. It was a really nice way of saying, yeah, I don’t have the experience. He said, I can teach you about compassion. That’s my, that’s my area. But to be honest, I haven’t been in that environment, so I will lack wisdom in there. [00:57:00] And I thought that was a very humble, approach to the question. Gissele: Hmm. And my husband and I have had these conversations talking about like, there’s an element of easier to be the guru if you are in a monastery with, you know what I mean? Like, and, and you’re not in a relationship or have children or have many issues and all of those things that it’s harder to be in this square of society and not sitting in a cave potentially. I mean, all of that has been helpful. All of that has helped our evolution. Yeah. And at the same time, like the Dalai Lama said. It’s not in his wheelhouse. He, he doesn’t know what it’s like to, to, to have children and have all of those stressors in every day and maybe go to a job or get laid off and all of those things. Right? Like Peter: yeah. Gissele: It’s, it’s, it’s a very different thing. And practicing compassion in those different realms requires a different level of practice in awareness and mindfulness and all of [00:58:00] those things. and I think that’s why it’s important for us to realize that we know what the end goal might be, but our journey there is for like, it’s very individualized. It’s sort of like we have, each of us have the seed within ourselves on what the path is. Peter: Yeah. Gissele: Like if we only just stop trying to follow other people’s paths, like I think we could be much more successful, I think. Peter: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s, that’s the challenge is that finding your own authenticity. What, who am I? And it’s not always that easily accessible. But, finding clues to it and really investing in it means that you do become unique in your, in your, going back to frequency and how your, your energy creates. It’s, it’s not a trying to be, it becomes authentically it. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. For me, it’s been a journey of understanding that I’m not just this physical body and I’m just not this giba person. Mm-hmm. That I’m bigger than that. That there’s more to me. And then [00:59:00] there is this, when the ego tries to drive the bus doesn’t always work out. But when I am, allow myself to have a more expanded view, more higher self view, things work out very beautifully and for the benefit of all. So it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s really, it’s been quite the journey. A, a beautiful, beautiful journey. Sometimes very challenging, but, I choose to love even the challenges and be in love with even the challenges. Which can feel tough. Peter: Yeah, absolutely. ’cause unfortunately, births tend to be a little bit uncomfortable. Gissele: Yeah. Peter: And they are through that. Yeah. And it’s, maybe there is, I I think some people say you don’t need to go through these births. I, I am not quite sure about that. It seems like when the change comes, you put the seatbelt on and you just accept what’s happening and it sometimes feel you get hit really hard and you just take the knock and you don’t just keep on going forward. Gissele: Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. So we’re coming to the end of the [01:00:00] show. couple more questions. Yep. What is your definition of unconditional love or love? Some people don’t like the word unconditional, so what’s your definition of love? Peter: There’s a few, actually. There’s a, there’s a sense of, what’s an, a kind of unconditional openness. Gissele: Mm. Peter: that it’s not narrow, it’s expansive. Gissele: Mm. I like that. Peter: And a sense that all the senses are curious. So curious what you hear, curious of what you see. like a child childlike curiosity to life. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Peter: So an expansive Yeah. Kind of expansive, open, love Gissele: that Peter: to the, to all the senses. Gissele: I like that. so last question. Where can people find you? Where can they work with you? What do you wanna share with the audience? Peter: Yeah. So, I am based on my online, so,www.theplayfulcouple.co uk. there’s some playful quizzes on there to do. also if you want to work with me, just, I do a three [01:01:00] 30 minute call. Just have a chat and see if you would like to go on a journey, either individually or with, your partner and see how we find who you really are underneath all the, the how. And, and if you want to play, we’ll give you techniques to, to sort that out. Gissele: Mm, sounds wonderful. Thank you so much, Peter, for being on the show and sharing your wisdom. Pleasure. This was an amazing conversation. It’s pleasure Peter: being here. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank Gissele: you very much. And thank you for joining us on another episode of the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Have a wonderful day,

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our worlds. Today we have Britton and Carolee back, and they’re talking to us about the education system. Hello. Welcome back. Welcome back. Hi. Good to see you. Hello. Good. It’s been forever. It’s been, I know, it’s been like so long. I was wondering if you could start by telling the audience a little bit about yourselves and how you sort of left your world, decided to sell everything moved to other countries and what you did with the kids for the school system. Carolee: Well, we are parents to four children and we were raised in the Mormon culture. And with that there’s a big emphasis and focus on family. Families are really, really important. And so, you know, we went through a lot of turmoil and challenge in regards [00:01:00] to our love relationship within this paradigm. And truly didn’t actually have emotional intelligence and really lacked a lot of things we had a completely different idea of what we needed to accomplish as parents with our children too. Like everything was drastically different in that paradigm than it is now. So in our journey of healing, infidelity, Like deconstructing from organized religion. We also had this complete awakening into how we were to raise our children and the paradigm of like what kids actually need as we also were going into healing of our own inner child. Right. As we became aware of the need to reparent ourselves, it fundamentally transformed how we approached parenting our kids.  I’m curious about what you found you needed to heal your inner child [00:02:00] in what you discovered your children needed that was different from what we currently do. So back in, oh goodness, it was 2019. You know, at this point in our story we had three children and we had not yet even been pregnant with the fourth. That would come later in 2020. But our oldest was in second.  grade at this time. And I remember sitting down with his second grade teacher and she started explaining and expressing some awareness that she had of his emotional needs. He was already not liking school. He was already a pushback on learning. There was already some inclination towards depression and anxiety and like just emotional turmoil that this little second grader was experiencing. And in a lot of ways. It mirrored to me my own disharmony in my own [00:03:00] life that I also had experienced. And so, you know, in the traditional sense I was like, oh, what do I do for my child? I’m really wanting him to succeed. I’m really wanting him to be emotionally intelligent. I’m really wanting him to love his life. And we had done so much, I was the kind of mom that like, almost didn’t take care of myself because I needed to take care of everybody else first. You know? And so as I sat there, I, I was like, my child is too young to be carrying the heaviness of the world in his body. Like at, at age eight. He really should actually just be joyful and having fun, like being a kid, why is he so weighed down? So there was this big question mark that I had about my children and about this one child specifically. That really kind of started opening my mind that there needed to be a different way, but, but I wasn’t quite sure what that [00:04:00] looked like. And so what I did is I, I reached out and, you know, we were living in Utah at the time, and I, I started kind of looking into, okay, where, where are some therapeutic clinics that actually do therapy for kids? And I found a couple that were highly recommended, and I got him on a wait list. You know, there was no availability to like drop in for a session. And so I put him on the wait list and I was just in this pattern of holding like something, I needed help, I needed a different perspective. I needed somebody who knew more than I knew. I knew that we needed to parent differently and we needed to approach differently, but I, the, the, the culture and the paradigm that we were in was very much doing the things that I was already doing. And I saw that it wasn’t working, you know? And so what ended up happening after that, after that awareness and that drop in with this teacher and, you know, I really came from this compassionate place of like, just caring. I had so much love and compassion for this young child that I was, I’m the guardian, the mother. I [00:05:00] mean, I, I love my children fiercely. That, you know. That was in the periphery. That was part of what I was calling in, and I was just waiting for the right thing to land. And it was in that fall timeframe that we actually had our very first psilocybin journey. And it was in that journey that my journey actually was very centered on my children. Here I was doing this sacred container for the very first time with very intentional healing. We had the set and setting and a guide, and it was just very spiritual. And I’m in the kitchen at one point putting together this beautiful array of food. I was so hungry and I was like, Ooh, this is all coming together so magically. And instead of seeing the food in front of my hand, like in front of my face, that I was preparing, I saw in my mind like a movie of my life. And the moments that I went to were none other than the moments of births. At [00:06:00] this point. I had three children and I watched, like I was in the room like a angel floating above a fly on the wall, my own self giving birth to my kids. In those moments, all of a sudden by watching it like an observer instead of emotionally in it, I saw, I saw my emotional body, I saw Britain’s emotional body. I saw this interconnectedness of what I was going through at the time, and I saw it almost like it was this transfer into my children. And I put together something that nobody else had ever told me. Now, I, I’ve had so many conversations. People understand this idea. And it, it’s not a novel thing anymore, but at the time, it was literally something I had never heard of, that there was this imprinting of me and what was happening, the story into my children and their own experience that, you know. And so I realized, oh, we’re all a lot more emotionally and [00:07:00] energetically connected. And, and what I was holding trauma, sadness, joy, bliss, discontent, anger, frustration, like all of those energies that were different with each one of my pregnancies and each one of the deliveries, I realized, oh, I could see that there was this thread, this connection that that still was, those energies were still relevant in the personality and in the struggle and in the needs of my children. And it was this big aha moment of the mother child relationship that I was like, okay, there’s something here. And within a week of that journey, we went to a sound healing at a place called the Institute of Healing Arts in Linden, Utah. And at that sound healing, I was talking to the, a woman at the front desk afterwards, and she said, we do processes for children. And all of a sudden my eyes just widened and I was like, this, this is what I need. And without even [00:08:00] realizing exactly what it was, I signed up and booked a session for my oldest that I had really wanted and we dropped in. I took him to one of those sessions and we ended up doing several sessions. I ended up actually going to school there all of 2020. I completed a year long facilitator training at this school because what they gave me in that session for my oldest, and in those sessions I realized was the emotional reeducation I needed as a mother to do parenting. Completely different. So it was like the mushrooms opened my vision, then guided us into a new place of re-imagining how to parent, which then emerged into an education that literally changed the emotional dynamic of our family for for good. So that’s kind of that introduction of where it really, where it began and that emerged from that everything shifted. The way we parent and educate our children now is so fundamentally [00:09:00] different than how we began. Gissele: And what about you Britton? What was your experience around shifting your perspective on parenting and how you educate your children? Britton: Yeah, so when we started off, I had these plans and preconceived ideas about around how I, you know, I wanted academic achievement in my children. And you know, just that paradigm of like being. Top a students, super smart, studious, all the things that, you know, a, I think a, a typical parent, you know, wants for their children. And so before our first was even born, I had already planned out the school that he was gonna be going to, which was a religious, private school. You know, like I was not I was not keen on public school. So going into that paradigm, that’s how we, we started. And I did. I, you know, I saw that dream come true. We enrolled him in that school. We were accepted into it, and it was a very sought after school. [00:10:00] But as we began our healing journey as a couple, it was becoming clear that the choices for education were actually not in alignment with the soul of the child. And so, while we were like striving so hard to get Emerson to be such a good reader at age five, like we were actually destroying his imagination at the same time, and we had no idea. And so it was kind of a sad thing to realize this, but what was great was we caught it early enough that the re the other three kids that would come would not actually endure the same education. And so Carol and I had all three. We had all four children at home. And we had this conversation before we were even pregnant, I think, or maybe during the first pregnancy. We were talking about a Carolee: little bit before the first pregnancy. Yeah. Britton: About like, Hey, what would it be like? I have kids at home. And I was all for it. My, my brother was born at home and it was because my mom had this like really bad [00:11:00] experience with me in the hospital. And so I had been open to that paradigm sort of earlier on. And so it was an easy, yeah. Like, let’s do it at home. And we started educating herself around that. And I think this is an important part about, you know. This is a really important part about like being conscious in everything we do. You know, it’s not that you have to have a chest at home to be conscious, but for us, we wanted to educate ourselves. So we started looking into, like, we did the, we did a hypnobirthing class. I attended with her. We watched some documentaries around the business of being born and, and that sort of thing. And, and it kind of like opened up our eyes. And so we were really feeling good about that and about having our children at home. And we weren’t scared. And in fact the, the mortality rates statistically speaking are better to have a child not in a hospital because of the intervention and stuff. But Did you have a water birth? Let’s into that. Was it Gissele: the water birth? Yeah. Britton: Yeah. Gissele: Was it a water birth? I think three. The four curious water birth. Curious because I mean, oh my God, [00:12:00] I gotta be honest. Without the epidural, I don’t think I would’ve made it, but yeah. You know, my husband and I have since talked about, I wonder what it would’ve been like to have had a water Carolee: birth. All, yeah. Like Bri said, all four of them were born at home. Emerson our oldest I labored in the water, but at the very end, that was a 20 hour labor I had to get out of the tub. And so he was not born in the water, but the other three were all born in, in a tub in our, in our room at the various places that we lived. Yeah. Cool. Britton: Yeah. So I guess what I was trying to just get to is, as we confronted that paradigm of just like what, you know, Mormonism had told us and these different things, we were like really starting to question education too, and not just being academically superior. That was not no longer the need. It was like. What does a conscious upbringing or education look like for a child? And so that’s what, yeah, that’s what opened the door. And we were, [00:13:00] I think we were led right to the right place. And and then we both had, you know, we, we’ll get into it later, but I just wanna say we, we both actually had separate confirmations of what would be best for our children. And when we talked about it, it was like, okay, let’s do that. So, Gissele: mm. Now I’m curious, what did a conscious education look like for your children? Carolee: You know, at the beginning, you know, like Bri said, we have this video that we took. I’m nine months pregnant. It’s literally the day or two days before I’m delivering our first. And at the time, we were living in this basement apartment, literally across the street from this very religious, private school. And we have this video of us as this young couple pointing at the school saying, this baby, and this is where you’re gonna go to school. And we had this vision of him, Hey, through 12, like just finishing it out, this is solid. He’s gonna go there from the beginning. And, and so everything kind of moved towards that [00:14:00] direction. And you would say that, that seems very conscious, right? But it was actually very, like, self-serving. I can see that now. I couldn’t see it then, totally. But it was like, oh, I’m gonna be a good parent because I’m spending this money on this private education, and it’s going to have him rooted into the fundamental principles of, you know. God, family country, like there was, it’s not only was it religious, that had a lot to do with patriotism. There was just, yeah, it was just a lot of things that were all kind of heavy and, we did put him in that program. He went there kindergarten, he was there for first grade. He was there for second grade. I was a huge part of that school community. I had gotten hired, I taught high school photography. I managed their social media. I created an entire like database of organization. We were deep in it. Like we were deep, very active [00:15:00] and contributing members identity. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then my child was struggling emotionally and it wasn’t meeting his needs. And that, that, that catalyst of like as what I’m doing for my child, actually in my child’s best interest is kind of like getting hit in the head by with a two by four. Like I think conscious parenting is not making choices based on what you think you need to do or what makes you look and feel good as a parent. It’s really meeting the soul development of the child and that key right there. Soul development is what we realized. We weren’t nurturing at all. We thought we were, you know, at this private religious school, one of the requirements like school supplies was literally scriptures. It was very religious. So our second grader had to go to school with a stack of scriptures, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the doctrine, and like these, some of these are Mormon scriptures in [00:16:00] addition to the Bible, you know? And he went to school as a second grader with these scriptures and would read from it and study from, it was part of his curriculum, and we thought that was his soul development. But what we realized through our own emotional reeducation that came about because of this school that I went to, the Institute of Healing Arts as I was seeking emotional intelligence that I could bring home and incorporate into our family life, was that there’s this incredibly gifted man named Rudolph Steiner that is developed the Waldorf method. And the Waldorf philosophy actually is a lot more hands-off academic tending to the nature and the imaginative and like through storytelling and through earth connection. That, and there’s phases of soul development that when we force reading and linear thinking on a child before, they’re just naturally inclined towards it. [00:17:00] We actually are cutting off their connection to spirit. We’re cutting off their imaginative qualities. Right? And so, like from that moment on, it was, I pulled, you know, our, 13-year-old at that time was not 13, but we pulled him out of the private school. We put him in a charter school, then we. Got him home. From that, we started to homeschool him while the other ones all joined into a cottage school that was a Waldorf inspired. So we went this route of this highly academic into this more intuitive, naturally held, Waldorf inspired community. And that’s really where we’ve stayed since. And there’s a lot more that I can say about the choices that we’ve made and, you know, even how we educated our kids while we traveled the world. But we’ll get into that in a minute. But yeah, it’s that, it was that shift, that shift of like, oh, academics is the accomplishment to soul development. How do I tend to the soul development, the imaginative quality, allowing my child to be connected to the [00:18:00] unseen world through spirit. There are actual things that we can do as parents to foster that, and that’s not necessarily part of the mainstream conversation when it comes to educating kids. Agreed. Britton: Gissele, can I add in something here because I, I know what most parents are going to immediately feel when they’re confronted with the education system that everybody basically plugs their children into when it’s like not. We’re, we’re kind of basically saying, look, there’s a better option. And we really believe that there are unique options for every child. It’s not just that Waldorf or whatever is the only way, but ’cause we did Montessori, we, we’ve actually done every type of education. But what is, what, what really? Was interesting was when we were introduced to this idea that the soul incarnates in energies over time. It’s not like the whole souls with baby. Carolee: Mm-hmm. And Britton: so when we [00:19:00] recognized this pattern, it was like, oh, you know, like when we introduced linear thought into the child to early, were actually inhibiting the proper entry of that spirit into the body. So this was like a big wake up call for me. ’cause it spoke to my, it spoke to my like logical mind, but it also spoke to my spiritual heart. And and when I started diving into, you know, the education system itself and became familiar with it, it was clear to me that the system itself is built upon government competition. So, you know, like our system was designed for creating the best workers and the best ability to advance our war machines, right? Like our technologies, our ability to be out governments and so forth. So, you know, like we, that’s why there’s so much emphasis on all this math that no one uses. There’s so much emphasis on all this even science that nobody uses and you know, like there’s select few that move on and do incredible things and discover more. And we [00:20:00] need that. There’s absolutely, I’m not under, I’m not trying to undermine any of that, but honestly, like how much calculus do you use Justelle in your daily life? Right, exactly. Gissele: I got 90 something in calculus and like 98 in algebra. I could not tell you how to do that today. Britton: Cool. And, and so we just, we saw that and it was like yeah, that kind of doesn’t make sense. So it was just a way of opening our minds of like seeing more information and being like okay, I’m, I’m willing to look at this a different way. So, and, and so we stopped placing the emphasis on academic performance and like needing to know so much. And what we shifted into is this offering the, so the soul of the child, the freedom to explore. So how do we develop? So if that’s our basis of how we want the child to develop, then what is the program that will support them? Gissele: I completely agree. And I think to be honest, like everything has its timing in terms of our human evolution. And I think the [00:21:00] timing is important to have this conversation. I have multiple degrees. I have two master’s, I have lots of certificates and bachelor’s degrees. Like I, I did it all. I was all in on the education system because it was my way to escape the, the trauma in my household. It was how I was going to accomplish things. It was how I gave myself freedom. It was how I gave myself value. So as a person with multiple degrees, I always thought, my kids are gonna go to university. They’re gonna do this, they’re gonna do that exactly as you stated, because the thinking was, I need them, even if they don’t use the staff, like, I need them to have opportunities so they could choose. that was the perspective, right? But as I saw my kids struggling with the things that I struggled in, in the education system with the lack of creativity, the linear thinking, the right, wrong, instead of like, this is where we teach kids about right or wrong. They, they, this is why they see things in black and white. They were [00:22:00] taught originally as very little. There is a right answer and there’s a wrong answer. And so they lack the ability to be in the gray. They lack the ability to emotionally regulate and have difficult conversations and deal with issues. And so for me, my thinking is now I support you whichever way you wanna do, explore your greatest excitement, your greatest things that lights you up, explore your freedom, explore. And we’re trying to kind of undo all of the educating that we did. as I unlearn all of that programming, it’s incredible what I look at in terms of, and I’m actually authoring a book on this with my child, with my daughter. She’s writing it with me. Oh, cool. because she sees the things that we’ve taught them very similar to what you were talking about with her school friends. And that’s not what they’re taught. And the reason why I say it’s important to talk about this now is because young people that are going to university, they’re coming out with so much [00:23:00] debt and they’re not any better. They’re not anywhere ahead. the cost of living is still high, the wages are so low. Mm-hmm. So I go back to your original question, which was, what are we trying to accomplish? What are we trying to accomplish? And for you, your answer was, how do we allow children that whose souls is developed? Right. So tell me a little bit about sort of how you managed the education when you were traveling? Carolee: Yeah. So Britton: I just start with I love this topic Carolee: so much. Like where do I even begin? You know, when first when you talked about like the unlearning, right? I love our children. They’re so individual, they’re so just magical, each one of them. And they have been such incredible teachers for me. They’ve really taught me, right. The struggles that I mentioned that my oldest was going through really taught me how to hold more emotional space. Like why emotional intelligence [00:24:00] was crucial. He has been such a profound teacher. And I am eternally grateful for this soul, for this boy, for this being that has had a lot of grace and forgiveness for how I’ve messed up. You know, like for the, the things I didn’t know. We’ve actually really seen, honestly, the difference of the education he received reading before he was even five years old. We have seen how it actually has made the unseen spiritual world more of a distant thing for him personally. Mm-hmm. Like, we see a contrast, a drastic difference between him and the other kids. Not in a way of judgment of like, oh, he’s not as good as the others, but like, it’s just so obvious. It’s so obvious. The difference, right? Mm-hmm. Our daughter, who is almost 11, because we pulled back because we decreased the need for academics, she wasn’t really even reading until she was nine. And for a moment [00:25:00] there she was really angry with us, like, mom and dad, I really wanna be a better reader. You know, like, she, why aren’t you helping me read? And we almost had so much of a hands off approach that it was like, you know, we, it’s a pendulum. It like really swung. Yeah. We were so persistent with the oldest that I was like, Nope, you’re just gonna read when you’re ready for it. Mm-hmm. And that desire that she developed actually helped her be ready. Britton: Right. the child will actually call in the thing that they need. And you have to just trust in that. It’s like a different paradigm of educating from a parent. And, and we saw this with her and actually with our other, that the next one down who’s just like a year and a half younger. And so yeah, like, and you just trust in that timing because the soul knows best. Like this is a spiritual perspective, a spiritual take on like how you perceive what’s happening, what the child needs, and how the flow of life will go for them. And that you’ll just trust, trust deeper in the presence of spirit’s guiding fa [00:26:00] force for them. That their soul that’s still actually incarnating, still coming in in different waves of energy is guiding their path to the education that they actually need. Carolee: Yeah. we had this moment where with our oldest, we all of a sudden, you know, 20, 20 hits, schools closed down, everybody’s sent home essentially. I then started homeschooling him. So like end of third grade into the fourth, fifth grades, he was at home being homeschooled. The other three were just barely beginning their educational experience. And so we had found, while we were still living in Utah, this really beautifully aligned Waldorf inspired cottage school that the other ones, the two middles, you know, ’cause I hadn’t yet had our fourth, our fourth was born in the fall of 2020, you know, and so here we were now. Having the children educated in the Waldorf philosophy kind of way, which really tended to, there was a lot more nature, a lot more outside experience. [00:27:00] Not really reading stories, more oral storytelling and like, it, it also was a reeducation for me. I started taking training for Waldorf Mythologies, right? There’s a, there’s a, a group called Lifeway North America, which is Waldorf Training. So I was doing these trainings in person, online attending parent support groups to really reeducate myself on how to approach educating from this very alternative, very, almost like hippie sort of perspective. I had a lot of pushback though, from the community around us. People would ask questions you don’t care about, you know, like the push for academics and accomplishment was so big. And, and there, I mean, I’m not gonna say that this was a perfect approach that we did. You know, there were some struggles that even our children had going back to our daughter, you know, she was at, at that point in time, really into dance. She still is really into dance, but while we were living in Utah, before we [00:28:00] traveled the world, she was part of a competitive dance team. And she’d go to her dance practices several hours a week and then she’d have the performances and competitions. And there were several times where she felt awkward because all of her peers could read and she wasn’t reading. And there was a moment I remember at a recital, or actually it was a competition where one of the girls came up to me and was just like, why doesn’t Liberty read yet? And I just smiled and I took a deep breath and I was like, yeah, but let me tell you what her school day is like. She’s playing out. And I gave this beautiful picture of how she was outside and really connecting. She was, had this freedom and that little girl kind of looked at me big eye like. That’s what, like, it kind of blew her mind, right? Yeah. You can do that. So, you know, it was, it was a struggle. Liberty, that’s our daughter’s name. She, she was a bit frustrated that she was so different. But now, [00:29:00] you know, we’ve landed here in Colorado and the children are all in different programs that are aligned for them. And each one of our kids has unique needs, and we’ve been able to find community around the way in which we educate our kids. And it’s been really beautiful. But it did take, you know, part of, part of the pull away part of the selling our house and selling everything we owned and moving our family to Bali. That five months we spent in Bali after we left the states was an unwinding, an undoing, like an unschooling. The kids didn’t really have any formal education during that timeframe. It was just us as a family living day to day and letting life be our teacher, which in some ways people call that radical unschooling. That’s what we had to do to deconstruct the deep program that said, this is achievement based. You know, you’ve gotta accomplish this. You’ve gotta know this by this age. You know, when you go to traditional public [00:30:00] school, a lot of times they’re like, in second grade, these are the things you now know. Yeah. It’s like, based on, you gotta do this on this academic performance. And we view it in, at second grade. Actually, that’s age eight. That’s age nine. That’s like the change, the shift, the souls incarnating. Like I see it completely from a different perspective now, but it, it, it called us into a reeducation like we really had to. Re like, be open to rethinking everything. Britton: And also what’s, what is so important for children to learn. Like we gotta put that on the table, like you were kind of saying. Carolee: Yeah. Britton: And life skills are so important, let’s be honest. Like, academic is second. Definitely second. And, and so life skills, you know, and and so the kids were learning that in Bali. Like obviously it’s a whole new culture, you know, the roads are very different. The way people get around is different. Everything is different. And they were learning so much just from being present in that, in that new culture. And the people there are [00:31:00] absolutely phenomenal. Just loving, caring, so in touch with, you know, because they’re on this beautiful island and they’ve been isolated to some degree. And the, the, the Bolonese people are special people. Like, there’s just an energy there that’s so different. So I’m so grateful that they got to be there and like see how the Bolonese people hold the island and how they operate in their culture and how they just love everybody. Everybody’s like, I mean, they just have such low crime rates, you know? Mm-hmm. So so yeah, the, it started off when we got into Bali as like just radical unschooling. There’s just no school, there’s no structure. We’re just hanging out every day. We’re just kinda living, we’re just exploring. We’re seeing what life’s about here. And they were all in adventure mode. And that’s, I think that’s incredible. Carolee: Absolutely. Well, and I think something else that I wanna point out is when we plug into this system, right, the system of academic school, and then, you know, we, we were really in it. [00:32:00] We had our kids in schools, well, Emerson, but the other ones, even in their Waldorf college school, there was this schedule. It was like school till a certain time of day, then. Competitive sports and competitive dance and other activities, and the society at large, the way in which we’re doing it as a family culture is actually doing a disservice to the family core, I think, because it’s making us all so busy that we don’t actually know how to be together. Mm-hmm. Right. Be present. And so like, you know, as much as, as much as like we really want our kids to develop skills, you know, we’re, we’re flowing into that. Like, our daughter’s doing some different camps this summer. One of them is gonna be, she’s gonna get back into aerials. It’s been a minute since she’s done that exploration, but like education is more than just the academic. But if we fill our day so full with academics and then on top of it we’ve got all these other activities, when’s family time? Right. And so [00:33:00] that’s part of what we had to deconstruct as well. And part of what the blessing of selling everything and like going on this journey that we went on, you know, landing in Bali, doing just, we had a lot of family time. We really grew to know each other as a family and that family life that in and out, not so busy with all of these different outside connections really helped to bring something beautiful that we didn’t even know we were missing as a family core. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know? And so while we were in Bali, like I said, we did kind of just this radical unschooling. We didn’t really do anything. We were there for five months. We thought we were moving there and we journeyed around the island trying to discover which part of the island we was gonna be home. And during that journey we realized, oh wait, this isn’t home. This is just now. So let’s explore the island and enjoy the island and the now and then what’s next? And as we were talking about what would be next, we [00:34:00] knew that we needed support. That’s the other thing, right? Like. In our modern society, we have been programmed to do things as a nuclear family alone on our own. Mm-hmm. Not as much a part of like a community. Mm-hmm. Right. And we realized we needed somebody else to come be with us. And I knew that if I could find somebody that had the, the mindset, the upbringing, the understanding of the Waldorf philosophies, just as like a baseline that, that this person could be in alignment to like accompany us on what was coming next. So I put out a call on a Facebook Waldorf group for a nanny that was Waldorf trained because we wanted to do homeschooling. We wanted to have education for our kids while we traveled. But I knew from my own experience of having homeschooled our oldest, that it wasn’t something that was my own [00:35:00] forte through the homeschooling experience before we sold everything. I identified, oh, I actually am one of those women who’s like adult women, A DHD. Then I didn’t know, you know, like I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t stay present. I had a hard time guiding him as intently as I really wanted to. It wasn’t necessarily my calling, but my calling really was to do this education for my kids differently. So we found a woman, her name’s Shayna, and we ended up flying her to meet us in Vietnam and she was 10 years plus Waldorf assistant Waldorf teacher. And she traveled with us all the way through to Egypt until we decided, oh, our travel’s over, we’re gonna return to the states. She was with us that entire time and she would hold circle. She had, she brought so much of her own training and she was able to like. When we got back to the States and actually decided that we were gonna drop our kids into [00:36:00] programs that were their ages, I was a little bit worried that maybe they would be technically behind in their academic skills. But Shayna actually did an incredible job in keeping them right where they needed to be. And the kinds of programs that were aligned for us that we found here in Colorado, our kids just jumped in so seamlessly and they had this lived world experience that enhanced what they brought to their education. Mm-hmm. So it wasn’t a disservice. Nobody was behind. Everybody was exactly where they needed to be. And then some, it was just truly beautiful to like, do education this way. Gissele: Hmm. I love, yeah, I love what you said. I think the gift that you gave your children was also the gift of seeing beyond their environment. The gift of flexibility, the gift of being able to see beyond, because I think part of the structure of the whole current education system, like you were talking about, at least in Mormonism, there’s a level of [00:37:00] nationalism, so people can be very well educated, but very well educated in their box, right? And right. Some people may not travel anywhere, may not look at different cultures, may not see different perspectives. So there’s no development of critical thinking to figure out, okay, well do I want this or do I want that? Like, really getting to know themselves and really getting to know what choice they consciously wanna make. And I think that’s sort of the gift you’ve given your children the ability to see different environments, the ability to have flexibility and also give them the education. There’s definitely a movement right now, especially on TikTok about the unschooling movement. And you, you see both sides of the equation. ’cause there was a young person that came out and they were talking about being unschooled. And so basically they got to determine. You know, what they were interested in and followed their flow. But they, they also mentioned that they did struggle, like, like you were mentioning your daughter, they did struggle with learning, being with their peers around like learning English or math, which then if you are in a [00:38:00] traditional workplace, kind of puts you in a different position. How do you feel right now about the education that your kids have gotten as they might be stepping out into the workplace in the future? Britton: Let me drop in on Emerson. So our oldest, ’cause that’s kind of, it doesn’t really apply to our younger ones yet, but our oldest two is basically almost 14. He’s going into ninth grade. We were actually just at his they did like a ceremony last night. Carolee: He’s attending a private school here in Boulder. Britton: Yeah. And they, we did a ceremony of a rite of passage and beautiful. I mean, you’re not gonna get that in a, in a regular school either. No. So it was really cool to see in his growth, his emotional, I think the most important thing to answer that question is emotional intelligence. It’s not academics. Anybody can learn anything. we’re in the a age of AI now. Yes. You know, Internet’s even history, it’s in the past now. It’s ai. Like we can literally tap into all of human consciousness, [00:39:00] all of human knowledge at our fingertips, learn any subject, get expert knowledge on it. It’s incredible. Right. And it’s only gonna improve. Mm-hmm. So. Right. Education will undergo the most dramatic revolution we have ever witnessed in human history in the next four to five years. Mm-hmm. It’s just gonna be incredible. I mean, all the universities are already outta date. People don’t even know how to grade things anymore because what is plagiarism now? Like, everything’s being on the table. So this is a really cool time to have a conversation like this. Mm-hmm. So what is more important now? It’s just about, you know, what the kid wants and, and I know it just seems like, well, you’re just giving all this freedom. They don’t know how to choose and blah, blah. It’s like, you know what? I actually have a lot of faith in my child. I have a lot of faith in his own intuition of what he, what he wants. I also have a lot of faith that he can learn anything he wants. I actually didn’t go to school until I was 28, 29. Mm-hmm. Britton: You mean university? Yeah, university. Gissele: Yeah. Britton: And and I was self-taught a software engineer, [00:40:00] and I learned it and I was like one of those like kids that just like figured it out on the internet in the nineties, you know, like, so I taught myself that. And if I could do it in the nineties, I mean, who can’t do it today? Right. So I, you know, I think I think he’s gonna be fine. And he’s actually, it’s funny, you know, we’ve gone through this whole circle with him. Guess what? Guess what he’s desiring to do now? Public education. He wants to go to a public school. Yeah. A public high school. A public high school where he can like, have more social where he has more options with the ladies, where he has more like, cool classes, like, you know, I remember in my high school I did digital electronics, I did auto mechanics, I did welding. I, I did a lot of trade stuff. ’cause I was really interested in like how to work with my hands and Yeah. And all of that was really interesting. So, you know, he wants to do that. There’s also more athletic stuff. So all of that is important too. And I think those are good options for children. It’s just that the public education system has about zero emphasis on the soul development of the child. And that’s where we [00:41:00] really wanted to shift. And now we have all of except for their youngest one, all of the three older ones have basically gone through their early years through that solid development. And the crucial period is from zero to eight, zero to seven, zero to eight. And I think they’re, they’re well equipped to like shift into more academic stuff now. And he, and you know, our oldest, like you said, it’s like how is he gonna go in the workforce? Well, I, I just don’t have any, I, I’m not even thinking about it. ’cause frankly I don’t even think about the workforce. You know, like, that’s another thing you have to question Gissele, like, what is the workforce like? I’m not in it anymore. I was in it for 22 plus years, self-taught programmer, did all the things, and I’m just like it, it’s time for everybody to just follow their path. Like that is not gonna look like what our culture has done for the last, you know, a hundred years. Gissele: Absolutely agree. going back to the, the whole concept of education thinking about ai, right. It’s so true. Like the education system, all of it has to change from elementary school quickly [00:42:00] can be irrelevant quickly, all postsecondary quickly. Exactly. Very quickly. It has to shift because of ai.  AI detection tools do not work. They don’t really have. And in fact, they leave it all up to the university professor to determine whether or not somebody cheated or not. AI just gets better and better. Right. And, and people are trying to catch up in terms of software. So the whole content based education is no longer going to be  it’s about those skills. You were talking about how do you foster creativity? How do you foster exploration? How do you foster passion? Many people, and I’ve, I’ve talked to so many people and some people cannot tell me what their biggest, boldest dreams are. They can’t tell me what their passions are. They can only tell me what they, what that’s in the box. But they, they don’t know. They’ve never really been like enable themselves to tap into that. What’s my biggest, boldest dream? What is my heart’s desire [00:43:00] for many different reasons. And so I think that this new system has to change to allow, like you said, for that soul evolution because otherwise it’s gonna be obsolete. You can just teach yourself something right? so right now, my husband and I are kind of at this impasse, We want to support our children and we want them to be open to do what their biggest, boldest dreams are. And at the same time they’re finishing high school, right? So they’re gone through that system, right? And we, they went to public school, we’re like, this is experience. my daughter is looking at different options. And again, feeling a lot of pressure from the education system itself, like guidance counselors or you have to pick, and I’m like. Why do you have to pick who says that at 19 you have to make a decision You make a decision that’s gonna be the same decision for the rest of your life. you don’t have to go anywhere at 19 or 18 or 21, [00:44:00] determine that for yourself. But that is not the messaging that we get. And even from family members there, there was a constant like, oh, where’s she gonna go? Or what are they gonna do? And, you know, what are they looking into? And I’m like, she doesn’t know yet. She’s right now, she’s taken a year, like a leap year. But beyond that, we don’t know. I just want her to live her dream. I don’t care what she does. Carolee: Well, it, it’s like educating our kids with this new, this kind of perspective that we talked about actually is what’s gonna foster their ability to tap into what that dream might be. Exactly. You know, I think back, and I, I touched on this in our last episode, right? Where I was like, oh, I was programmed so deeply to like go to college, but not to actually accomplish anything with it. Right? Here I was, yeah, this Mormon girl at this Mormon university. I knew from the moment I stepped into the college sphere that I was gonna study photography. That was an undeniable fact for me. Like I had found the camera, I loved the dark room, and I went straight [00:45:00] into an associate’s, a specialized associate’s in studio of photography degree two years, and then moved into a fine art degree in photography. Like I graduated with a degree in photography. Nice. But the avenue of what I was available, what was available to me to do with that really only had like two options that was shown. I didn’t have the tools to really tap into the freedom of possibility that could come to me. Right. This is something that at 42 years old, I am just now finally giving myself the permission to figure it out. What does, what does living my dream look like for me? Right. Because I remember graduating from university and I had basically two paths that, well, yeah, like three, three paths kind of that were before me. One, I would get married, I’d become a mother, and because I’d be a mother and my primary role would be to be at home a homemaker home, women don’t work. There was a lot of judgment about working moms [00:46:00] in my culture of upbringing. Mm-hmm. So in order to be, photography was a great job idea for me because I could be a mommy photographer. Hobby. Yeah. Yeah. I could be a hobby. Yeah. Like a mommy photographer, which you hated though. Which I could do like weddings or I could shoot babies or I could do families. Mm-hmm. And I kind of did all of that, but every time I stepped into that I’d, I had a little bit of like this chip on my shoulder, like I don’t really wanna do, like, there was this sort of resentment, it wasn’t fully imagine kids for photographer, you know, coming in with that energy of like yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Option number two was to go the same route that my professors had done. What did they do? They graduated with their, with their BFA, they then went on to their masters spending an exorbitant amount of money. I got accepted to Cran Brook Institute of Art, one of the top 10 photo programs, MFA programs in the nation, and it would’ve been 80,000 a year. Oh my God, for me to like get this master’s degree in photography. That is crazy. Gissele: Yeah. Carolee: And then [00:47:00] that avenue would’ve been to return to the university, possibly the same one that I graduated from with my undergrad and now become a professor. So that was option number two. I either become a mom or I become a professor. I was a little bit more radical and had actually right after graduating, had secured a job offer in Manhattan to be a manager of a photo studio for a photographer named Gabriela in Atory Penn. And that felt like such a big hoo, my professors were so excited. I was the very first student from this university in Idaho to even have this opportunity in Manhattan, and yet I didn’t choose it. There were things that didn’t feel right and I ended up just moving in with my parents in Utah and got a job at a, at men’s warehouse selling men’s suits. And so I felt like I had failed even in that third alternative option. Mm-hmm. Right. But like with our kids, when you allow them the freedom to discover who they really are outside of this box the way [00:48:00] things are done, maybe our kids will go to university. I don’t know. It could be really fun. University can be a really fun time of life. Yeah. But also our 13-year-old last summer wanted to go to Ireland to do this filmmaking and theater camp. Mm-hmm. And we said to him, you know what? That just doesn’t really work for us, but we don’t wanna say no to your dreams, so can you make it happen? Mm-hmm. Can you help fund your own desire? Like, can you get behind it? And he came up with his own idea to go down to Boulder and literally hang out at this outdoor kind of street called Pearl Street. It’s like all these shops, it’s outdoor sort of mall. And he essentially busked. He sat there with a big poster that he made and drew 92nd caricatures for donations at not even 12 years, no, he was 12, [00:49:00] almost 13 years of age. He raised $4,000 in two months to fly himself solo across the ocean to go to this camp in Ireland. After he did that, we were like, this boy is not gonna wanna be, he’s gonna be alright in an office. Yeah. He’s gonna be fine. He’s not, he’s not gonna wanna Somebody’s thumb. Yeah, no, he’s, Gissele: he, I mean, think about it. You enabled them the opportunity for, for him to figure it out, to get creative, to like, that’s amazing. That’s so amazing. Sorry. You know, and so I don’t see, I mean, he might want to have like a fast food job, but only actually for the experience. Yeah. I could, I could Britton: see him doing something like that just to see what it’s like Carolee: and then probably not lasting very long knowing that he could literally sit and socialize and have fun and be creative, you know, and, and love his life. I mean, he made so many friends hanging out right outside this pub on Pearl Street. The people at the pub, they really [00:50:00] loved him and they watched over him and they like really supported him. You know, people would take his drawings of, there’s one guy that took a drawing that he made and actually turned it into a T-shirt and brought it back to him. Here’s a t-shirt with this picture you drew of me. It’s like my, my 12-year-old Britton: son’s making friends with the pub goers. It’s, it was mean, was quite fun.  I was just Gissele: gonna ask was any part of you worried about him doing any of that? Like, were you just like, oh, just go for it. No, I, I mean, I asked as a person who used to be a very fear-based parent. I mean, I grew up with yeah, two very traumatized people, unfortunately. And so like, my first angsting is my kids when they were younger. It’s just like, protect it. Was that, that fear so I’m just curious as to like, were you just totally child on faith that they would be okay? Depends. Mm-hmm. Britton: I, you know, if it was my daughter down there, it might be a little different. I wouldn’t, but at the same age, I wouldn’t probably let her be alone down doing the same thing. Britton: But that Britton: he, you know, we traveled the world [00:51:00] for 18 months, so like, he became, they all became so independent, you know, like we’d go into, I remember our first LA when we went into LAX, our first airport experience was a debacle. It took us four hours to move from the parking lot to the plane. It was so hard. So time. And, and by the time we, we got home back to Salt Lake, and I think it was 14 months later, the kids were pros. You know, they just knew what they were doing. We traveled so many times by playing, but he, I, I honestly did not fear one bit. In fact, he’s, he’s had some interesting experiences and he’s kind of alluded to a few of them and told me some, and I’m just like, Hmm, that’s cool. you really have to give the trust to the child and, and that that’s how the child will fruit this idea of the fear that you talk about. Gissele, like we do have a, a generation of parents like our generation. We helicopter, we’re way too protective. You know, even the school, the private school he is going to right [00:52:00] now they’re overprotective. They took him out on these travels and stuff. Really cool stuff. Like, they went down to this and did a solo, it was gonna be 24 hours, but the weather was just a little bit too cold so they wouldn’t let the kids sleep. You know, like they had to pull ’em back into camp and stuff. And it was supposed to be a 24 hour experience. And it’s, I just feel like we’re so soft. And it’s not that, it’s not that alpha male strength or hardness that we need to have, it’s just that, you know, life is real and raw and we need to learn how to navigate it. And the only way we’re ever gonna gain that experience is if we do it. here’s the key to education. You cannot learn education through concepts. These are just introductory mind tools. Mm-hmm. Real education is experience experiential. Like why are schools not fully developing kids through experience? And why do we have to study, study, study, regurgitate, regurgitate, regurgitate. And you mentioned it earlier, you said, oh my gosh, you know, like the, the plagiarism and the, we, we have built up so much complexity around our system of education that we’ve had to double that [00:53:00] complexity to ensure that people are staying within those bounds. And now what’s happening is the complexity is building so much within our system that we need to develop even a greater solution that over sim, that simplifies everything. And that solution, I believe in part, is ai because we have this incredible amount of knowledge. So how do we make it so that everyone can access this knowledge in the most intuitive way? We develop a consciousness that can actually just give it to us the way we need it. And I think AI is actually a solution to the problem that we’re experiencing as a society. So I’m very excited about it. I’m also very balanced. Like I, I’m the type of person that loves to go out. We, we live on an acreage here. We have a little stream that flows through our, our acreage, and we go out and spend time outside and love the outdoors. And Carolee: I know Britton: that it’s so important to be connected to Earth, but we can’t just abandon our technology and our knowledge. So we have to, we have to like integrate that into and balance it. So I’m mentioning a lot of things, but true education comes through experience. So I am [00:54:00] so in trust with him and his ability to, to be protective of his own energy and like sniff out an idiot when he sees one. Yeah. So, so totally. Carolee: You know, he, something else to just add here in our home, we actually don’t have a television. Hmm. We, we went from a house before we like sold everything to where we had four TVs, one in our bedroom, one in the family room, one in the kids space, one in the basement, to now we don’t even own a television. We have a projector and a white wall that we project movies onto. And we have our computers, but we are very protective and selective over the kind of media, media access video games, you know, and movies. That was something that also really surprised us, especially when we were in this culture of Mormonism. And they were like, our, our kids can’t play with your kids. And I was like, in some ways, sometimes I was like, but your kids literally watching movies that I’m not gonna let my kid watch for like seven [00:55:00] years. Right? Yeah. There’s a, there’s, there was some weird stuff. There’s like, what are we exposing our children to? And, and you know, even with ai, we’ve really got to like help these beings, these magical souls that are incarnate as children be rooted into their emotional body before they engage with the media or technological world. Right? Our 13-year-old, going back to him, you know, he’s got a phone, but we have controls on it. There’s a limit to when it’s unlocked. he does not have access to social media. And I was having a conversation last night at this eighth grade passages ceremony with some of the other parents, and they were like, what do you do about social media? And I’m like, I’ve literally, I don’t know when or if we’ll even let him have it until he’s like, later teens. Right. Because it’s so damaging. And he also has said to us, mom, sometimes it’s really hard to be with my friends because. They don’t really know how to have a conversation. They’re just on their phone playing games, and he can see [00:56:00] already how he’s not hold to that.  he has a more balanced energy with his phone. He understands, you know, it’s important for him to have a phone, especially with the level of freedom that we give him. You know, he knows how to get himself around. He knows how to use public transportation. He’s really reliable with it. He’s really, you know, and it’s not to say he hasn’t had hard experiences. He was riding his bike and he crossed the road and a car actually hit him. It like clipped the back tire. And he had the bike got damaged and ruined, and he had a little bit of an injury from that. It wasn’t too terrible, you know, everybody stopped and made sure things were okay. But like those kinds of experiences, they’re, they’re teachers like experience, like we have to, as parents be okay letting our children experience life so that life can also teach them what they need to know and how to be safe and how to protect their energy. You know? And he’s, we have this really open communication with him and I, and [00:57:00] yeah, it’s just a really beautiful parent-child relationship to where there is just this trust. And again, like Brent said, our daughter, Liberty is almost 11. I wouldn’t feel the same. she’s just a different child. Emerson’s just even an older soul. Like he can show up down and do this thing, and he doesn’t seem as young as he is when he’s in that space, you know? And mm-hmm. And so, like, understanding the nature of each of our individual children is an important part here too. Gissele: Yeah. I completely agree with that. Yeah. So I just wanted to go back to the whole concept of ai. I do believe AI is the way to freedom for individuals. I think that we’re gonna have to shift how we work. And I think hopefully gonna enable us if we allow ourselves to have more freedom. And to freedom to kind of live our dreams rather than, than thinking it’s gonna take jobs.  But going back to the concept of your children, you know, I was, as, as you were talking, I was thinking about even my own childhood, you know, like the majority of people that I [00:58:00] knew grew up as latchkey kids. We didn’t, we had parents that had a lot of trauma and PTSD. And so we were kind of bubbled, right? And so kind of passed that along. But there has been a shift in society. We went from latchkey kids where are your kids? To helicopter parenting. And I think that’s all the trauma. It’s all these traumatized people and very fearful people that are parenting. And so there is a level of fear that has to be faced and addressed because eventually the kids are gonna leave the nest. Like you are raising adults, you are raising individuals that are going to be able to navigate the world. And that’s really what you wanna do as a parent. I’m raising adults so that they go out in the world and are, be able to face whatever they need to face. I’m not like keeping kids. We wanna give our kids the greatest opportunity to be able to handle any adversity. And sometimes that can feel scary for parents. It can be [00:59:00] scary to let go or to see them get hurt or to face big moments. But that’s how, like, that’s what they’re here to do. It life ex experiential, as you mentioned, it’s not about bubbling or wrapping our kids because then they’ll be too afraid to live. Right? Britton: Well, yeah, I mean, and we, we, this is where like, I think Carol and I have been trying to, to kinda like emphasize the point is that we really went from this perspective that. Life is, you know, just a series of events that happen to us to really, it’s this spiritual journey. And when we drop deeper into trust with life, when we drop deeper into trust with, with how the flow of energy is gonna be in our, in our life and with our children, we can just trust that things are gonna work out the way they’re supposed to work out the way that it’s beneficial for the souls of those that are embodied. And that’s how I feel I live now. It’s not from this place of [01:00:00] like mechanical prediction of fears, although it’s important to understand the 3D world and like what it can do. And of course we teach our children that, but it’s balanced now with this idea that we are spiritual beings and that we’re here for spiritual evolution, not just mental evolution. Right. It’s a spiritual emotional evolution. So there is a guidance force, a guiding hand. It’s through all of it. And I think that’s a big part of how we live our lives. So I can’t not, I can’t not mention that when it comes to this trust and fear, because we moved through that. We totally moved through it. We know what the threshold feels like to like, be like, oh my God, if I walk away from academic performance and math, my kid’s gonna be an idiot and he’s not gonna have the job and he’s not gonna, you’re not gonna, all of that was something that we confronted. Yeah. And so I’m telling you I understand you’re saying, it is true. Everyone that does this, the alternative education, they have to confront those thresholds. But there is some beautiful things on the other side of that that you just don’t even know are waiting for you. [01:01:00] Carolee: Yeah. I wanna add something, you know, going back to what I said about my own education and photography and what I wanted to do and this, these three avenues and none of them felt truly alive for me. Mm-hmm. And so then what? I believe that the way in which the world is shifting is calling us each into this revolutionary approach to how we make money and how we live our soul, destiny, like in providing services to the world. And so ultimately, there actually is an avenue for me to do everything I love to do. My art, my poetry, my photography, my storytelling, my like what really pulses had I been held through soul development and guided into a discovery of what my unique blueprint said about me and the potential for me. You know, maybe I wouldn’t have been [01:02:00] so stuck in like the exploration of what could be possible for me in a, a vocational realm, right? And I think, you know, we’re at this threshold. We’re at this point in our society where we are being called into thinking about ourselves in a completely new way. You know, you look at, for example, the invention of an airplane or the invention of anything. Anyone who invented something had this sort of like inner rebel that was like, I’m gonna look at life different. You can’t look at life different when you’re so programmed to be inside of a box. Here are your avenues for success. Go to school and then you do these jobs for these people and this is where you make the most money. And this is the maximum amount of money. You know, like that’s all an a paradigm that’s dying. What we’re fostering with our children is what’s your dream? How can we develop [01:03:00] that essence of who you are and then trust that if there’s a job that somebody else created that fits your dream, that you’ll find it and you’ll be happy. Or maybe you’ll just be a pioneer and do it your own way. And that’s cool too. Like we don’t have to live in somebody else’s paradigm anymore of what is right and what’s wrong. Right. It’s, it’s all this gray area of exploration and creativity and expression like I saw, what is her name? Lindsay Sterling. She plays that violin and she like does her leg kicks and dances in this really bizarre, amazing new way. And she went on to America’s Got Talent and like they completely denied her. They were like, nobody wants to see that. And she tells this story about how she cried in the bathroom about the rejection and then decided to just start posting her stuff on, on this new platform called YouTube. And then it blew up had she been accepted into the paradigm that people said, this is how you do it. This is how [01:04:00] you succeed. She would’ve actually been in this box of control and maybe even limited by what they wanted her artistic expression to be. But because she was rejected in that paradigm and given the freedom to explore and just express in her own way, like artists Express in their own way, we’re all actually artists. Whether or not we express with a medium of art, like the, the engineer who’s really deep in math is an artist with their way in which they’re creating too. That requires a level of presence with yourself and a knowing of yourself and courage to be different. And I think that’s what we really need to focus on giving our children in education is that courage to be different and the foundation of. Academics so that they know where they’re standing and they feel competent. And then the freedom to explore to quote unquote make mistakes. Because truly we learn through doing so do something, and if it works, do more of it. If it doesn’t work, [01:05:00] then what can you do differently? Like, I’m trying to do that for myself at 42. How amazing does it feel? It feels amazing to actually give that to my kids. Like let them experience it as children, as they’re being raised in it, you know, and the world is their oyster. I think that there’s gonna be so many opportunities that they will create themselves or that will come to them because of this magnetism within themselves of not having to live according to somebody else’s roles. They get to discover what they truly came here to be and to do. Like each one of us has just this unique blueprint of who we are, and the journey is to discover that and live our highest timeline. Gissele: You know, I was thinking about, as you were talking, and I’ve thought about this so much what would the vision of a new education system be, and one of the things that we teach children is conformity and what they’re [01:06:00] programmed to do is to belong. Children have such a need and a desire to belong that. Has they’ve been taught conformity that makes it difficult for them to go out and expand in their greatest vision and to see, and to be different because especially the way showers they’re meant to, to not do things that aligned. You talked about the Wright brothers, for example, the Wright brothers. Nobody was flying. There was a competition, but nobody had ever flown before. Like successfully. They had to hold onto the vision every single time they crashed. And every single time somebody said, see, we’re not meant to fly. So for you to hold that vision against the green can feel almost life threatening. If you are in an environment where you were taught conformity, when you’re taught like, this is how we do things. This is right and this is wrong. And so it does take a lot of courage to do that. And we are [01:07:00] society in general that really fears different and we fear different because I think of what that means for us, for people that are different, that are living different. It means potentially for some people, an end to what they know, right? This is why all of these things that were people deemed different like trans rights and L-G-B-T-Q and, even people that are like doing things like being furries, like people that dress up as animals and they just embody and hey, that’s not a threat to me. But for some people they’re like, well, if that’s the case then I don’t know what’s gonna happen in this world. I’m not gonna know how to navigate this world. And that can feel threatening. So it really is about dealing with ourselves and our own fears so that we can create environments where we’re not afraid of exploration, where we’re not afraid of individuation, where it doesn’t have to be so difficult to be so different and not [01:08:00] belong. Because that’s currently what our kids are taught. They’re taught conformity. They’re taught that belonging is more important than, than creativity, than different color. Inside. These lines don’t be different. Two plus two always equals four. Not always you get like an an egg and a sperm that goes back to one.  I like to say one Britton: plus one equals three. And the reason why I say that and is because with, with me and her, there becomes the we. Mm-hmm. And so we have a third entity that actually arises out of that. Yeah. And so the math that we have been taught, in a way it’s paradigm is right. But there are other paradigms to look at things at. Yes. So I, even the simple one plus one, yeah. We can confront those things and look at ’em differently. And then what you’re saying now is actually very in, in tune to what we were kind of closing the last session with. You know, it’s the integration of differences, not the [01:09:00] conformity that we need to be focused on. Ah, man, look at creation. You walk outside and hopefully if you’re not in this city, you see the diversity of life. You see the diversity of the rolling hills, the streams, the rocks, even the rocks on our property. We have there, there was a massive flood here in 2013 and it brought in so many rocks from way, way up the mountains. And so on our property we have granites and crystals and quartz and all these things. And it’s so beautiful to see the diversity and its diversity. When we look out in the universe, everything’s so different and everything is, is beautiful in its own right. And that is creation. So why aren’t weinvested in, fostering that diversity and bringing it up?  Let’s get into the diversity of the soul. Let’s get into what the soul expression wants. You know, like really foster that from an educational paradigm. And we can see a society that will thrive because everyone is connected and our souls know it. And when we are allowed to [01:10:00] express that, then every need will be taken care of automatically because someone will come in to the experience, to our realm, to our life planet, and they will fulfill that need for society. And they will do so in a way that they don’t feel resentful. They don’t hate it. They actually, it’s their journey. It’s their calling, you know, like they want to do it. and they will bring something new to it. And so like that’s the paradigm. That’s a before is if we will embrace it. Mm-hmm. Carolee: But it’s requiring, like we’re, we’re being called to be warriors of this new way, right? Like even here. So we, we did this journey. We, we traveled the world. We had a beautifully aligned caregiver who also helped in the education of our kids. We landed back from Egypt in Utah and decided, having never lived in Colorado before that Colorado was gonna be our new home. Mm-hmm. Part of what guided us here was the fact that we connected with aligned communities that offered the kind of [01:11:00] programs that were alternative and just really spoke to this soul development. But interestingly enough, just this year after only being in Colorado for one year, there, one of the programs that we have our children attending in North Boulder came under attack by a former employee who just wasn’t in alignment and she reported the program to the city of Boulder. And the city of Boulder came in and shut down this program that had been operating based on some zoning violations. And they had been, took 20 plus years. 20 plus years, right. This, this, these elders that are really like holding ceremony with the land and connected over whether or not like the plumbing and the, and the are, are up to code in some of the buildings, or do they actually have permits for these buildings? You know, Chris, some, some of the actual zoning complaints you. Have legitimacy, but the [01:12:00] real question we need to ask is why, why are we so controlling through procedure and through like government to limit like the freedom, you know? And, and there was this article that was written and people’s comments were like, oh, the parents doing this must be like just stupid hippies, you know? And it’s like, actually we really need to have a revolution around education. And part of the problem that I think the zoning kind of tapped into is public education. The enrollment in that is said to be down and people are doing these alternative. You need to ask why. Britton: instead of asking why the city’s like, well how can we enforce and bring the the enrollment up? It’s, they’re just all on the wrong paradigm altogether, you know? So it is kind of a sad thing that’s happened. And we’re, we’ve been dealing with that this year. Yeah. 2025. It’s been a very big struggle for one of our child. It’s Gissele: It’s all fear. you’re asking them to go beyond the use of force. If you look at [01:13:00] systems, and I also, again, have been studying systems for a very long time, which is how I ended up understanding that we are all the systems. We have created systems through our fear, through our, unwillingness to look at ourselves and to do the difficult work and to really have loving compassion for ourselves and other people. That we have these systems based on separation, isolation, punishment. And so people don’t wanna do that. They just wanna do what they’ve always done. And so with the education system, when you look at, at what children have been taught, they’ve been taught that they should all be the, you were talking about diversity, right? Like right, everybody should look the same. Plastic surgeons, everybody should have the same nose issue, body should look the same. Everybody should have straight hair. Everybody should have a specific body type. They’re all trying to be the rose. Like what? Just one specific type of flower. Instead of saying, how do we embrace the beauty of diversity? Because when we embrace the beauty of diversity, you’re less likely to be controlled. You can’t be sold [01:14:00] certain things, you can’t be put in a certain box. And this is not to criticize anyone in particular. This is all us. The, the fact that we are in this society. It’s because we all contributed or aligned to this particular perspective about fear-based approaches. They need to punish, they need to hate, they need to separate, they need to align and belong. And so changing these systems really begins with changing ourselves, which is the work you guys have been doing in terms of you authentically being yourselves and authentically looking at your spiritual journey and authentically being in relationship with one another. And in relationship to community, those systems are probably the last things that are gonna change.  But as a consciousness, we’re not at the stage. I think we’re still in a lot of fear. I do think that based on what you have said before, I think we’re already, like, there’s a future self, that’s already there, that’s [01:15:00] calling us all because I, I do think that we have achieved it, but the version of us that’s living right now is seeing all of these systems collapse and seeing all of these people as they’re desperately grasping at straws, There’s way too many people, thanks to social media awakening. when we are stuck in fear, ’cause we talked about fear a lot and like how a lot of people are still stuck in fear. Britton: They, they look at these people in quote unquote authority places and they, they think that they must submit to them. And I just wanna say that I think part of the cure for fear is inspiring stories. And that’s why Carolee and I sort of branded our story the magical story of us. And mm-hmm this is, this is inclusive of like, our story as a couple, our story individually, our story as a family, but also everybody’s magical story that’s waiting to be experienced, if you will step into it, if you will, challenge the status quo, if you will, challenge the [01:16:00] conditioning that you were given. And our inspiring story to share is that we can heal from the deepest, darkest sorrows and we can step into a life that is a sovereignty that is around, that is abundant in freedom, that is abundant in the experiences that we want to actually live. Like Carolee listed all the things that she had passion about. And guess what, now she’s found the intersection of all of those things in her life, right? And, and so have I and, and that then the we, the third, the one plus one equals three has also found that. And we, and that’s this, that’s what you’re seeing here is this experience of us on this podcast. And so we’re so grateful to have been able to share this message on your show and talk with you and find a lot of alignment around these things. And so, you know, if people wanna hear more about our journey and like connect with our, our offering, they can go to the magical story of us.com and join our mailing list and, and learn all about the different offerings we have around how they can heal and step into this sovereignty and this empowerment.[01:17:00] Gissele: Awesome. You actually answered my last question, which was, where can people find you and work with you? So that’s amazing. It’s very aligned. This is so great. Thank you so much for this conversation. I’m so grateful for the work that you guys are doing. I’m so impressed by the, your courage to be able to, to dive deep into yourselves and to be authentic as possible, and to raise little people that are also going to be bringing that into the world. So my deepest gratitude to both of you thank you and thank you everyone for tuning in for an episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. See you soon. Thank you, Gissele. Carolee: Thank you so much.

TRANSCRIPT Carole and Britton Part 1 Britton: [00:00:00] Gissele: Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about, dealing with infidelity, with compassion. And my guests are Britton and Carolee Beckham raised in the strict dogma of the Mormon church. and with infidelity threatening their marriage and family, they found themselves at a cliff’s edge Through a deep commitment to heal these two left everything they knew to find themselves. Over a period of five years, they rebooted their relationship and traveled the world seeking their truth with their four children in tow. They have emerged on the other side as an embodied and awakened couple with a powerful message to share. Please join me in welcoming Britton and Carolee. Hello. Hi. Thank you for having us. Gissele: Oh, no. Thank you for being [00:01:00] on the show. I’m so excited to be talking about this topic because I think it’s a challenging one, especially around how you manage infidelity. Can you start by telling the audience a little bit about how you met and got together and then how kind of the relationship evolved to the point where there was some infidelity? Carolee: Yeah, so, as you mentioned in the introduction, we were raised Mormon and in the culture of Mormonism there’s a pretty like common pathway of meeting your significant other. And so we met as like most Mormons tend to at a at church. And in the Mormon faith they have something called a singles word where only young single adults attend church together. And the the main purpose is so that like they can foster the opportunity for young single people to meet and find who they’re gonna marry. So I had graduated from university already when Britton he was a [00:02:00] missionary for the church. And had just gotten back from that mission. And we went to the same church in Orm, Utah. And we literally met in the, that the first meeting, it’s called Sacrament Meeting. And right after the meeting was over, he came up and introduced himself to me. Do you wanna add anything to that, that first meet? Britton: There was a little sparkle in her eye when I saw her and the moment that I first saw her there was this like, connection. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t even know what it meant. It just seemed intriguing. And and so for the first time and the only time I went up and introduced myself immediately to a woman and asked for her her number. So that was, that was how we met at church. That was how we became friends. Gissele: That’s lovely. So let’s fast forward a little bit. ’cause you have like four kids now, right? Because Is, yeah. Which is [00:03:00] amazing. Must be a very busy. I’d like to get to the point where the infidelity happened. Was it that you guys were struggling in the relationship for a while or was it a situation where there was really no signs that, you know, like the relationship seemed to be going okay and then this sort of just happened? Britton: I wanna actually, let me jump in on that. Yeah, you answered. So I believe the infidelity could be best described as the lack of total commitment from the beginning. part of our healing journey was we came to this point in 2022 where we realized we weren’t all in on each other and we had never been neither one of us. Carolee: And we were married in 2009. Wow. So that Gissele: I love that you guys are saying this because I think there’s many people in the relationships that have one foot out and one foot in, and I think this is, this is very important. Please go on. Britton: Yeah. looking back with the eyes that I have now, [00:04:00] I can see that when IF first dropped in to this relationship and this wedding, this marriage and this whole thing, that there was a part of me that didn’t want to do it. And it wasn’t a big part. It wasn’t like a huge part. It wasn’t like even a, maybe more than 10%. It was, it was small, but it was there. And that amount of lack of commitment, lack of, to total desire to be in it did leave something open. You know, it, it left my energy open. It left a a way for me to leak my energy out. It left a way for ingress of others to come in. And so it began from the beginning for me. It wasn’t like a decision happened and then, you know, but it was, it was unconscious, it was subconscious. It was nothing that I was actively like noticing or pursuing at the time. But I know looking back now, and we’ve had lots of conversations about this and, and this is all part [00:05:00] of how people heal and become aware, become conscious. So yeah, it’s kind of a wild thing. But definitely from the beginning and the initial so I, you could say that the hardest parts of the infidelity, ’cause it was a pattern. And the way that it was like exercised was through emotional connection with other women and sexting and just having conversations that were out of the realm of appropriateness for a married man or a married woman in the case of the people that I was connecting with. And so, so yeah, that happened a lot during the pregnancies. And the reason why is that was the time, that was when the connection between us hit the lowest. Gissele: Hmm. Every Britton: time that she was pregnant, she felt out of her body. She felt less connected to me, and I’ll let her talk about this, but this is how I felt, right? Like, I didn’t feel her attention, I didn’t feel her desire, I didn’t feel her [00:06:00] as someone other, any other than just this person carrying a baby. And so we didn’t have a strong connection during those moments. And that’s when it became much more difficult for me to like, maintain my energy in a,zipped up way. So I, I let it out and I let it leak out. I let it I would find opportunities to connect and flirt and do different things like that. Carolee: I’ll, I’ll jump in and add, you know, for me, it, it was actually not something that I was even aware of, right? Like, deep in the program of my own psyche, I had been from a very little girl, you know, standpoint. So excited about the time I’d grow up and I’d get married and I’d have a family. how to convey how often as a young woman growing up in Mormonism, the conversation wasn’t around, what are you going to be when you grow up? What are you going to do? It was like, you will be a mother, you know, and so you’ll be a wife. And so I have [00:07:00] this little saying that I use often where I was like, I was really deeply programmed to be a wife and a mother, and not a lover, but I like really wanted that lover ship. You know, I like, so, so we were checking the boxes, you know, I had found this in, to me, this incredibly attractive man that wanted to marry me. And I loved him. And we really did love each other. There was so much, there was such a spark and a connection. When I first met him, going back to that little moment at church that I mentioned, I actually was hesitant about him from the very beginning simply because I knew his brothers. I had already like, made out with one of his brothers and. Yeah, I know that’s kind of a funny story. That’s funny. But it wasn’t like I was in a relationship with his brother. I just, I had had this other relationship, this, that I was engaged to my ex-fiancee and I was going through stuff and I just knew I needed to kiss somebody. And his brother was the easiest person for that at that moment before I even knew him. Right. And so, like, [00:08:00] you know, I, I was interested. I really wanted intimacy. We had beautiful open, very clear conversations about our desires. Before we got married, we had not had sex with each other before we got married. ’cause we were Mormon and we were, we got married in the Salt Lake temple, so there wasn’t like a lot of intimate exploration. It was all like really guarded and shielded before we got married. And then we dove into the marriage and I went on birth control. I had never had sex before him, you know, before marrying him. And so I didn’t have an education about fertility planning and awareness and how to, like, understand the cycles of my body. And so birth control seemed like the best way to prevent pregnancy and then that really wrecked havoc on my emotional health. Like, I had struggled in my twenties with my own emotional health and I had some depression and had some things. So like to me, I was [00:09:00] so in the dark, I had no idea that he was connecting with other women. I had no idea. Like, I knew that he, he would say things to me like, oh, I really want. Deeper connection, but even then, we didn’t actually have the language or the emotional intelligence to really understand the depth of what we both needed and how to communicate that and how to not expect it from the other in like a really codependent way, you know? And so the first disclosure of the infidelity occurred, like you said, during our first pregnancy. And he disclosed it actually after I’d given birth. When our oldest, who’s now 13, was just a little infant in my arms. I remember him telling me that he had met this woman and they had kissed. And, you know, that that was really devastating, heartbreaking. But also even in that moment, we didn’t really know, we didn’t have the tools of how to properly handle [00:10:00] that and navigate that. It was just almost like, oh, that’s a thing. Let’s brush it under the rug and like move on. And you know, and so it’s an interesting time because now in our present state of awareness and understanding and the somatic and the healing and the journey of like the trauma informed healing that we’ve done, we’re completely different people. So we see these agreements of partnership in a, in a totally like enlightened, really embodied way now. But we lacked all of that in the beginning. And it took until, well, until we began our healing for us to really start. But then even that, it was a couple of years into our healing before we really understood and were able to make the right kind of agreements that we’re both in alignment with ourselves, right? So yeah, it, it was a, it was a hard journey, right? Like super, super hard. That in, in the beginning years, we kind of almost tried to ignore and then move through [00:11:00] and continue on. You know, I, I thought. Making really good food and taking care of the home would be how I would show my love. Hmm. And I, I did all that really well, you know and so it was devastating to me that it wasn’t enough, but I see now why it wasn’t enough. But I don’t wanna like paint the picture that he cheated because I wasn’t enough. Like it’s not that. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Like there was different energy of what he needed and what I needed. And all of this was the catalyst that really helped us see what needed to shift and who we are as individuals and who we are as a couple. Gissele: Yeah. And thank you so much for raising like, the whole programming around marriage. ’cause I think that’s sort of a starting point for our conversation. What I mean is that what you said Carollee, which is women are programmed to want to have that fairytale happily of after you look at the old Disney movies and so on, that you probably grew up with, that I grew up with. They never tell you what happens after [00:12:00] the girl goes to the castle and gets married. They don’t talk about like Right. Living the dirty clothing and all of those things. And you know, it’s so funny. I’m happily married and at the same time I also reflect on the fact in my marriage journey. And I think to myself, that’s so interesting that a decision I made when I was 27 was expected to last me the rest of my life, right? Mm-hmm. And I am very grateful that I have gone on this journey and that I have grown and expanded and so has my husband. And we have grown and expanded together because there was times when we might not have made that choice of growing and expanding together. But the whole concept of marriage, that you make a decision at one point in your life based on the awareness and and experiences you have at that time and expect that to last the rest of your life. It seems, it seems paradoxical, does it not Just from that, that. Perspective? Well, Britton: it’s, it’s immature at, at the very least, and it’s, [00:13:00] it’s detrimental at the worst because we are human beings. We’re growing, we’re evolving all the time. We’re gaining more experience and wisdom. And to think that we can make such a monumental life decision around and something so solid, it’s just gonna be whatever way and not have that be confronted with new information. Well, it just shows our immaturity. It also, I think, paints the immaturity we have as a culture around marriage. Mm-hmm. And this idea of the princess and the fairy tale and, and all of that because, you know, our reality tells us so much more. You know, when we look at the statistics of marriage, for example, I think in the United States, 40% of divorces are around infidelity. In Europe it’s around 50%. So this is a, this is a worldwide pandemic problem of people like epidemic is probably the best word for it. It’s, it’s an epidemic that everybody is, is dealing with, or [00:14:00] at least someone you know is dealing with it. And so we’re here to talk about it in a real way because we understand we’ve walked its past. We know the darkness of it, we know the ins and outs, the sneakiness of the leaky energy, of the unconsciousness. And yeah, we have a lot to share. Carolee: And I wanna add too. Just on that program kind of conversation, right? Like even like talking about Disney princesses is a perfect example of one way in which as women we’re programmed to think that a relationship’s gonna, you know be this thing. In my healing, there was a point actually in the spring of 22, April, 2022, and remember we were married in 2009, so in April of 2022, we now had four children and we had already been deeply like we left the church in 2019. So we’d been out of the church now for a couple of years and we had really been giving everything to our healing. I actually had this [00:15:00] really powerful awareness come over me about the program that I had been a part of. My ideas around what I expected a relationship to look like in marriage to look like. And I realized as I sat in deep reflection, and it’s hard to sit in deep reflection about the programs and be like, where did this come from? And do I even want it anymore? And to admit that, you know, there’s a great amount of courage that comes when you’re willing to like, look at yourself that deeply. And I looked at it and I looked at everybody around me and I was like, most of the women that I know we’re all married, we’re all in this same thing. Young children moving through. And even like the older women that I knew at church the older women my mom’s age, or even between, I like started thinking about everybody and I said to myself, do I know anyone whose relationship is something that I’m like, boom, that’s it. That’s the relationship. That’s, that’s the marriage that I really admire. And [00:16:00] I realized that I didn’t know anybody whose marriage. I was like, oh, wow, they really made it. I instead, I was like, well, when I’m with this person, she just complains all the time about her husband. And I complain about mine too. And when I’m with this woman, we get all nitpicky about this and that, and we’re, and when I’m with this woman, we’re not free. You know, like I just realized that we were all, and then we were all like in our own misery all together. And what I identified was, oh, this is because of these core beliefs, this programming that says marriage is supposed to be this certain way. We all drank the Kool-Aid and didn’t actually determine for ourselves what a partnership for ourselves individually. Was supposed to be like, so what did I do in that moment of realization that I, at seven years old was attached to somebody else’s idea of the perfect relationship. I, at 12, at 14, at 16, you know, all of these different [00:17:00] points in my life that I was absorbing this program, I decided to cut it off. I decided to let go of it. And I did it in kind of a dramatic way. But, you know, sometimes we need that drama in our life to really say, I’m serious. I mean it, I’m gonna do it different now. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And what did I do? I took a poem he had written for me and had given to me on our wedding day, and we, he had made it really beautiful. It was gold embossed on black paper and framed. I shattered the frame, I tore up the dress I wore to marry him in when, in the Mormon temple. And I went with other women and we had this full moon fire. It was very witchy. And I burned my wedding dress and I burned the poem. And I literally said, I am. I declared that I was saying goodbye to my hopes and dreams from my childhood, realizing that they were attached to a false idea of what partnership could be. And what I was doing is that I was disconnecting from everybody [00:18:00] else’s idea of a perfect relationship because everyone that was connected to those ideas, nobody had the perfect relationship. Mm-hmm. And I knew that I needed to clear that energy out to allow myself the freedom to discover what a perfect relationship would look like for me. Mm-hmm. And this wasn’t necessarily something that I, you know, I realized Britton needed to come to his own conclusions of what a perfect relationship for him looked like too. So this was something I was hopeful that he would be on the journey with me in. But I also knew I needed to heal this idea for myself. Fundamentally, like with or without him, I had to do this healing. I had to disconnect from all the old stories that told me I had to be a certain way and show up a certain way and perform in a certain way that this was now my opportunity to discover what it could look like for me. So that was a really liberating moment that then opened me up to a pathway of [00:19:00] discovery of like how could I, like what would a perfect relationship look like for myself personally? And I didn’t have the answer when I did that clearing. We don’t usually have the answers right away. It’s a process of surrender and trusting what’s gonna come to us as individuals. But that, that was a really profound awareness that I was like, I’m not gonna subscribe to these programs anymore. Gissele: And I think what you’ve said is so powerful because I think a lot of times it’s much easier for us to say, victim perpetrator, I’m a victim. This person sucks. I’m just gonna get, like gonna divorce them and that’s okay. Like stay or go, it doesn’t matter. And then people then go and find and they find themselves in a very similar situation. So from my perspective, what you’re doing is making sure that you are no longer in alignment to what you don’t want. Right, exactly. Yeah. Written. I was, I was wondering if you could share maybe some of the expectations that you were taught about marriage as men. Like what were some of the [00:20:00] expectations and how might that have played or impacted your willingness to be in it? Britton: I don’t recall any direct expectations that were sort of taught to me. So a lot of it’s all just from the culture from my parents and then, you know, from the church. And I think the church. Would’ve been primarily what I would see and educate myself and program myself from my parents’ relationship is actually a really good example of what I didn’t want. They, okay. Yeah. They struggled and didn’t get along. And then, and then of course, just the culture of marriage, you know, that we get from media and from everyone else around us. So in a way I feel like I was average in that I don’t, I didn’t have any preconceived notions of how Carol should be. I didn’t I think I struggled a little bit with financial joining of the finances early on, but like Carol actually helped me see that, and we, we resolved [00:21:00] that early on. Yeah, it’s like, I, I even through the infidelity, I knew like she was totally fine leaving this relationship. And in the marriage of the Mormon paradigm, which is through their temple and a ceiling ceremony, which basically binds you for eternity to this person. It’s a very magical ritual that, but the problem is you don’t know that you are actually engaging in real, true energetic binding. And so in a way it’s like, it’s like black magic in that way. Gissele: Wow. Britton: So, I don’t know. Like, I don’t really have, I don’t, I didn’t have expectations on her. Part of me wanted, he, part of me wanted, just in my own personality of freedom and sovereignty, I wanted her to be more free than she was. She was a little bit what’s the word? Well, codependent we went through a lot of codependence and there was this needy part of me. I think the one thing that I always was bothered by her was how she would be like begging for me to give her compliments from time to [00:22:00] time. in her life at the time. It was like really important for her to hear me say things to her even when, even when it wasn’t fully genuine or authentic. And I found that very interesting. So interesting stuff that we discovered as we went through our healing journey. But yeah, I don’t know. I was just kind of an average dude. Mm-hmm. Gissele: So thank you for that. Thank you for also mentioning the whole compliment thing as a person who used to be very insecure, very insecure in relationships, I would look for that sort of like positive affirmation to confirm that I was worthy and good enough to stay in their relationship and that the person wasn’t losing interest. ’cause God knows there might be a better looking, more interesting person out there. So I found myself needing that constant affirmation, And would get very threatened if the person was looking at someone else or making comments about someone else. And so it was really when I found my own self-love and self-compassion once I actually felt my own bucket and knew that I was enough, [00:23:00] that I really didn’t need it anymore. But, but Carol, I, I relate. I wanted to go back to ’cause at some point there must have been like some level of ambivalence, right? Like stay, go, stay, go, stay, go. I mean, purely you’re doing, you’re both doing the brave thing and looking at your relationship, but you have four kids, right? And so kudos to you for handling that and, and being honest with yourself at a time when it’s so easy to go, okay, well I have four kids. I’m gonna turn a blind eye and just white knuckle it through until they grow out, and then I can start looking at my relationship. So it takes a lot of courage to do what you did. I wanted to talk about ambivalence though, because there’s so many people that are ambivalent in terms of stay, go, stay, go, stay, go. And so if they’re in the relationship and they wanna leave. They don’t, they, cause they’re suffering and if they wanna stay, but then they wanna punish the person that causes everyone else suffering. were you ambivalent in? What [00:24:00] sort of helped you get beyond that ambivalence? Carolee: Well, you know, in the early years of like the, for example, that very first incident of betrayal that he disclosed, we brush it under the rug, right? And just kind of then proceeded forward not realizing the energetic hole and weight that it actually was creating for both of us emotionally. And then we had our second child and then our third child. And after our third child there was an even more significant incident of betrayal to the point where it was like, if you, if you, I said to him, if you’re not going with me to therapy right now, I’m done. Right? Like, it was kind of that threshold of like, I’m, this is so intense, this is so wrong. This is so hard for me that if you’re not even willing to meet me in a place of like moving towards a direction of healing and I just don’t even want any part of it. But I will say that’s what I felt. And so we did start going [00:25:00] to therapy. We found a, a couple’s therapist and then I found individual therapy and then I found yoga, a trauma informed yoga therapy for women that had also been through betrayal. And I found all these different avenues for myself personally. But you know, in those early phases, I don’t know if ambivalence is the right word to describe what I was really feeling, there was fear. It was like, what would my life look like without the masculine, without the provider. I was. An adjunct faculty at a university in Utah teaching photography. But it, it was like just a supplementary kind of fun, additional income. It wasn’t an income that would actually hold me, you know? And we had just built this house, or we were, no, we hadn’t built a house yet. We, we were in a home that we owned at this point. We ended up building a house later. And there was fear. There was fear of the unknown. You know, deep, deep [00:26:00] wo women who are in cultures like Mormonism aren’t really supported in discovering how they could provide for themselves. Mm-hmm. You know, like my parents didn’t really, they wanted me to go to university, but they wanted me to go to a Mormon university because the whole purpose of me going to college was so that I could be in the space where I could be the man that I would then marry and the man would need to be Mormon and he would’ve needed to have served a mission and then we would’ve needed to have gotten married in Temple. Right. And so, like I did go to university. I actually graduated with a degree before I got married, which I was actually upset about. I felt like I failed my college experience because I didn’t get married during it. I met Britton after that. Like, this is how deep the programming re So when it came to this point in our relationship of do I stay, do I go, what do I do? How do I feel? There was so much fear around, well, how do I even provide for myself? And be a mom. And, you [00:27:00] know, so there was, in, in that early phase, there was a lot of more just stuck energy. We both kind of felt stuck and we would sort of come to the conversation to talk about could we separate? And then we just both couldn’t even have the conversation. And so we just sort of were in this point of this place of suffering. And the therapy was helping a little bit. It was giving some voice to the anger. It was giving some voice to the pain. But yet we were still kind of stuck, you know? And that’s when some, some plant medicine ceremonies and like MDMA actually really came in clutch to like save us because, you know, we realized that we. We were willing to like, look at ourselves, you know? And he, it might’ve been different had Brit been like, oh, I actually really wanna be in a relationship with this woman that I’m entertaining. Right? But he never wanted that, even though he was entertaining the women. And some of these women, this one in particular, had said things [00:28:00] to him like, oh, I could totally take care of your kids. You know? And that made him go, I guess I could let you speak to that. But it was kind of, he would tell me that, that made him kind of pull back and go, wait, no. Like, I’m not, you know? And so there was this dance, there was this dance that we were doing. It was very private. I was so scared to own my truth.  nobody knew. I had only a few friends I had disclosed, and that I was going through this. And their advice was awful. It, it really didn’t feel supportive. And so I realized pretty early on that the truth of my story wasn’t safe with anybody. And so I had to kind of hold it within myself and just discover, just like move slowly through it. And, you know, I realized in that, in the heat of those moments, it, those aren’t wise times to make a, a drastic decision that could change your life. Like, we kind of just needed to sit in the fire for a minute and see what emerged. But it, it really wasn’t easy. And it was rooted a lot [00:29:00] more in the fear of what life would look like as a solo woman more than anything. And how can I navigate that? How could I provide for myself, how could I tend to my children? And, and yeah, like it, I don’t, does it, did that answer Gissele: your question? Yeah, of course. Yes. Thank you very much. What about you, Bri? Did you have any moments of ambivalence? Like stay, go, stay, go, like having a hard time making a decision? And then what helped you land in the decision that you made? Britton: Yeah, this is, this is actually like an important part of our healing journey. So throughout all of it, I actually never, ever desired to leave Carol Lee. And it was so, it was this weird energy of like, trying to just feel fulfilled, trying to feel desire from the opposite sex, trying to feel connected to the opposite sex in sexually, and not getting that in my relationship. So seeking it outside. And and, you know, as we began our healing journey the, the triggering was too much for her. It was [00:30:00] just, she was living in PTSD and I understood, and I, I was feeling very sorrow, so, so much sorrow for her. We had, we, we were already healing and everything, but it was just so deep, right? And she was, she was trying to uncover the layers. But Carol sometimes needs just that little push to like, push her into the dark so that she can just truly look at it. And I was doing that with her because I was doing it with myself, and she was doing it well, actually, we were both moving through our, our shadows really well. But I could see her suffering and I, I approached her. I, I thought a lot about it. I was like, man, I, you know, I’m scared to leave her. I don’t wanna leave her. I love her. I wanna see her healed. I did this to her. Like, there was a lot of things going on in my mind. And I just remember thinking, and, and like finally getting to the conclusion that it’s like I may need to leave her so that she [00:31:00] can heal and, you know, like I may need to step away so that she’s not in full trigger mode all the time. And when I got the courage to finally come and confront her about that, I did. And I said, you know, do we need to do this so that you can heal? And, and she, she was like, maybe, so, so I think like a week after that, I basically said, you know, it was just boiling over. I said, well, let’s just do some MDMA together. Because I’d, I’d learned about the process that MDMA was going through with the FDA and undergoing trials. It was on a third clinical trials setting. And it was like just about to undergo full FDA approval, which by the way, it didn’t get it. And I’m really annoyed with that because I don’t feel that that’s genuine. It has, it has so many incredible benefits. So, we’ll sidestep that. But the thing is, is that I, I had some friends that had had it and I off, I asked them, I said, Hey, I need to do this with my wife. Like, can I, can I get some and can we go do it, [00:32:00] you know, to, to one of your homes for the day? And so anyway, they arranged for us and we went in and had this session and it was gonna be like a conscious, like, what would it look like if we consciously uncoupled? What would it look like if we separated? Not like to actually begin the talks of like, okay, I wanna go and da da, but let’s open up the doorway and what would that look like? And and it was a really, you know, coming from that ambivalent perspective and, and we actually just realized that we just loved each other so much in that session. And so instead of like having this deep conversation about like separation and what would it might look like, we actually just reconnected and, and loved each other deeply and found that that bliss that’s always been in our relationship, it’s actually just been very unaccessible since the worst wounding. And so we, we actually came back together deeper in an MDMA session, and the, it gave us the charge and the energy we needed to just keep pressing forward. Carolee: I, I wanna add to just hearing [00:33:00] him share that actually brought a full circle moment and of memory into my mind that I feel is important to also just plug in here with this, this point of the conversation. You know when we were traveling the world, we had sold everything. And at this point, this was now fall of 2023, we were living in Egypt. And in Egypt I had felt called to an 11 day container for women. It, it’s called ancient o or or orgasmic Bean. And it was held by this beautiful Polish woman named Aana in Siwa, the Oasis in, in the Sahara. And I went to this container for women and I was alone with just women for this 11 days. And this very fear of being alone of divorce came back up in this healing container for myself. And actually I had to confront the energy fully and heal this idea that I couldn’t be alone. ’cause [00:34:00] the idea that I couldn’t be alone, that I couldn’t care for myself was part of what actually kept me in the marriage. Right? And so. Yes, the MDMA helped, yes, him actually not wanting to be in a relationship in a marriage partnership with anyone other than me. All of that really supported us in to like stay when it was so painful to stay when it was so difficult. But I had to come to a place of so much love for myself that I knew that I would be okay with or without a man taking care of me. And I was so confused a little bit when that energy emerged. You know, I’m in this container for women. I’m healing it. It was like this priestess Rac where, where at the temple of the, of the oracle we’re in the Sahara, we’re in these salt pools. Like it was so magical. And I was thinking, you know, this was towards the end of our journey of traveling the world together, that this wasn’t the time that I [00:35:00] thought I’d be looking at divorce. But all of a sudden I’m in this container and all of a sudden this pulse of like, you just need to divorce him. You need to divorce him, you need to divorce him, was come mean force. And it was pouring through me and I was like crying. ’cause I was like, no, I liked it. All of this, I’ve made this decision so many times to stay. Why now? Why now am I being confronted with that, with that energy of it’s time to leave? And I realized it was because I had been so afraid of the energy up until that point that I hadn’t actually really sat with the possibility. And it really was rooted in my fear of being alone. And once I realized that I wasn’t, I didn’t need to be afraid of being alone, that as a woman I could provide for myself as a woman, I could take care of myself, that I had skills and tools to be free. Abundantly provided for, like, that was so monumental in my healing. I came back to him from that, from that journey, basically telling [00:36:00] him I had to like face divorce in the, you know, I had to like stand with that idea. And he was shocked by that because again, I was shocked by it. But I realized through that, that I just really needed to allow that timeline to have been a reality. I had wasn’t even really, really willing for it to be a reality, but once I allowed it to be a reality, I had the freedom of choice to say, no, I’m still here. Gissele: Yeah. And you’re making a conscious choice right? Then making a choice outta fear and regret and whatever. Like if you are making a conscious choice to stay, that also helps you stay from a more compassionate and loving place. Exactly. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about some of the shadow feelings you were talking about, because it must have been difficult if you cared at all about Carol Lee to watch her suffer and understand that you were, your behavior was the cost of that suffering. How did you deal with that kind of the, the shame and guilt and maybe [00:37:00] some of the other difficult feelings you might have felt? Britton: Yeah, that was, that was difficult to feel very responsible about everything that was happening in her body. And, you know, it was putting so much discomfort in the relationship and distrust and the, the trust took so many years to rebuild. And you know, it KI kept asking myself like, why, why am I even doing it? It, it, it didn’t really make sense to me, Gissele, like, why I was actually seeking, because I didn’t un at that point in time, I didn’t fully understand why I hadn’t, you know, confronted the shadows and looked at ’em and, and everything. And so I carried that with me for a long time. as a man in Mormonism, like with the programming, I was horrified at what I had done. And I felt almost unforgivable in the eyes of God. You know, like I, I didn’t know. I didn’t [00:38:00] really know if I could be forgiven. And you know, in that paradigm I felt like I could do my best. But I think the thing that really was, that continually was at the forefront of my experience through all of this was I why even through the early part of our healing journey and when I wanted to be just absolutely committed to her, my energy was still not zipped up. My energy was still leaky. I could still feel temptation from other women. I could still feel it, and I didn’t understand like, am I just gonna have to live like this? And there was this conflict of like, why, why do I, why as a married man can I just feel like I’m fully devoted to this woman? And again, I still did not see the shadow. And this is really important. I think anybody in this situation, and I bet you there’s a lot of men or women that are in marriages that still feel [00:39:00] temptations of other people, that they don’t know how to deal with it, and they suppress it. And they may not even go out and cheat, but they still feel it. I can tell you right now, as a healed man, I do not feel that. And I understood fully why now I do. So knowing that I was still dealing with that, like my, the turmoil within me was so I just couldn’t trust myself. I didn’t know if I would make a mistake again. There was just a lot of that. And so, yeah, like. It just took, it took so much to finally confront those shadows. You know, like, and when Carol Carleigh and I talk about this all the time when we share podcasts or when we’re coaching and stuff, but like we had, we hit, we hit these thresholds of truth where we had to confront the thing within us and realize, oh, actually this is what I want. And for me it was, I needed sexual exploration. I needed more my, my body, my [00:40:00] desire was deeper sexual exploration. She wasn’t giving it even during her healing when we were trying to be closer and stuff, she, she wasn’t fully embodied yet. And so, so I still needed it. And like I had to have that conversation with her and I thought it was gonna be the end of the relationship. How could I go to her after everything that’s been done and then say, Hey, how can we look at opening our marriage so that I can sexually explore more? Wow, that was a difficult conversation, but it was actually through those thresholds of truth where we became closer, where actually we fell deeper in love. We fell deeper into each other. And because we, we finally began to see each other fully unfiltered, you know, like, this is the beauty of relationship is if you can come to, to another and you can be completely unfiltered. There’s, I don’t, there’s like literally nothing that we keep from each other. There’s no secrets. We just, we just speak and, and act and be, [00:41:00] and we are totally in love with the other person for that beingness. And so there’s this new level of relationship. It’s not a tolerance, it’s not a, like an acquiescence or a compromise or a compromise. It’s a total acceptance and actually an enjoyment of the other person. So, i, you know, I’m kind of going a little bit everywhere, but I think that hopefully will bring the whole energy of what your question was to the audience here, is that like, there’s a lot in that question. And and I can tell you that we had to go through the deepest, darkest shadows, and I hopefully healed that for many generations of people. But it, it’s not an easy thing. And, and for men or women to confront the deep shadow of like why they want to seek others or like, what’s that shadow energy really about? You have to be willing to be so courageous within your own self and to speak your truth or else you will never get through it. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. I love what you said I think what I’m hearing you say is basically the importance of really being honest with [00:42:00] ourselves about what we need, right? Like you’re going outside of yourselves to look for all of these things and even outside of the relationship, but what helped you is to be really honest with yourself first and then with each other about what their real needs are. And that sort of goes to what I was gonna ask about men in particular. And it could be that I have my own misconceptions. ’cause I do feel that we have been programmed to believe certain things about men in, in certain things about women, and the need for men to have that sexual connection that, I mean, women have it too. Like this is not a, a thing that women don’t want to explore. But I’m curious because again, I don’t know if this is my own limiting belief I don’t know if men are always socialized to express the fullness of their needs, especially emotional and nurturing need, that may go to the heart of why that comes across as a sexual thing. And so [00:43:00] sometimes men don’t. Necessarily seek out sex sometimes it may look like it’s a sexual connection, but sometimes maybe there’s a need to connect in a nurturing way. What are your thoughts around how like men might have been conditioned to really focus on the sex part of it instead of perhaps the other needs? Britton: Yeah. Love this question. I absolutely love it. Because it’s so important and it’s so real and there’s a ton of programming in there, but I also feel men are just, you know, men and women are hardwired different, and that’s Carolee: an important Britton: part, but I’m not, I’m not thinking that hardwiring differences about is around not being sexual or being sexual. Men probably are my in in intuition’s kind of saying like, what you said, you know, I want a deeper connection with her. It didn’t have to necessarily be about sex, although that was important. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Britton: And, and so, you know, like a man [00:44:00] maybe seeking outward or just trying to connect with lots of women, maybe in his single years they may be seeking deeper emotional connection, but just not knowing how to go about it because of the programming. Because the programming of, of our nature has been around like the playboy and around, you know, like when we just think about movies and music and entertainment and all of that, that just feeds into our subconscious. And and so I truly believe, like, I remember, I’ll just say this, like I remember when we were in the North Shores of Bali and I was riding with her our dream relationship. And I realized in that moment I was like, all I wanna do is get to know her deeply. I just wanna know every part of her, what’s her wild side look like? What’s her most. Soft feminine side look like, what is, you know, what, what is her boss, babe, CEO side look like? What is all of, what is, who is this this entity over here?[00:45:00] And it was very spiritual, right? Like it was, it was this deep desire of gnosis. And and so like, I, I do think that, you know, I was seeking emotional connection. A lot of my, my, my outward energy was just trying to get attention and that was enough. And you know, sometimes I would talk about my relationship. Sometimes I would, I would hear another woman talk about their relationship and like we would just confide in each other and that felt really good. But the sexual connection for men I think is real. Like, we do want, like, we have a stronger urge to procreate. We have a stronger urge. Those, those sort of base urges to do those sorts of things. And I don’t think that’s any, there’s anything wrong with that. Like this is the journey of humanity and we’re trying to figure out, we’re actually trying to figure out like how to express these energies. But we’ve laid a cultural veil over all of it and say, Nope, it has to be through monogamy. Nope. It has to be through marriage. Nope. It has to be through these very intricate particular [00:46:00] ways and it, we’ve developed it all and it’s all fucking bullshit to be honest. And so Carollee and I confronted that paradigm and we realized actually we can rewrite our complete agreement of what if you were to come to an alien and be like, Hey, we do this thing called marriage. And they’re like, what’s that? And it’s like, oh, you have to explain it. What’s the purpose? Like all of this stuff, like if you, if you get to just rewrite it how you want it to be, that’s what Carolee and I did. And we came to our own terms, our own agreement, our own understanding of our unique individual selves and that energy within us. And that’s how we navigated this paradigm, this very, very complex thing. So yeah, I think, men do. want sex. Like there’s nothing wrong. Women actually do want sex too. I think there’s actually a deep desire for women to be embodied, but because they’ve been told their whole life that you must, you must be pure, you must be chased, you must do all the, you know, like they’ve, that’s been turned off for millennia, right? Millennia. And so, like, if you could [00:47:00] shed all of those layers and programming, what would em, embodied woman look like today? What would an embodied man look like today? And Carol and I really trying to be the example of that in our relationship. And that’s how we coach is like, you know, finding embodiment and, and the sex life. It just explodes after that. So anyway, hopefully I nailed it. I, Carolee: I would add too, that there was a moment in his healing that like really opened my eyes and I was like, whoa, I wasn’t even expecting that, but like, I’m excited. And it was when he had his, he had this beautiful Kundalini experience. And then as we were integrating, he realized, he, he like said, oh my goodness, emotion is the language of the spirit. And up until this point, he had been this very linear, logical like provider. Britton: It’s a left, left brain, you know, Carolee: he had been really, like, in fact, when we would get in in arguments or, you know, I’d come at it from the very, it was a very feminine, masculine dance, but like unhealed the, I was the unhealed [00:48:00] feminine. That’d be like, listen to me, I wanna, you know, and I’d talk and I wouldn’t let him go. And I’d really just drill home to whatever issue I was having. And I’d get irrational and I’d be loud and emotional and he’d pull back. ’cause he had wounds from his own mother and her irrational crazy behavior. And when I would get loud and big and female, he’d get, oh, a masculine pull away. And he’d say, I don’t wanna talk to you right now. And that’d make me want even more. Like, we had this dance that we did with how we communicated to where it was like emotion was bad. Emotion was wrong, emotion was a bad way to communicate. And that activated my emotion even more because I was like, hear me. You know? Mm-hmm. But when he was like, wow, emotion is the language of the spirit, and he understood that he had been closed off, his heart had been closed off. It like took him into this descent. Into the emotional body. Descent into the feminine. I really feel like the masculine, he has healed so [00:49:00] greatly because he’s not been afraid to feel that energetic emotional flow that’s usually attributed to the feminine. Right. And like what he’s speaking to of like, what would an embodied woman really look like? That is a lot of like that inner masculine fire penetrating a desire. Let me ask and claim what I want. Like as women, we were programmed to not do any of that. Right. And one of the main things that I realized is I had a deep generational pattern that I saw playing out in my mother, in my grandmothers, and on and on and on, yeah. Was this idea that as women, we weren’t even allowed to actually have desire. My desire was to make a really lovely meal for my husband. That’s where my desire rooted. My desire was to like put together this perfect little house with a white picket fence and have really cute kids that are dressed perfect for church. And it looks really good, you know? And like I did all of that, but it was so it didn’t fulfill me. Right. And [00:50:00] I couldn’t express my sexual desire because it was so turned off. It was inaccessible to me. And it was through my own conditioning, through my own programming, through trauma for my childhood, through trauma from my marriage. Right. And so him claiming, oh, that, that awareness, that realization, that beautiful, like change that shift where he’s like, wow, I can, I can live from my heart. I don’t have to be afraid of emotion. You know, there, there were still moments, several where my fire would come out and I’d be really like, oh, you must listen. And he’d pull back and we’d still do that dance, but we don’t do that anymore. Like, it’s really like filtered out of our system to where we’re both really present with the emotional sense of who we are, and then the penetrative like masculine sense of who we are. And we can like really communicate in a way where I don’t feel him shame me or get mad at me for my emotions at all. But that was something that was [00:51:00] a part of this earlier part of our relationship. So that was really powerful and beautiful to witness, you know, a masculine really dive into like, oh, I, I can cry. I can be held. I, I Britton: think men need to, to heal the feminine, and women need to heal the masculine that the imbalance is so ob I mean, they, they need to balance both, but mm-hmm. There’s a deeper wound within men about the feminine energy, the intuitive energy, the emotional energy for, for women, most women, they struggle with em embodiment around. Like what does it mean to be proactive and to have that masculine energy and go-getting, and when we do and we balance it, man, it is just a beautiful thing that can exist between the two. Because then I can embody the feminine, she can embody the masculine, and we can bring that into the bedroom. And, and in a way I can receive her and she can, she can really, yeah. Anyway, I don’t need to get too detailed, but the point is, is it’s, it’s real and it’s, and it’s lovely. Mm-hmm. Carolee: Well, and one of the things that, like natural behaviors that I just couldn’t [00:52:00] access, I wanted to, but they were so blocked naturally, was I never initiated, I never initiated sex. Mm-hmm. I, I would be in this receptive mood. He, he would be like, oh, I want it. And even then I’d kind of be like, oh, okay, well, okay. You know, now it’s a very, I initiate all the time. It’s so natural. It’s so natural and it flows from me. And I’m just like, and I just penetrate his energy with my own desire. And he feels that for me constantly. But I had to go on a deep healing journey. I couldn’t just all of a sudden flip a switch and be like, I’m now this thing that I never was. I had to like dive into the depths of my own psyche, heal generational patterns, like really do conscious healing work so that my natural state of penetrative desire just comes forth. Like, it’s just part of who I am now. Which is a, a lot of the reason why I call that lifetime, like, it’s almost like my past life in this life, you know? It’s so, the contrast is so significant. It feels so [00:53:00] Gissele: far away that it, yeah. Carolee: Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. So thank you for that. I mean, that, that was amazing. You know, it goes to show you how much by healing ourselves, we can really heal within our relationships and we can come so much closer together. But we’re not really taught to focus on our healing for ourselves first before we get into a relationship. Again, we’re conditioned to seek outside of ourselves, find that perfect partner, find that date. Like even from when we’re very little, right? Like you have to have a date for prom and all of those things. And so we don’t really Yeah. You know, even teach our kids to. Really find who they really are and what they really desire. First, we make desires wrong and that can be challenging. How did your travel really help you kind of heal those aspects of yourself? Like how did you make the decision to, sell everything? ’cause that’s also another courageous move. Most people are like, no, I gotta have a home. I have to have all of these [00:54:00] things. Because did you know where you were gonna end up at the end of that travel? Like, so, so talk to me a little bit about that and how that helped you with your healing. Britton: Oh, so it’s another, it’s actually another answer around sexuality. Our story is about sex. You know, I was looking outside for sex. She wasn’t embodied for sex. I wasn’t healed around sex. And our whole journey has been around sex. So that’s why it’s such an important, like, it’s just such a core part of our, like, coaching and like what we do and ritual shadow work, which we teach is the, the intersection of sexuality and spirituality. So how did, how did we decide to sell everything and then just leave? Well around the same time that Carleigh was talking about all these things that were going on where she did that ritual of like you know, burning her wedding dress and ripping up the poem that I wrote her for a wedding day. I had also burned our marriage certificate the month before. There was a lot of like this energy of just dying to the old relationship, [00:55:00] dying to the old way of lot of living. We decided early in that year, and this is why we were doing so many like deaths, is we decided we were gonna live the full fuck. Yes. So there’s a book called Becoming by Ben and Ria, and we read that and it was like, ah, the living the full Fuck Yes is like, sounds so cool, just full embodiment everything you’re doing. Just like, yeah, man. You know? And so we had to get in on our marriage and our relationship and our commitment to each other, and that was part of it. And we called in a sexual reeducation because of our, we knew, we were aware enough that our upbringing was horribly you know, shame and trauma ridden around sexuality. So we called in a healing experience for that, essentially. And we were guided to a place called Ista, which is the International School of Temple Arts. Mm-hmm. And it is a week long container and it, the level one of that is called spiritual sexual shamonic experience. And we did that together as a couple, which most people attended. Not very much. Very many [00:56:00] people are like going there as just single people. It’s not like a place that a lot of couples attend, but we did that. And there is a whole podcast we could do and talk about that whole thing. It was amazing, absolutely remarkable magic that happened there, including for her, she had a full body orgasm which she’d never experienced before, where her body was just absolutely shaking and moving through a convulsive muscle movements and crying and laughing and crying. And it was like such the massive release. And it was so beautiful witness. We came back from that week long experience, that container, and we had a, we had understood, I think the principles of sexual liberation enough that we were like, wow. Oh my gosh. Our whole vibration shifted. We understood who we were more, and like, we actually began to understand in a deeper way, like why religion and even society, government and everything. Tries to shove that energy down because when a person is sexually liberated, they are free [00:57:00] and they do not need authority figures in their life to guide them. I’m not anti-government, but I, they don’t need government to tell them how to live their life. They don’t need religion and a prophets and priests and stuff, or police to tell them how to live their life. They don’t need these figures and patriarchy and hierarchy just dissolve in that liberation. So we immediately were like, we felt out of the nor like we were out of out of our place. Like we’re in this Mormon culture that’s so repressed. And we were like, dude, this is so not us anymore. So we, we actually turned to our divination practice and we were kind of guided into an opportunity to like say, let’s, you know, you guys can offer it all up now. And, and just take, you know, like almost the words of Yeshua, like what should I do? And, and he, this, this disciple goes to him and says, what should I do? And he says, sell everything and follow me. And in a way we did that. You know, we weren’t, we weren’t trying to be Christian in that, but we were, we were seeking a deeper spiritual connection. And so it was that week what [00:58:00] returned, and we were like, we’re gonna sell it all and, and we’re gonna tr we’re gonna go to Bali. ’cause we, we had no, we had no idea what actually we were gonna do. And so we did within, within within three months of returning from that, or, yeah, two and a half months we had sold everything and decided to move to Bali with our four kids. Gissele: Did your family think you were crazy? Yeah. Or were they like all, like who doesn’t Oh yeah, go ahead. Carolee: Yeah. Well, you know, it’s, it’s funny ’cause we were back in Utah for spring break, just this last spring. Just this spring. And while we were there, we connected with a, a friend of ours who we’ve known for years, and she. Is acquainted with some people from our neighborhood where this house was that we had sold. And she said that even to this day, this person that she knows that used to be a neighbor of ours refers to us as people who totally are off their rocker. So, you know, there’s a lot of people like in that which, Britton: which we like. Carolee: I laugh about it. There’s a lot of people in that neighborhood, you know, that, that didn’t understand us. [00:59:00] just to kind of also put this into context and perspective, I had been so afraid we had been so afraid to admit the depths of our woundings and the what we were truly going through and healing, and understanding about ourselves to where I was in this neighborhood. And there were people that I knew, but like, I wasn’t actually really known by them. And I didn’t feel safe enough for them to like truly know me. And then we dropped in for this week long container in the mountains of Colorado, outside of Denver. Which now we live in the mountains of Colorado, north of Denver, a little bit different direction, but we’re here in Colorado. But we had dropped in for this week long experience for healing. And when we showed up because of the nature of inner child work, shamanic healing, shadow work and sexual liberation, we showed up and we fully owned our story high where Brandon and Carol Lee were ex-Mormon. We’ve been through [01:00:00] betrayal. We have four kids. Like all of the things I couldn’t even tell my next door neighbor. I was now admitting to like this room of perfect strangers. Mm-hmm. And that week felt like we were together for almost a month. It was a very different time space when we, you know, and, and those friendships that we formed, everybody who knew my truth did nothing but celebrate it. Here. I was so afraid of all the judgments that I was actually constantly receiving, consciously and subconsciously from my community, from family members, from friends. Like the judgments that were projected on us were so severe that it was starting to traumatize our children. Before we went to the healing in Colorado, people, there were certain people that our kids really loved playing with their kids, but then they were pulling back and trying to be controlling of our children and like saying they didn’t want their kids playing with our kids. Like we got that because we were no longer [01:01:00] Mormon. And that’s a threat to that culture. You know, we are ex-Mormon, we’re apostates, we’re this and that. Like there’s a lot of fear around the liberation of the soul when you’re in a controlled paradigm. And so, yeah, you know, to, to have that contrast of people being like, you guys are amazing. We love you. Like your story is powerful. Wow. You’re together and you’re here. Like, we were celebrated in a way that we had never been. And then we dropped back into Utah the next day after arriving back from this week long experience that was so liberating to two more text messages from other parents saying, yeah, we’re not gonna have our kids play with yours anymore. We just were like, okay, we don’t belong here. And I couldn’t almost sell my possessions that I loved. I loved my home, I loved all of our furniture. Like I’d really. I really love a beautiful space, and I put a lot of heart into building it, and I was like, it can all [01:02:00] go, it can all burn, essentially. Like I can’t sell it fast enough to get out of here and show my children that there’s a completely different way of living and loving and connecting with the world and with community. So yeah, when we first got back, we, we were like, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? And like Briton said, we dove into some divination and had this like, like six different sessions where they all said the same thing. And we’re like, this is crazy. This is wild. What are we, you know? And so then we were like, where are we even gonna move? We put our house on the market before we even knew exactly where we were gonna go. And then we were like, well, I guess we need to sell all for all of our furniture. We don’t wanna like put this in a storage unit. You. And so we started just moving, we started moving with that flow and putting everything up. And people did totally think that we lost our minds. And I will add in the Mormon context, there’s so much like the, it’s called like the prosperity gospel. You live the [01:03:00] gospel and then you prosper. And so the fact that we came back and we sold our house and everything was lining up, not only did we sell our house for like, at the right point in the market with the, to a person that was really excited about it, this individual also bought all of our furniture in our house. Like it was so seamless and so much what a Mormon would call a blessing, that they were confused. Mm-hmm. You know, we literally had, they were Britton: breaking minds. Carolee: Yeah. They were like you are living a way that you actually aren’t supposed to be blessed. Why is everything working out for you? This is, you know, they, they didn’t understand. Britton: Yeah, it, it felt wild. I would say in a way, I, I love that my life is a testament to the fact that you can live however you want and have, because we were so much in fear, like our whole life, you have to live this way. But our life is a testament to those in religion. Seeking better way. Like you can live however you want and you will be blessed all the time. But [01:04:00] if you, the more you follow your heart, the more you’re in sync with your actual self. So that’s where the true blessings are. Carolee: we went to Bali and we didn’t know, we were there for five months and even in that journey we thought we were moving there, right? There was so much unknown of the future and it was just a constant surrender to the, the unfolding. Gissele: And I think to live boldly like that is a threat to institutions. to be your biggest, brightest light, and to live your boldest life. With that surrender, with that level of trust can feel threatening to institutions and individuals who’s, who rely on the fear and control I’ve been reflecting a lot about this. You know, the whole concept of misery loves company. When you see somebody shining their bright light, the immediate response from the majority of people is to try to bring that person down. And why is that? Because there’s a fear associated with it. I probably can’t [01:05:00] get there, so it’s better for me to pull you down than to try to work my way and say, I can be that too. Britton: Crabs in a bucket. And so Gissele: bright, shining your brightest light and living from that place is the biggest threat, which is why society in general that we’ve created, because we’re, as human beings, we tend to be very fear based. We need that conformity, Like anything that seems aberrant to that, that box that we have deemed is acceptable seems like a threat. But I think the real living is outside of that box. Right. How did your children take to you traveling so much? Did they enjoy it? Britton: Well, each child took it differently. The oldest struggled, you know, he, he had to give up. He was living like a pretty normal life, right? So he’s got, he was in soccer and he is got tons of friends. And, and it was really hard for him to realize that he wasn’t gonna be with those people anymore. And so as we approached him around, Hey, we’re selling everything and we’re gonna [01:06:00] travel, we’re gonna Bali, we don’t know if we’re coming back. Mm-hmm. It was hard, this particular child fought us the entire journey. And it was so difficult with him. We were, at one point we were like in Bali and we’re like, dude, we’re sending you back to grandma. Like, you need to either get on board with this or you’re going back, you know? And Carolee: when Britton: we did that, like we put it in his, we put, we gave the decision to him, like, you can go back and be in U Utah and be with your friends. Like, we’re not gonna stop you. ’cause like, we really believe in that choice, that agency of, of every person. And you know, when you see that liberation in your own self, you can only give it to others because there’s no point in trying to control. So it was like, yeah, we were just ready to hand it to him. And he said, no, I’ll stay. You know, like, but it was still really hard. And I just wanna say full circle. He absolutely, totally respects us now around that whole thing. And like he, he’s like so grateful that we took him on that journey and you know, he’s come full circle to it and seen just the, the beauty of it all and like how, [01:07:00] how much it changed him and helped him evolve and grow and like, he’s like so grateful for it. So yeah, it was, in a way he kind of caused hell for us a lot of the time. But we struggled through it with him and we managed to get through it. Now he’s on the other side of it. It’s really good. Well, and I’ll add too, he was the one that was getting the most pushback in the community. Yeah, Britton: that’s true. Carolee: He was the one that was like the, that friends weren’t allowed to be with him. There was so much tension and conflict that he, and, and truly what I identified, because I was really deep in the, the shadow work and like looking at myself and seeing things for what they were, I was like, oh, these parents that are now trying to control this child that are trying to limit him, it’s really because they have a problem with me and they can’t control me. So they can, and so they’re going through, they’re, they’re trying to control him. So what what we identified was he was the recipient of behavior that was actually starting to traumatize him. And it wasn’t a [01:08:00] safe, Utah was not a safe place anymore for our children. And so we needed to extract them. Right. But like, he, he couldn’t really see, see that he was only, he was 11 when we left. Hmm. Right. So it’s still quite a young child. Right. So he is 11. He turned 12 living in Ireland. Even while we were living in Ireland, Because he just needed, he needed to just get away from us for a minute. We put him the first ever experience he had like this where he was two weeks, two solid weeks away from us at age 11, almost 12, for a filmmaking and acting camp that was there in Ireland. And he’s, since he’s, he went back last summer to the same camp he’s going this summer to the same camp. Yeah. And he is this fire fiery kid with so much determination and desire and drive. And, you know, we felt a lot of that throughout this journey. Like Britain said, it, it was not necessarily [01:09:00] easy. Some of the other kids flowed with it a little bit better, like, you know, all of our children actually really love to travel and they really deep down I think that they knew that this was gonna be their human experience too. And at the very beginning, before we even left Utah to like move to Bali and embark on what we didn’t even know we were doing we actually sat in a, in a beautiful ceremony together where we called in the higher selves of our children and we knew that we couldn’t involve our kids at their present state of consciousness in the decisions that we were making. So knew that like we needed them to be on board in a way. And so we invoked their highest embodiment selves, their spirit guides, their angels, their guardians to be really present with us as we made these decisions. Mm-hmm. I love that. You know, we really wanted it to be [01:10:00] something that would serve their unfolding and their becoming and really be something that would be a guiding force for them for the rest of their life. And so we asked their higher selves to guide us too, so that whatever emerge was gonna be in their best interest. And on this side of it, you know, like our kids are actually all really, really grateful, especially our 13-year-old who was the most difficult during the journey that they had this experience. And kids say you’re the best mom in the world. And sometimes when they say that to me, I kind of laugh and I’m like, I am so not, I’m so imperfect. But I ask them, why do you say that? And they’re like, what Mom would take their kids all around the world? You know, like it’s something that’s a really core mm-hmm. Foundational piece of who they are and what they’ve got to, what they’ve been able to experience. You know, they’ve been to Bali, Vietnam, France, Ireland, England, Scotland, Egypt, you know, they’ve been to these places, they’ve stood with us in the great pyramid and like, [01:11:00] it was so magical for them to, you know, while we were in the great pyramid going down the stairs with our little 4-year-old, she wasn’t four then she was a. Two, almost three. Almost three. Almost three. Mm-hmm. There’s this beautiful angel of a woman that we obviously didn’t know beforehand going up towards the chamber who happened to have a little bubble like wand thing in her purse, and she pulled it out and she saw her little Eva and she blew her bubbles in that little stairway in the grand stairway, in the great, in the grand stair to the pyramid. I was like, wide-eyed wonder. There’s, there’s bubbles in the pyramid for me. Beautiful. Like it was beautiful, magical, beautiful, you know, in those, those moments. Beautiful. Yeah. It, we had such beautiful moments with our kids. Yeah. People often asked me like, oh, is it hard traveling with four kids? And I was like, four kids is just hard. It doesn’t matter where you are. It doesn’t matter whether you struggle traveling or not. Yeah, yeah. For sure. The struggles are the same. And the way that we traveled, we, we slow traveled. We, [01:12:00] we lived places and it’s like, I’d rather live in this beautiful ancient oasis in the Sahara then be like in this crusty like suburban Utah community. I had the same problems with my kids. They’re there. Like, I would rather a beautiful backdrop. Mm-hmm. You know? And so yeah. I’m a bit of a, gypsy. Britton: Yeah. Gissele: So, you know, yeah. We’ve programed to want those things, right. To want the house and the picket fence and the car and all of those things. So living outside the box, I’m sure must have felt so magical. Carolee: Yeah. Really, really was. Britton: And it was a detox from Western society too. Mm-hmm. The kids really gotten an understanding of like developing countries mm-hmm. And societies that just don’t have the same things as us. It was like a, it was like kind of being in the multiverse, you know, like going from place to place and having us experience so many different cultures. It was cool. Gissele: Hmm. That’s amazing. So just wanna sort of conclude the whole [01:13:00] infidelity part I was wondering if you could share the importance of compassion for your partner, whether you choose to stay or go after an infidelity. Britton: I’m so glad you brought it back to the love and compassion topic because it, God, that was such an important part of like, what we had to really embody in the healing journey. And you know, through that, as I gave my truths and she gave her truths, and we recognized that this was seemingly incompatible, we just held compassion. We held that, that deep honoring of the others’ truth. And you know, and also like I stepped deeper and deeper into like, just holding her in her own pain, and she’s stepped deeper and deeper into like holding me and my, my pain, which w you know, which we’ve talked about several times on the show here.  compassion is all of these emotions, they’re infinitely deep. And I’m beginning to learn that they have infinite like, depth, [01:14:00] the inner dimensions can continue to go. So, you know, we learned, we’ve learned compassion all along the way, but we’ve learned it to hold it for each person in our family deeper and through the infidelity. Like she, I think she, she finally understood my pain and I finally understood her trauma. And, through that we stepped into love, which is, in my definition of love, is acceptance. You know, we accept the way things are. Love is not a changing energy. Love has no desire to change the world. Carolee: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Love simply Britton: wants to embrace things. It will offer, it will offer, it will offer, but it does not force, it does not coerce, it does not extort. It is all about the guiding presence of agency. And so we, offered both of those emotions deeply to each other, and we found each other in those depths. We found this beautiful connection in those depths. And I really, truly believe Carol and I’s connection is multi lifetime. Like [01:15:00] cosmic, perhaps twin flame, perhaps, you know, the same soul. I don’t know. But it is, it is deep. And we, we, we love each other with such great compassion and love. Carolee: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, I would add that, you know we’re afraid of the truth, but really the truth is what sets you free. Mm-hmm. And I realized that when, what, what I was more afraid of what made it hard for me to trust Britton was the deception, the dishonesty, the parts of him that I couldn’t see. Yeah. And even though there were things that would, that came out throughout our healing where I was like, Ooh, that’s a heavy one. That’s a hard truth. I dunno. And I found that in myself too, that when, you know, there are moments where I was like, oh, oh, I know what my truth is here. And I’m really terrified that if I tell him my actual truth, he’ll say, no, that’s too much for me. I’m gonna walk, I’m gonna go this. That’s gonna be the end. You know? But we, we kept doing this dance [01:16:00] where we got to that threshold of courageous enough to say what it really was that came forth the truth, that we were scared. And through telling the truth, we became. Even more connected in trust because we realized, oh, if you’re so confident in yourself that you can tell me something that might shock me, that might surprise me, that you might think would be the end. I am now able to sit with my own energy and decide for myself. You know? And that level of presence for another brings that level of presence for yourself. And you can’t receive somebody else’s truths with the ego, You have to like surrender into this compassionate place of understanding, even if it doesn’t make sense for you personally. Right. And we’ve had tools. especially like even astrology and then like the ritual shadow work that we do. Those tools hold us in discovery of our own truths and make sense of things that, like the unique [01:17:00] blueprint of who I am is so uniquely me. And the unique blueprint of who he is is so uniquely him. And in some ways we did feel like, oh, you are so different. It’s, we’re truly not even compatible. But what we realized is actually there’s a harmony that can exist for everyone, but it requires that truth telling. And you can’t tell truth to somebody who’s gonna push you. You gotta tell you, you’ve gotta become the person that can hold that grace and that love. And I think compassion is a core vibration to be able to receive somebody else’s truth in. And then when you receive that truth and then you see, oh, you were brave. You were brave and you told me what you were scared to tell me, and now I love you even more. That’s so curious that my love for you and you admitting your truths to me has expanded not what I was expecting. Right. But that was what we realized. [01:18:00] That’s what happened time and time again as we allowed ourselves to come to these places of like, okay, I’m just gonna open my heart and, and I just wanna know you. I just wanna know who you are. Stop hiding from me. That was my big thing. Just stop hiding. Stop hiding. Tell me who you are and allow me to make the choice of whether or not that works for me or not. Right? Mm-hmm. And that, like, to come to that place, like required a, a high level of just even self-compassion. Gissele: I love everything that you said. I love Britain also that you mentioned like when you truly are in the space of love for yourself and other people, there is no desire to change. There is no desire to force, there is no desire because your cup is filled from within. You don’t need somebody else to be different so that they can then fulfill whatever it is that you want from them. And so what you’re raising is also an important point, which is truth is [01:19:00] love being authentic, being vulnerable. And you could have easily just parted and still it would’ve been a positive experience if you were both in your truth. So it’s not about staying or leaving, it’s about being authentically yourself and choosing from that point, which I think from my perspective, is super powerful. I think people are so afraid to be seen because they’ve been told it’s, you’re too much, or, you know, their lights might have been extinguished by other people who were extinguishers ’cause they were extinguished and so on. And that’s, it’s okay. It’s part of the, the human experience. And the other thing that I, I get really from this conversation, which I really love. Is to embrace all of the different challenges. We are taught to run away from the difficult feelings and the difficult emotions and all of those things, but the way is through, right? And so you guys had to get really honest and you had to be so brave. I’m so proud of you guys like this. It’s, it’s difficult, like people are [01:20:00] so afraid to go as deep and to be brave and to be vulnerable and to be exposed and, and to choose from that choice. But this is the only way we’re gonna create a different life and different societies and different worlds, Can I just wanna say something Britton: about that right there? I’ve been feeling like I just wanna say this, and then you just started talking about it and I’m like, okay. The, what’s on the precipice of, for humanity is a new state of being, a new world, a new Earth. And that earth looks a lot different in community than what it does right now. And the big part of that is harmony. Like we’re, we’re so much in disharmony. We have so many different ideas. I think a lot of us are actually trying to say the same thing, but we don’t listen very well. The truth is, is that if a harmonious society is possible, then it’s not about changing people. It’s the diversity of creation that actually makes it beautiful. It’s the integration of everything. [01:21:00] And the only way you can integrate the differences of everyone is through compassion and love. So your podcast is like a perfect anecdote, if you will, of like how we have to come together through compassion and love to build the true society of, of harmonious people. And it can be hard to believe, it can sound farfetch or idealistic, but the truth is that a third alternative exists. A harmonious energy wave exists for all of us. So I’m on the quest to find that I found it within my relationship. I’m finding it within my relationship of my children and many of my friends, new friends that I’ve developed in this journey. And I find, I do find that throughout the world that there are people seeking that same society. So we can all come together and start to build that, that then there’s, a great potential to be seen.

TRANSCRIPT Interview with Parent’s Circle Forum Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about reconciliation in the face of deep conflict, and we’ll be talking with Robi Damelin. Spokesperson and director of International Relations for the Parents Circle Families Forum joined the organization after her son was killed by a Palestinian sniper. All her work on the ground in Palestine, Israel, and internationally is geared towards non-violence and reconciliation Robbie was named as a 2015 Woman of Impact by women in the world, Layla Alsheikh. lives in Bethlehem in the West Bank in 2002. Her six month old son.  Sai became ill and Israeli soldiers prevented Lila from taking him to the hospital for more than five [00:01:00] hours. Sai soon died from the lack of timely treatment. Lila joined the Parents’ Circle in 2016 following her son’s death. She never thought about revenge, but rather has devoted her time and energy to ensuring a better, more peaceful future for her children. The Parents Circle Families Forum is a joint Israeli Palestinian organization made up of over 800 bereaved families. Their common bond is that they have lost a close family member to conflict, but instead of choosing revenge, they have chosen the path of reconciliation. Through their educational activities. These bereaved members have joined together to take tens of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis on journeys of reconciliation. it is often raw and always emotional, but out of these interaction comes change. Not the kind of change that makes headlines, but a more [00:02:00] personal and profound shift in perspective. As a joint Palestine and Israeli peace organization, the PCFF models, constructive dialogue around shared values. Even since October 7th, 2023, its staff members and thousands of participants are still committed to peace in a way forward that centers around empathy and humanization. The PCFF focuses on the shared value of the sanctity of human life. This conversation brings our attention to the values that Palestinians and Israelis can agree upon, even in the darkness of times. Please join me in welcoming Robi and Layla. Hello. Hi. Robi: Thank you for Yes. Gissele: Oh, no. Thank, thank you so much for being on the show. Your message right now is, is so, so important. I wanna to start by giving each of you an opportunity to share your [00:03:00] stories. Layla: Thank you. First of all, we are so honored to be with you today. my name is Layla. Alsheikh, I live in Bethlehem, but I was born and raised in Jordan. ’cause my family, they are originally from Bethlehem, but they went to Jordan ’cause my father was a teacher and he went there to teach the children in the refugees camps. But after that war started in 1967, so, The government during that time, take a decision not to allow the Palestinian to return back. So they lost their citizenship and they become, Jordanian. I didn’t visit Palestine before that, but my father have thousands of stories about Palestine. Layla: So I love Palestine from what I hear from my father. And for me, it’s become like a dream to return back and to, to visit all the places, all the people that my father talk about. And that dream come true in [00:04:00] 1999 after I met my husband, he’s originally from Bethlehem too. And, I returned back, after we engaged to get married and to start our new life. And I was really being so happy to be here to, to return back to my roots and, That happiness become much more after one year when we have our first daughter. And when you start to have children, now you start to plan for their future. So, that, that happiness become much more when we have our second son. But during that time, the second or the uprising started and during that time, the Israeli government take a decision not to give people like me who came from Arab countries, a Palestinian id. So that meant I can’t go field from place to place. I can’t even visit my family in Jordan. But during that time, the only thing that I care about, I think about to take care of my family [00:05:00] here, all my children, my husband, and I thought that will, like this uprising will end like after just a few days or a few months. But unfortunately it last for longer time. That happiness was ended. 11th of April, 2002, four o’clock in the morning when I woke up and I saw my son, he was in a very critical condition. ’cause at that night, the Israeli soldiers came to my village. They were tear gas and at that time he was just six months old and that treatment in our village wasn’t good enough. So we tried to take him to a hospital on inside Beth because we live in a village outside. So, um, when we tried to enter, the Israeli soldiers prevented us and they said, it’s militarism when you can’t enter. The next chance was to take him to ha the next city to Bethlehem. But again, they, the Israeli [00:06:00] soldiers told us that the main road is closed, so the last chance to take him to ha but the rough will be long and, tough ’cause that will be between village. During our, in our way to, to Hebron. For the third time, an Israeli checkpoint stopped us. They searched the car, they searched the idea of my husband and my father-in-law. We tried to explain to them that our son should be in a hospital as soon as possible. They didn’t listen. They stopped us more than four hours. And when we reached the hospital, the doctor said it’s too late to save his life. Few hours later, he died because lack of treatment as a new mother, my family away from me, I was really devastated. I was. Who I like crazy didn’t know what to do because as a mother to feel hopeless, you can’t do anything to help your son. That one of the things that [00:07:00] I can’t explain, whatever I could have words, I don’t think there’s a word could explain my feeling that day. Even I start to convince myself this is a dream. When we return back home, I slept in the car and this is just dream. I, I will walk up again and bring my son and everything will be great, but unfortunately, that was the truth. At the middle of the night, I was really so tired. I slept maybe for five minutes and I saw a white dove came and stand on my shoulder and said to me, mom, don’t cry. I’m so happy I couldn’t stop crying from that day until today. Every time I think about him, every time I. I start to imagine if he’s still alive until today, how he looked like, what kind of study he could have, what kind of job he could think about. Even sometimes I feel jealous when Robi start to talk about David and how much memories he have with him. But, but I [00:08:00] don’t have all that much memories. And that night I was really full of hatred, anger for all the Israelis for me. All of them were responsible about his death, but at the same time, I didn’t think to take revenge. ’cause revenge will never bring my son back. And if I will take a revenge, I don’t know the names of those soldiers. I don’t know anything about them. So if I will do that, I will do it with other innocent people and I will bring another innocent families to this cycle of violence. I will never let anyone to be in the same situation that I was really in. But at the same time, I didn’t know what to do. I try to live again, but it’s not the same. There’s always something missing. The life will never be the same again. Life continue. during this three years, my husband, [00:09:00] my family, my family in-law tried to convince me to have other children and I refuse. One day my doctor called me and he said, why didn’t you, when I have other children? I said, why? I will have them if finally I’ll lose them if they are not died because of like treatment or gas, tear gas or something like that. Maybe they will do something and then they will go to jail for the rest of their life. But after. Those years. I have another boy. I give him the same name because I, ’cause I didn’t wanna forget his story. I didn’t wanna forget all the details about that day. Time passed. And, we tried to continue our life. After 16 years I met one of my friends. We didn’t saw each other for a long time, so we start to talk about family life. And then he mentioned that he participate in, um, an organization called the Parents [00:10:00] Circle for Greek family from Palestine and Israel. And I stopped him. I said, are you crazy? How could you ask me Wow. Layla: To participate in this organization? And he said, I’m gonna ask you a question before, why until now you didn’t tell your other children about what happened to their brother. I said, because I didn’t want them to be part of this cycle of violence ’cause. If they know, maybe they start to think to take revenge and I lost one of them and I’m not ready to lose another one. So he said to me, maybe this will be a good chance for you, not just to protect your children, maybe other families. To be honest, I didn’t think that this is true. I thought that this is something he imagined or he saw that in a movie or something. So he kept calling me every three days, four days, speak about the organization, but I let him just speak about it. I wasn’t really convinced. I [00:11:00] didn’t, I didn’t wanna be there or even go there. Just one day he invited me to a conference in Bethlehem for the organization and I said, yeah, of course I’ll go there. Just to make him stop talking about that, that day in the morning I started to think what kind of excuse I should give him just to leave me alone. Then he called me and he said. Layla get dressed. I’m waiting you in the car. I know that you tried to find some excuse and you didn’t wanna go there. And I said, oh, my son, oh my God, he’ll never leave me alone, so I should go there just to make him stop talking about it. So when we arrived, there were just Palestinian. We sat with them. I start to listen to some of them. And, uh, you know, these kind of stories. I know it before or I know what they were talking about, but when the Israeli tried to enter that room, I felt there was something acting in my chest. I didn’t wanna be with them in the, in the same room. I didn’t wanna talk to them. So when I tried to leave [00:12:00] my, you know, my friend, he said to me, please, just sit down, listen to them. And since we were arguing about that, I saw something amaze me for the first time. I, I saw that the Palestinian, they Israeli talk with each other. They laugh, they hug each other like the family members, not just as friend. I said to myself, oh my God, they’re so crazy. How could they do that? Like, and I said to myself, just say, ’cause I wanna know what’s the thing that make them so close to each other like that. So as I told you when I listened to the Palestinian, these kind of stories I know before, or I know the situation that they were talking about. But when the Israelis start to talk about her, how they lost their beloved ones, I was really touch and move. ’cause that was the first time really for me to meet a brief families like Robi and the others. [00:13:00] So from that day I decided to participate one of the project called the Per Narrative project to learn much more about the Israeli ’cause. As a Palestinian I met just soldiers and even. When I met there, I don’t have like a chance to, to talk to them. We just talk about the permission or about the ID or these kind of things. So, um, it wasn’t easy to sit with them at the same room for the first time. This program is about to give a chance for the Palestinian, even the Israel, to meet face-to-face, to talk about everything, to listen to like two professors from one from Palestine, one from the Israel, to talk about the history of the two nation. We even went to visit ya VMI museum in Jerusalem to learn about the Holocaust. There’s many Palestinian, they deny the Holocaust and they think [00:14:00] that the Israeli fake it because they wanna justify what they’re doing in Palestine. We even went to visit a Palestinian village was existed before 1948. It’s not about comparing the pain, it’s not about telling who’s right, who’s wrong, who’s first, who’s second. It’s about to learn about each other to to understand where everyone came from. So I remember the first thing ask us to do, to talk about something happened during the conflict affect our life, and that was the first time I spoke about my son, even between me and my husband’s, since his death. We didn’t spoke about him, and that was so hard for me to talk about him even after all these years. It’s like to open the wound again and bring the memories back, the pain, the anger, everything. I couldn’t complete the story. And then I start to cry, and then an Israel woman come forward and she [00:15:00] start to apologize. And she said, yeah, I didn’t hurt you, but the people who hurt you were my people, I’m a mother too. I could understand your pain. I could understand the word that you couldn’t say. And she hugged me. Both of us start to cry. And to be honest, that was the first time I felt someone care about me. Someone could understand my pain, even I, if I didn’t say a word. And then, um, I decided, continue that program. I decided even after that to remember on the forum and start to give lectures side Palestine and Israel, and even travel around the world to spread the message of peace and reconciliation. And I thought, that’s it. And I did everything right, and this is the only thing that I, I’m gonna do all my life. When life didn’t leave me alone I can to remember maybe three or four years ago, me and Robi, we’ve been in Jerusalem with other NGOs. We tried to [00:16:00] talk about our personal stories, and after we finished, I saw an Israeli man. He is a friend of mine. He cry, but not like the others. He look at me all the time and I felt there’s something about him. So after he stand up and he started to talk about his personal story, that was the first time I listened to his story. And then he mentioned that he was a high officer in the Israeli army, and he served in my area. And then he mentioned that he prevented a Palestinian car from going to a hospital, which included children. Then I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I start to cry because. Like, in my whole life, I didn’t think that I will, I will meet one of those soldiers to be him in front of me, even if he wasn’t there that day, just to do the same things. Then I [00:17:00] start to cry and Robi asked all of us to go outside to talk and to, to explain everything. Then he said to me, I know this is hard for you, but it’s so important for me to tell you that part of my story. And then he mentioned that after time his son become sick and when he tried to talk him to a hospital, the guard stopped him because he wanna ask him a few question and he was in a hurry. And he said, just that moment, I understand what I did to the Palestinian. He quit from the Army. He, they sent him to jail because he refused to serve again. He established another organization with ex Palestinian prisoners. And they start to work on the ground to, end the occupation, to, to do many things. So I looked to him and I said, uh, look, then this is so hard for me to listen to you, but at the same time, I wanna thank you. I wanna thank you [00:18:00] to have that courage and that honesty to speak in front of me, and, um, because you’ve been really so honest, I could forgive you. And then I realized this is the real reconciliation. It’s so easy to spoke about love, peace, and all these lovely words, but sometimes we ask ourself if we really meant every word we say or everything we did. And that give me a power to continue, even in these dark times that we have it even after the 7th of October until today, I know what’s going on. And, in gaza right now, everyone talk about, about starvation, about genocide, about whatever you wanna call it. But no one pay attention about what happened in the West Bank since the 7th of October until today, we’re still under closure. So all the people who work inside Israel, they lost their jobs. I spoke about more than 10,000 [00:19:00] person. Most of the time the children couldn’t go to their school if they are lucky, they could go just for one day. We didn’t have shelters. Many rockets fall down in the West Bank. Uh, we didn’t know if it’s from Iran, from Hezbollah, from Hamas, or from even the Israeli Don because this kind of will never recognize if you are a Palestinian or Israeli. ’cause. We live mix most of areas. And the worst part of all of this is the settlers. They attack the Palestinian every day in a different, territories. They attack them, they burn their cars, they burn the houses, they do whatever they want. And the Israeli soldiers, they encourage them, they protect them. Even like yesterday or the day before that, they killed, um, someone in a place called Theta, which been attacked every day since a [00:20:00] long time. And the person who killed the settler who killed that person, they release him. They don’t do anything for him. But if, if the situation was the opposite and the Palestinian who killed the settler, they will jail him. They will, uh, demolish his house. They will maybe take many of his relative to prison. So the situation become really complicated. It’s become very sad. People are angry people. They feel hopeless. They don’t know what will happen next. But I think most of the people now desperate, they think that the worst will comes. Even if the war in Gaza stopped now, Now they will start in, the West Bank, especially now when the Israeli government spoke about area C, that they will take it. And I live in area C, which [00:21:00] like this area exactly control by the Palestinian authority and the Israeli authority. But now they spoke about to take it and if they will take it, we will never have the same rights for the people who live in Jerusalem or other, any other areas. So every person who left his house nowadays, they don’t know if they will turn back or not, or what will happen next. So that situation, whatever I say or whatever, I try to find words. I can’t really explain it. Thank you for listening and uh, Gissele: thank you for sharing that. Robi, I wanted to give you a chance to share your story. It Robi: is so difficult in this terribly dark period. I can’t actually remember a worst time in Israel and Palestine, [00:22:00] and yet there are things that I want to understand why, why did this happen? I want to tell you my story, but I want to connect it in some way to what happened on the 7th of October because I tried very much to understand how that could happen. So when the Army came to tell me that David, my son, had been killed by a Palestinian sniper, apparently one of the first things that I said is, you can’t kill anybody in the name of my child. And I already said that on television and wherever I was interviewed, I didn’t really know that I said that because that wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t really conscious of what I was doing. I made a whole huge monologue on television about, uh, revenge that it wouldn’t bring my child back. And just very unusual things, but probably created from a background of growing up in South Africa in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [00:23:00] and, um, working in the anti-apartheid movement and understanding, you know, that violence just begets more violence. And so I spoke at a, a huge demonstration, something like three months after David was killed. Because I already knew I wanted to do something to prevent other families from experiencing this pain. Mainly mothers. And I spoke about the fact that we had to have a partner. There’s no way that we can have peace if it’s one sided. We need the Palestinians to be together. So that predicted what I would do. And the people from the parents circle heard me at that demonstration. There must have been 60,000 people there. One of the things that happened to me personally, when I lost David, I lost fear because what else could happen that would be worse than that? And they all invited me. The [00:24:00] parents suddenly invited me to come to a weekend in East Jerusalem to, um, to meet other bereaved Palestinian and Israeli families. And I went, and I remember sitting around the table and looking, especially at the mothers, and thinking to myself, wow, if these women, if we could stand on stage together and talk in one voice for reconciliation and for non-violence and for ending the occupation, how powerful would that be? If two people, a Palestinian and Israeli, who paid such a high price can say what we say, then surely that should be an example to other people. So I closed my office that weekend was very pivotal in what I would do with the rest of my life. And so I, I started to travel all over the world with the Palestinian partner, and we spoke in parliaments all over the world and in hip hop concerts, wherever anybody invited us, synagogues, mosque, [00:25:00] churches, my father must be killing himself. He tried all his life to get me to go to synagogue and later will tell him a story maybe later on about synagogues. But, um, he tried and I wouldn’t go. And I found myself talking synagogues everywhere. So I thought I was really quite special. You know, I was very pleased with myself traveling all over the world and being able, you know, this message is not just for Israel and Palestine, this is universal message. And one night I, when I was home, I was sitting next to my computer, there was another knock on my door and I went to the door and there were three soldiers standing there. And when there are three soldiers can only mean one thing. And I thought, I can’t, I can’t lose my other only son. So I slammed the door in their face and they kept knocking and I kept slamming the door. And then eventually I opened the door and they said, [00:26:00] we came to tell you that we caught the man that killed David. That’s when it became really difficult. You see, it’s exactly what Layla told you. You can walk around the world and you can talk about love and peace and usually most NGOs read bad poetry and do all of that stuff and be very pleased with yourself. But do you actually really mean it? And this was really terrible because now there’s a face. So this isn’t like it was before. Am I gonna walk the talk? I didn’t sleep for about three months and at some stage I decided I’ll write a letter to the family of the sniper who killed David. In the letter I told him about the parents circle, we are now, as Laila told you, more than 800 families and uh, more than, I think it’s close to 90 of those have joined since October the seventh, which is. So sad and yet [00:27:00] so extraordinary that these people, so freshly bereaved, could come and be a part of our message. In fact, the woman who is the chairperson of the parents circle is an Israeli who lost, both of her parents were burned to death on the 7th of October and they were already talking out for peace the next day almost. And so I also told them about David. David was a student at Tel Aviv University and he was studying for his master in the philosophy of education, which will give you an indication what kind of person he was. He was part of the peace movement and he played the French horn, which I tell everybody because I suffered that for so many years. You can’t imagine how awful that is. Yes. And um. He was just this lovely kid that, you know, it doesn’t matter. People say to you, well, so [00:28:00] much time has passed. I said, aren’t you over it? You know, and I say, he’s still dead and I still love him. You know, it’s not in any event in the letter I also ask the parents of Thao, that’s the name of the man who killed David. If we could meet because we owed that to our children and grandchildren to stop this madness, two Palestinians delivered the letter. And you can imagine how shocked the family were because they didn’t expect to get that from the mother of the son who’d been killed by their son. But they said, if everybody signed on this letter, we would have peace. So I’m not a very patient character. I have to admit, I expect next day to get a letter from fire within minutes, you know? And of course it took three years. People think reconciliation will happen overnight. Mm-hmm. It doesn’t necessarily happen like that. And it may never. [00:29:00] And, um, it took three years and Thao wrote me a letter over a very important, Palestinian website, in which he said I should stay away from his family, and that he killed 10 people to free Palestine. Now, here comes the thing about understanding, which doesn’t mean that you condone, okay? We knew from the parents of Thao that when he was a little boy, he saw his uncle violently killed by the Israeli army. And when he grew up, he saw, he lost two further uncles. So for me, this was an act of revenge. I don’t think it was political. He didn’t actually belong to any specific political party. That was for me a moment of release when I got this letter because it was like giving up being a victim. And so I was now free. [00:30:00] And so two filmmakers came to see me and they said they wanted to make a film about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, and would I come and be a protagonist in the film? And of course, I knew so much of the history and so many of the people that had been involved, and I also wanted to explore the meaning of forgiving. What does that mean? Does that mean you give up your right to justice? Is it okay? Well, the person did. Can he do it again? You know, there are all these mad questions that go around in your head all the time, and I’m very, very involved in restorative justice. I wish the world would understand how important that is. Yeah. In any event I met this extraordinary woman in South Africa who’d lost her, her daughter. She was killed by the [00:31:00] African wing who belonged to the uprising. She went to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and she stood there and said to the people, the three people who killed her daughter, I forgive you. And I wanted to know what she meant. And so part of the film is that we went to meet her, an extraordinary woman, and I asked her, what’s your definition of, forgiving? And she said, for me, it’s giving up your just right to revenge. And then I met the man who actually sent the people who killed her daughter. And I thought he’s gonna be some kind of monster. You know, it turns out this extraordinary man says to me, by her forgiving me, she released me from the prison of my inhumanity. I think that’s an extraordinary statement. By her forgiving me, she released me from the prison [00:32:00] of my inhumanity. So I came back to Israel now and now, the film came out and was all over the world. And I decided well, that I wanted to meet Thaa. And so I tried everywhere to do this, but unfortunately the law here says that he has to ask to meet me. I can’t, there’s no forcing of anything in this, which in a way is good. But if it could have been opened up with some kind of debate or some kind of dialogue so that he would understand the reason why I wanted to meet him, it wasn’t for him to have to go on his knees and say, please forgive me. It was about closure. Closure. It was about understanding why he did that. And here he bring me to the point about the 7th of October. So the 7th of October for me was almost, my reaction was very similar to when David was killed. I [00:33:00] gotta change the world overnight. So I started to travel back and forth to America since October. I’ve been to America seven times because of the polarization, because of the side taking, because of the great experts in the world who know everything about Israel and Palestine. And it doesn’t seem to matter that Sudan and Ukraine and all of these other places have dreadful things happening as well. I’m not condoning what’s happening here, but I’m saying we’re not exclusive in our cruelty. And so then I try to understand how could a little kid growing up in Gaza, say he’s 12 or 13, every two years there’s a bombing. He doesn’t have a shelter. He watches his mother running away with his siblings. They have no shelter to run to, so she can’t protect him or his, or his brothers and sisters. And then he has no freedom of movement. And that’s a basic human right. [00:34:00] You know, he can’t leave even if he wants to. And so what kind of adult grows up out of that? What would you expect of him as an adult? And then I look at the kids who grew up on the kibbutzing that surround Gaza. They lived in a semi paradise. So these kids who lived on those ki thought they were invincible. The 7th of October happened. And so there’s this whole new generation traumatized, like, I don’t know who will deal with it. And then you look at the kids who grew up in the town surrounding Gaza, that is Ash. His names are not familiar maybe. But nevertheless, the kids that grew up there from a, from almost birth have been exposed to rockets. And so what happens to them is they wet their beds at the age of 12 and what kind of adults will grow out of that? And so there’s so much trauma [00:35:00] on both sides. and the children in Gaza, I cannot begin to tell you how sad I am and how guilty I feel because whatever I’m doing, I’m part of the system. It’s like every white person benefited from apartheid in South Africa, regardless of what they did. And Layla told you a little bit about, the West Bank. I think it’s terribly important that the world will look at that as well, because if they don’t, they won’t realize that there’s a cauldron just waiting to explode. And the fact that that guy who shot this young man who was actually a peace activist, you know, it is just horrific. But I also think of the consequences of what happens to kids who served in the Army. And if you don’t mind, I will read you a little piece that I wrote yesterday because I think it’s very important [00:36:00] that people understand what it’s doing to the Society of Israel, and that Israelis will start to understand the pain and the horror of a starving child. So it’s, think of those young men and women whose lives will be changed forever. Once they’ve don the khaki uniform, we send them off with ease to a wall of destruction, to dehumanization and barbaric killing. Keep going. Don’t stop slips easily off the tongues of those who have probably never served in the army. After all, it is not their sons and daughters or husbands and wives whose lives are at peril. What wounds will these soldiers and reserves carry when they, and if they come back, how many nightmares will they suffer before they stand in the queue? Outside the trauma clinics run by the Ministry of Defense? Or will they join the ever-growing list of suicides? You have no idea how many kids, [00:37:00] army soldiers have committed suicide because of what they did. Put yourself in the shoes of a young conscript being exposed for the first time to bodies of the dead civilians in Gaza. Will someone take responsibility for the carnage Picture? These young soldiers, some of whom have just begun to shave, imagine them looking into the eyes of a starving and emaciated child and thinking of their siblings who are more or less the same age. Imagine being exposed to the destruction of Gaza, the home, and to the homeless civilians wondering about in search for water, what will these young men and women bring back to their communities when it ends? They have been part of the massacre of innocent women and children. Nothing, absolutely nothing can expiate their crimes. Can we not see what is happening in our society? The violence in the streets, the domestic abuse, the anger [00:38:00] and fear? Try to imagine how this will affect the moral fiber of Israel. These young people have been given a license to carry weapons to kill and destroy. What kind of traumatized behavior can we expect from them? All of the children, both Palestinian and Israeli, are screaming from their graves. Beware, you might be next, just ask a bereaved mother like me, have the courage to ask what it feels like to lose a child. Just ask how life is never the same. How some die with their children, not physically. They simply never function again, just how many more families must experience the scar in their heart that never heals. We are by now, so accustomed to the army, announcing the death of yet another soldier. We barely take time to look at their name. And what are the deaths of Palestinian innocent civilians and children? Do we even give pause [00:39:00] to care for one minute? How accustomed we are to the violence, we hardly bat an eyelid. How will the generations that follow cope with this terrible episode in our history? Well, they also accept that we could not save the hostages and the distress of a war, which should have ended long ago. The world looks on with horror and we in our provincial ignorant bubble don’t even begin to understand the consequences for Israel and the Jews in the diaspora. We are fast becoming the pariahs in countries who have in the past supported and looked upon Israel as democratic and humane. All eyes are on Gaza, but how about the West Bank? For how long will we also ignore the barbaric behavior of the settlers who are running rampant without accountability? Sometimes with the encouragement of Israeli soldiers, how long will the closure continue? Freedom of movement is a basic human right. The economic [00:40:00] situation is dire. Children are not attending school on a regular basis. Gates outside villages are a new form of torture just to add to the cruelty. Now, people are forced to wait sometimes for hours till the soldier will let them through. Palestinian mothers are in constant fear for the safety of their children as are Israeli who will in turn grow despising their neighbors. This is what we are creating for the future of our children, a life based on hatred and fear, which will naturally lead to violence and death. I’ve been part of the parents circle ever since I lost my beloved son, realizing that revenge would never be the answer. Violence begets more violence. I’ve also wanted to prevent other families from experiencing the dreadful consequences of loss. I find it almost impossible to look into the eyes of our Palestinian bereaved [00:41:00] partners in the forum. The sense of shame is boundless. Nevertheless, we will all continue to work for an end to the madness, which we have collectively allowed to happen. Gissele: That was so, so powerful. First, I wanted to acknowledge the courage that it takes to forgive and to be willing to get curious about another, especially an other that we deem an enemy or someone who is hurtful. I think it takes extraordinary courage. My first question is, what helped you be willing to even entertain that aspect of forgiveness? Layla: I think maybe the first thing, when you stop thinking about who are a victim all the time. And why that happened. I, I asked myself many times, but I didn’t have any answer for that. What give me the courage, [00:42:00] the power to forgive when I know that person that he try, like he didn’t say sorry for me because this is one of the most important thing because he didn’t like broke a glass and he said, I’m sorry. No, he responsible about the death of a person and this person is my son, part of my heart, part of my soul. But what helped me when I saw his action, what I saw that, what he tried to do, a kind of, sorry, but by his action, like he tried to, in this occupation, he tried to do best that he could. To let the other Israeli understand the situation of the Palestinian. ’cause many Israeli, they know nothing about our lives. And, there’s not just walls of hatred, anger, There’s not just [00:43:00] that wall from cement between us. There’s walls of hatred, anger, uh, and unknown each other. So, sometimes to put yourself even at the truth of the other that give you even a chance to understand what happened. I know it’s not easy and, it’s not something like in the parents circle. No one is ask people you should forgive. No, it’s like a personal choice to do. So I could forgive. Maybe there was other people who can’t. Some people they immediately forgive. It depend about your beliefs, about how you raised, about the situation, about knowing the other person. Gissele: Right. That’s great. Thank you very much. Robi. Robi: There actually isn’t a recipe. You know, it’s about so many different things for so many different people, and what [00:44:00] Layla told you is completely correct. It’s not contingent to belong to the parents circle that you have to forgive. What it is important is that you will be for non-violence, for reconciliation, and for ending the occupation that is. What you would align to if you became part of the parents circle. But I can tell you that, you know, when I look at how to build up trust with, I remember on the, like the ninth of, of October, maybe even before we had our first staff meeting, we have in the parents circle two offices, two women directors, which make me very happy. It’s the first time they’re both women. And, two of everything virtually. another, two people who deal with education like Noah’s arc. This is our way of trying to be fair in an unequal situation. You know, it’s terribly [00:45:00] easy for the Israelis to come tell the Palestinians what they should be doing, but that would negate all the purpose of this organization. And so. What we, what we do is nobody can sign anything without the other or decide on the project without the other. It makes life very difficult, but it’s a question of trust. And so on the night of, October, I was really worried when we had our first meeting because I thought, what’s actually going to happen? The Palestinians have all been watching their media and we’ve been watching ours, and that’s like a parallel universe and so what will happen when? And we had the meeting and, and we have about a staff of about 20. And there was so much pain and so much anger and so much sadness. And um, what was extraordinary was we all listened to each other with [00:46:00] empathy, even if we didn’t agree. And that was the beginning. And since the war, we actually haven’t stopped. We about next week, we have kids that are off to Palestinian and Israeli children that will be going to the summer camp in Cyprus. We have to have it in Cyprus because of the, closure in the West Bank and looking at these kids how much they need healing. It’s so extraordinary that they are going and they will have the opportunity. I mean, I can tell you that my grandson, who is pretty spoiled not lacking in goodies, let’s put it that way. He is part of the summer camp, and he told me last year that this was the best week he’d ever spent, and I didn’t understand. I wanted to understand again, why. It’s the alleviation of fear of the other. Once you begin to know each other, there’s so much of a cuddle here. If you will go into an average Israeli [00:47:00] classroom of kids of 17, and you say to them who you have ever met a Palestinian, probably nobody. I mean, I’m not saying they haven’t gone into a shop and bought a falafel or humus or something that’s not a conversation or a friendship. Who of you speak Arabic? Almost nobody. Maybe one in the class who’s been overseas almost the whole class. So where does that leave us? It’s this cutoff. And when you don’t know, you fear. And what happened to the Israeli army on the 7th of October? They lost the war, and that leads to humiliation. And what happens when you are humiliated? You want revenge and they couldn’t save the hostages, which is one of the most awful things. This war is this terrible hostage taking and looking at that, the fact that they couldn’t rescue them, you know, like there was this big rescue in tbi. I don’t know if you know about that, [00:48:00] but that was like 70 Israelis who were hijacked on a plane and that was this huge army era. There was this whole feeling that the Israeli army would do that, and so they couldn’t. And that’s an extra frustration. Not that I’m saying that it’s okay. No, I’m not condoning any of the violence, not in Israel and not what the Hamas did, but if we don’t understand that, if we don’t change the circumstances of how people will grow up and what values we will give them when they are children, they will never change. Just, it’s so important to get this message out. Please stop taking sides. Please stop importing our conflict into your country and creating more hatred than is necessary. Yes, if you want to demonstrate, I’m all for it. If you think things are bad in Israel, I am all for [00:49:00] what you are doing. But then I would think it would be great. This is what I say to the students in Columbia and Harvard where we’ve been since the war began, and I say to them, look for an NGO on the ground doesn’t have to be the parents circle. It can be women wage peace. It can be breaking the silence. It can be a Palestinian NGO. Look at them. Find one that really speaks to you and start to morally support them. I’m not talking about even money at this point that will make a difference in the life of Layla and myself. And for this very purpose, we created a program with Georgetown University. It’s called Listening from the Heart. It’s an online education program, and when you listen from your heart, it’s very different from when you come with your opinions and it’s three dialogue meetings with question and answers and a manual that was created for the [00:50:00] facilitator. And anybody can go into our American friends, uh, of the parents circle and find listening from the heart and try to adapt it in their country or in their place of work, or because we had thousands of people turning to us, wanting us to bring hope. But it’s really the other way around. That’s pretty ironic. would advice if somebody brought some help here. So there’s so many things, and so forgiving is very personal. It’s about yourself really. Do you also forgive yourself sometimes? You know, I’m complicit in what is happening here. Even if I’m against it, I don’t know how, you know, the way that I can maybe be in touch with it is by talking to people and showing them another part of Palestinians and Israelis that they never have been exposed. And that’s why I’m so glad that we, on your [00:51:00] podcast, I will talk to the devil, even if he would listen to me. Gissele: Thank you. I just wanna point out to my listeners how fundamental the work that you, you are all doing is, you know, you talked about violence begets violence, it’s a downward spiral. Violence breeds more violence, breeds more violence, and so on. But what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to stop that spiral by getting curious, but being willing to listen to one another and to change our mind potentially, and to change our hearts potentially towards one another, and to stop seeing each other as the other, as enemies, and perhaps maybe someday see each other as brothers and sisters. Because we can’t really create a world where equality and love exists if we are not willing to see all children as our children, all beings as our brothers and sisters. But [00:52:00] this fear of the other is so. It’s so ingrained. You talked about restorative justice. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how that can help us come closer together, rather than continuing that cycle of punishment,  how we can begin to sort of include that in the way that we manage conflict so that we can then come closer together and get more curious and be in more dialogue than what we do right now, which is separate, isolate, punish. Layla: So I think this is one of the problem, the isolation the problem that I told you about the per narrative project is the main project in our organization because that will bring two people to the same room. The people who called them, the others, the enemy. I remember the first day when we in there together.[00:53:00] There’s 15 Palestinian, 15 Israeli, and we all looked at each other and suspicious. We didn’t know what to expect, what, what will happen next. But at the end of that day, we’ve been dancing together. We laugh, we talk. I think every person need just one moment to change his life forever. And the most important thing to sit, to listen to the others. I think this is the first step, and this is the key for everything else. ’cause you will never understand the other person. You can’t understand his situation until you just sit and listen to him and give him a space to, to talk about whatever he want. I’ll take it from my Palestinian side. especially for [00:54:00] women, maybe most of the time they don’t have time or they don’t have even someone to talk to. So these kind of meeting, these kind of programs, I think it help many people to really, to give them a chance to talk and to express their feeling, to talk about their fear. And I think this is the first step to any other things even about the reconciliation. You can’t get to point of the reconciliation until you just sit, listen.  in our organization, not all the time, we agree about everything, but we still respect each other. We still understand each other. Like at the beginning of this world, we. There’s many, many words we were arguing about, but when we sit and talk about the meaning, like the word genocide, what it means for [00:55:00] the Israeli, what it means for the Palestinian, and the difference, the word Zionists, what it means for the Palestinian, what it means for the Israeli. Even sometimes these just small words we arguing about, but when you just sit and understand what it means for the other, I think this is the beginning of any other things. Gissele: I heard you both talk about the word fear. And I think that’s really at the foundation of everything. I think the fear of the other, and even I would imagine being afraid to even sit across from someone that you considered an enemy or someone that you can consider hurtful. What helped you sort of address that fear? I think Robbie had mentioned that she had lost all fear when she lost her son. What helps the people that you work with sort of be open to even engaging in dialogue? Robi: Maybe I’ll answer that. [00:56:00] Okay, Layla? Because I think the basis of what we are doing is storytelling. When I would meet a Palestinian mother and we would each tell each other our stories, that’s the emotional breakthrough that we create and this is how we work in public. If you listen to listen to the heart, if you will go into that side, you’ll understand exactly what I’m saying. Restorative justice is something extraordinary. Firstly, what we said about forgiving, you can’t force people to forgive. That’s actually immoral, but. It was such an interesting conversation. I belonged to the European Restorative Justice group, and there was a guy from Italy there and a guy from the Basque country. And, um, one had been in jail for 20 years, and the other one from Italy had, been a part of a murder [00:57:00] of a very famous politician. I’m not going to that whole story, but what the Basque man said, I ask for forgiveness. And they Italian said, you have no right to do that because maybe the person doesn’t wanna forgive you. It’s a gift you have no Right. It’s an interesting thing to think about. You know, what do you do? What is forgiving? Anyway, I kept asking myself, you can’t, you know, I’m not a saint. Gissele: my experience of forgiveness has been one where I sort of release the story of how I thought it should have gone and release my attachment to my own victimization. And that sort of helped me. It didn’t change the person’s behavior, but I, I was no longer attached to them Robi: I wanted to read something that found Yeah, of course Hannah, but I can’t find it now. If you saw the mess on my desk. Ah, [00:58:00] interesting. Hannah Rin was a philosopher. And she said, I never do this reading to people. I dunno what’s got into me to, I love it. I love it. The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism. And that’s really the bottom line. The minute that you can’t listen with empathy to anybody, you’ve lost it.  forgiving is also part of being able to have gratitude. Yeah, because it’s not grateful. You know, I’m, it’s extraordinary to say this, but I feel very grateful. Gissele: So, so let’s talk about where did we as human beings lose our humanity? Because when you do sit in conversation, you do get to see more commonalities than differences. Robi: I think we just have to ask people to be part of the solution and not the problem. And if they can’t be part of the solution to actually leave us alone because they [00:59:00] create more damage than good. And to stop, as I said before, importing our conflict. Think of what has happened, the, islamophobia and antisemitic behavior all over the world is terrifying. this is a result of the madness of importing the conflict. That doesn’t mean that you mustn’t try to look for the solution. Don’t sit at home on your couch and knit sweaters. That’s not what I’m talking about. Yeah. Robi: What I’m talking about is supporting, supporting peace, supporting the mad people like Layla and I on the ground believeing me. There are so many Palestinians and so many Israelis who think like us, just watch the demonstrations that are going on with Israelis holding pictures of Palestinian babies and being absolutely threatened by the police and attacked  So it’s not as if there’s nobody here to [01:00:00] listen to. There are always extraordinary people all over the world, and those are the people to look for and to support them. I’m not talking about money, although money helps a lot to work on the ground, but I’m talking about that feeling that people really understand and want to be a part of the solution. Everybody’s become an expert on the Middle East. Gissele: I think I wanna add to that the fact that I think many people feel very hopeless. They’re like the, the majority of people are stuck in survival, so it’s hard for them to even consider sometimes contemplate compassion. The other thing is, like you said. One person can make a difference. One person can choose to help, whether it be monetarily, even as little as $5 or whether it be, you know, sharing your work on social media, whether it be them actually actively participating on the ground with an NGO who is doing the [01:01:00] work.  I think one of the things that resonated with me about your stories is, is the importance of choice. Are you going to choose violence or are you going to choose to get curious? who are you gonna choose to be? And I think the majority of people feel like they have no choice. Would you say to them, Robi: well, revenge because people don’t realize that there is no revenge. I promise you I would hang from the ceiling on the chandelier if I knew that I could bring David back for one minute. But, and Layla the same. And so we can’t. And so what do you do with that energy? Do you take that energy and make further destruction, or do you take that energy and put it into making a difference in people’s lives? And I can’t begin to tell you the, the sense of gratitude that I experienced from being able to meet with a [01:02:00] Palestinian who was filled with hate and to sit and talk and to, for her to recognize my humanity and for me to be a part of change where she can then become the person without the hatred. Because hatred and anger is so destructive to health. So Layla will tell you about that. Layla: I think sometimes people, they, they don’t know what to do and sometimes even their community, sometimes even. the people around could affect them, but for us, the people who choose to be in this kind of organization, they like swimming against the tide because many people, they were against us. Many people, they ask us to, to leave these kind of organization. And especially after the 7th of October, many of my relative say to me, [01:03:00] is this the peace that you are talking about? Like, they try to make fun of me. Uh, you’ll make normalization. This is kind of betrayal. And, um, I could understand their anger. I could understand how they think because I was there one day and I will never judge them. I will never be angry about what they were talking about because I could understand that. But sometimes I I make it like a funny game with them, like. When they said to me, normalization, I said, uh, I wanna ask a question. What’s the definition of normalization? Some of them, they don’t know what it means, but they keep hearing these kind of, words and they don’t know what it means really. So I said, the person who work inside Israel and go every day to feed his family is this kind of normalization. They said, no. I said, so how’s different than [01:04:00] our work? It’s the same. But the problem is there’s many people have, benefit from this war and they don’t want this war to end. They don’t want this occupation and this conflict to end because if it end, what they’ll do nothing. So they wanted to keep it. Fresh, alive Last night, the Houthis were at it again, so I don’t know what time it was or something. I’m off. I have to go into the safe room and Lala doesn’t have a safe room, and it’s mad. And how do you know where that rocket’s going to land or that missile? how many more people need to die before people will wake up and understand that you don’t actually have to love anybody. Robi: Compassion’s a good word, but if you respect them, maybe that’s the beginning. Gissele: I think that’s a perfect way to end. Thank [01:05:00] you. Robi: That was Toba, which means thank you very much. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Thank you. Thank you Robi and Lay la for being on the show that your stories are extraordinary and we know that our listeners are gonna be impacted. And thank you for sharing your wisdom and thank you for the work that you do in bringing, helping bring the world closer together. And thank you everyone who joined for another episode of Love and Compassion with Gissele. To find out more please go to: Website: www.parentscirclefriends.org Instagram: @parentscirclefriends Facebook + LinkedIn: American Friends of the Parents Circle – Families Forum

TRANSCRIPT Jenn Podcast Recording Forgiveness at Work Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re gonna be talking about forgiveness. My guest is Jennifer Griggs. She’s a renowned oncologist, researcher, leadership coach, and a narrative medicine practitioner. After a traumatic event at work, she had to learn to forgive, and in the process became a scholar of forgiveness and dignity. She leads a brilliant and passionate team that works to improve the quality of cancer care in Michigan USA by making good trouble. She hosts the podcast. The Dignity Lab collaborates widely with creative people. Mothers, her two young adult daughters, supports her husband’s theater ventures and takes delight in the oak trees and bird songs in the woods where they live. Please join me in welcoming Jennifer. Hi, [00:01:00] Jennifer. Jenn: Hi. It’s great to see you. Thanks for the opportunity. Gissele: It’s great to see you too. I’m so excited to talk about forgiveness. I’d like to start, by asking you to tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work. Jenn: Well, thank you. Thanks again for having me.  When I discovered dignity, everything fell into place for me. So I consider myself a scholar of both. I think without understanding dignity, it’s hard for us to know why something hurt. It’s hard for us to take accountability for our part when. Applicable. And I think it’s hard to see a way out of that victim stance. when I learned to forgive, I actually looked back on my whole life and realized I’d been a person of grievance. I had grievances against people going back to early in my life and found that I was oppressed by my own stance towards what had happened. So for me, forgiveness has meant freedom, [00:02:00] dignity has made it fall into place and it’s. Paved a path forward for me. So forgiveness to me is giving up all hope of a better past in search of a better future. Gissele: Hmm. I love that. I love that. And it takes a level of courage to be able to look at yourself and your history and acknowledge that you are person full of grievances. Right? It’s much, much easier it feels to blame other people for those grievances. So I applaud that courage. I wanted to ask you what dignity means to you. Jenn: Dignity originally meant somebody of value and worth. What’s interesting is when the Human Rights Commission in the 1950s came out with their statement of human rights, dignity was reconceptualized as our inherent worth or value. Unlike respect, it doesn’t have to be earned. We’re born with dignity. From the minute we’re born, we have worth and value. No one would argue that a little baby who I think has net [00:03:00] negative when they’re first born, before they smile, has value and worth. Gissele: And and that’s certainly true. I mean, when I think of babies, you’re right,  they’re just naturally deserving of love, and I feel that way about every human being. Can you tell me a little bit about the work that you do in terms of forgiveness at work? In my experience. There hasn’t been a lot of forgiveness at work. workplaces tend to use a very punitive approach instead of more curiosity. how have you found the forgiveness at work piece has been received by workplaces? Jenn: Really, I work mostly with people who’ve been hurt at work, and the thing that is very clear is that systems can violate dignity, a whole system can, and then there’s no one to take accountability. Mm. So forgiveness is really an invitation to reclaim your dignity. It’s a mm-hmm. An invitation, not a prescription. [00:04:00] Even though I’m a doctor, I never prescribe forgiveness. It has to be something to which you are led. And if we can forgive the people who hurt us at work, we can hold more lightly to those harms. We don’t wanna forget them. Hmm. But we can decide. We have agency to decide how we wanna move forward. Do we wanna be tethered to the oppressor or do we want to be free? And that might mean we leave. If leaders can bring in a culture of forgiveness, I think the sky’s the limit. And that might be done through restorative justice, where the people who are hurt. Yeah, and the people who’ve done the harm can be together in a circle where they can understand what happened, why it hurt, where the whole community, which it’s never one person, right? It’s everybody. It’s all the ripples around them. If they have a chance to be heard and [00:05:00] seen, then we can move from punishment to restoration. We can move from punishment and casting people out. To a more whole ecosystem, and I think it does in an organization. It has to start with leaders, and that means as leaders taking accountability for the things that we often attribute to a system, right? Nobody says, what happened to you was wrong? This is how I’m going to fix it. This is how we are going to change. And that does need to start with leadership. Gissele: Because people follow the leaders, right? Like they follow the example. And I do believe as a person who was before in the workplace and tried very hard to change systems I had to realize that individuals make up the system. And individuals follow the protocols and choose to follow [00:06:00] suit and even when sometimes our values are violated. And so the change sort of begins with us in, in examining the systems we’re working with and examining the systems we’re creating as leaders and understanding that sometimes some of these systems. Become really dehumanized. How have you found forgiveness in, the medical field in terms of the way that, like cancer care is provided, for example. Jenn: Such an important topic. There’s so many ways we could do better in medical care. It strikes me that a system designed to care with the intention to care can be one of the least caring environments in which to work. And our defend and deny culture is the opposite of restorative justice, right? We, I didn’t do it. That didn’t happen. It wouldn’t have made a difference to the outcome. we blame it on the litigious culture in the United States at least. It’s, I think, [00:07:00] independent of that, we see it with little children. It wasn’t my fault. We see this throughout our entire culture. Of course, it’s gonna be present in medical care. For me, one of the most healing and meaningful things about work is to say to a patient, I am sorry that happened. That was wrong. That your call wasn’t answered all the way up to serious medical errors. And then to say, tell me more about the impact on you. I see you, I hear you. To validate that what was wrong, what happened was wrong, and then to say, how can I make this right? And if not to the person who was harmed, how can we change the system to keep this from happening to other people we know? That’s a big motivator for people seeking compensation after medical errors is not so much their own pocketbook. They’re not seeking to be made rich. They’re seeking to be made whole, [00:08:00] and they’re seeking to prevent this from happening to our metaphorical children. Those who come after us in a healthcare system that can practice. Restoration. We can see this being a learning healthcare system, a healing healthcare system, and I think we need to go all the way back in history and to present day harms that have been done to entire groups of people. So experimenting on black men with syphilis, There needs to be restorative justice, and we need to see this at all levels, whether it’s between coworkers, the people we employ, that we underpay to the way our patients and their families and loved ones have been treated. So I think this goes back in time and space, regardless of somebody’s status. And I just had a conversation with my team today that when somebody’s angry with us to say, tell me [00:09:00] more. Does take courage, but tell me more. Helps people feel heard and seen. And at the end of the day, that’s really, and the beginning of the day for that matter, that’s what people really, really want, is to be seen and heard and validated and not told that their story didn’t happen. Doesn’t matter that they don’t matter. Does that make sense? Gissele: Absolutely. I just wanna go back and touch on something that you said, which I think is really fundamental. this is actually supported by the research that people are less likely to be litigious if medical teams, if they admit mistakes, even if it’s a big mistake.  I think that’s really important. But like you said, it takes courage. I think what comes up for. People is like the whole shame and guilt when you think about little kids. Why don’t little kids tell the truth? Sometimes it’s that shame and guilt and at least some kids have not been taught how to manage those difficult feelings. And so imagine as an adult, managing shame and guilt how [00:10:00] difficult. What has been your experience in terms of helping people manage those difficult feelings in conversation? Jenn: Such an important point. Shame, just for your listeners who probably already know that guilt is, I made a mistake, shame as I am a mistake and a culture of perfectionism, especially in medicine, especially at work, especially for high performers like people who got into leadership positions. That sense of, there’s something inherently wrong with me that I think starts very, very early on. If you look at Ericson’s stages of development, when we. Look very early on in life. How are our bodies accepted? how are our bodies treated, I think sets up shame. And if we don’t have a secure attachment figure, if we don’t know that we are safe despite the mistakes we make, and we all make mistakes, how can we feel safe? and [00:11:00] then our culture of punishment. Just heightens that sense that if you’ve made a mistake, you’re cast out, you are incarcerated, you are fired, you’re canceled. Right? Yeah. There’s no room for accountability. The way I work with shame is through everything from Internal Family Systems to. To people talking to themselves in the second or third person to get a little distance from that shame. And then we know one of the most important things about shame is to talk about it. Brene Brown says, shame thrives in darkness. So to become more comfortable with the vocabulary of shame and to take risks interpersonally, organizationally, personally. Then to have that positive feedback of, oh, that just led to healing. Gissele: as you were talking, I remembered an interprofessional team. And so for those of you that don’t know, [00:12:00] interprofessional is like multiple professions working together. So you have doctor, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, many hospitals now work very interprofessionally. But I remember hearing a doctor basically say at the end of the day, the responsibility of this care lies on me.  and so that feeling of solely responsible and therefore has to be the main decision maker, I think was a huge weight on certain. Individuals, like you said, leaders or doctors to feel like they have to know everything like that pressure. Whereas sharing the load may help kind of alleviate some of those real fears that you were talking about. Right. And especially the shaming, guilt, if something goes awry,  I wanna go back to the concept of dignity because, There’s lots of different perspectives about end of life and how to allow people to have dignity.  at what point do you enable people to do [00:13:00] that? what’s your definition of dignity in terms of like applying care for end of life. Jenn: I’d love to take one small step back and describe the elements of dignity according to the taxonomy of Donna Hicks. Hmm. Donna Hicks is at the Weatherby International Senator for conflict resolution. I. Affiliated with Harvard and Donna and her student did interviews with people all around the world to ask about times people’s dignity had been honored. Boy is that hard to think of that. It’s so much easier to think about times dignity was violated. Mm-hmm. And in that work, they identified 10 elements. And those are acceptance of identity, inclusion, safety, both physical and psychological. Acknowledgement, which I read is validation, understanding recognition, being given the benefit of the doubt, autonomy, accountability, and [00:14:00] fairness. So if we think about. Times in our life that our dignity was honored. We felt seen and heard, acknowledgement, understanding, and recognition. A time we were included, we felt we belonged. That’s acceptance of identity and safety and inclusion. And then at times when things are fair, we were given the benefit of the doubt. People assumed positive intention. We were given autonomy. We had some control over our future. People were accountable. And things were fair, we can take and look at end of life through all of those elements. People need to be seen and heard. They need to have a chance to have their story told and have their suffering recognized. They especially need autonomy. They especially need to feel they have control over at least some part of their life. They may not have control over whether the cancer is progressing or not, or the disease is [00:15:00] progressing. But can they have control over where they spend their day in bed, a chair outside? Can they be given the chance to do for themselves what they want to so they’re not babied? There’s no paternalistic. I know better than you mentality. Mm-hmm. That they feel safe to express their fears, that things are fair, that they have access to everything they need to be comfortable. So I think it’s a wonderful lens to look at actually, both extremes in life. Children need autonomy. People, disabled people need autonomy. People at work need autonomy, and people at the end of life need autonomy. Gissele: Thank you for sharing that. I think that was very powerful. I’m struggling with someone in our lives that has like a bit of dementia, we don’t know when the person is there or not there. How to ensure that they still have autonomy when there is so much fear and there may be a perceived lack of [00:16:00] capacity. Jenn: Hmm. I think what’s happening in the here and now is the only way to work through that. What is happening in this moment? What choices can they make in this moment? Gissele: Mm mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And the challenge is sometimes when they’re like maybe away from home. They wanna go home, but the drive might be like two hours and it might be a little bit difficult. It’s how do you navigate those waters? but maybe you could do this. Mm-hmm. Right. Like you would do with children, right? Yes. Like, okay, you can’t have dessert for dinner, but what can you have? Like can you, do you wanna choose between A or B? Jenn: And what do we mean by home, right? What do we mean? Yeah. By home? Home is our people as much as it is the things. So to get curious about that too. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. Very true. Jenn: Very Gissele: true. I wanted to touch base about because this is a topic I feel [00:17:00] strongly about the whole concept of. Punitive approaches in the workplace. I always think even about the whole correctional system. when you think about the systems we’ve created, they’re based on separation and isolation and basically based on fear. we punish people in the hopes that somehow that punishment is going to. Turn a light on that is they’re gonna be much more loving and compassionate after the fact. But it’s usually the reverse, like people are more loving and compassionate when somebody extends more loving and compassion towards them. It’s like you’re modeling the behavior and yet we still, we’ve created sort of these systems that are so fear based. and to me, those punitive approaches don’t really work for example, I have experiences in overseeing some bullying and harassment issues. And so usually when you speak to either party, even the party that was accused of bullying, saw [00:18:00] themselves as a victim. So punishing that individual. Is only gonna further reinforce that perspective they have about being a victim. It doesn’t help them address it. It’s not from a place of curiosity. In your work regarding forgiveness, for the people that have experienced hurt at work. What helped them shift towards having greater forgiveness and curiosity for the other perspective? Jenn: There are a few things that need to happen to me. I think they need to tell that nearly every scholar of forgiveness. It talks about changing the way we tell the story. So if we can tell it more objectively without judgment, where it’s almost like we’re writing a script, and sometimes people have to do that in the second person or the third person using their own name. This happened, then this happened, and to tell it without these interpretive words like betrayal. Mm-hmm. [00:19:00] To tell the story, just the facts, it can help collapse the story. Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mofo, wrote a book, the Book of Forgiving, and what we wanna do is take the heat out of the story and that allows a little light to come in and see, oh, this was bound to happen, this was going to happen because of what? Preceded it or this is how they felt. It’s no wonder that this is how they reacted toward me. So I think we can become it. As you were describing punishment, it feels like people get hardened, right? If people are told that they made a racist remark, they’re not gonna become less racist. If they’re canceled. Yeah, they’re going to, if they can. Open their own heart, and if the people who’ve been hurt can say, this is why that hurt me the way it did, there can be some shared understanding and that telling the story in a different way is the first step [00:20:00] towards doing that. I. Then they also need to be validated because a lot of times because of the defendant and I system, they’ve been gaslit, they’ve been told that didn’t really happen. They need to understand why it hurt, what elements of dignity were violated, and then tap into their feelings. A lot of times rage is what I see when we start out, but it’s often grief. It’s often grief for a lost friendship or a lost identity, or a lost job, or. A lost relationship, something’s been broken. Similarly, if they’ve been feeling grief, if they haven’t been allowed to feel rage, mm-hmm. If shame hasn’t been mentioned, they have to deal with that emotional baggage. And then very quickly we can move to empathy for self, empathy for the other people. But the most important step is to rewrite the story. In a way where they [00:21:00] have agency and choice, because every day we’re making choices. We can choose to live in our grievance story, or we can choose to become the subject of the sentence, not the object. This was done to me, okay, this really hurt. What happened was wrong. I can see why you’re hurt. That must have been so hard because you needed X and you didn’t get your need met.  what can you pledge to moving forward? What can you commit to? How do you wanna show up? And that again, might mean changing the work environment, changing the role, leaving the organization, but eventually we get tired of being a victim. It can be very self-reinforcing. And actually one of the hardest things about forgiving is giving up that victim identity. ’cause who would we be without that? Gissele: yeah. People don’t understand that in order for you to have a perpetrator, you have to have a [00:22:00] victim. So if you focus primarily on the perpetrator, then you have to be the victim. You can’t be like an empowered being and then also have a perpetrator. Jenn: Yes. So true. So I think that’s very, very important. Yeah. Yeah. Gissele: I love what you said about the creating space. I love that to add more light into it. ’cause it also gives you a different perspective, maybe a broader one or something you might not have seen. So I think it’s really, really great to do that, to enable people to take a step back. It’s also provides them a level of safety too. Like you were mentioning before, safety is important. Them taking a step back and not being, in the thick of it can help them feel a little bit safe about recounting what happened to them. So I think that’s, that’s really great. Jenn: I’d love to share my own story. I, of course, yes. I had a boss. Against whom I had against innumerable grievances, and I spent years talking about this [00:23:00] person with my friends and colleagues. Mm-hmm. I must have been so tiresome and I think I did not have any sense of the impact I had on other people, what it must have been like to be around me. The energy I brought in the room with this person, with this boss, this victim energy, and now that I look back on it, and it’s been a very long time, I just have this longing to go back to my younger self and say. Look what you’re doing. You’ve, it made this person, this person is filling up your entire house. Do you really wanna give up this entire house to this person? You come home from work and that’s all you can talk about. With my marriage, you know, my kids grew up under this shadow of this person, and my longing is for other people not to go through that, and you have to be creative enough to see another [00:24:00] possibility. I eventually left that job and it’s now years later that I can see. Wow. I must have been a real drip to be around and people had no. Nothing they could do to help me. They could listen, but only I could make the choice to move forward. Nobody else was coming. Nobody else was coming to fix me or rescue me. Gissele: Mm mm But you just said it’s so, so powerful. And. You know, as challenging as that must have been for you and at the same time you are now doing like such important work, it led you here So it’s hard to sometimes. Be able to say, well, I wish I had maybe been different. ’cause there are many people right now that are full of grievances. Mm-hmm. And not realizing how they are negatively affecting their own life. Right. It’s like a poison. They’re drinking, hoping somebody else dies. Exactly. They are [00:25:00] negatively impacting their life. And I think the work that you’re doing is so important in helping them shift out of that, out of that perspective. And understand that they have more power. I was thinking about what you said about validation and what you are offering them is to find that validation within themselves because. A person who acts in a perpetrator way may not choose to validate their existence or their experience. And as a person who had spent many times, you know, hoping for validation and saying, well, if only person apologized, or they acknowledged what was experienced it.  and it’s not gonna get better. Some people just are not in that stage where they can face shame or guilt. they can’t sit with that experience and regulate enough to be able to hear your side doesn’t mean that you are wrong or should be having validated. Once I validated my own experiences [00:26:00] you know, my experience. It was real. It was my experience and this person can’t take that away from me. They can’t negate that from me, and I can see that it’s difficult for them to experience. I think that made a big change in terms of how I interacted with that story. Jenn: I think I had to, regarding the work thing that happened. Somebody very wise said to me, they’re not going to come and apologize. And even, you know, if we think about times we’ve gotten apologies, even when people apologize it’s not enough because they don’t really see our pain and hurt, they’re not wallowing enough in their own shame, they’re not suffering enough.  I do think self validation, and I think that’s why naming the elements of dignity and feeling our own feelings and looking at our own needs that were unmet. Or the needs we were trying to meet when we put ourself in that situation. I think those pieces, and then finding one or two trusted people who really [00:27:00] can validate, whether that’s a coach or a therapist or a dear, dear friend who can say, not they didn’t mean it. Let’s look at it from their point of view. Wasn’t that bad. Look at where you are now. You know, they don’t, people wanna explain away our pain ’cause they don’t wanna sit with us in our pain. But if. One or two people can do that and see us in our pain without wishing it or willing it away, or minimizing it or making excuses or telling us it’s not that bad or, you know, looking on the bright side, it doesn’t take much. And then we can learn how to do that for ourselves. I Gissele: think it’s a skill to be able to sit with people’s pains, especially if people haven’t been taught how to regulate their own emotions, to sit with difficult feelings. I think we have been taught to avoid difficult feelings, been taught to avoid difficult feelings at work,  I think what you’re saying is can we learn to do that so that we can then sit with people [00:28:00] and that has such an enormous impact beyond what people think. To be able to sit with somebody in pain, not needing to fix it, but just holding space, holding that love can be transformative, right? It, it really, really can be transformative. Jenn: I agree and will always come out the other side. All crying stops. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah, that’s very true. tell me a little bit more aboutthis sense of empowerment you found once you realized that nobody was gonna save you, what helped you kind of take your power back from the situation where you felt so disempowered? Jenn: Oh it. even thinking back to that time and how much I longed for an apology, a few things helped. One was I had to recognize the need I was trying to meet, however unskillfully I met that need, the need the other person was trying to meet. Frankly, the need of everybody, all the players, you know, this is a huge systemic thing, so I can actually see myself, oh, I can see [00:29:00] why they did that. That was the need they were trying to meet. An institution will do everything it can to protect itself and its reputation, and including harming their own people, unfortunately. The other thing that really helped is I had this idea of writing a letter from one of the people who hurt me, and I picked a really low level person, and I wrote a letter from her. To me, and in it I explained the how bad it must have felt. So the person writing this letter said, that must have been so hard for you. I can’t imagine how you did this. I’m really sorry for this and this is why it was wrong. And if there’s ever, it was a long letter, if there’s ever anything I can do, let me know. Reach out anytime you are valued. And I had somebody read it to me. Hmm. And they read it to me in such a way that it was so heartfelt and reread a couple sentences, you know, one after the other and something in me [00:30:00] shifted. It was a longing that was soothed, and I think that gets back to the validation. It doesn’t take much. At the same time, I realized she was never going to write that letter. The wish to have it said to me was actually met, and we know this can happen with nonviolent communication practitioners who can say what’s alive in you now, and then meet a need that wasn’t met 20 years ago. Through one sentence or one moment. And that’s what happened for me. And then I finally decided I needed to call back my dignity. The word reclaim comes from the old French word to call back your hawk. And I love, I love my dignity is a hawk. Mm-hmm. And she was gone. She was over the ocean and over the mountains. But when I decided what can I do? And I’m tired of being a victim. I can call my hawk back, I can call my dignity [00:31:00] back. And this metaphor has been so helpful for the people with whom I work. They take their hawk with them into a meeting with their boss. They they’ll purposefully sit and call back their hawk before. Facing a difficult conversation. So, you know, for me, metaphor and agency, what can I take control of? Helped me shift out of that victim mentality as well as being told nobody’s coming to fix this for you. Gissele: Yeah, yeah. You are gonna have to put the cape on for yourself. Because you were talking, it made me think of Paul Gilbert’s work and he does a lot of research on compassion. And he was talking about a client that he helped, who’s actually a doctor. And I guess something happened, to him when he was younger at night, I think he had shared a room with his little brother and the, his sibling died in the middle of the night, and Yeah. And the parent was so shocked. like the parent couldn’t [00:32:00] come in, they couldn’t come into the room and so all of this. Person wanted was somebody to turn on the light and to soothe them because they were sharing the same room. And so, Dr. Gilbert actually helped them do a meditation where. He reimagined like a loving being. Being in that moment and turning on the light and soothing them and it was such a transformative thing. So this is something we can still do even years later. We can have those practices where we can go back to those experiences, like you said, and soothe that inner heart that we all have to some extent. You know, like not feeling worthy, not feeling valuable, not feeling seen or heard. And so that, I just wanted to share that ’cause I was thinking about that as you were talking about. that letter And the other thing is I just wanna be grateful for the stories you’re sharing because people think it has to be a huge thing. I have to go for therapy for like 50 years and you [00:33:00] know, I have to do all these huge things. like how long did it take you to write the letter and Jenn: just like, right. Probably an hour. And then I now have a template that I share with other people so they can, they can take this template and personalize it. And the more detailed you make it, the better. And uh, yeah, it was, it was actually sort of miraculous for me. Gissele: And I think those small moments and. Really focusing on what needs to be soothed, like what needs to be soothed for me in this moment, I think is very, powerful. And it’s never too late. No, no, it’s never too late. I was curious as to, you know. There’s, there’s so much going on in medical care right now. What do you think the future of healthcare is in how it involves maybe like more forgiveness and more compassion? Jenn: Oh, what a wonderful invitation to think about that. I think we’ve gotten away from. The most meaningful [00:34:00] encounters we have, which are at the bedside. And the more technology and the more treatment options and the more testing we have, the less skilled we are at meeting needs. I think when patients ask for tests or scans or blood work and there’s sort of talked out of it or it’s done without. Justification for it. It’s one more barrier between us as clinicians, and I include anybody who takes care of patients in that anybody. It just adds more layers of complexity, and I would love us to get back to that sacred dyad, whether it’s a nurse, a pharmacist, a social worker with that person asking, what do you need in this moment? That really fundamental need. I think we’re often. Covering up the needs with another test. And that drives up the cost of healthcare. And that [00:35:00] means to pay the bills and keep the lights on. We have to see more patients. And it’s this in virtuous cycle of not attending to what people need. And that word is the same as tending to, it’s really caring for Right. What people really need. Gissele: Hmm. Hmm. if I hear you correctly, we need to go back to more relationships. Mm-hmm. And I don’t know if that’s the way it’s going, in terms of more AI diagnostics. I hear more and more about companies wanting to adopt more AI and how do you adopt AI in healthcare and in education and, in all of these other environments, but. Does that mean it’s gonna take away from relationship? I don’t know. I hope not. I hope maybe it can provide more of a space for us to have more relationship, like you said, because I feel like we’ve lost that relationship. I feel like it’s become very mechanical and very profit driven. It has, in that. Kind of has led to this [00:36:00] dehumanization of these systems. The other thing I found, I don’t know if, if you relate to this, is the whole concept of professionalism, right? How did it impact your ability to be able to be more humane or relate to people when, when you are asked to be professional? Jenn: Oh gosh. I grew up in a professional family being told that, you know, even at a young age, biting my nails was not professional. I’ve really had to stretch out against that. I think professionalism has a white supremacy frame of this is what a professional looks like. This is how a professional keeps their hair, what they wear, how they talk, what emotions they show, and so there’s no space for, Different ways of being authentic. There’s a mold so that people are asked to code switch between one setting and another, and it becomes a performance. And I think professionalism actually is a performance of fitting in. [00:37:00] Gissele: Oh, I’ve never heard that. I love that you said that. I’ve never heard anybody say that, and I think that’s very, very fitting.  at least from my perspective, if I couldn’t feel my emotions at work, if I couldn’t feel all those difficult feelings, including being upset. It was hard for me to allow myself to recognize it in others, and so I think that sort of contributed to that dehumanization. The other thing I cannot tell you, the number of times when people, ’cause I used to be a director of HR when it was one of the departments I managed. How many people would apologize to me for crying? When it was perfectly reasonable, right? They might’ve been getting laid off. They might’ve been having performance issues. They might’ve just been struggling mentally and emotionally, but the number of people that apologized to me for crying over an HR issue, I’m like, why are you apologizing? Crying is a perfectly natural thing. That’s why we have tear ducts. Have you found that experience in terms of people’s [00:38:00] ability to want to be okay with it, crying. Jenn: Absolutely. I actually had a boss who criticized behind his back, a colleague of mine who became teary-eyed during a presentation about a patient he’d lost. He was getting an endowed lectureship, and he was talking about the patient that drew him into the field and he got choked up. And I later had a meeting with my boss and his boss who said, no crying. No crying. And we are cancer doctors. Hmm. And so it’s so interesting to me that we can. Let our patients cry and be scared, but we can’t do it for ourself. And it’s really interesting what you said we don’t have to, you know, become dysregulated. Right. The but the thing is Yeah, well, you don’t have to be a basket case. Yes. Right? Right. If you’re, if you’re giving a lecture, you don’t wanna become dysregulated. But the problem is, if we don’t name and feel our emotions, we’re more prone. To become dysregulated in the worst [00:39:00] settings and to take grief and turn it into rage and throwing things around, and then that’s disruptive behavior that scares people and creates an unsafe and hostile work environment. Right? So it’s just this, yep. It’s just being able to have emotional fluency as my kids do. Yes, yes. That’s like this best step. Yes. Gissele: Because that is so, so true. If we don’t allow those difficult feelings, and again, you can do it behind closed doors, just allow yourself to feel the difficult feelings. Mm-hmm. And allow yourself to just help yourself regulate it. But if you don’t take that time because you don’t think it’s right to feel those feelings, it does come out in the most inappropriate of ways and in the most inappropriate of times. I was thinking as you were talking about your former boss, is that, I wonder if  they were raised that way. Mm-hmm. Because I find usually how people act towards other people is what’s on the inside. Like that’s the inner voice of like, don’t cry, don’t show emotions, don’t feel, and how [00:40:00] challenging is it to live in the world? Not trying to feel, we’re nothing but feelings. We’re human beings, right? Jenn: I part dunno if I wanna be with people who can’t feel. Gissele: No. No, because then how could they sympathize and relate and how could you possibly understand, to have people on the care system, that aren’t able to allow themselves to feel their feelings, I think is the potential for dehumanization and potentially for, Experimentation. Remember earlier we were talking about experimentation? Yeah. So I remember there was a certain researcher that did a lot of experimentations on, I believe it was prisoners. And this person was quoted saying, as I saw all of the people, all I saw was acres and acres of skin. They didn’t see people, they saw skin they could experiment on and they did some pretty brutal things. And so I think that’s where we are not allowed to really connect human to human. Mm-hmm. I think we’re more [00:41:00] likely to then be humanize each other and then pretty much rationalize anything. Jenn: Right. Well, my boss was, yes, this is definitely how she was raised, and she told me early on when I met her, I don’t wanna be like my father. My father would say cut five, meaning. Fire five people so we can stay within budget and didn’t want to be that way, and then yet was reproducing in our own life and our own inner experience and then externalizing it and deciding that some people were in or out of the club because they could. Basically depersonalize their own experience. I, you know, it’s funny to think about how a few words, well, I’ll tell you a couple things are coming to mind. One is that mm-hmm. I think physicians are the least in touch with their body of any sort of profession that I’ve worked with. Wow. Okay. Okay. Yep. So people can’t feel emotions or stories in their body. Takes a very long time to [00:42:00] get them there. So embodiment, I think is part of what needs to be healed so that we can feel things in our body. The other thing that comes to mind is how limited our vocabulary is in terms of emotions. You know, we can’t use nuanced words. so women will say, I’m not angry, I’m disappointed. Which I think is a woman’s way, maybe our mother’s way of saying, I’m absolutely full of rage, but it’s so, what kind of person am I? If I get angry, if I even feel anger? So I think just becoming more comfortable that there are really no negative emotions. They’re all information. They might be difficult. Mm-hmm. Emotions, but they’re not negative. They’re symbols and signals that something is going on. And if we could listen to that earlier, I think you’re right. We would be more human. Gissele: And I think we really have done a [00:43:00] disservice to our boys and girls. For boys, we’ve told them that rage is pretty much the only accept or violence is the only acceptable emotion, like anger, but not sadness or, what they call more feminine emotions of like compassion and, and empathy and softness and love, and especially like just expressing non-romantic love. Romantic love is acceptable. Sex is acceptable. Mm-hmm. You know, rage and anger is acceptable, but all the other ones know, and it’s the same for women. Rage is not acceptable. Like that anger is not acceptable women, but the softer emotions because, and it’s ridiculous. We’re all full spectrum beings. We feel all of those things. so I believe we really have done a disservice. To our children and to ourselves in limiting the amount of emotions. So I love that you said that all of our emotions are welcome. Envy is welcome. Jealousy is welcome. Mm-hmm. Like everything is welcome. Like you said, everything is information. Now what you do with that information is something different, [00:44:00] right? But the fact that it is all valuable information about where you are, it’s all mirrors of where we are. And so I think that is, that is really, really. Important. Yeah, and I think working on forgiveness, especially forgiving ourselves is really a great starting point. what has been your journey towards forgiving yourself? Jenn: Yeah, it’s ongoing Forgiveness is a cycle. It’s not like an on off switch. To me, it’s more like a dimmer switch. We can go on and off. Yeah. so forgiving other people to me is a continuous process. If I tell my story, I feel in my body what happened. I feel it with that boss 30 years ago. I can get myself all riled up, self-forgiveness in my work. I found that most people go through the forgiveness. Program that I have and then wanna do it again so they can work on forgiving themselves. And I think once people can see their own role in things, now there are people who are true, 100% victims children. There are [00:45:00] people who are absolutely innocent victims. So I wanna be really careful not to imply that we all are accountable for certain things happening. Not just children, but especially children and people with limited capacity. Are truly, truly innocent and the system that oppresses us makes people truly innocent of harm. So I do wanna be really careful, but I think for me, going through and taking accountability for my part, going a little back in time and say, oh, that’s what I need. I was trying to meet, this is how unskillful it was. Mm-hmm. Did bring up some shame and I still struggle with that because. Part of me wishes I could turn back time and start over again. And then just this Sunday, I realized I’m actually not sure I would do that ’cause of where I am now. I’m so fulfilled and changed and frankly transformed. And I do have to revisit the self-forgiveness [00:46:00] process, which is a little different from forgiving others. It actually requires, we look at what value did we violate, you know, what is my core value I violated, which I don’t see as much with forgiving others, but I do think, I think like most things, it’s a process. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And frankly, I don’t know. If I would ever, believe a hundred percent forgiveness. I want to be shaped by my story. I wanna be transformed. I think of it as a character in a book and something bad happens to the character in the book. If you read the book and after this event happened, there wasn’t a change. It would be a really weird book. It would be bad editing. You’d be like checking the page numbers, like what happened in this book too, right? You’d be like, oh, I’m missing a huge chunk. I’ll return the book. We need to see some change. And so I guess part of me, my. Self-forgiveness piece is also, okay, now what good am I putting into the world and how am I [00:47:00] going to learn about myself so I don’t end up doing that again?  I found when I get really happy, I get dysregulated and tend to blurt things out.  And it’s happened again since. Mm-hmm. Since that time, seven years ago, it’s happened again. I’ve put my foot in my mouth, I’ve made a misstep, but just, oh, that deep knowledge of when I’m euphoric, I can screw up. Put yourself on mute, Jen. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think the more that you get to know yourself, the more that you, able to forgive yourself. And I think the more you are also gonna be surrounded by people that are, pretty forgiving too. I think going back to what you had said earlier, we are so punitive around mistakes for ourselves, right? Like mm-hmm. We’re constantly dealing with conflicts. in relationships you’re gonna make mistakes. You sometimes you’re gonna say things you don’t mean, or sometimes, if you have children, I. I have teenagers, sometimes they say things they don’t mean. I’m not the worst mom in the world, right?  sometimes they’re just angry and then it comes out and it’s okay. And that forgiveness and coming back [00:48:00] closer together, I actually think helps us create more closeness and more relationship than if we did everything perfect, then there were, there was never any conflict in the relationship. I think part of that. Forgiveness and healing and conversation is all part of that coming closer together. So I think, what you said is very powerful. Jenn: It’s recognizing our common humanity, right? That none of us is perfect. Gissele: Yes, That common humanity, for sure. couple more questions. what is your definition of love? Jenn: Love to me is an act. It’s not a feeling. I know what that feels like in my body, but to me it’s an act of considering the other as equally valuable as everybody else. To not hold some people above others and to think about the common good. Not just us in the moment, but us seven generations from now. You know, I think we [00:49:00] sometimes think, I don’t want this for my children. What about seven generations from now? And an act of love is to say, I’m not gonna get what I want right now because I want seven generations from now to have what they need. Gissele: I love that because your thinking about your children’s children and so on, and sometimes when we’re in that survival mode and think of just our own needs in the moment, sometimes it’s hard for us to understand the impact of our behavior, so that’s great. Last question. Where can people find you? Where can people work with you? What do you wanna share with the audience? Jenn: I have a website. It’s jennifer griggs.com. Easy to remember. On there I have a blog and resources, including meditations. I also have a podcast, the Dignity Lab, and our website is the dignity lab.com. We have meditations there, and I also have an episode. I’d love to invite people to listen to. Called start here, dignity from definition to reclamation. I love working with [00:50:00] people in groups. I love working with people individually. So there’s a contact me form on my website. People can just drop me a note or you can email me at [email protected]. Gissele: Thank you, Jennifer, for your wonderful insights. It was just a beautiful and very powerful conversation. join us again for another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. See you soon. Bye-bye.

TRANSCRIPT Conversation with Vivien Gissele: [00:00:00] Just wanna shout out to Feed Spot slash overcoming adversity for selecting our podcast as their top 10 podcasts. Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging all our hard work. Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about getting under the skin, journey from estrangement to forgiveness, and I’ll be talking to Vivien Kalvaria, whose creative journey began in Rhodesia, where she discovered a love for theater as a child. Although she began her career on stages her true passion laid behind the scenes, producing and directing. She opened a drama studio for children and staged plays at the local theater. At 24, she was appointed news director for Rhodesia Television, the first television station in southern Africa. After moving to South Africa and then to the United States, [00:01:00] Vivien turned her focus to writing. She’s the author of Break and Hold, and has just completed a deeply personal memoir. My Name is Not Rifka, about her mother-in-law, a Schindler survivor. The book explores tumultuous relationship, the scars of intergenerational trauma and what it truly takes to move from anger to forgiveness. A lifelong student of Holocaust history and its psychological legacy, Vivien brings rare insight into the wounds of the past, echo through generations and what it means to heal them. Please join us in welcoming Vivien. Hi. Vivien: Hi. Thanks for having me, Gissele. It’s good to be with you. Gissele: Oh yes. It’s so great to be with you.  I think this conversation is very, very timely.  I was wondering if you could begin by telling the audience how you got to write this memoir for your mother-in-law. Vivien: Well, in order to understand [00:02:00] the sort of genesis of all of this and to understand the forgiveness piece of this story, we have to go back to where it all began. when I started dating Zach, that’s my husband, his mother, Rifka everything she could to sabotage our relationship for two years, she would randomly call me at all hours of the night hysterically crying, insulting, yelling, begging me to walk away from the relationship. She refused to attend our wedding and turned much of the community against me. Only a handful of people actually showed up. I was devastated and furious, and for a couple of years we were estranged. What I didn’t understand then, but would come to learn much later, was that her behavior was rooted in her past. Rifka carried wounds from traumas I knew nothing about. In fact, nobody knew about them, and that was the stumbling block. She [00:03:00] never spoke about her past for 50 years. It was this dark secret that everyone tiptoed around, her sons grew up, and knew nothing about what she’d gone through as a child. All we had was this tattoo on her arm, a daily reminder that she’d been in a concentration camp. For me, her silence made it nearly impossible to understand her, let alone try and repair our relationship. So I stayed angry and resentful, not just because she had rejected me as a daughter-in-law, but because I had no frame of reference to understand what motivated her hostility. I couldn’t make sense of why she had waged such a fierce campaign to stop me from marrying her son. There was nothing in my background or my family’s background to suggest that we had done something terrible. So for two years we were estranged. Gissele: Did she ever tell you why, [00:04:00] specifically? Vivien: She was just looking for an excuse. There was actually somebody before me. There was, I had a predecessor who went through the same thing as I was going, and she just fled the scene. Mm-hmm. Vivien: And then I came along. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Vivien: so the real crack in my armor came when our son was born. We were living in South Africa. Rifka was in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe a thousand miles away, and within hours of the birth unannounced, she took a three day train trip to see the baby. Now you have to remember we were estranged. Hmm. Vivien: And I was still so outraged by what she put me through. I refused to allow her to see her grandson. Well, between midnight feeds and exhaustion that comes with a newborn, I had a lot of conversations with myself. Somewhere deep down, I realized we were all losers in this drama that had gone on for so long, and that I was the one who needed to change. For [00:05:00] days. I wrestled with myself, but I just couldn’t do it. Then one evening I overheard drifter on the phone, begging my husband to see the baby, and something in me shifted. I took the phone outta my husband’s hand and invited Rifka to meet her grandson. It was a small step towards the long road to our healing, but it would take years of research. And while writing my book before I understood how deeply trauma from the Holocaust affected the survivors, and as it turned out, the children of survivors, you have to remember that after the Holocaust therapy, as we know today, didn’t exist. PTSD wasn’t even a recognized term. It wasn’t even a word in the lexicon of psychologies. So you have to picture this. After years in concentration camps, hiding [00:06:00] in tunnels, sewers, caves, underground bunkers, survivors emerged into a world that expected them to just get on with their lives. Yet for so many. The Holocaust had lived deep scars, depression. There were all these wounds survivor’s, guilt, emotional numbness, flashbacks, nightmares and angry outbursts, symptoms that we now recognize as PTSD, which made it very difficult for the survivors to rebuild their lives. Then in 1960, there was this new awareness, Holocaust Trauma not only affected the survivors, but extended beyond them to their children and silently shaped the emotional architecture Yes. Of their survivor families. ’cause children born in that post-war decade, like my husband Zach, were handed this [00:07:00] unspoken job. Fill the emptiness in their parents’ lives and provide their lives with a new purpose. Parents developed this unrealistic expectation that their children would cancel out the devastation they’d experienced and fill their empty lives with meaning. And this is why Rifka saw my marrying Zach as a threat. She believed that I, a strong-willed young woman, would come between them and sabotage their relationship. So little wonder, she fought so hard to break us up, so children unconsciously became replacements for sisters, brothers, cousins who had perished in the Holocaust and whom they never knew. There’s this very poignant quote from psychologist Erin Has. He was the son of two Holocaust survivors who [00:08:00] wrote The most important event of my life occurred before I was born. And unfortunately for Zach and his brother, that was the case for them to, both Rifka sons were profoundly affected by their mother’s silent suffering and unpredictable bouts of anger, because trauma doesn’t just disappear. It hangs around in quiet, complicated ways. So many survivors like Rifka were hypervigilant and overprotective afraid that history would repeat itself, that the world was a dangerous place obsessing, that their children could disappear from one day to the next. Like so many of Rifka’s families had children like Zach. Especially firstborn, he’s a [00:09:00] firstborn, grew hyper attuned to their parents’, unspoken trauma. They rarely rebelled or tested boundaries. They stayed compliant. And Zach was a model child. They, if you can call that being a model child. Gissele: Yeah, for sure. Vivien: Yeah. They suppress their own needs out of a fear of re-traumatizing their parents or opening up. Mm-hmm. Although the child Gissele: becomes the parent that holds the emotional space. Yes. Vivien: Yes. Gissele: I can relate. Vivien: Yeah. Oh, really? Gissele: Yeah. My, mother had a huge trauma growing up. that’s the reason why I wanted to work in the child welfare system and my sister, like later on in, in life we were talking about, she had encountered a book that said the survival skills. Of children who are raised by parents who experienced abuse, and you gain those same skills [00:10:00] that hypervigilance the fear of people, the emotional attunement to the parents so that you can be like their emotional support system, like their crutch. So yeah. I’m relating to everything yourself. Vivien: Yeah. Well, that’s pretty much kind of the. Childhood that he had this overprotectiveness. and as you say, he took on, he actually took on this caretaking role as, as you said, a kind of parental role reversal. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Vivien: And these kids, they grow up with separation issues because the bond between the parent is intertwined with pain and unhealed trauma. Mm-hmm. That is not to say there wasn’t affection and joy at times, but the trauma left a long shadow that shaped Zach’s life. But the trauma didn’t only shape Zach’s life. It shaped mine too, because I married into it. Rifka pain turned into this invisible wall between us, and I kept [00:11:00] slamming into it with my anger, and I thought that my anger made me strong. It didn’t, it just made me confused and bitter. Gissele: I wanna go back to the point where you made a decision. ’cause you have to have made a decision to allow her to see the baby. And to me it makes sense that you would want to see the baby regardless of your relationship. Because like as you mentioned, they lost children. Many generations were lost. So for her to lose another generation would probably be really difficult for her, but you had to make a conscious choice to allow her back into your life, despite the fact that she had been so hurtful. What do you think that sort of led to your willingness ’cause many people want to get stuck in that victim consciousness. Many people want to say, no, this is a perpetrator, this person hurt me. Not realizing that as long as they [00:12:00] hold the image of a perpetrator, they will have to be victims. I know that you did a lot of exploration, but What helped you even be willing to even engage in that dialogue where many people won’t? Vivien: I think one of the turning points for me was when I stopped seeing Rifka as the woman who rejected me and started seeing as this little girl who walked into hell and somehow came out alive. It was such an epiphany for me. ’cause of course I’d done all this research. This book took 20 years to write, so I did a, a fair amount of research.  yeah, so I finally understood her. You know, when you choose to understand, you choose to heal. Understanding isn’t about forgetting. It’s about bearing witness. To someone’s story or pain or experience, [00:13:00] understanding is the bridge. When we allow ourselves to bear witness, compassion follows, and when compassion follows profound, transformative healing becomes possible. One of the things I learned on this journey was that ’cause I was so angry that anger looks for blame. Rifka had a thousand reasons to cast blame Through the hundreds of hours I spent interviewing her, she questioned this. She questioned the holocaust. What she’d gone through, she questioned, she lashed out, she protested, but she never blamed. She never blamed the person who upended her life and she never blamed God. Gissele: Wow. Vivien: Blame feels good for a moment. Blame is comforting. It tells you that the problem isn’t yours. But here’s the trap. If someone else is the [00:14:00] problem, they also hold the solution that leaves you stuck waiting for someone to change so that you can move forward. That’s the danger of blame. It feels powerful, but it actually leaves you powerless. And that’s when I decided I have to make this move. She’s not gonna do it. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. Wow. That’s, that’s so powerful. I totally agree with you. Like, you know, curiosity for me is a stepping stone to compassion. ’cause then you start to understand people’s behavior. It really had nothing to do with you. No, it really didn’t. It had to do with all her history and she was so damaged. Mm-hmm. But how did you get to, from allowing her to see the baby, to you being the one person that she would give her story to? I’ll try and give Vivien: you the cliff notes on this. I was always pushing, you know, a lot of our, our conversations took place in the kitchen. I called it Fridays with Rifka. Like Tuesdays with Murray. You [00:15:00] do you know that book Tuesdays with Murray? Mm-hmm. So a lot of things emerged in there and sometimes things would slip out, but she was always very careful not to go too far. Then one day I showed her a documentary. I said, do you wanna watch this documentary? It’s about the Holocaust? And she said, why should I want to watch a documentary about the Holocaust? I lived the Holocaust. I said, well, if you don’t wanna watch it. After a few minutes, we can turn it off. It actually is a very famous Holocaust story. It’s well documented. It’s called Shoah. S-H-O-A-H and it’s nine hours long. Wow. And so I, I went through this whole nine hours because I knew I couldn’t show her nine hours. there are interviews with people from anyone who was connected with the Holocaust from survivors to people who ran the camps to comandantes. And a lot of it was done without them really realizing that they were being interviewed for what would ultimately become this [00:16:00] incredible documentary. Wow. So I showed it to her and she was riveted And every now and then she would make a remark and I would think to myself, gosh, am I re-traumatizing her? Because we are really digging into some stuff here there was this scene on a train. And I wondered to myself, I’m sure she was on a train, I’m sure she was a train that that took her to one of the camps. ’cause she was in five different camps. Five different, including including salt mine.  but I didn’t push it. Well at two o’clock in the morning we were done watching it. And she actually said, you, you should, you should come and sleep with me and don’t wake up Zach, because it’s so late. And I said, no, I’ll, I’ll be by myself. I’ll sleep here in the, in the family room. And she went to bed and anyway, the next morning she came downstairs and she said, what are you doing today? And I said, well, I’m just a lot of stuff to do with the house. And she [00:17:00] said, well, I’m ready. And I said, ready for what? She says to talk about it. And I said, to talk about, to talk about your Holocaust story. She said, yes. So I raced, I have a background in, in television. So I grabbed a tripod, I grabbed a, camera and set it up in my husband’s office. And I began to interview her and that’s how I got the story out of her. Gissele: Wow. And so she was a Schindler survivor, so it’s like Schindler saved her, Vivien: She, was in his factory ’cause Schindler had a factory in Czechoslovakia, and she was chosen, and that’s all in the book. How she was chosen is just ’cause only 1000, 1100 people were chosen to be in this factory out of. Tens and tens of thousands. But it, that would take too long for me to sort of describe it. It was a miracle that she was chosen and [00:18:00] that’s where she lived out the rest of the war for, I think it was nine months until the war ended, and then she had to make her way. Gissele: So when I read Victor Frankl’s bookTalking about those who survived were the ones who saw their life beyond the circumstances that they had. Was that the case for Rifka as well? Vivien: Yes, because Viktor Frankl, who was in the same camp as Rifka, although they never met, Yes. He had this theory that, In order to survive, you have to have a purpose. So he would see those prisoners around him who had given up, who had given themselves a deadline. If the war doesn’t end on March the 25th, I’m done. And literally they died. They just lost all hope for Viktor Frankl. The interesting thing about him was, was that he had this book, he was writing this book when he arrived at Auschwitz, he lost the [00:19:00] book and he was devastated. And so he started writing the book in his head all over again.  I asked Rifka, what was your purpose? Why do you think you stayed alive? What were you thinking? And she said, I would dream every night that I was back home and we were having a big Sabbath dinner and my mother made chicken soup and all these wonderful dishes. And the other thing, because I was very good in arithmetic, I wanted to be a bookkeeper and I saw myself in this office and I had my own desk.  This is what she kept in front of her and what kept her going. So that was her purpose. That was her reason For surviving. just to mention you, that there’s a very, there was a very different dynamic between how the men, survived and how the women survived. The women all had what we [00:20:00] called Barrick sisters. if you didn’t have a Barrick sister looking out for you, the chances were that you wouldn’t survive. So all of them, most of them had Barrick sisters who really looked out for them. I mean, sometimes these barrack sisters would even sleep with a guard to prevent one of the sisters from being, sent to a concentration camp where they were exterminated. So there was this incredible bond that they, I’m just mentioning this as an aside. Gissele: Yeah, yeah. Vivien: And Gissele: the men. Vivien: The men had different ways. they had bonds too, but not like women. You know, this is what we women do. It, it’s part of our DNA, it’s how we roll. So it definitely worked very well for women in the concentration camps. Those who didn’t, didn’t survive. Gissele: Yeah. So based on everything that you know about trauma, and based on all of the research you have done on the [00:21:00] Holocaust. Do you have a theory as to what drives people to commit such atrocities?  you have to be able to dehumanize other people in order to treat them in that manner. I always think about, ’cause everybody always focuses on Hitler, but they don’t focus on the, millions of people that followed him. And so I’m interested in the millions of people. I’m not interested in the one, because without those millions of people, you don’t have the one, the one is just like some crazy person. So I’m curious as to what your thoughts might be knowing what you know about trauma. Vivien: should we address why these people became so, Dangerous. you have to go back to something that Hannah Arendt said.  she talked about the banality of evil. And, I came across this many times in all the camps that Rifka did. I did a deep dive into the comandantes. two of Rifka comandantess were formerly barbers [00:22:00] hairdressers and Yes. Wow. And they had no history at all of anything that they had committed crimes or anything like that. But something happened when they were given this role and this ideology took over. And by the way, after the war, these people went back into life. As carpenters, as hairdressers, and with not anything that would have suggested what they had committed in these, concentration camps. So the banality of evil. It’s just so surprising, remarkable that these ordinary people did such extraordinary, terrible things. Gissele: it’s interesting because it, have you heard of that, prison experiment? It was, I think it was Stanford, that they decided to do this prison experiment with students. Some were assigned the role of guard, some assigned the role of prisoners. Yeah. And then [00:23:00] they started acting in their roles, and it became so abusive they had to stop the experiment. There is something to be said about like identities and roles and prescription I do feel that. Hate and that kind of oppression is a choice. The same as love. You have to choose love. You have to choose forgiveness, which is why it goes back to that very important choice you made in that moment, which was, I’m gonna allow Rifka to see her grandson. And in that moment, you chose love, you chose forgiveness, you chose to be willing, even if you hadn’t seen the full landscape yet. And I think that’s the difference from my perspective. Those people every day are making that choice. They’re making the choice to stick with their role and, align and belong and fit into that. Because I find that, you know, obviously there’s fears If I don’t align, what would happen. So I do think it’s a choice. ‘Cause I think we all have the potential. Oh yes. I think we all have the potential to be [00:24:00] very evil or very, very loving if we choose. Vivien: I think what I learned. As our relationship began to heal is that understanding is the key to reconciliation. It’s the most crucial tool for repairing a broken relationship. As I dug deeper trying to understand Rifka, I began to suspect that she suffered from undiagnosed PTSD. She had never seen a therapist. So I was just going on my instincts initially, but until I, eventually I met with a psychologist who confirmed what I’d long suspected anyway. our reconciliation wasn’t an overnight thing. It took time and a complete shift in perspective for me to move past my anger after what she’d put me through and see Rifka for who she truly was a survivor, silently struggling under the enormous weight of her past. Yeah. it meant reimagining Rifka, not as an adversary, but as a woman shaped by unspeakable losses. And [00:25:00] there’s this other quote from. To Kill a Mockingbird, where Atticus Finch says, you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. And so for 20 years while writing my book, I put on Rifka skin and stepped into her world. This young Polish girl, 13 years old, naive, deeply religious, lovingly sheltered by her parents. She had never even said foot outside her village. And then in one unspeakable moment, she was alone shoved onto her train bound for her first camp, as I told you, one of five, including assault mine. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn’t until she. Finally opened up and entrusted me with her story, that our relationship turned the corner and my anger began to dissolve. When you are estranged as I was, you [00:26:00] have to move from anger to empathy to mend what often feels like unfixable? Empathy is the magic push. You must listen to the silence between the words, to fully grasp what shapes someone’s behavior. You have to move past judgment into the heart of someone’s story. That’s where empathy lives. Gissele: I think you said something so fundamental, which is the willingness to reimagine, right? Yes. I think to me it starts all starts with willingness. You are willing to see her differently, and I think that’s where. We struggle in today’s society, like cancel culture. We’re not willing to listen to each other. We’re not willing to engage in dialogue. And so we stay in our camps and then we can’t come closer together. That’s why we feel so divided. So there has to be a willingness. And I think the willingness to reimagine someone is so magical because you are willing to see their [00:27:00] humanity, willing to see them from a different light. You are willing to be wrong about them, which I think is, says a lot about you, Vivien, because many of us don’t like to be wrong and our mind doesn’t like to be wrong. So it looks for evidence to confirm that this woman is horrible, this woman’s evil, this woman hates me, And so the willingness to say, am I not looking at this with a proper lens or in the proper way, I think says a lot about you and your ability to be able to, to open up your heart.  I think that’s incredible. Vivien: There is an actually an example of me being wrong. it’s an interesting anecdote. It’s about how easily we judge and get the wrong end of the stick. And yeah, as I said, this is a personal experience. Rifka criticisms of me, which I once took as personal attacks, turned out to be something else entirely. When she spoke, she was translating Yiddish into English, A [00:28:00] language that’s English that doesn’t fully capture the layers of meaning. Humor, that cultural undertones unique to Yiddish. Yiddish is this colorful language with a rich vocabulary full of curses and unique expressions, that sometimes come off as insults or not politically correct by today’s standards. So what sounded sharp or offensive. In English to me, often had a completely different meaning or connotation in Yiddish, where insulting humor can actually be a sign of closeness, even affection. So I only discovered this when I made the effort to understand Rifka when I climbed into her skin and listened to what she was saying in the context of her culture. What I had interpreted as insults were nothing more than cultural differences. Gissele: Yeah. It also reminds me, there’s this I can’t remember who said it, I think it was Louise Hay, talking about how like behaviors make sense for the person. if you had [00:29:00] their perspective and their lived experience, the behaviors might make sense to you, right? Yes. And so it goes along to what you were saying, right? If you were carrying their lens with their experiences, with their childhood, with their parents, with their perspective, with their whatever, that behavior may make sense to you. But because you are looking at it from your lens, from your experiences as an outsider. You judge from what you think you would’ve done or should do. And I think this is where just taking a moment to suspend judgment, it can feel really challenging because there are real hurt feelings. She didn’t attend your wedding, right? Like she didn’t want you to be in her son’s life. That’s very, very challenging to feel that rejection and which is why your behavior is so incredible.  just the willingness to be able to say, I’m gonna create space for this, I think is extraordinary. [00:30:00] What did you find helped? I know that you were mentioning like understanding helped your forgiveness was there. Any aspect of you that had to deal with your own self forgiveness and was there anything surprising about forgiveness that you hadn’t expected? Vivien: Well, we were talking about blame Rifka example of not blaming pushed me to face the demons from my childhood. I stopped rehearsing my past and quit the blame game. It turned out to be one of the most cathartic, transformative outcomes of our relationship. Rifka was my greatest teacher Gissele: Hmm. Oh, that’s fantastic. I mean difficult and fantastic. Yes. Yeah. And so let’s go back and talk about PTSD, right. Because, you know, there’s an element of people that think, well, you know, when [00:31:00] you survive something that challenging and, and she survived by having the vision, right. Seeing herself beyond that. And once they leave that circumstance, they still hold onto it, right? I think of Nelson Mandala who said like, you know, if I leave prison, but if I’m still mentally trapped here, I won’t be free. And so what do you think causes someone to hold onto it versus like allow themselves to truly live life? Vivien: Rifka could just put it all somewhere.  I think that she just shut down and she met this wonderful man whom she married. she met him in a detention camp because after the war she was, they were put into detention camp. So she was in Italy for a while and, he was, Gissele: you know, sorry. Pardon? I thought when, when they were rescued, why was she put in a detention? Vivien: [00:32:00] So she was in Schindler’s factory, and then from one day, you know, in 1945, there’s this very dramatic scene in the book when in the factory there the loudspeakers are, and Churchill’s voice is saying the war is over and they’re just standing there, just dumbfounded, you know. So they were only allowed to go back to the country from which they came. And of course, they all wanted to go back to see who had survived. Rifka went back to her house in Poland, and the reason for this was that there were all these occupying countries. Now there was Britain, there was Czechoslovakia. All of these countries had certain. Countries that they were in charge of and if you weren’t Czechoslovakia, you couldn’t come back to Czechoslovakia. So she went back to Poland, but she didn’t wanna stay in Poland So she said, I have to get out of here. So she’s now 17 years old, she decides she has to get out and she joined an underground. And there’s this whole story of [00:33:00] her being. with a bunch of other survivors going from one country underground through the forest, through the mountains, to another country, to another country, until they eventually arrived in Italy where there were all these DP camps and she was assigned to a DP camp where she stayed waiting for a ship to take her to Israel. So that’s how she wound up in Italy. Wow. It’s an amazing story of how these survivors, not only what they went through, ’cause it was very challenging. I mean, they were, they were walking through forests at night. They weren’t allowed to have any light, no flashlights, nothing dark, damp, wet, following one step in front of another with some leader, you know, taking them to the next post. Gissele: Yeah. And. Was it that vision that kept her, even beyond the [00:34:00] Holocaust that kept her moving forward, did she still use that same strategy and like getting through the forest and getting through detainment? Vivien: Yes. It must have been now. It was coming closer and closer. The war was over. Now she was going to re restart her life. I mean, it was a very naive, I suppose, but that’s because as we know, she eventually had diagnosed as PTSD, but she had this vision and, you know, she actually lived out her vision. She became a bookkeeper and a very, very good one to, everybody wanted Rifka her to work for them. And, so yes, there’s no question that all along in front of her was this, saving grace. This is what I’m going to do when, when I get back home. Gissele: Incredible. so I wanted to ask about your husband’s role in, in the whole conflict in terms of the dynamic, ’cause it must have put him sort of in the middle. What was his perspective as to your relationship and eventually reconciliation? Vivien: [00:35:00] Well, he didn’t have an easy relationship with her. It was a relationship based, obviously in love. But he had this very closeted, very overprotective mother who didn’t let him do a lot of things. So now, I mean, he climbs mountains, he forwards rivers, he does everything that would just make r rifka hair turn gray. But he, so he wasn’t allowed to do any of these things. So his loyalty was to me and. That was a big shift for Rifka. And it was sort of an understanding that that’s the way it would be. It would have to be like that, you know? But I, I fully encouraged him to have his relationship with his mother. but she wasn’t allowed in our home for a while. And he was okay with it. And, you know, he’s been wonderful Gissele: actually. Yeah. That’s incredible. Because there’s usually that, that person in the middle that feels like sort of conflicted. But I can understand a [00:36:00] child feeling completely constricted and suffocated. Right. Especially if here’s a person experienced so much loss, they’re gonna hold onto whatever they have for dear life, but at the same time, not realizing that they’re choking the life out of something. Yes. Out of the thing. Right. And also preventing themselves from living life fully, because life is about loss. Life is about change. Right. Vivien: she wouldn’t let him climb the big tree in the back of the garden. She wouldn’t let him go to camp with all his friends. She kept him at home. If he rode his bicycle, it had to be in the yard, not anywhere else. There was this constant overprotectiveness. And, you know, he rebelled against it as an adult. Once he left home and went to medical school, he started to live the life that he had missed and that he actually dreamt about it. he had a great wonderlust. so Zach won a scholarship to Birmingham University. Now you have to imagine we are in this, ’cause I grew up in the same town as Zach, [00:37:00] this little town. So for someone like. To get a, a scholarship to medical school in Birmingham. It was a big deal and it was in the newspapers. I didn’t know him then, but I was very impressed. Well, imagine my surprise when we were married and he said, you know, I didn’t go to Birmingham. And it turns out that, and this is the thing with PTSD in some unspoken way, Rifka made it clear that she did not want him to leave. That leaving her was abandoning her. And so he, he, absorbed this. Even though it was in the ether, she never came out and said it, but there was a lot of suggestion. Yeah. So here’s this brilliant boy who’d worked his tail off his whole life as a scholar who finally gets this amazing scholarship and [00:38:00] turns it down to stay close to his mother. I mean, it’s very sad. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. Hmm. It’s amazing how emotionally attuned children are to their parents, right. Especially parents that don’t say very much. Did you find that sharing her story led to some sort of healing for her at least improvement of the experience? Vivien: I, and there was no question that, you know, it started off, as I say, as a slow drip, and then it became a tsunami where she couldn’t stop talking about it. And in fact, when Schindler’s List came out, she was one of the keynote speakers in Rhodesia, you know, describing Yeah. Her experience in his factory. it was like we had unlocked this, this secret and she gushed and so definitely it had a positive [00:39:00] effect on her. I was very concerned that she would be re-traumatized, but yeah, thankfully she wasn’t. Gissele: Yeah. I think one of the things we’ve learned from Truth and Reconciliation, story sharing from indigenous people is that the ability to share their story, to tell their viewpoint, to say what they’ve lived, can be very, very healing. And so interestingly, you became the venue for her healing, which I think is wonderful. Vivien: Yeah, yeah. Well, it was just incidental, but yes, were both healed. I had traumas from my childhood and also I was on this mission. I just had to get the story out of her. And a lot of people said, you know what? you’re stepping into a hornet’s nest here. You should back off. Why would they say that? Well, because of fear of retraumatization, because a lot of, oh yeah. They just wouldn’t talk about this and went to their deathbeds having never said a word. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Trauma that gets stuck in the body, you are offering a venue to be able to release it out ’cause [00:40:00] they’re still carrying it, right? They carry all those stories in their bodies and in their minds. But to be able to record it, to be able to just get it out and share it one of the pivotal things about the Holocaust, and you mentioned it was the numbers. They weren’t people, they were numbers. But to go back to share your own story, it sort of re humanizes you, right? this is me. I am a person. I wasn’t a number, I’m not to be forgotten. I have a story to tell. I think that is very, very powerful to be able to share their story. Vivien: You just reminded me of something. So Rifka wound up in Auschwitz, by accident there were 300 women who wound up there. They were actually supposed to be on their way to, Schindler’s factory. And the train inadvertently took a wrong turn and they wound up in Auschwitz. So here they were thinking, you know, we’re gonna live out the war in Czechoslovakia, in his factory, and they wound up in Auschwitz. it’s a [00:41:00] well-known story. And so these 300 women were in Auschwitz first, and then Auschwitz Birkenau, which Birkenau is the labor part of the camp. So while they were there, Schindler was. Frantically trying to get them out of there And he reached out to all his contacts, but nobody could help him. Eventually he did find someone, a woman, a very beautiful woman, and he sent her with some diamonds and she met with some of the higher up. And somehow she managed to arrange an agreement that they would be released, but, but. Before their release, there was all this paperwork to go through, and in the meantime, these 300 women were so emaciated, so sick, I mean, what two or three of them wound up in [00:42:00] the hospital that they had, unbeknownst to the lower down people in this echelon, that there was something going on up, above them to release them.  they were waiting to go into the ovens. They were sitting, waiting to go in unaware that all of this was going on behind the scenes. And then as one of the women said, in a two hours time, we would’ve been dead. But suddenly, one of the capos came running in and said, and started shouting out these names, all these people out, out, out. Back to the back to the barracks. Back to the barracks. and it was because suddenly the word had come down that they were being released and being sent to Czechoslovakia to join Schindler. But the thing about being a number, it was unheard of that people were there addressed by their names. It was numbers such and such such. But here they were being called by their names, and they were [00:43:00] so surprised to actually hear their name being announced that there was just shock and awe. Wow. And they realized, gosh, something wonderful is about to happen. And it did. Gissele: Wow, that’s so powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Did Rifka ever mention a little bit about, Schindler in sort of what kind of person he was? Vivien: She once said to me, he was like Moses, he brought us out of the desert, and gave us life. She said he was a very tall, very handsome man. He would walk around the factory from time to time, but they didn’t see much of him. They saw quite a bit of his wife. She was the unsung hero of the factory. And there are many stories about her and how she saved so many of the survivors. But no, she didn’t really have any direct contact with him Why do you think, Gissele: I don’t remember that in Schindler’s list, like the [00:44:00] anything about the wife? Do you remember? I don’t know. You said she was the unsung hero. Why do you think that was? Vivien: Well, you know, he was a bit of a philander. And, he had a bit of a dark past and he liked to do all the things that a single man would do, let’s put it that way. Mm-hmm. And Vivien: he like put up with all of this. And she wasn’t always around, you know, he would do a lot of traveling, but there was this one moment, it’s the “Kolasha” incident when he was not there, and this was in the factory and this train that had been traveling back and forth trying to offload these prisoners. I think there were like 200 of them. they were men. Somewhere, but by the time the 10 days had passed and nobody wanted them because everyone knew that those prisoners inside that train were not healthy enough to work. So where whichever camp they went [00:45:00] to, they said, no thanks. Not for us. So, and eventually it was the middle of winter, the whole carriage froze and it was totally iced up. Someone told Schindler’s wife about it. She was woken up in the middle of the night and she said, bring the train here. So she woke up some of the survivors who were now had been eating good food and were strong and they tried everything to get these guys out of there. They even burnt mattresses to try and melt the ice. And eventually I think that they just. Cut the doors open. And the site that they were, they looked like women. They thought they were women. They were so tiny, so emaciated. So having not eaten for so long, and she brought them back to health, she brought them back into the factory She had a little hospital underneath the factory where she made this wonderful soup that she [00:46:00] was famous for, this porridge that she was famous for, and all of them survived. Wow. So she definitely was the unsung hero. She wrote a book about her life. she was a little bit bitter towards the end and No, no surprise there. Gissele: and I think it goes to show that nobody’s a hundred. Percent good and a hundred percent bad, right? there’s, they’re philander, but at the same time somebody who’s caring and compassionate towards people that are struggling, right? What motivates people to help? Like what motivated Schindler’s wife to help? Vivien: at heart, she was a good-hearted woman, and what motivated him is much more interesting because he came to, Poland to, make a lot of money. He got Vivien: a factory. he purchased this factory where he was making pots and pan for the war. So he made a lot of money, but [00:47:00] he had this relationship with the comandantess of a camp that was sort of affiliated to his factory. And the more he saw this commandant, the more he started to, and he was actually a Nazi himself. he belonged to the Nazi party and he started to turn against the Nazi party. And he started to see these Jewish people as pathetic badly treated. And that’s when he changed. So instead of becoming a war profiteer, he took all that money. He was penniless by the end of, because in the book I explained all the money that he spent, he spent, like I told you, when he sent this woman with these diamonds, these diamonds were what he purchased to bribe the commandant to sleep with this woman. You know? So all of these things [00:48:00] bourbon to mollify them the best cuts of meat in a time of war. So he was constantly traveling the country trying to find these products. Mm-hmm. Wow. And then he just had this epiphany. He said, I need to do something. I need to save as many as I can. And he saved almost 1200 of them.  as a historian documentary. And how do you feel about the things that are happening in the world right now in terms of even what’s happening in North America? I’m just curious as to your thoughts. I don’t really know what to make of it. I mean, it’s such turmoil and, you know, we’re again so divided.  It’s very terrifying. It really is a big worry. And I think about our children and our grandchildren, what their futures hold in this very fraught Gissele: Right. Well, I take your words as comfort. You know, if you were willing to reimagine somebody [00:49:00] that was considered at the time your worst enemy, right? Like the person that gave you the most conflict can we not reimagine each other as brothers and sisters, as friends, can we not reimagine these countries as loving and inclusive and compassionate instead of conflicting? But I think there has to be a willingness, like you were willing to look at yourself, you were willing to. To do the inner work and say, you know, I’m willing to be wrong. I’m willing to look, I’m willing. Many people struggle with being willing. Vivien: Yeah. I mean, you know, we have to stop looking at the differences because, as soon as you start looking at the differences, it’s hard to heal. You know, I mean, religions are very similar. They’re very similar. The foundational parts of them are, they may have a nuance here and a difference there, but basically they’re the same. And yet, religion has always been what has divided us, you know, going back [00:50:00] into history. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think what you’re saying is so spot on. I think we really focus on the differences I think that’s the most threatening thing, right? Like we are taught conformity. If you look at the school system, fit into this box, follow this rule, you know, like align. And we are not taught how to manage differences. Like, so I’m a Professor at university, I’m supposed to teach my kids like the young people, critical appraisal skills, right? To be able to critically think about and reflect on things. But they don’t come to me with an ability to look at both sides. There’s only one side, there’s a right side, and they’re not exposed to the other side. Like true history would give you all of the different perspectives, right? Confirmation bias, that’s what it is. Yeah. And so. we gotta look at both [00:51:00] perspectives and what is the other side. And some of them can’t even look at the other side. They’re so entrenched in their viewpoint because that’s what they’re taught. So for them, diversity is threatening, belonging fitting into a box. there has to be a right answer. And so that’s why we struggle so much with diversity, because it’s different. It’s uncertain. it doesn’t feel safe, but what a boring world would it be if everybody was exactly the same. I think that’s, that’s the beauty of living, right? Vivien: We need to celebrate our differences, but they shouldn’t be dividing us. Yeah, Gissele: yeah, yeah. Vivien: You know, Rifka left us 11 years ago, long before I finished the book. But we’re talking. But, but she never left me. I felt her presence throughout the final chapters. She carried me through those long days and nights of research when the cruelty I was [00:52:00] writing about felt so suffocating. Yeah. Throughout. She was my silent cheerleader right here. Mm-hmm. Vivien: she enriched my life and she taught me so much. Same thing like the, what you’re referring to, what divides us, which we shouldn’t be focused on. So in that respect, she was willing to look at both sides. That’s how she came to terms with, you know, with what she’d gone through. She was able to look at both sides. She was really my greatest teacher I could look upon some of these awful men and women who ran these camps and understand that they just got sucked into an ideology. And once the war was over, they moved on as though nothing had happened and didn’t manifest any of these cruel, things about them that marked the Holocaust, Gissele: I find it puzzling that they wouldn’t have seen the suffering on the other side. Like, how divorced are you from yourself, that you are not picking [00:53:00] up on the suffering, you’re inflicting, and then you can just go back and just live There’s gotta be a disconnect because like Yeah. Like how could you witness. The suffering and then go, oh, okay, well that’s, they’re a lot in life. Or They deserved it, or whatever justification you have in your mind, it baffles me. And then to think that you could just go back to your regular life as if nothing happened. That’s, that’s interesting. I’m Vivien: curious about that. There’s a whole other story there. That’s exactly what happened. Some of the most heinous of them went on with their lives. A lot of them escaped to South America and lived long lives. a few of them were captured, but most of them were not. And well, many of the Gissele: doctors too went to different places.  Like the ones who did a lot of experiments. ’cause a lot of experiments also happened, right? Yes. Yes, Vivien: I, yes, I talk about that in my book, especially with Mengele with eyes. He tried [00:54:00] to change the color of the eyes of the children, so he would inject, especially, he worked with twins Gissele: And Vivien: he would, without anesthesia, he would inject dyes into their eyes to see if that would change their color. In fact, one of his, patients, if you can call her that said, his laboratory looked like a butterfly collection with all these eyes that he had on the walls. Wow. Yeah. I mean, Gissele: wow. It also makes you think about butterflies like that. I teach an ethics course in a number of our medical advancements. Were due to his experimentations, which is really like, ugh. I think we have to acknowledge the history. I think we’re get so stuck on the advancement that we fail to acknowledge that some of that stuff was done. Yeah. Advanced knowledge, [00:55:00] but also at the cost of people’s physical bodies. And so I think there’s like a dark side to that Vivien: that we don’t Gissele: often acknowledge. Vivien: and Mengele was a music lover. He was a Catholic. He came from a very religious family before he became a Nazi. There wasn’t a hint of this maniacal man that he became when he became the chief physician doctor at Auschwitz. Gissele: in that sense, like again, I also have a hard time reconciling the religion with the oppression. I’m more spiritual than religious, not, there’s nothing religion. If that works for you, that’s fine. I but I think one of the things that I feel is we’ve gotten away from the message of. First of all, do unto others as you would not do unto you, and to love each other. Like the fundamental was [00:56:00] about love. It was about inclusivity. It wasn’t about those people are going to hell, these people over there are separate, these people are below, like none of that. The teachings of Jesus. so it doesn’t compute in my head it’s amazing what we can rationalize. Yeah. This is the only thing that I can think of. So how we can talk ourselves into almost anything when we see ourselves as victims. Vivien: Yes. Good point. Absolutely. Yes. Gissele: Yeah. ’cause there’s this theory about like the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War and how it kind of decimated Germany. And Hitler coming, we’re gonna make Germany great again. There is this perspective that if it hadn’t been for the Treaty of Versailles, then perhaps the people wouldn’t have been so receptive. If you know what I’m saying? Right. Like receptive to somebody coming and rescuing them. Vivien: Yeah. I mean, it’s wonderful the work you’re doing, you’re doing God’s work. Even if you’re not religious and you’re spiritual, be [00:57:00] doing God’s work. Gissele: I just think it’s very powerful and I think the messages, like stories like yours, I think need to come out. And it’s important for us to have these difficult conversations because the goal really is for us to come closer together. Your willingness to have a difficult conversation, your willingness to get curious when everything was telling you, this lady doesn’t like me, all of those things were good justifications for you not to do the work, which is what we do in your willingness to say, and yet I’m still curious. Let me try to understand this person better. That’s huge. And This is the path. This is what we need to do to be willing, just, even if we don’t have the answer, just be willing, understand the perspective. I tried Vivien: hard to portray her not as this villianous woman in the beginning. So, you know, I belong to a writer’s group and they’re all amazing writers. They’re fabulous. Mm-hmm. so the way it [00:58:00] works I dunno if you’ve been in a writer’s group,what what happens is that each person reads a chapter from their book, and then we all give our opinions of what we think of the chapter And so when I started and was reading, my name is not Rifka. they were just horrified. They did not like this Rifka one little bit. I mean, I got notes to say, how could you you know, forgiven her? She didn’t come to your wedding, she, anyway. Yeah. Vivien: And and I was only, I was only writing about her story. That was, that was the original motivation. I needed to get Rifka story. And somebody said, came up to me and said, you know, Vivien, this book isn’t just about Rifka. This is about you as well. You have to play a role in this book. So I kind of thought about it because that was not my, the original intention. [00:59:00] And then I thought to myself, no, he’s right. This is about Rifka and me. Our healing. And so the way the book works is there’s, there are two threads. The one is the historical thread of Rifka, and the other is our relationship. And each, there’s a chapter of each one chapter, the other chapter, the other chapter, and the, crisscross like this. And at the end, the point of my telling you the story is at the end to a man or to a woman in that room, everyone loved Rifka, everyone, it was unbelievable. they talked about her she was like a relative friend. They loved Rifka. and it’s not that I tried to, paint this rosy picture of her. I didn’t. But she really was a very lovable woman. Yeah. When you got under the skin. Gissele: Couple more questions. what’s your definition of love? I ask all my guests this [01:00:00] question Vivien: my definition of love, I think that it’s being non-judgmental for me. Non-judgmental. when you again, get under the skin of somebody else and you walk around and it after a while, you understand what motivates them, that for me would definitely be love. Gissele: That’s beautiful. That’s a great answer. Tell the audience, when the book is coming out, what do you want them to know? Where can they find you? Anything you wanna share? Vivien: It’s not published yet. We’re in the process of, it should probably be published sometime in early 2026. But we’re heading towards that.  I have a wonderful team around me. Mm-hmm. my editor who’s worked with me for three years, she was actually the editor of Schindler’s List. Oh wow. And yes. Incredible. And, and then I have a coach who’s doing all this scuttlebutt [01:01:00] work that I don’t really understand and don’t care for. So that’s his job. So yes, it’ll be published by. Early 2026. Website is, http://www.vivienkalvaria.com Gissele: That’s fabulous. I’m definitely getting my copy, I’m very, very excited to read it, I’ll be lining up for my book. Thank you so, so much, Vivien, for sharing your wisdom with us and for sharing your story.  and everyone go get the book as soon as it comes out. It’s gonna be incredible, and I would love to have you back after the book comes out to share and to have another amazing conversation. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for everyone who tuned in to the Love and and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Bye. Vivien: Thank you.

TRANSCRIPT video1006284111 Gissele: [00:00:00] was Martin Luther King Jr. Right? Does love have the power to turn an enemy into a friend? Does it have the power to heal? We’re creating an inspiring documentary called Courage to Love The Power of Compassion, which explores extraordinary stories of those who have chosen to do the unthinkable, love and forgive even those who have caused deep harm Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness and love, not only on those offering it, but also on those receiving it. In addition, we’ll hear from experts who will explore whether love and compassion are part of our human nature and how we can bridge divides with those we disagree with. If you’d like to support our film, please donate at http://olivedrab-lark-105184.hostingersite.com/documentary.  Hello and [00:01:00] welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about getting beyond division. My guest today is Scott Grace.Scott’s gifts are many. He’s a highly sought after author. Singer speaker, workshop leader, life coach, and standup comedian who used to open for legends such as Robin Williams and Dana Carvey. He rose to prominence opening for rockstar authors and personal growth celebrities. He went on to start as this spiritual Dr. Seuss Combining entertainment, wisdom and comedy, becoming the headliner at new thought churches around the world. Scott’s current project Beyond red and blue, staying human in Divisive times is planned for release. In the coming months, [00:02:00] Scott Blends humor, spiritual Dr. Seuss Rhimes music story and spiritual insight to help people feel less polarized, rise above outrage, and reconnect with themselves. People with different viewpoints and yes, even the people who voted differently in beyond red and blue, Scott does not get political. Instead, he teaches and models how to become a part of the solution instead of contributing to the rising sense of polarization happening worldwide by depolarizing your mind no matter where you stand on the political spectrum. Scott’s previous book. Is mindful masculinity, a book for men and the women who love them. Please join me in welcoming Scott. Hi, Scott: Scott. Hi, Gissele. Gissele: yes. I’m so excited to be chatting with you. I mean, I think this topic is so, so essential right now in a time where it seems very divisive.  [00:03:00] I’m in Canada right now, and I’m telling you, I would’ve never thought that our neighbors in the US would not be. We would not have that strong relationship we used to have. Are you out of the states? Scott: Well, yeah. I spend most of my time in a little village in, in Mexico Yeah. Gissele: Nice. so I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you got on this journey? Scott: When, Donald Trump first got elected, he stirred the pot for many people and including me. And so I wrote a book called How to Evolve During the Trump Experience, whether Humanity Joins You or Not. And it was written mainly for liberals who were having a lot of trouble. And I came across as, as one of them. Uh, so I revisited that book about a year ago and I realized that I no longer [00:04:00] want to promote divisiveness of any kind. So I’m rewriting the book so that it’s for everyone no matter what, political persuasion and it that it’s more about how do we, stay human in these kinds of times where, where extremes are the norm. Mm-hmm. Gissele: First, I’d like to acknowledge how insightful that is. The fact that you’re able to go back and say, Hey, even though my intention might have been good in terms of like helping support people during difficult time, the fact that you were able to see, hey, I’m just breeding divisiveness by looking at like us or them, right? And so the fact that you are now able to see how How can I be a support. Towards greater unity. And I think that’s really fundamental. What helped you get there? Like what helped you understand that? By still seeing that division, we were [00:05:00] still sort of propagating the polarization. Scott: Mm-hmm. Oh, I live in a spiritual community called Namaste Village. Mm-hmm. Scott: And we practice, Non-duality and radical acceptance, of everyone and everything. So, you know many people have been very opinionated about the politics and, gradually as a community we’ve realized that, That giving our opinions dominion contributes to the sense of separation, and that’s not what we’re about. So, yeah, I used to watch Stephen Colbert and John Stewart, and Trevor Noah and, and all of these late night comedians who would make me laugh, about these things, but I can’t watch them anymore.  they’re breeding the same, you know, us versus them type of consciousness that I don’t [00:06:00] support anymore. Gissele: Yeah. And I, and I appreciate you saying that. I’ve had to become very conscious about what I consume, My perspective is more around, you know. We’re all part of the Divine God source universe, and we’re all made of the same juice. And so what I’m aiming to do in this lifetime is to be able to see the divine in everyone, even those who are most hurtful. And that can be very challenging. But if you look at everything we’ve tried, we’ve tried punishment, we’ve tried war, we’ve tried polarization, us versus them, and it’s gotten us exactly where we are right now. As Einstein says, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and so we have to try something else. And I look on the wisdom of those who, may be, deemed, our spiritual masters that talk about love being the way and trying to understand how it can transform it. And I do think, Scott, that the [00:07:00] perspective of  non-duality is the path to love. What are your thoughts? Scott: Well, the, the coldest places on earth are the North and the South Pole, so, uh, I love that. Scott: Yeah. And, it’s all fear. The more. We let fear run, things behind the scenes, the more we are attracted to wild extremes. Gissele: Yeah. Scott: That’s actually be one of the lines in my poem, which I wrote about this whole, this whole thing. I’d love to read it. Yeah, of course. Go ahead. Scott: Okay, so this little poem begins with some rhyming. Consult Dr. Seuss for a lesson in timing, but this ain’t no Sweet Dreams poem for kids getting tucked in. It’s a [00:08:00] wake up adult’s tale for the nightmares. We’re stuck in a talk without answers, but full of good questions. Ones to choose slowly for mindful digestion. Like, why do most people see just red and blue? Could there be more than just one valid view? Our opinion synonymous with what is true. Is this what our founders envisioned we do. Oh, honest Abe now he was the man, a house this divided cannot long stand. He was Republican President Lincoln. And I’d like to see more of the ways he was thinking. Why are opinions becoming more rigid? Why is this Cold War becoming more frigid? Could fear be what’s lurking behind the scenes, pulling our strings towards these wild. [00:09:00] Extremes. Please take this in and don’t knee jerk react. This blame game we’re playing is a soul sucking act. If you’re as baffled as I am admitting here is a question, my hurt is emitting. Why God on us are you shitting and quitting? And God might just say, kids fear. Not that I’m ghosting you, what you’re calling shit is my way of composting. You stop calling it crap and start smelling potential. ’cause what seems like a mess might be spiritually essential. You are one of my gardeners born for these times. Let’s get back to the soil. And heed these new rhymes. My love’s been in drought and you are here for some raining, but you dry up when focused [00:10:00] on fear and complaining. You are here to plant something new in the dirt seeds that might sprout after you’ve left the earth. But that did not stop. Reverend Martin Luther King from tilling the soil with his angel wings in time, his dream and yours. Will be granted, but for now, hush my children and bloom where you’re planted now. That’s part A. Gissele: I love it. Oh, is there a part B? Scott: Thanks God for the cameo. So helpful and clear. And with your permission, I’ll take it from here. Because I’ve cooked up a theory that could use more cooking that points to the glasses through which we’ve been looking, a dark pair of lenses that block out the light till all that we see is just black and white. [00:11:00] No room for discussion. You are wrong and I’m right. Blood pressure rises, adrenaline spikes, and I’m left with two options, just fight or flight. And when I’m choosing between those two Fs, it brings out my worst traits and hides all the best no thinking things through. It’s time to go tribal to stick with my own and steer clear of my rivals. My rivals are totally up to no good. They simply cannot be the least understood. I learned this from news shows that always agree. With my worldview and the ways that I see, whether it’s FOX or M-S-N-B-C, I make sure they all wear the same glasses as me, their glasses that ensure they obscure self-reflection. So I claim the [00:12:00] high ground and moral direction. Now it’s easy to spot those sunglasses on Putin, but in my own mirror that I’m disputing, I’d rather stay blind to my mind’s battle front so I can cast blame on those liberals or Trump. Could it be? Most of us are now wearing dark glasses, letting the media blow smoke up our asses using the internet for amplifying the reasons the other side needs demonizing our differences seemingly so polarizing, we can spend half the day back and forth anal-izing. And through algorithms we see only our tribe. Think the whole world is applauding our side. The trespassings, always those other dumb asses, and never the [00:13:00] fault of our own faulty glasses. May these words help us take off those glasses and see what we all have in common our humanity. Gissele: Mm. Love it. Absolutely love it. just a few thoughts. The first one was, as you were talking about Martin Luther King, it reminded me, ’cause King was actually a student of Thich Nhat Hahn. Right. And when Martin Luther King passed away, Thich said, you know, like one of his quotes was. we’ve killed him. We’ve, we’ve killed them. We could attract, and I’m rephrasing it probably correctly, we could attract King, right? Like the consciousness could attract king, but it couldn’t hold on to king. So people wanted that consciousness of love. But when faced to it with the faced with the hard [00:14:00] work they had to do. They couldn’t hold it. they couldn’t make the courageous decision to love and to forgive and to do all those difficult things. And let’s go back to the concept of fear, because when people are in survival, it’s really hard for them to be compassionate, to, to think about other people. Like they’re very self-focused and not self-loving, self-focused, which is different. What helped you shift out of that? Perspective on fear that most of us have been conditioned to believe and follow. Scott: Hmm. First by admitting it mm-hmm. And being able to just report about it. Yeah. I’m feeling tense in my belly. My shoulders are tightened. I’m having to remind myself to breathe. Mm-hmm. Scott: So just to report about it so it’s out of denial. Yeah. Scott: And you know, fear doesn’t come [00:15:00] alone. it comes with grief and anger and and sometimes guilt. So, so when I’m, when I’m exploring fear, I’m shining light upon you, you know, the sadness that’s underneath the fear. Or on top of the fear or whatever, and maybe I’m angry, an angry at myself for being afraid or for letting fear hold me back. So I explore all my feelings, and to me that’s kind of the forgiveness process is just acknowledging feeling and uh, and making room for every aspect of my pain. And then you know, at some point it’s like you just gotta act as if. You gotta act as if fear wasn’t your God. And that may involve trembling, getting on stage and doing something scary or, you know, participating in a march or, some movie where you don’t know where you’re gonna get the money. How are you gonna get all the [00:16:00] money needed, you know, to have a vision and not a clear pathway. Uh, that’s courage, which is not the absence of fear, it’s it’s fear plus. Courage. Passion. Yeah. Willingness. Gissele: Yeah, for sure. so one of the most essential parts, well, there are many, many key parts in your poems. One of the most important things that I think people really struggle with, and I know I had struggled with in the past is, is the ability to look at yourself in the process and how you’re contributing to the problem. You know, there’s that saying like, when you 0.1 finger out there, there’s three pointing back at you, or four pointing back, right? Mm-hmm. And so it’s, it’s our unwillingness. To look at ourselves and see how we’ve contributed to this world of duality and world of difference. I mean, when you think about, like, think about something as [00:17:00] challenging as the Holocaust. 10 million people followed Hitler. Everybody blames Hitler, but 10 million people followed Hitler. Why? What was happening for them? Why, like, so that, those are the questions that we struggled to answer. We want an A scapegoat. We wanna name one person. We don’t wanna look at ourselves, and I think that’s what your poem is inviting us to do. What was the most challenging aspect of you looking inward and looking at yourself Scott: I would say for me it’s, I still find myself making people wrong who voted for Trump. Uh, feeling a sense of, you know, judgment, you know, and, and, uh, I’ve been, as I’ve been writing this book, I’ve been. I’ve been interviewing people who voted for Trump and, and, and Kamala and people who’ve stepped away from politics. I’ve been just, just [00:18:00] talking to people. Um, and I would just say I’m, I’m baffled by my own, uh, victimhood by how attached I feel sometimes to the righteous part of myself, um, that that’s the hardest part. I would say, you know, being a critic putting my energy into criticizing what’s wrong with people, what’s wrong with, you know, the world, what’s wrong with God, what’s wrong with me?  the spiritual Dr. Seuss. Says this about the critic and this is a short one. The critic will travel with you on this earth and be your companion for worser or worse, it pretends it’s your coach, your fiercest amigo, and it pours on the guilt. That’s the beverage of ego. It’s there to protect you, to help you be strong. So it has to remind you, you’ve done it [00:19:00] all wrong, you’re weak and you’re lazy, and you don’t have a clue. That’s your drill sergeant critic trying to motivate you. Your critic wants you to be all you can be. So it gives you these pep talks all day and for free. Oh, the places you’ll go and the guilt trips, you’ll travel as the critic plays judge, and bangs down on its gavel. But you always can get some relief from your shame by projecting it onto the others. You’ll blame for that Is the critic at its beastiest best IT nurses, its grievances close to its chest. Republicans, liberals, your parents, your ex. The world is just teaming with folks to correct. If only those fools could conform to your ways, you’d get on with life without further delays. [00:20:00] Gissele: Yeah, Scott: that’s, Gissele: your poems are so incredible. That’s. Scott: That’s about 20% of the poem. Gissele: I think you’re saying so much just in the poem itself, right? I think you’re talking about how criticism is not a motivating force. It, it actually is the law of diminishing returns, and you’re talking about something which is so essential, which is. Shame and guilt. People do anything to avoid those difficult feelings and will project all of their issues out. But the more you love yourself and are compassionate to yourself and use that as motivation, the less you need other people to act in particular ways. And I think that’s why your poem is so powerful. Um. Why we need sort of that understanding of how we are acting in, in how we are motivating ourselves. did [00:21:00] you have any, understanding of the perception of self-love and self-compassion as a motivating force versus criticism? Scott: Hmm. Yes, very much so. Yeah. I write books on it. Yeah. Uh, encouragement, you know, like, like encouragement versus discouragement, like discouraging self-talk. I’ll never find a the right person. No. Never make discourage, removes us from our courage, whereas Scott: encouraging. Self-talk puts us right there into our inspiration and courage. Yeah. Scott: So I’ve always been aware that I can’t create and criticize at the same time. I, I have to either be creating or criticizing, but I can’t do both. I’m not that kind of multitasker. Gissele: Hmm. I love that. I wanted to go back to whole concept of people who voted for Trump. Because I actually did a [00:22:00] very similar thing for, just for my own personal interest and I ended up blogging about it. I’m Latino and I knew a lot of people who were Latino and voted for Trump. And so the first time, I don’t know about the second time, but I know the first time. And so I decided to just have a conversation where I only listened to the reasons ’cause I really sought to understand like. I’m like, I’m trying to understand, because the rhetoric we hear here in Canada is very anti-immigrant, very anti-Latino, and yet you are from my community, and yet you’re voting for Trump. And so the the two key things that I heard was number one. The fact that they didn’t want socialism, right? Like that the, the rhetoric of socialism was too frightening. ’cause, and I remember this growing up in Peru. I mean, I came when I was [00:23:00] 10, but I remember my parents talking about like what was sold as socialism. Right was more like communism, which is like everybody lacks. Everybody lacks. Nobody has, you have to do long lineups for you to get anything. And there was like power outages and all these things, and people attribute that to socialism. So they’re definitely afraid of it when what we really want is like the democratic socialism, right? Which is like we take care of our people and yes, we enable people to do their businesses, but not at the expense of other people. Right? And, uh, the other thing was around a lack of trust of government. So anybody that seemed credible, right? Like somebody that seemed anti-government or anti status quo. But one of the things I noticed thinking back, and my husband actually pointed this out, was that Trump had been sort of, and again, neither here nor there, you could be for or against Trump. Trump had been weaving [00:24:00] himself into the culture. If you actually look at some of the major movies, he was in it. He was in home alone. He was in WW. So he was a symbol of everyday man, right? He was in movie. I mean, even though he played himself and he played a millionaire, but he was in these movies as a character, as somebody who was part of the culture. And so you see this sort of like, from their perspective, it made sense. From their perspective, things make sense. So if you take the time out to listen to people’s perspectives, but the feelings are real. The feelings of like, I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you could, from my perspective, make a choice that could be hurtful to another group of people. What have you learned about the [00:25:00] value of listening to others’ perspectives without judgment in terms of helping you understand their journey? Scott: Wow, that’s a beautiful question. Well, everything I learned about this, I learned on an airplane on a four hour flight. The on the other side of the aisle I was in, I was in an aisle seat. And, uh, a couple sits down. They’re older than me. They have red hats on that say, make America great again. And this was during his first presidency and I put my headphones on. I forgot they were there, but this little nagging voice said, this is an opportunity. And I took my headphones off. I heard them talking about their grandchildren and I said, oh, do you mind telling me how many grandchildren do you have? And that started a [00:26:00] conversation and, uh, pictures, phones, and stories. And the time was going by, I was telling them about my daughter and at a certain point. We were like just buddies. We, we couldn’t stop talking. And I, I asked a risky question. I said, do you mind if I ask you a more personal question? And they said, no. And I said, what kind of world are you hoping President Trump leaves for your grandchildren? And they painted a picture. That was so similar to what I want for this planet and for the future. And it just struck me that we have, we had radically different strategies and beliefs about how to get there, [00:27:00] but we all wanted the same thing. So when I listen, I wanna listen to that place in somebody’s heart where I know. That they want every, if, if it’s possible, if they thought it would be possible, they would want everybody to be well fed and get their basic needs met and be happy. And so that’s where I try to take people as I’m listening to them and I’m asking questions, I try to take them to their deepest values rather than the surface reasons why, you know, they think Trump is the best president in the world or. Gissele: Hmm, Hmm. I love that because in that moment, you got beyond borders, you got beyond nationality, you got beyond political agendas. You got beyond, and you went straight to humanity, which is the thing that binds us together, which is extraordinary. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think [00:28:00] that’s so beautiful. The other thing I was thinking about is, and I’m curious as to your thoughts, is because I go back to your poem. We want people to save us. We want people to fix it. We have to fix it ourselves. Right? What you were talking about is we’re not looking inward. We’re not doing the work. We’re not looking at our shame, we’re not looking at our lens. And I think that’s the thing that, that, that’s the problem we’ve been having. We keep looking for saviors. We keep looking for heroes, and those people are just human like us. So. I think the only way we’re gonna change the world is if we’re willing to change ourselves as difficult as that might be. Scott: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think politicians are actually, uh, cut out to build a new world and, and lead us anywhere. I don’t even think they’re leaders really. Um, they’re more followers. Gissele: So what do you think can [00:29:00] help us change. Scott: Who, who did you say? Who? Gissele: Yeah. Who could lead us? Scott: I think there’s, there are going to be plenty of, uh, of people down the pike. Bernie Sanders came awfully close. Mm-hmm. You know, he’s challenged by his age. But yeah, the Scott: amount of people who voted for him, even though he had no corporate sponsors, no corporate money. Yeah. Scott: That was pretty impressive. And I think that’s a wave. And that the next wave is going to crash and get even closer or, you know, Mexico has a, has a wonderful female president now who’s just, you know Yeah. Lovely and powerful Gissele: Yeah. Scott: Um, Gissele: I mean, she sent all that support to Texas. Do you see that? I dunno if it’s true. I just saw it on social media. Yeah, no, it’s true. It is true on humanity, right? Yes. Like they’re willing to say, okay, I don’t like you. I’m not gonna follow whatever, and you and I may have beef, but [00:30:00] I’m still gonna see your humanity and I’m still gonna help your children, and I’m still gonna do the basic, basic human thing, which is to help. Yeah. Scott: Yeah. It’s beautiful. Yeah. Gissele: The other thing I was thinking about too is that, what if the, and I’ve had conversations with both people that support Trump and don’t support Trump. What if this particular administration in particular, ’cause it seems like there is right now, this rising consciousness. There does seem to be, I would say like having more conversations about love and compassion. We’re having more conversations about how old systems aren’t working. There seems to be also this collapse. All of these systems, What if this administration’s role is to like collapse everything so that new things can be born and also to be a mirror to us of who we’ve been, and that can be feeling [00:31:00] challenging. So I’m just curious as to your thoughts. Scott: Well, my thoughts are, I so agree with you. I don’t know if I can add to the, to what you said. You said it beautifully. It, you know, I, I believe there’s a higher purpose, a divine purpose for everything and, that, donald and his, tribe are unwittingly not necessarily consciously contributing to this speed up. Things need to speed up evolutionary by helping things collapse. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, like an alcoholic that needs to hit bottom. Gissele: Yeah. And I wanna bring it back to the whole concept of leadership and the kind of leadership that I see really dwindling off. You know, in your book, mindful Masculinity, you talk about different types of masculinity. What is the role of toxic masculinity in terms of how we’re seeing the leadership [00:32:00] now and, and how could that masculinity shift to one where it could lead towards the, the world that we all sort of want, which is more equity, more love or compassion, more generosity. Scott: Well what, what most of us are calling toxic masculinity, uh, is I believe dying rapidly. Mm-hmm. And we’re Scott: watching it. We’re watching its death throws on the public arena. What’s gonna be left on the other side of that, of that funeral is people who value the earth, who value empathy and, uh, the birthing of life and the caring for life, the caring for our forests and trees. Um, you know, masculine energy does like to protect and serve. That’s a cliche, but, and traditional ways that men [00:33:00] and women have dated where, uh, men, let’s say, will hold the door open for a woman or pay for the check. To me, the these are not just old traditions that you know, that we can be liberated from. They actually are metaphors symbology of. How men, how masculine energy relates to feminine energy that, that masculine energy wants to protect, wants to serve, wants to praise, wants to appreciate feminine energy, which which could be the curves of a female form, the beauty of a flower the vulnerability of a child that’s crying. Feminine energy could be our creative intuition. The, things you’re doing, you know, with this movie is all I believe like the feminine conceives such a thing. And then the [00:34:00] masculine part of you and part and, and hopefully your, you support system is out there collecting donations. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? Where did we go wrong as a humanity that we moved away from that masculine perspective of the protector, the supporter, the appreciator, to one where there was very obvious use of force rather than true power and like coercion and suppression. Scott: Well, I remember that day. I remember the time,  I think it’s a spiritual thing. it started when we started to believe that we were separate from each other and that it is possible for a man to to have success, pleasure, all the good things in life. [00:35:00] Just by his own power, just by his own will, just by, you know, his own castle that arose from from the belief that we are separate, uh, and it’s dying. It’s dying very rapidly. That whole belief. Gissele: And it’s interesting ’cause COVID showed us the interdependence of human beings, right? I mean we were all impacted by COVID, like the world shut down. We missed that connection with people and we’re seeing it now even from my perspective with the ice raids that are happening in the us. You know, some people, especially people in the Latin community, voted for. For people to be deported, but then some of them are getting deported, so they didn’t connect the fact that, Hey, wait a minute, this is somehow also gonna impact me. It’s impacting other families and I’m being impacted. Same with farmers, right? Farmers, they’re. The people that are working for them got [00:36:00] deported and now their businesses are going under. And so there is this interconnection that what we do for others, we do for ourselves and what we do for ourselves, we do for others, that we are starting to awaken now and realize. What are some things that we can do to start moving away from red and blue and coming closer together? Scott: Well you know, one heart, one mind at a time. It’s gonna be grassroots. Some people are moved to protest and you know, even design boycotts and days where all the immigrants stop working and all of those things are, are part of it. But what comes to my mind is that the little things that we do every day, and some of them are, are much bigger. Like when Trump got elected the first time, an artist friend. Had an emergency meeting at her house the next night and she invited all, all of her artist [00:37:00] friends to come over and she, uh, gave us paper and magic markers and, and she said, write affirmative, appreciating angel type messages. And have them be colorful and fun and do whatever you wanna do. Glitter. She had all kinds of things. And then we’re gonna go out in the neighborhood and we’re gonna put these on people’s windshield wipers, you know, so that they see them on their cars. So to me that’s, that’s revolution right there. Stepping outside of the whole paradigm of we gotta fight back and, and just so no wait. You know, St. Francis said, where there is sadness, let me sow joy, you know, and where there is hatred, let me, so love and kindness. Gissele: Yeah. I think what you just said is so, so powerful because I think people underestimate [00:38:00] these small instances that are so powerful that they dismiss as not as important, but. We got to this world by a series of small decisions that we made in our everyday lives with people in our lives and with others, right? Like people want to be like, I wanna be the savior, or whatever but that’s just the same duality, right? Us versus them. Scott: Every savior. Once you, when you create a savior, you create its opposite. So, yeah, you know, you create an, an angel and a demon. It’s a world of duality. Nobody’s gonna rescue us and nobody’s going to not, you know, one person is not gonna take the human. Experience down with the ship. Gissele: Yeah, and I love that you say that because we sort of live in the world of guruism, right?  I think we need to understand that, that we are more powerful than we think we are what [00:39:00] you were talking about, that’s the true revolution. To look at things that challenge us and say, where’s the joy? Where’s the opportunity? To come together and unite and Put glitter on it. Scott: Put glitter on it. Yeah, let’s, Gissele: right. I think that’s amazing. I think that’s incredible. How has comedy helped you prepare for this sort of journey that you’re on? Because I think it’s very important. Scott: Well I do a lot of laughing and, and a lot of crying and the laughing balances out the crying, but they’re both very important. You know, I, I grieve for the madness that’s going on and I noticed that when, when I bring my playfulness and humor to difficult situations that it, it also helps people process just like tears can help lighten.[00:40:00] The emotional climate. Laughter does the same thing as long as it’s not laughter at the expense. Sometimes laughter is just a bunch of attacks on people and it’s shaming and that’s not where I live when it comes to comedy. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. ’cause I think that was one of the struggles that I had with a specific comedy show that made fun. Of like even the president, I struggle with that because the, the person’s still a human being regardless of whether you think that they’re doing a good job or not doing a good job. The, mocking.  that shaming. For something to be truly funny, it can be joyful without it being at somebody’s expense, right? Scott: Yes. That requires Gissele: work. It’s easy. Isn’t it easier, like you as a comedian, isn’t it easier to just make fun of people? Scott: Yeah, but it, it’s like venting get it outta my system and then, [00:41:00] you know, it doesn’t hit YouTube because it, it was for me to get the anger. But there was a song I wrote in his first term that I have, vowed not to sing again because it makes fun of him and it gives back the energy of shaming that I perceive he does when he, he wants to belittle people. He gives them, you know, nicknames and he just talks about them very derogatory. So here I had this wonderful song, it was really funny and people would crack up and, you know, it went viral on YouTube. And this year I made a vow to not do it, to not sing it again. ’cause I don’t like, it’s like an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Yeah. It’s, Scott: can we talk Gissele: about how much awareness and consciousness that requires? I mean, think about it, things going viral that has an economic [00:42:00] impact or like. The fact that you have that level of awareness and that you’re willing to say, this is not who I wanna be. I think takes extraordinary awareness because like most people, their goal on social media is to go viral, right? Like, oh, I want this to go viral, then, oh my God, I made it and whatever. And this is gonna mean more sponsorships and all of that stuff. You got there and you’re like, you know what? This doesn’t feel like me. And your willingness to be authentically you, I think especially in a world where you’re not rewarded to be authentic, I think is wonderful and extraordinary. What helps you be more authentic? Like what helps you just sort of make those decisions in terms of like, no, I’m just gonna be myself and this doesn’t feel like me, so I’m not gonna do it anymore. Scott: Uh uh. Feedback. Feedback is really helpful. Oh, okay. I live in [00:43:00] a community and and when I’m, when I’m tempted by the dark side of the force, like, oh, this is gonna be really viral. I’m gonna do this, you know, I have a team, I have a committee. I have people who, tell me when they think I’m coming from ego like. I did a big show March 8th of this year, which was professionally videoed and it’s called Beyond Red and Blue. And I, I wanted to get all the comedy and all the songs, everything out there so I could start to promote this talk, lecture, workshop, whatever it’s gonna be. And, the first 30 minutes of the show were accidentally erased or something, so I had to do them again. And several people said, this is a blessing, Scott, because there were things you said in the first 30 minutes that would’ve made Republicans walk out. [00:44:00] You were pretty, biased. And if you really wanna be, promoting this message. Take a good look at what you said in those first. Mm-hmm. And so I did the whole thing over again a week later and it was where I wanna be. Yeah. Yeah. Gissele: It’s good to surround yourself with people that. Help you stay in alignment with who you wanna be. And that’s also challenging. Um, so props to you, right? It’s hard to sometimes listen to feedback and say, oh gosh, like here I am promoting non-duality, but I’m also being non-dual. And I’ve had the same experiences in my podcast as well when we, I’ve had conversations with people. This podcast is about love and compassion and there were times. Where my husband was editing and he would say, you know, this, you, you’re sounding a little bit dualistic here. It seems like you’re, you’re picking [00:45:00] aside, and the loving compassion is, is about non-duality. It’s about seeing the divinity and all. And I’m like, yeah, you know what? So we think that’s really important to have that feedback and to acknowledge that sometimes we fall back into it without being consciously, like not on purpose. Because in my life I have found that when I treat others like the whole, the Jesus thing, like when I treat others as myself. Number one, it always works out better for me. And I find people are like my mirrors, they’re mirroring back to me what I need to heal within myself. So when I, I’m having a struggle with someone, I now ask the question, okay, what’s within me that needs healing with respect to that topic? Which can sometimes feel difficult because you’re like, oh, like Envy’s coming up. And where am I feeling envious? Where am I feeling lack? Where am I feeling? To be able to be truly honest with yourself. And that took a while for me [00:46:00] to figure out, because there’s times when I thought I was being honest with myself and I wasn’t, and then I’m like, oh, I was lying. I was lying to myself about it. And so that’s, it’s a constant inner journey. so just a few questions before we wrap up. I ask all of my guests what their definition of unconditional love is or love. Some people don’t like to use the word unconditional. Scott: All of your guests get this question well, majority. Causes me indigestion. ’cause whatever love is, it’s beyond my thinking. And all I can feel is the universe winking, saying, mm-hmm You’ll never have any idea on this earth what unconditional love is. But when you put it first, everything else falls into place. Unconditional love is a state of grace. You [00:47:00] don’t have to like someone to love them completely. They may trigger feelings, but you still can love them sweetly. Mm, so unconditional Scott: love. Mm-hmm. Comes above and makes the stars twinkle and little children play. Beautiful. And it Scott: happens each and every day. Gissele: did you just make that up Scott: Yeah, no, that’s, that’s impromptu. Gissele: Oh, I love it. I love it. So where can people find you? Where can they buy your books? Where can they work with you? What do you wanna promote? Scott: Okay. So, uh, scott songs.com. S-C-O-T-T-S-O-N-G s.com. 1. Here are six Dr. Seuss Performances: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL91E19CF5BBE67770 2. making of the movie the trailer (three minutes long) of the show two links above, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFSTjp8-edo&t=8s And uh, I do a private.  Healing sessions. I’m a psychic and a guide and intuitive. So, uh, what else? You can go to that website, sign up, and you’ll be informed of when the book comes out, the newest [00:48:00] one. But if you scroll down on the homepage, you’ll see my other books and there’s links to them. There’s the spiritual Dr. Seuss poems that are done live in front of an audience. That’s a lot of fun. I think they’re, they’re on my website and they’re also on YouTube, so, Gissele: uh, beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. I was wondering if you could share a poem just to close us off anything that you wanna share with the audience. Scott: Sure. Yeah. So, Gissele, Yes. Okay, so you give me the first line. Gissele: Oh gosh, there’s so much pressure. Scott: You want that to be the first line? Gissele: Yeah, sure. Scott: Oh god. It. So much pressure that Scott just put me on the spot and my mind’s a blank. There’s nothing to take in and take out, so I’m just not gonna try to figure it out. But [00:49:00] I’m just gonna go into receptivity mode and just enjoy what Scott has to show. So we just did a show, a one hour podcast, and. I felt it was a blast. The one hour just so quickly passed, and my hope is that there’s a certain sentiment that will last in people who are listening or have been watching, that you take with you something that maybe doesn’t even have words, but if it did, maybe curiosity. Curiosity. There are people on this planet who believe so many different things, and I wanna hear their soul sing. I want to find their angel wings because there ain’t nobody here on this great earth that if [00:50:00] they could, they would put love first, if they knew they were safe, if they knew they were. Mm-hmm. Union. If they knew they weren’t separate, then it would all be a reunion and we’re gonna have that reunion sooner or later. So you and I don’t be a joy procrastinator. Don’t put off the joy that bubbles through your veins. ’cause being more happy is how we can change the world one heartbeat at a time. Forget these big ideas and just turn your water into wine. Walk lightly on this earth. Put first things first, and I’ll see you on the other side of this great global rebirth. And Gissele as a midwife, and you and me we’re [00:51:00] all into this midwifery. We’re all. Bringing Forth a baby, being born. Some of us in movies, some of us in songs, some of us in poetry, some of us just by loving unconditionally. So play your part, come from the heart and, and never again can we part. Never. Gissele: Oh, thank you, Scott. What a beautiful way to end. Oh, like a little verklempt there. Thank you. Thank you so much for being on this show, and thank you all for joining us for another episode of Love and Compassion with Gissele. See you soon.

TRANSCRIPT Conversation with Sonny Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking with Sonny Von Cleveland, who is a nationally recognized motivational speaker, author of Hey White Boy, conversations of Redemption, and a leading Voice for Trauma survivors. After overcoming 18 years in prison, in a childhood marked by severe abuse, Sonny now dedicates his life to helping others heal, find purpose, and rise above their past. Please join me in welcoming Sonny. Hi, Sonny. Sonny: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I so greatly appreciate you and thank you for such a wonderful, warm introduction. Gissele: Thank you. Thank you so much for being on the show. I’m super excited to talk to you. I was wondering if you could tell our listeners a little bit about what led you [00:01:00] to the point where you ended up in solitary confinement. Sonny: Sure. That was, a domino effect, I suppose, from being in the position that I was in in my life. This was 2008, so I had already had about nine years in prison, goes to 10. it’s just a very angry young man lost in a world of gang banging, self-absorption, you know, self-centeredness. I had. Just previously found out that my oldest son’s mother started to have an affair with my brother and that they, she was pregnant by him, and that they were going to be taking my son and I wouldn’t be seeing him anymore. And he was gonna raise him as his own. And I really, really worshiped my brother, right? growing up. It was just he and I in a single mother household. And he was always kind of my protector. And when that happened, I, I don’t [00:02:00] know, it wasn’t about her, it wasn’t about the fact that they were having an affair. it was the betrayal from the one person that meant the most to me, the only family member that I had left.  you know, there’s a million women in the world. It’s actually 5 billion or so. You know, and he chose that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had to do that. Yeah. And that, you know, like what that, what that does to the kid, to my son. Like the fact that you made my son believe he was, his father until, you know, he was 12 years old. And it just, it was a conglomerate of all of those things. And then somebody had stolen everything outta my cell at one point while I was at work in the chow hall. I worked in the kitchen, and, I just took my anger out on him. And so it was unfair for him. those circumstances led me to being put into solitary confinement, which ultimately changed my life. So, in a sense, I’m kind of grateful that my brother did that while it cost me, my son, it gave me the opportunity [00:03:00] to. Be who I am today. It turned completely, turned my life around. Going to segregation at that time. Right? Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. And my understanding of your story is that you had also been betrayed by other family members, so that must have been particularly difficult in terms of your childhood experiences. Sonny: It’s a thing. Yeah. You know, my first victimizer was my uncle. growing up losing my whole family because when I had talked about my molestation and my mother had had called the police and turned him in, he was sent to prison for 15 years and, and my whole family fell apart. So, to betrayal from a family member, I would always wanted, family, right?  the first, you know, 7, 8, 9, 10 years of my life, we had that family structure, right? There was grandma’s house, there was cousins, there was aunts, there was uncles, there was a family. And then after that it was just gone. And, and to feel like that was my fault was very heavy. [00:04:00] Like, took the blame for that because it was my fault, right? Because I opened my mouth and said something. And so having my brother left, you know, my mom was a very emotionally abusive individual and was very unpleasant mentally and emotionally. ’cause, you know, she was a drug addict he was my brother. He was what I clung to, even though I, I lost him when I was 11. He was 12. He was taken away and put into the juvenile detention system. And I, I had nobody, I didn’t have a family. I was alone. And so family was very important to me, like trying to clinging on to the vestiges of a family structure and to, you know, when I finally got reconnected with him, you know, I was 21, he was 23, and it was like I finally have a family and it might just be one person. It might just be my brother, but I’ve got family. And just for that, it just, ah, it [00:05:00] just, it cut deep, right? Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. He is, you know, like family supposed to be there for you, right? You think that those are the people that are supposed be there. I Sonny: think we, we put that on us as a societal norm, right? Like, we look at that, knowing what I know now, we look back at that and we, we think that blood makes us family, but it doesn’t. Right. People say, well, you can’t choose your family, eh, technically you can. Right? Yeah. The, the family that I have now, I’m not related to any of them. Right? Yeah. And I have a beautiful family except my sons. Mm-hmm. but you know, you know what I mean? The family that I have now, I do, I have the greatest friends and they are my family.  I’m in Cleveland right now at a friend’s house. Mm-hmm. my friends Wayne and Nicole opened their home to me, and they are family, right? Yeah. And, my great friends Anthony and, and Julie and Waylon, and, and these people, they’re family, right? And so you can choose your family, right? Gissele: It’s the, the what they call the chosen [00:06:00] family, right? Yeah, that’s right. I think one of the toughest things about disclosure. Is the fact that often victims are made to believe it’s their fault that things fall apart always. Whereas the perpetrators are very good at shirking responsibility and not accepting it, not putting it where it belongs. And so I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for you to disclose. And one of the things I’ve seen, I, I used to work in the child protection system and my mother experienced terrible childhood abuse, neglect. And one of the things I saw in the child welfare system was how kids’ behavior was the language. And so in the school system, in the child welfare system, when they started to act, there was very little curiosity. Like how, you know, in [00:07:00] your, in your biography, like how does a 7-year-old start to get criminally involved? Like, what’s going on for that child? That is Sonny: 100%. And they, and they don’t ask a question, do you? I, my son is now seven. My youngest son. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Sonny: I had dinner with him the other night and I can’t help but look at him and be like, that just doesn’t make sense to me.  I was locked up for both of my, my oldest sons. I was locked up for their 12 years of their life. And I look at my youngest son who’s now seven, and I look at that like, I would lose the plot if you put handcuffs on my kid. Right. Yeah. I don’t care what he does. Right. Yeah. I mean, it’d be different if he, you know, shot up a school or something like that. I mean, clearly there’s something, there’s something dislodged there, but. If this kid broke into something and you put cuffs on my kid and you treat him like a criminal and you bring ’em in and you try to charge him with a felony, I’m gonna go just ape monkey bananas, right? Like, [00:08:00] like, are you kidding me? Yeah. How do you charge a 7-year-old with a felony? But I know in my small town, which, I’m very thankful that I’m going back there ’cause I’m going to the Secretary of of State to dig up these records, right? Because they exist. it’s very difficult to find, it’s very difficult to dig up, you know, something that’s 40 years old, 30 years old, 37 years old. But they exist. So when I got. The second time it was, that’s how I kind of recollected the date was because it, it was used as an offense variable to, to come up my, my timeline, the guideline for my time, and it was the 19 88 64 B Circuit Court in Montcalm County, Michigan with Edward Skinner was the judge and I, and it’s a felony. It’s breaking and entering with intent to commit larceny and how do you charge a 7-year-old with intent to commit larceny. But the criminal capacity [00:09:00] doesn’t exist at seven years old, right? There’s no intent and the fact that the judge was okay with it. That the, that everybody from the top down was okay with charging this 7-year-old. And my brother, my brother was nine. Right. Charging a 9-year-old with these, with a felony, like it didn’t make sense. And what, you know, it opened up a can of worms because when I seen all the men that were abusing me went away. And so naturally in my young mind, I developed my own safety net and can just continue to get into trouble because, you know, getting probation from the courts, that’s just a word, right? Like, that isn’t, that does not actually a thing. It doesn’t, there’s no physical thing there. You know, get a little whooping and it’s over, but I’m safe, I’m protected for the time being. Right? Yeah. And so it just started a downward spiral in my life that continued, you know, all the way up till many, many moons later. Gissele: Yeah. And if [00:10:00] at any of those points somebody had gotten curious, instead of judging if anybody said, you know, what’s going on for you? I think outcomes could have been different. Or maybe not. I don’t, I don’t know. I just know that the systems we created seem to lack that compassion. the wanting to understand why Sonny: the war on drugs started under Reagan. Right. And Clinton continued that mass incarceration. Right. And they saw the monetary value in treating the institution of corrections like a business. And it’s, it’s human cattle farming. And that’s what it is, right? If we look at the structure of the American institutional system, uh, of corrections. it’s human cattle farming. It’s a business. And businesses have to have customers in order to stay alive, right? And in this instance, the customer is the inmate. If they don’t have an inmate, they don’t have bunks filled. If [00:11:00] they don’t have bunks filled, they lose funding capability, can’t keep the facility open. The warden doesn’t have a job all the way down to the nursing staff, and the maintenance crews don’t have a job. And so the facility closes and everybody loses their jobs. So instead of doing that, do job security And so they keep these people in prison We have 5% of the global population in the United States, and we have 25% of the institution incarcerated population. That number is just astronomical. It makes no sense, and so. What they did is they started to allow these kids to be prosecuted as adults because not, there wasn’t enough, right? They had whole, a whole bunch of facilities that needed more beds filled, they need more customers. So let’s start charging kids as adults and start putting them in prisons. And that’s what they did. And so you have things like whack and hut in Baldwin, Michigan, the privatized youth [00:12:00] facilities, right? there should never be a private prison. That the, just the concept of it itself is ludicrous. Right? It makes no, if you can build a private prison, why don’t you build a private college? Right? Yeah. Build an institution of learning and rehabilitation rather than, you know, corrections and, and punishment. ’cause that’s what they do, right? They, they hide behind the initiative of rehabilitation. But they don’t actually execute that, right? Mm-hmm. They put the programs in place inside of the institutions, which are available for inmates. Inmates can go and take these classes and these programs, and they can have a dramatic effect on your mindset and in your life. But you’re dealing with men and women that are not in the mindset of wanting to seek that change because they’re so stuck in this cycle most of them are not going to proactively go seek out [00:13:00] a program that’s gonna change their life. Right. They get Stuck in Their ways. Right. They then they’re lost in that Gissele: where has an individual lost their humanity? That they can rationalize it in their head that it’s okay to put a child in jail.  it doesn’t compute for me. I’m having a hard time processing, like where it’s, Sonny: it’s a lack of compassion, right? Yeah. At the end of the, I don’t understand. Yeah. Gissele: I’ve had so many conversations about greed and greed is just a fear of lack, right? Like, somebody once asked me hundred percent, how, how much money does someone need? 500 billion? And that’s not enough. The truth of matter is they’re trying to throw money at something that money’s never gonna fill that hole. And so it’s never gonna be enough. 500 million a gajillion dollars because they’re trying to fill a, I don’t, that doesn’t think, think Sonny: ever needs to be a billionaire, right? [00:14:00] Like there’s no need for a billionaire. Gissele: I know people that have met like millionaires, billionaires, and they’re unhappy. Like so many of them are so unhappy. It’s ’cause you’re trying to throw something that’s not gonna fill the hole.  so I, I wanted to go back to solitary confinement. What was that like? Sonny: Solitary. It was, was very lonely. Yeah. Over the course of my incarceration, I, I probably spent a good four years or so in solitary confinement. I was constantly in and out of there for fighting for assaults, for gambling, for, you know, tattoos. guess it’s a matter of perspective, right? Like I found solitary to be a zenful space of escape, right? Where, where I can go and. In this room by myself. I don’t have to be on alert. In prison, you’re on alert 24 hours a [00:15:00] day. You’re always watching your back. You are always scanning your surroundings, waiting for something to pop off, right? it’s just a very hostile environment. And solitary gives you a bit of a reprieve where you can go sit in solitary confinement and I’m by myself. I don’t have to worry. No one can get to me. I can’t get to nobody. I can’t do anything. So I just read and I can meditate, I can be quiet, I can focus on my thoughts, and I can build my internal mental strength. And it either builds you or it breaks you. Right? And so, yeah. You know, it’s, it’s four very small walls that you’re stuck in, and pacing was a really big ritual for me. Like, I spent probably the better half of my day pacing and talking to myself back and forth, and, the things that I’m reading, the books that I’m reading or the work that I’m doing, I just, I’m talking about it constantly. To [00:16:00] myself, I must have looked like a nut job. When you, when you walk by, sometimes I’m, sometimes I’m crying, sometimes I’m mad and I’m angry and I’m arguing with myself about things. And I must have looked like a, like a nut job, right? Because, and, singing and this wonderful acoustics in there, and you just, I began to learn how to find beauty in negative spaces, right? Like, how, how do you see your circumstances? Is it this dark, gloomy place, or is it an opportunity to grow, to learn, to try to do something? And, and that’s a matter of perspective. I found the things that I liked, like the acoustics in the room were phenomenal. So let me sing and I’ll sing and I can hone in my tonal range. And you just find things that you know that you can fill your time with instead of allowing things to dominate your mind. Right? Gissele: I just wanna go back to something you had said, which is, you know, in prison you’re constantly on guard. [00:17:00] Prison system cannot be designed for prisoners to overcome and then all of a sudden become loving and compassionate people. Because if you’re constantly on guard, you’re on survival, you’re, you’re not focusing on understanding the impact of your behavior. You are just trying to still survive. So it’s a model that doesn’t, it doesn’t work. and like you said, it’s obviously not meant to work. Yeah. Sonny: Yeah. Not, not in the, the United States. And there are several other countries that have this type of prison structure, but there are some that are, that do it. Right. Gissele: Right. Sonny: Like if you look at Finland and maybe Denmark, maybe, some of the European countries that have these men drive themselves to prison every day? Gissele: Oh, Okay. They, they, Sonny: they get released in the morning, right? They get released in the morning to go to work, and they come back and, you know, they check in. They have [00:18:00] to, you know, turn in their stuff. You have to go back to your dormitory. You have to cook your own meals, right? You have to have a very family styled structured dinner because you all chip in and you cook, and you go to these classes, and you go to these programs where they cultivate this rehabilitative atmosphere where you learn things about yourself. You learn kindness, you learn compassion, and you learn empathy. And you’re, and instead of being out in a world where you know, you’re allowed to just run free and you are going to, out of just a habitual propensity, do things that you are currently doing, which is why people are, you know, stay in a criminal mindset. Gissele: Yeah. Sonny: Here you’re in a structure where it’s, it’s, let’s show you the proper way to live that. Here’s how you change that mindset. Here’s how you develop new habits. Here’s how you have you cultivate these emotional elevations and become a better human being and live life from a lens of love and kindness [00:19:00] instead of anger and, and pain and, and it’s so successful, right? Their recidivism rates are just nothing. It’s so down and, and there’s no such thing as a 60 year sentence. And they just don’t do that. Even for some of the most heinous crimes you might do 20 years, 15, 20 years, but then you have the opportunity to. Show that you have done the deep work on yourself and rehabilitated yourself, and you can earn some of that time back. But when you have a system like we have here, again, it goes back to the cattle farming business model. They don’t want to let them out. They need to keep them in there so that they can continue to get that government funding, which goes some of it into their pockets, right? Mm. it’s job security for the people that are running the institutions. They don’t wanna let them out. Yeah. It’s, it’s a problem they don’t want to fix and they can’t admit that. But there it is. It’s the same thing as saving children of pouring resources into organizations like [00:20:00] Operation Light Shine, or. Or the Underground Railroad or you know, the National Child Protection Task Force Fund. These organizations, they don’t want to do that. They’d rather for throw $40 billion a year to the counter drug fight and only give 250 million a year to, saving kids. Well, that doesn’t make sense now, does it? Right. Like, if we don’t save these children and find them where they are and turn their lives around and work and focus on prevention, they become the problem you’re spending $40 billion on. Gissele: Exactly. Exactly. Sonny: they just don’t, they just want, they want the problem. Mm-hmm. And, and even if it sounds conspiracy theory, they don’t want to cure cancer. Why would you cure cancer? Right. That doesn’t make sense. If we, if cure cancer, we have to, we have to close down the cancer clinics. we don’t need the billions of dollars a year that cancer patients generate for the doctors, for the clinics, for the government.[00:21:00] Right. Why would they cure it? Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. See, yeah. That’s, that’s really challenging the United, United Sonny: States as an entity is born and bred and raised on the self. Right. It it, yeah. The individuals, which is one of the reasons why I love. You know, countries like Canada, like Europe, you know, the smallest unit is, is the family. The smallest unit is the household, it’s the community. Mm-hmm. There’s really not a concept of me. One of the things that I loved most about, like the country of Fiji, right? They, they don’t have a concept of me. It’s us. What can we do as a community to live better lives, to help each other, to survive? The, the American mindset is, what can I do for myself? How do I get more for me? How do I get a bigger house? How do I get a better car? How do I get a bigger bank account? I don’t care what that person’s going through. That’s not my problem. I gotta focus on me. Gissele: Yeah. Sonny: [00:22:00] Yeah. And that’s, and it’s a, it’s a ubiquitous mindset throughout the entire nation. Yeah. And we’re raised on that. Gissele: Yeah. And it’s, it’s interesting because there’s such a, an amount of separation and then we wonder why people feel so lonely. So alone and so disconnected, and, the whole self-made man is a myth, right? there’s no self-made man because all those other people help them in their business. But that’s just like, it’s sort of like a delusion I wanna go to, so you’re in solitary confinement. How did you find your mentor that helped you sort of change your lens or perspective? Sonny: Well, he found me, right? Gissele: Oh, how so? Can you share a little bit? Yeah. Sonny: So I mean, when, when we got taken in there, there’s. There’s a long hallway. There’s four of them in these units. There’s one upstairs, one downstairs, one upstairs, one downstairs, four long units or hallways, and on either side of that hallway are cells, and they’re kind of staggered. There’s one [00:23:00] here, there’s two, there’s one, there’s two, there’s two, there’s, there’s one, there’s two, right? Like they’re staggered. And so they have, I believe 25 cells on each hallway, right? So you have room one, room two, room three, room four, room five, and it goes all the way down. And then it turns around, it comes all the way up to 25. And I was in two 12, which is the very last cell, on the left. And he was in two 13, which is the very last cell on the right. And we’re at the very end of the hallway and you can’t see anything. We’re, we’re staggered away from, from two 11 and two 14 are down here. And there’s, there’s water closets that are in between for plumbing. So you’re just separated. It’s just the two of us. And then I, when I got put in the cell, you know, I’m washing my face off to get the blood and pepper spray outta my face. And I hear him call over, Hey, white boy come talk to me? You know? And I, I cussed him out. Like, I wasn’t in a position that I wanted to talk to anybody. I [00:24:00] don’t wanna talk to you. And, and he just persisted every day. Hey, white boy, hey white boy. I finally broke down, what, what do you want? And, that’s where he changed my life, right? He, his first question he ever asked me was, why are you so angry? You know? And at first I was just really defensive. And then, you know, I thought about it and I dumped my whole life to this man. I was like, you know, what do I have to lose by telling this guy why I’m so angry? Right? I’ve been a victim my whole life and it’s time here. Let me just tell him and. I anticipated an empathetic, sympathetic response. Like, oh, you poor guy, man. That’s no wonder you’re so angry. Gissele: Yeah. You know, Sonny: the list I gave him of why I’m angry. It was very, very superficial, and it, he’d said that sentence to me that, no, that’s why you’re mad and mad is a surface emotion. Right? It’s temporary. It doesn’t last. There’s a difference between [00:25:00] being angry and being mad, right? Mad is, is you just stub your toe on, on something. You don’t spend your entire life hating people that build stairs. You don’t hate nail companies that keep stairs together. You don’t hate the railing companies that build the railways on the stairs, right? You’re not, you don’t hate stairs. Yes. That’s mad. You’re mad ’cause you stubbed your toe, right? Mm-hmm. And it goes away. It’s temporary, it leaves. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Sonny: The things that are eating your soul, you’re angry about this anger. It’s much deeper. It cuts down to your soul. And you’re a very angry young man. And so. That had a profound impact on me. I, I how I can’t answer this. Well, I can’t answer this question. And, you know, and he sent me the book, mans Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, which began the metamorphosis of changing my life. Right. It’s, to this day, I hold it as one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. And now I’m actually working with a [00:26:00] psychologist out of Florida who teaches Logotherapy and, you know, the Viktor Frankl teachings from these, these books. And I’m like, I, that’s full circle. That has come full circle in my life. That Viktor Frank has started, and now Viktor Frankl is going to elevate what I know of this game. Mm-hmm. Because I’m not educated and I’m not an educated person. I have A-G-E-D-I didn’t, I have never taken a college course or a college program ever. I’ve, I just read a lot and, and experienced. A lot. that’s the beauty of self-reflection. And when you spend that time introspectively processing your emotion and the trauma that you’ve been through, it gives you a level of, I dare say, enlightenment. And it gives you perspective and it allows you to see things from a different lens. and I think, you know, I get a lot of people that I work with are like, wow, you’re highly educated, but I’m not, it, it’s [00:27:00] experiential, right? Mm-hmm. These are things that I’ve walked through in my life that have given me this perspective and this, this clarity on how this thing works. And, and so we see the people that have all the degrees, and I’m not saying that they don’t help, but you haven’t been there, you haven’t walked the walk. Mm-hmm. And so. Some of them have, I’m not saying they all haven’t, but I think there’s just something highly relatable about people that have been through trauma that are, put them in a position to help other people that have been through trauma. Does that make sense? Gissele: Uh, absolutely. As a person who is what, quote, unquote, highly educated. I’ve had to unlearn a lot of the things I’ve learned, number one. Number two, the path that you had walked on, like from the experience to even be willing to contemplate. How do we love other people to have compassion? That’s a path that not [00:28:00] a lot of people have walked. Or are willing to walk. It takes extraordinary courage and strength and the willingness to go inward. ’cause many people want their lives to be solved. Solve my problems. Yeah. I will give my authority to you. Government or, or person or leader or guru or whatever. So the path you’ve walked makes you uniquely Qualified to do that work because it’s so few and far between. an education can only give you the theoretical. Right, but it ultimately it’s the walking the path that really is the essence of everything. And so it’s extraordinary Sonny: and that’s what I tell a lot of the people that I work with. I do a lot of this tour that I’m on, this new show that I’ve started, that I’m shooting right now. This is a 22 city show, and I mean, I’m going all around the country and I’ve, I’m finding when you create a space for people, when you are that qualified [00:29:00] person, yeah, you create a space that people want to come to and they just want to dump, right? And, and of course you do because this stuff has been deteriorating your soul, right? It’s like eating at you and you want to say it so bad. This is why we find we have so many problems in our neck and our shoulders because those internal wounds, that internal damage is trying to come through here. This is your pipeline to healing and it’s trying to come out and it gets here and it gets blocked. And it gets stuffed down and you don’t talk about it. So this has to have somewhere to go. And if it doesn’t come out, it’s gonna stay in and it’s gonna turn into problems. The body’s gonna keep the score, it’s gonna turn into back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain. It’s gonna turn into arthritis, it’s gonna turn into cancer, it’s gonna turn into diabetes. It’s, it’s going to break your body down because the body was not designed to hold that toxicity. Yeah. It’s trying to push it out. And this is your mechanism to get it out. And so when I [00:30:00] create that space, that’s the one thing that they’re saying is I just feel so comfortable. And I, I had a three and a half hour session with a lady yesterday that I met three days ago, and she’s like, I just feel so emotionally safe and comfortable, and I don’t know why I don’t I don’t know you. And she tells me things. She’s never told anybody else about her life, her husband, her parents, her family. Her therapist, she goes to a therapist and she’s never told her therapist. Gissele: Yeah. Sonny: And, and it’s because of that relatability, knowing that I’ve been through that, I don’t have a degree in anything except survival. Right. Gissele: And actually that’s a pretty good degree. ’cause if you think about all of the adversity that you have faced to be able to get to the other side of it, it’s like you’re a beacon for other people. So that they’re like, look, people have experienced some horrible things. There’s a lot of trauma in the [00:31:00] world was, and it’s sort of like the amount of trauma that you are able to overcome and get to the other side and say, I am willing to love, I’m willing to have compassion. I’m willing to get curious is extraordinary. ’cause again, there’s nothing in a book you can’t like read about that. It’s the walking through the path. And I think it gives people hope that they can walk through a path as challenging as yours and get to the other side. And get to the other side. You absolutely can. Yeah. Sonny: Yeah. Absolutely. That’s, that’s the primary thing that I’m teaching people, right? Like, I don’t have any superpowers. I don’t have any magical gifts that nobody else has. I don’t, I, I survived, right? And I chose, yeah. To use this, I chose to stop letting it all sit here and just say it be, and, [00:32:00] you know, it’s, it’s the no f given concept, right? Which is, it’s a bit brash, but at the end of the day, when you learn to stop giving an f what anybody thinks, it’s freedom. If you don’t believe my story, awesome. Don’t watch it. Mm-hmm. Go somewhere. I don’t care if you don’t believe me. Yeah. I’m, if you think it’s exaggerated, I don’t care. On the same token, if you think it’s great and all that, I don’t care either take it. Yeah. Enjoy it. If my life can be a template, can be a lesson for somebody to heal, it’s so worth it. And I’m not, at the end of the day, it’s very selfish. Right. Like, I don’t, I’m not doing this so that you can be healed. I’d be doing it because the more I do it, the more I heal. Right? Yeah. And I, I feel whole and healed in, in my mind, [00:33:00] but I still cry. Right? I still have emotion. Yeah. I still find things out. You know, 10 days ago I found out my, that my mother actually trafficked me my whole life. Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I could, am I gonna allow that to debilitate me? Am I gonna allow, gonna allow that to, to I’m gonna curl up and suck my thumb and be like, uh, my mother, I was trafficked as a child. I, well, what does that do to me now? I’m not trafficked. Now, that gives me more power, is what it does. It, it puts me in a position where I can now talk to the trafficking victims that I work with and say, I get that. I, wow, I get that. And look, it doesn’t have to destroy you, right? Yeah. And as much as people don’t like to hear it, that’s a choice. Right? None of us choose to be a victim. Every single one of us choose to remain victims. Yeah. That’s our choice, right? Mm-hmm. What happens to us is not easy. It’s not easy to talk about. It’s not easy to say, but fear is your [00:34:00] number one regressor if you learn to stand up, if speak. Anyway. That’s where your freedom is. On the other side of that pain is greatness. Every single time stand up and just speak. I don’t care who hears it, I don’t care who believes it, I don’t care who doesn’t believe it. I’m gonna say it anyway. I’m gonna keep saying it until it doesn’t hurt anymore. And that is healing. Gissele: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. What’s your mentor story? Because he was also in the prison system and he was able to sort of find that compassion, love himself, like, Sonny: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know much like we didn’t go through his life. We had some casual conversations where we just sat and talked about sports and football in the world and life and religion and, um, but. He was kind of a pretty private guy. he was in prison for murder. He’d been in prison since 1983 I think it was, or [00:35:00] 84. And he is doing natural life. ’cause that’s a thing in the United States. They give you natural life, which, you know that then you just become a nonstop debit card for the government. Yeah. And so he is doing just natural life and he’s very ingratiated into his faith, mm-hmm. Into the particular sect of faith that he’s a part of. which is why we weren’t, we couldn’t be friends. And it was never about friendship. It was never about religion. It was just. A space in time where I have this certain knowledge that I’ve gained over my 30 years in prison. And I’m gonna dump it on you because I see that you’re a very angry young man, and if it helps you, maybe you go help the world. And that’s a bit of a legacy for me, even if I never see it and I, and I never know it, here’s some way that I can give back to the world in my own way. And it’s something that I strive to do by honoring the memory and the lessons that he taught me. Like [00:36:00] I don’t think that he deliberately sat out to teach me a lesson or become my mentor. I think he just saw somebody in a position that needed that guidance and decided to give it. Right. I didn’t use his real name in the book because I’m not, gonna put that man in a position to. To be found out and they, they mean it wouldn’t end well for him, right? They’re gonna be like, why did you help that white boy? Did you see what you did for that kid’s life? Like, and, you know, something bad could happen to him, so I wouldn’t put him in that position. Right? Gissele: Yeah. Sonny: and again, for sure, a lot of people are like, well, we wanna find him, blah, blah, blah. No, I’m not gonna let that happen because you don’t care about his life. You want the story. And when you do that, you’ll then put that man on display and somebody could harm that dude for what he’s done. Yeah. I will protect that dude until I’m, and I don’t care if you don’t believe me, I don’t care. Gissele: Mm. Yeah. Sonny: You’re not gonna find him. I’m not gonna let you know who [00:37:00] he is. Right. Yeah. So good luck with that. Right. I’m not doing it for your belief. I’m doing it for my own mental health and processing to get it out. And if by that process it helps people, awesome. I’m all about it. I’m here for it. Right? Mm-hmm. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Mm. Can we talk a little bit about forgiveness? Sonny: Of course. It’s my favorite subject. Gissele: That’s good. ’cause based on your extraordinary story, it can feel hard to forgive. Have you found that place of forgiveness for yourself and for the people that harmed you? Sonny: Of course. And it started with forgiving myself first. Right? I think forgiveness is the absolute secret sauce to everything in the world, right? It’s just, it’s the secret to regaining love, compassion, empathy, and it, it starts with forgiving [00:38:00] yourself, realizing that I’m a human being. I don’t have a rule book on how to navigate life, and it’s all of its complexities. I don’t, I, nobody does. Nobody gets a guidebook. What we get are parents, and parents had the same thing we did. They didn’t get a guidebook either. They got parents. And all of those parents take the experiences that they have had in life and determine, in their opinion, what is the best way to navigate through life. And then they give that opinion to their children. And they call it tradition, or they call it morality, or they call it, you know. This is how the world works. And somebody at some point wrote it down in a book and said it was divinely inspired and now we have God. And so we now get all of our rules from God that was put in a book by somebody who had an opinion about how life should be lived. [00:39:00] And so that’s how these traditions become a thing. Mm-hmm. And when you realize that, when you reverse engineer that process and realize that religion as a whole, and I, and I don’t mean to bag on religion, but all religions and faiths are the opinions of human beings that thought this was the best way to live life. And there’s no actual factual evidence that that was divinely inspired. We think that it was divinely inspired because that’s what the person wrote in the book and said it was divinely inspired. And so we’re like, oh yeah, it must have been, nobody has a guidebook on how to do this. It’s experiential. And so based on that philosophy. You are going to make mistakes, right? You’re going to do things that are going to hurt yourself. They’re gonna hurt other people. And you’re going to learn from those, yeah, Gissele: those Sonny: processes, right? You’re going to, sometimes they’re gonna hurt, sometimes they’re gonna be happy, sometimes they’re gonna feel good. And you’re gonna put those down in the [00:40:00] memory bank as, yeah, let’s keep doing that. ’cause I like that. Let’s don’t do that ’cause I don’t like that. And here’s a new experience. I’m gonna try that. And sometimes those, the ramifications of those experiential moments are pain and it hurts somebody, right? Or it hurts yourself. And recognizing that I’m a fallible human that doesn’t have all the answers, even when I’m just a little kid. Even now to this day, we’re not done screwing up. Right? We still got a whole lot of life to live. I’m still gonna make mistakes. Yeah. For knowing that. I can let that go. Let me forgive myself because you didn’t have a guidebook and, and on top of it, let’s throw a whole bunch of trauma in there. Yeah. You know, you did the best you could with what you had. And when I see that for myself, it puts me in a position where I’m able to then look at the my victimizers and say, ah, they didn’t have a book either, did [00:41:00] they? Yeah. Right. Something happened to them somewhere in their life that put them on a trajectory of abuse and victimization. Right. And that’s the path that they chose to walk, to reconcile the experience that they’re having in their life. And they don’t know how to deal with it. And it’s not a justification for pedophilia or abuse or victimizing people, but it puts me in a position where I can just have that much empathy for them. And that opens up a world of, of magical forgiveness because I can forgive that part. I can see that you are once a little child that had your worldview broken because you started off in love. All of us do. Every one of us, you look at a baby, it’s just love. It’s all it exudes is happiness and belly [00:42:00] laughs and it’s a baby. And at some point it’s broken. Even Hitler was a baby at one point, right? Gissele: Yeah. Sonny: And, and when you look at that, you’re able to humanize the monster. You’re able to, to look at that and say, you know what? What you did is reprehensible. It’s inexcusable. It’s unjustifiable, but I forgive you. I forgive you, not because it gives you a pass, but it releases me. It lets me get out from the cloud of victimization and hurt and pain that I’ve been stuck under by your actions. And I can breathe. I don’t have you in my, wall anymore of people that did me wrong. I’m gonna keep you here. And this is a visual reminder of the pain and trauma that I’ve been through. I can now take that picture down, throw it out, and when I look up, I just see a beautiful mural on my wall of happiness and, and let it go. Right? and so that’s my take on forgiveness. Gissele: Yeah. I also find it unhooks you from [00:43:00] that, from the relationship, right? in order for you to have a perpetrator, you have to have a victim, right? Like, you can’t have one without the other. And so it sort of unhooks you from the story. It’s like, I don’t need this to define me anymore. 100%. The other thing as well as, as I was listening to you, you talked about the importance of community understanding why people abuse, and I think about this a lot. Like why do people do the things that they do? You know, why would you wanna hurt a child? Why do you need to do that? And it makes me think about the more we understand why people behave a certain way, the more that we can then address it. What I mean is if you are being raised by parents that are not able to, because they don’t have the book or the information to know how to navigate and they’re just navigating from their trauma. If we can incorporate into [00:44:00] this life different points where people get curious, why is a 7-year-old. Like acting out aggressively and as a community coming together, wrapping around that 7-year-old help that 7-year-old maybe even help the parents maybe together or separately. Maybe they can’t live together in that moment, but maybe help that parent so that they can stop the trauma and help stop hurting someone else and help that 7-year-old.  we have to change, we have to care about other children as our children, we have to care about other people as brothers and sisters. And I think that’s goes back to again, your point of individuality. That’s sort of been conditioned Out of us. Sonny: Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Um, Gissele: so what might help us get back to that connection, get back to that so that then we can stop this cycle? ’cause if we stop caring about one [00:45:00] another, we’re only gonna end up in a world where we are negatively impacted because we’re interconnected. Sonny: You know, I, I mean, if I’m being honest, I don’t know that I, I mean, it sounds so nihilistic, but I don’t know that there is a comeback. I, I don’t, I think self-destruction is imminent. Right? Like it’s, Gissele: do you? Sonny: Because it’s gonna take a global mindset. It’s gonna take one powerful leader, it’s gonna start with a person. Some someone’s voice has to be elevated enough where everyone hears it and says. Yeah, no, I guess that’s the answer. The problem is greed, right? greed is such a dominant force in the world that we live in. Most people that that grow up are, again, they’re seeking this [00:46:00] materialistic level of advancement and they won’t, especially in the United States, are working to hit that level. And once they hit that level, it changes them fundamentally, they don’t care about anybody else anymore. Right? I made my first million. Now I want 500 of ’em. Mm-hmm. Instead of getting to this million dollar threshold, which it’s not just the individual’s fault, right. We also live in a government that perpetually increases the cost of living so that a million dollars doesn’t even do anything anymore. Like it, it doesn’t even buy you a an apartment where I live. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. Right? Yeah. Sonny: But once they get to a position of wealth, it, they don’t automatically fall into a mindset of, great, let me help everybody else around me get here. They just go into a, I need more phase. Right. Where like, oh, I got wealthy. Let me get mega wealthy. And [00:47:00] then when they get mega wealthy, now let me get ultra wealthy. And they get ultra wealthy and they’re like, Ooh, maybe I can crack the top 50. And then they get lost in this, this competitive. Building of wealth and they lose or if they ever had their compassion for humanity to try to, to build that. And so the only person that’s really gonna start raising their voice to help that change are people like you and I. Right? Mm-hmm. That we’re not wealthy. Mm-hmm. And then all the wealthy people look at that and they be like, oh, of course you want everybody to change and be nicer because you don’t have anything. You poor, poor person. And so as more Gissele: wealthy Yeah, I’ll say we’re wealthy and, and, and it’s something that is way more meaningful. Yeah. Sonny: I’m rich. I’m so rich. Yeah. I always say I am wealthy af and broke as hell. Right? Like, I don’t have monetary thing. I mean, and I do. I mean, I’m not, I’m not [00:48:00] by any means I’m not living in poverty, but I’m not wealthy. But I am so wealthy, right? Like, I have beautiful friends, beautiful families. I got a dog that I worship. I have the love of my life in my life, and I couldn’t ask for a better life, right? I’m so happy with it, which, and this is the mindset that’s needed to make the change that we’re talking about. One, you get wealthy, you then want to help heal the world, which is what I do. I’m on a mission now. I said, what do I do now? You know, I own several businesses. My wife and we’re entrepreneurs. We have, you know, several streams of income in multiple businesses. And what do I do now? I want to heal. I want to help people heal. You know what? Let, I’m gonna get in my car and just drive around the country and go have conversations with people to heal, help ’em heal. That’s what you do. That’s the mindset it’s gonna take to reverse the problem that’s been created, right? when [00:49:00] people hit a, a level of financial freedom. Go show the world how you got there. Go help people. Right. Just go out there and give, give it away. The more you give it away, the more they’re gonna buy it anyway. Right? Yeah. And go. And I’ve come to find that in just the 15, 16 days that I’ve been on this tour so far already, here comes the blessings, right? The universe is providing, I don’t want, I didn’t have to spend $2,000 for a hotel. I get to stay in a massively beautiful home in such a beautiful part of this country. Like, Gissele: yeah, Sonny: for free, like the universe provides when you live in your purpose, like when you, you live for something better. And that’s the mentality it’s going to take to change this ridiculously self-centered world that we’re living in. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s interesting that you mentioned that because, I saw this TED talk, which is like how to start a movement. And so they were talking about, have you seen it? [00:50:00] It’s like this. I don’t think so. This, this one guy dancing at a festival, right? Like it’s a single guy dancing at a festival. And they said, you know, leaders tend to be just lone nuts until somebody follows them. And then there was another guy who starts following that guy and then everyone else starts following that guy. And then before you know it, everyone’s dancing at the festival. And what this TEDx speaker was trying to to show is that leaders are nobody except for their followers, right? People follow the followers. They don’t follow the leaders, right? Facts. And so when you think about people’s money made those people billionaires, 10 million people followed Hitler. So I think when people start realizing that they have more power, they’re giving away their power, they’re making these people. And the power that enabled these people to be billionaires is the same power that Will would make them broke. Yeah, it’s [00:51:00] they withdrawal of that. And I think when people start realizing that they are the ones with the power and I think that’s where you are showing them. If you could overcome such adversity, like all of the things you have faced, and still find compassion and love for humanity. Ooh. I think people that that have, yeah. Like a daily adversities can get to that point, Sonny. Right. Sonny: I think, I think people started to realize the philosophy that you’re talking about and then the effects of the national mentality kick in and that’s where cancel culture came from. Right. So, Gissele: well I have kind of an interesting perspective on cancel culture. Well, Sonny: so cancel culture. Yeah. They determined that we have the power. People are only famous [00:52:00] because we follow them. They’re only famous because we support them. And Yeah. And people only have that celebrity status because of us. And we can take that away just as much as we can build it if we band together united under the same cause. And then you saw this wave of cancel culture. Sweep through and destroy lives. Yeah. Destroy top legendary celebrities. You’ve gotten historical cartoon characters and figures removed from the pages of history. Mm-hmm. They saw, they began to see their power. And that’s the point when they, when they, when people realize that this power exists. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Sonny: That’s just the beginning. Right. That’s, the self-centered mindset that we’re raised with takes over. And then if they would’ve done cancel culture from the point of, instead of eradicating them from the books of history, let’s shower them with love and [00:53:00] show them what what they did wrong and help them heal. You would’ve healed the world. You, that cancel culture movement could have become the world peace that everybody’s been talking about since the dawning of time. Yeah. If you had it, you were that close. Gissele: Yeah. But, but I still think we can do it. I’ll tell you why. Yeah. Sonny: People are just in, I think the reason why was drama, Gissele: right? So I think the reason why cancel culture sort of evolved the way that it did is because people can’t emotionally regulate enough to hear opposing discourse. I see it in my students. so I’m a professor at a university and I’m supposed to teach them critical thinking, like critical appraisal, critical thinking. Okay, sure, sure. So my students, by the time they get to me, they’ve been so conditioned in the education system to passively accept information. [00:54:00] They’re not taught both sides of the equation. They’re not taught well, this, this was a war, this was their perspective, this was their perspective. And so they’ve taught that there is just one way and, and they don’t have the emotional girth. Like they don’t have the ability to hold space for their difficult feelings enough to engage in difficult conversations. So there’s an immediate rejection. There’s an immediate like parachute pole because as soon as they start to feel uncomfortable, ’cause think about it as like as children. I was not thought that my emotions were all welcome and that I was okay to have difficult feelings. I was only supposed to express happiness. I was only supposed to express quietness. I was not supposed to even have a voice. And so I learned that my emotions and especially difficult emotions were not welcome. My parents didn’t have the emotional girth to hold [00:55:00] space for me, and so I needed to change so that they could feel okay.  but one of the things I’ve learned about in, in finding compassion for myself in holding space for those difficult feelings, I can listen to the perspective of other extreme people not be sunk by it and actually engage in conversation. So I think that the cancel culture has to do with like what you’re talking about, which is like that individuality and the inability. To hold those difficult emotions enough to be able to stay in dialogue. And I think that’s where sort of you’ve gained mastery because going through that other side, it’s nothing but difficult emotions. All of the things you live through thi through solitary confinement. Like that’s, you’ve gained mastery in difficult promotions.  they Sonny: say that it’s 10,000 hours to master something, right? Gissele: Yeah.  And it was way more than [00:56:00] 10,000 hours of just wallowing in my own trauma to figure it out. Sonny: So yeah. I’ve kind of mastered Gissele: Yeah. Sonny: Emotional regulation, right? I didn’t, I couldn’t leave. I didn’t have a choice. So I went through the depression, I went through the suicidal ideations. I went through the screaming and crying and feeling sorry for myself to the hateful all in a box. And there’s nowhere to go. And so when the demons can’t escape, you gotta face them. And I love saying nobody ever goes to rock bottom twice. Right. There’s, if rock bottom has become a catchphrase and a click phrase that people use. Gissele: Mm-hmm. You’ve Sonny: never been there twice. Right. When you go to rock bottom, you either kill yourself or change your life. And that feeling of where you were. Will compel you. You’re never, I’m never going to feel that again. Ever. Yeah. So my [00:57:00] whole life and worldview is different now. Gissele: Yeah. Sonny: That’s what rock bottom does to you. So if you are someone that’s still in a phase where it’s like, oh, I was just at rock bottom, I’m trying to figure it out. You weren’t a rock bottom, my man. ’cause it’s a very clear and decisive line there. I’m either going to end it or change it. And unfortunately we see more than 500,000 men a year that just choose to end it. Gissele: Yeah. Sonny: Right. And if we can change that number, that’s one dude a minute. You and I have been on this call for an hour and three minutes now. That is how many men that is, that 63 men have killed themselves since we started this conversation. Yeah. It’s horrible, right? Yeah. And, it’s because they don’t feel safe to just speak. And I’m telling you that you don’t have to feel safe, right? Just speak, put your camera down, set your phone on, and just dump it to the world and [00:58:00] say, you know what? I’m not talking to humans. I’m talking to this camera. Yeah. And just dump it out and just hit that button, right. Face that fear. Do it anyway. Just don’t give up. Who’s gonna see it? And just do it. And it’s the most liberating thing you’ll ever do in your life. Right? And the best part is that somebody’s gonna send you a message and say. Wow. That was inspiring. Thank you. Mm-hmm. I want to do that too. And then they’re gonna go do it and you start this butterfly effect of healing. Gissele: Yeah. Sonny: Right. And yeah. Somebody’s gonna come in and be like, oh, which guy was your favorite? Oh, you must be gay. That’s why that happened. Oh, you’re lying. That didn’t happen. Oh, you’re exaggerated. No one arrests a 7-year-old. I don’t care. Yeah. ’cause I can show you one message from one person that came in and said I was gonna kill myself. And I saw your video. Gissele: Yeah. Sonny: And that message dominates every other comment that any of you could ever put out there that it [00:59:00] makes, that’s negative or that tries to affect me or hurt me. Gissele: Yeah. I did wanna share this with you. So I’m working on a documentary of people that I had interviewed that had chosen to like, love their enemy and, you know what I mean? Like, people that have not only Yeah. Like forgiven, but also said, you know, I’m gonna help you. Sure. That is tends to be the reaction, even from their closest people. It’s either gurus like, oh, you must be so special and extraordinary. Which is why I love what you said earlier. They’re like, you’re like, I don’t have any special sauce. I just want you to do, do this for yourself. Yeah. And the other one is that you’re a liar. There’s no way you forgave this person. There’s no way that you did this. There’s no way that, because I think people can’t cope with the truth. I think it’s so hard for some people to believe because then they have to make a choice. Then they’re responsible. Then they have to say, I am choosing. Right. And [01:00:00] I think that’s what your life so beautifully illustrates. You’ve spoken about choice several times. I had to choose to change my lens. I couldn’t change the circumstances, but I could change how I reacted. Sonny: it’s the primary teaching principle that I use. Right? Like, everything is literally a choice. You’re living the life that you want. I don’t wanna live here. I don’t wanna do this. Well, where would you want I, I had that session with that same woman. Where do you want to live? I wanna live on the ocean. But where do you live? I live here with my husband and my kids. Well, that’s what you want. Do you wanna live here in a miserable existence with your husband and your kids in a life that you don’t want? ’cause you feel subjugated. That’s what you want. I don’t want that. Then why are you doing it? Gissele: I know. Sonny: Well, because I, I, I don’t have anything. So what happens if you leave? What? Oh, I’d be broke. people would be mad at me. Everybody would hate me. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what would you have [01:01:00] the ocean? Right? That’s what you want. And you, yeah. So it’s not a fact that you can’t do it. It’s a fact that you want to please everybody else and, and not please yourself. And so you have the life that you want, right? Yeah. If you really wanted the ocean, your ass would be at the ocean. Gissele: Right? Exactly. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Sonny: So you, you clearly don’t want the ocean that much. You’re just captivated by the fear of somebody else’s opinion. It’s not you. It’s somebody else’s opinion. Right. Your husband’s opinion, your kid’s opinion, your mom’s opinion. If I could tell you how many people in this world are being held captive to their past because their mother’s alive, you’d be like, oh, I can’t tell my story. My mom, if she heard that, it would kill her. Well, where was your mom when that was happening?[01:02:00] Right? Yeah. So you care more about protecting your mom’s reaction to your truth and your trauma than she did about helping you prevent that trauma or work through that trauma. Mm. Gissele: Live the life Sonny: you want, identify what you want and stop caring what anybody else wants. Gissele: Do you? Sonny: Yeah. Because you doing that is going to be the most inspirational thing for anybody that watches you. Gissele: Yeah. Right? Yeah. Well, Sonny: if you’re a very miserable person, that’s what people see and that’s what people watch. No matter how much you’re like, I’m a good person. I volunteer here, I do this, I do that, but oh my life. Oh, I wish I had this, I wish I had this. I, you’re just literally showing people, here’s somebody that’s unhappy with what they have and wishes they had something else. And then you’re just teaching anybody that’s actually watching you and inspired by you to live small. And when you finally take that leap and you go out and you do it, yes, all these people might be angry, [01:03:00] some people aren’t gonna like it because you’re holding up a mirror to what they’re afraid to do. What, when you do go do it, the other people are gonna be like, oh my God, she did it. Go live the life of your dreams. You are worth it. Gissele: Beautiful. I was thinking about as you were speaking, I think there is a fear of authenticity, right? Because the majority of people are living the lives they think they should live. I should want that house, or I should want this marriage, or I should want that. And so when authentic people come out and say, just be authentically yourself, they’re like, well, how should I do that?  They get comfortable Sonny: living vicariously thanks to the internet. So they’re like, oh, I don’t have to go do it. I’ll just watch Sonny do it. Oh, he’s so lucky. Oh, he is so lucky. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. What a lucky man. You’re so blessed. You’re so lucky. Oh. Yeah. You know how much I had [01:04:00] to go through to get this. Yeah. Yeah. Lucky. Come on. Yeah. Come on. I, I think I got a lottery ticket over here for you. Gissele: Thank you for mentioning that because it takes an extraordinary amount of courage to live authentically, to face your demons, to face your story and still be willing to love and have compassion in the end. And so I think people don’t understand just how courageous, which is why the majority of people don’t do it because it’s so uncomfortable. Yeah. Sonny: It’s just the first step, right? Yeah. ’cause once you dip your toe in that water, it’s the most liberating thing in the world, right? Like, I cannot go back. Right? Yeah. You wanna talk about high Chasing a high. Like there’s no drug on earth that has ever, I’ve dabbled in a few, there’s no drug on [01:05:00] earth that’s ever given me the feeling that I have every day when I just wake up and I get smacked by the world in the face and breathe in that fresh air. Like, ah, the gratitude for having a nose to smell, having a, the ability to feel that wind on my face, having feet that allow me to walk outside. I have, uh, it, it brings me to tears. Like I’m so grateful because. I, I have it. There’s some people that don’t have arms, they don’t have legs, they don’t have feet. They, they can’t smell. they don’t get to partake in the beautiful existence. That’s called life. And it’s so sad for those of us that do have it, and you just neglect it. ’cause you’re so worried about the car you drive or the house you live in, or the clothes you’re wearing. What the next person next door is gonna think of you. Even though that person doesn’t partake in your life, that person’s not in your bed. That person’s not in your [01:06:00] house. They don’t eat at your table. They don’t even know your name. And you’re more worried about what they think about you. Yeah. Than going outside and enjoying that fresh breath of, of air and wind. And I’m captivated by the beauty of the existence of the world. Right. Like and Gissele: mm-hmm. Sonny: I’m so grateful for it. Every day I just wake up in gratitude. I spend my day in gratitude. That’s the secret key, right? That’s it’s, Gissele: yeah. Sonny: Yeah. And it sucks because I think it’s experiential, right? Like I had to go through everything that I went through in my life to be able to be in the position that I am, and I’m doing my best to try to give that perspective to people so you don’t have to Gissele: Yeah. Sonny: Like you, you, and you really don’t. You’re probably going to, because that’s the human nature, is to learn things through experience. But somebody somewhere might listen and be like, oh no, I don’t actually have [01:07:00] to go through all that. I can stop suffering and actually just go live that. And yeah, there you go. My guy. If I could just give that to one person, awesome. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sonny: Most of us are very stubborn and we’re just gonna have to learn through loss, right? Gissele: Yeah. Fair enough. So, um, final two. what’s your definition of love? Sonny: Oof. That’s the first time I’ve been asked that. I think my definition of love is how I make someone leave an interaction with me. Gissele: Hmm. Sonny: Like, what kind of memory do they take away? I, I want everybody that ever has an interaction with me to walk away feeling better or feeling. Hopeful. Mm-hmm. Or feeling inspired knowing that they’re seen and that they matter. I, and I think love is providing that for people. I think love is [01:08:00] showing people they exist. It’s like seeing you, right? Mm-hmm. Like mm-hmm. Gissele: I Sonny: don’t care if you’re wearing a $5,000 suit or if you’re wearing a $5 pair of shoes and you’re piss poor homeless on the street. I see you, right? Yeah. Like, your life is worth, Gissele: yeah. Sonny: Your life is worthy, right? You’re worth, Gissele: mm-hmm. Sonny: Existing. You’re the only version of you that is on this planet, and you deserve to be here, right? Like you didn’t ask for your drama, you didn’t ask for your pain, and this beautiful thing that we live in, this one experience that we get, you deserve to partake in it. Gissele: Yeah. Oh, Sonny: right. Gissele: Good response. And I think that’s, Sonny: I think that’s love, right? Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Ooh. Um, so where can people find [01:09:00] you? What are your links? Where can they find your book? Please share anything that you wanna promote, Sonny: including your, you can just Google, Sonny, Yvonne Cleveland. Oh, that’s the best way to get to it, right? Look, we don’t, okay. We done got the tears right. And I love the tears. Right? The tears let you know that you’re alive. Yeah, that’s love, right? Yeah. That’s love, like, yeah. Feeling compassion, feeling for people. Yeah. But yeah, just best way is to, I have a link tree, like on my Instagram or if you go to https://sonnyvoncleveland.com, you can find information there. Just, just hop on Google and Sonny von Cleveland, you’re gonna find it. Gissele: Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. And thank you everyone for joining us for another episode of Love and Compassion with Gissele. Bye. Sonny: Thank you so much. Thank you.

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re gonna be talking about compassion in the workplace, can we work more humanely. And our guest today is Dr. Bruno Rocky, Cigna, who is an international business consultant, TEDx speaker and researcher for over 30 years, he has advised and trained hundreds of companies on international trade activities and international marketing. He also trains companies on topics related to compassionate business and human oriented leadership. He’s a university professor and a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the uk. He’s also author of the Business and Personal Development books published in various languages. The second edition of his [00:01:00] new book, the Art of Compassionate Business, is available now  Please join me in welcoming Bruno. Hi Bruno. Hello Gissele. How are you? Gissele: I’m good about yourself. All the way from the uk. It must be late over there, right? It’s Bruno: a bit late. Thank you very much for your invite. I feel very honored to be here. Thank you. Gissele: Yes, thank you. I’m so excited to chat. Because the state of the economy and the state of business, I feel is a little bit in disarray. Before we get started on that, can you tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work? Bruno: Yeah. Thank you for the question. Yes. I started with this work more than three decades ago. I started as a consultant as an accountant at the beginning, and then as a consultant on international marketing and advise companies on, for example, international negotiation, international marketing strategy, international partnerships and international logistics. And I have done this for a few decades, and [00:02:00] then I started over the last five, six years, I started working on a specific topic that is a non-traditional topic in business that is compassionate business. I started advising and training companies on how to become much more human oriented. This mean caring for different stakeholders such as employee, customer, community, member supplies, but also. Being more profitable. So this mean that being profitable is not incompatible with being human oriented. And this gave me a lot of satisfaction because I observe that companies switch from a traditional model of being profit oriented to a much more much wider model, which include not only profit, but include people and the planet. Gissele: Yeah, I love that you said that because people think it has to be a zero sum game, like one or the other. Right. Profit over people or people over profits. What you’re proposing is that you can do both. Right. So what did you observe that made you think that [00:03:00] compassion was the way. Bruno: I started researching on this, and at the beginning I read an article that intrigued me a lot and was an article about the human moment at work that, uh, this article talk about, not about the strategies or tactics in business, but they talk about the importance of building a strong relationship with different stakeholders, for example, in the workplace. Among colleagues, but also with other stakeholders, but also connecting to others in a much deeper way. This mean developing a much more uh, profound connection with others, which include mental and emotional aspect and try to build rapport with them. And this is important for business. And when I start researching on this for a few years, I observed that there is a lot of scientific papers, uh, scientific studies on the importance of being kind, the importance of being supportive in the workplace and with a lot of concrete benefits. It’s not only been nice [00:04:00] to colleagues, being nice to customer, but for example, I remember that I saw a paper that then I included in my book, the Compassionate Piece that was about how to develop a much kinder and loving workplace. And according to this research study that was conducted and many companies were interviewed. When companies are kind, when they develop a kinder workplace, what they call a psychologically safe workplace, these company tend to have higher employee satisfaction, higher customer satisfaction. Why? Because employees that feel supported, they feel taken care of, tend to serve customer in a much more effective way, but also lower stress levels and lower absenteeism and lower turnover, which impact positively on the bottom line. So this mean that being kind to people, developing strong bonds with others, developing what we call mutually beneficial [00:05:00] relationship with others, long-term relationship, sustainable relationship with others. These bring about concrete economic benefit It’s not only that people relate to one another in a much better way, but also this bring about. Higher profit, higher market share, high productivity, high creativity, less stress, less turnover, less absentism, more employee commitment, more employee at faction. So countless benefit that I can cite now, but this is only an example of one of the studies I mentioned in my book. And so, and this bring about a lot of hope because what I observe that the majority of the companies act in the opposite way. In a counterintuitive way. Why? Because they think no, what is important in business is about profit. We are here to get profit and that’s it. We’re not here to be kind to people, but we have to understand that businesses rely on people. The most important [00:06:00] factor in business is not funds, it’s not technology, it’s not artificial intelligence, but it’s people because they are the bigger resource, the higher resource. It’s a resource that generate other resources, resource that generate. Business models, new product, new services, new technology, if we don’t care for people. No business will survive. So we are relying on people. Business is a business because it relying on people is cannot succeed without people up to now at least. Gissele: so you raised some really, really important things that I, I wanted to point out the first one. You know, as a former director of hr, I used to have a number of departments and HR was one of them. The amount of turnover and stress and having to hire or gap or have to pay for people’s leaves was a huge financial drain. Absolutely huge. So what you’re talking about is important for [00:07:00] businesses. The second thing that I think is probably more important and more fundamental is the myth of the self-made man. We have this myth in North America, in all of these sort of like capitalistic countries that believe that a person is sort of self-made or look at this particular business person. What they’re not counting on is the fact that all businesses rely on people to run them. Without the people, you have nothing. You have no one like you, you can’t have businesses, and so people burn their staff out. There’s a flip side to that, Bruno, which is people choose to stay in those workplaces out of fear. I was one of them. I had an experience at work, which was fairly, fairly bad, and people would leave, right, left or center because it was so horrible. But I didn’t wanna leave the job because I was afraid that I wouldn’t get something better, or maybe that’s what I thought I [00:08:00] was worthy. How can people start to understand their own value as well? Kind of shift away from that whole concept of the self-made man. Bruno: Very interesting. First off, I want to address the topic of fear because it’s a very important topic, and then we will go to the topic of interdependence. Fear. When we assist company, when we’re advising companies and consulting with companies and providing with some training or advisory services, the first thing that we try to detect in those companies. Are there any pockets of fear in that company because they’re different type of fear. For example, most of the employees in companies, traditional company, will have one of these type of fears, fear of being fired, fear of making mistakes, fear of being outpaced by colleagues, fear of rocking the boat, for example, make non-traditional, uh, offers or proposal or ideas, so against the group, think so, and this fear it, it pervade most of the workplaces in, not only in the UK and the us, but worldwide [00:09:00] and will be upset according to a certain, when people are fearful, they cannot be productive because they’re in a defensive mode. They cannot be creative. Why? Because they try to survive. They try to protect themselves from others. So this mean that fear temporarily impair the most important resource in a company. Employees, eh? This is impairing the, the mental skills, the, the mental capabilities. And so this mean that this employee that is fear would tend to be less productive, less effective, less efficient. So it is, uh, counterproductive for the company to have fearful employees. But fear is utilized many companies as a form of control. This mean that, okay, they keep you fearful because they tell you, if you don’t do this, you will be penalized. Or if you don’t meet the deadline, you will penalize or you will be fired. Fear is a form of control, but many employees they have enough from fear and so they try to look for other job opportunities. So this is a thing that I wanted to mention, but the, going to the next point [00:10:00] and then I will connect with fear is interdependency or interdependency is the most important principle in business and in life. No company can rely on themselves. Even the, the biggest, the most, uh, thriving company cannot rely because in practice there are areas of specialism. There are different specialists in different areas. They’re also different organization. For example, supply that might be specialized in raw material or the transport company specialize in delivery of goods. So companies belong to a network outside the company of different partners, suppliers, retailer, and so on. The, the company have to rely on, these are what we call external stakeholder. And within the company you have different areas we call the partner or sections. That they have different areas of specialism. So this mean that within the company that is interdependent and outside the company center dependence. So if we’re dependent on people, wouldn’t it be nice to have all these people externally and [00:11:00] internally on our side? You cannot force them to be on your side, but you can persuade them in a much better way. When you build a strong, long lasting relationship with this stakeholder and this stakeholder, when you treat them well because of a very basic principle of social psychology, that is the principle of reciprocity. When you treat them well, they tend to treat you alike. When you, when you support them, they tend to support you. In return when you care for employees and you are grateful with employees, they tend to go the extra mile. Work in a much more unconditional way. Instead, when you penalize employee, when you exploit employees and you pay pennies for, uh, unlimited work, what you expect that this employee will contribute unconditionally, not this employee will feel dismissed and will look for other job opportunities. But also, there is another point that we want to introduce here. That is the topic of reputation company that treat [00:12:00] stakeholders in a very dismissive way and uncaring way has the worst, they have the worst reputation in the marketplace. Employees will write their reviews on Glassdoor platform and saying the worst thing about this company, pushing potential talented employees to enter this company. This company appear in the media with some scandals in some cases. For example, polluting the environment or taking advantage of supply. And this will push high quality investor. Away from investing on in these companies and also in think in some cases when the company have, they’re stock. In the stock chain market, you see the shares going down. It’s not a mystery. There is no mystery because the company has such bad reputation that the share naturally will go down. And this is o obviously harming the company itself, investor and all the other stakeholder. So this mean that companies that are not caring, they’re not [00:13:00] supportive with the stakeholder, they’re shooting on their foot because their reputation will suffer. Eh, they will have more absenteeism, they will have much more medical bills because of stress levels that are higher. They will have less creative human resources. Less productive human resources because employees that are fearful tend to be less productive, less creative. They will try not to rock the boat, not propose new ideas. And this company, sooner or later, a matter of time will be out of the market. So it’s very important that you mentioned this because fear is an instrument of control, but this, uh, double sided because can be used for control in a manipulative way by many companies, but also bring about a load of, uh, low productivity, low creativity, low efficiency. Yeah. And this affect the company’s result. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. Completely agree. Um. I wanted to share a thought with you just because I kind of had to reflect on my [00:14:00] own participation in terms of the current market. And what I mean by that is, you know, I really had to reflect like, why do certain companies pay people so cheaply?  like they move their companies out in in particular places. And the perspective is one of lack. But then I had to ask myself, am I willing to pay for living wages? Am I willing to pay a higher price? And that’s when I noticed how we have all sort of led to this world that we have now. My own lack, my desire to pay as cheaply as possible because I wanted my dollar to go further or I didn’t think I had enough, led me to seek out places that then paid their workers less moved operations somewhere else. Try to find as cheap as possible. And that actually is interesting. It’s sort of like you were talking about interdependence that’s sort of comes back to you, right? ’cause my husband has his own company. I remember sometimes he would get clients who just wanted to pay like pitance the lowest of the low. And I’m like, oh, these people, they don’t wanna [00:15:00] pay like what we’re worth and full price. And then I was like, wait a minute. I wanted to get the most out of my buck and not willing to pay what people are worth. But here and here I am. We are attracting people that feel the same way. That’s sort of like that interdependence. I was just curious as your thoughts in terms of how yes, yes, we have contributed to a world where we don’t no longer value people. Bruno: Very important, and this is what you told me, can be considered as an example to the extreme of dehumanization of employees. When you try to pay employees the minimum possible, trying to exploit them. This mean that you are focusing not on the human orientation of this, but you’re focusing only on economic aspect. This is a very limited, uh, approach on business. Why? Because you focus on what we call the quantitative aspect of business. What can be measured precisely like a profit market, share, productivity, sales. But this is, if you only focus on this, you might [00:16:00] go to the extreme means, exploiting employees, polluting environment, cutting down costs, and fighting, uh, loads of employees deceiving suppliers. And this is create a negative cycle, as you mentioned, of scarcity. However, company that have a, what I call a prosperity mindset or an abundance mindset, uh, bring about. Two more layers. Not only profit that are important on the quantity aspect, but they’re also what we call qualitative aspect. Caring for people, bringing about a safer workplace psychologically safe workplace, a kind of workplace bringing about long-term relations with supplies, not transactional approaches, but long-term relationship with supply, but with any other stakeholders, supporting communities supporting the environment and why this is so important because these two other factor people on the planet bring about a an equilibrium is we’re not biased toward the economic, because if were biased toward economic, we try to get the best, the [00:17:00] best of of the profit, the best of the market share. We don’t care about people. People are considered as a means to an end. We dehumanize people. So this mean that the employee is not an employee that is a flesh and bond human being with a family. Fears expectation, health problem, health issue. But we use them as a means to an end. This mean this employee is an instrument, a piece of the organizational machinery that will help us bring about profit. Customer are not human beings. They are figures in our database numbers that we can see, and we try to sell the most expensive product, the one that we get the highest commission. We don’t care about what they want. We try to push and we try to manipulate. We try to catch over them, tantalize them, and we don’t care for anyone. And so this mean that. Then sooner or later this will come back in a big, big counter effect. Why? Because. Customer will leave negative reviews, very negative reviews. When they feel deceive, when they feel utilized, employee that they [00:18:00] feel used, they feel exploited. Well, they might remain out of fear in that company for a while, but sooner or later they will leave and they will leave. Not very happy with lots of negative reviews in platform, for example, like glass door. And the same happened with other suppliers. So you see some companies, when you see some, uh, Trustpilot reviews or other type of platform for reviews that they have one star review and then you check. These companies are, uh, with this type of review because most customer complaining that have been exploited by this company, manipulated by this company, deceived by this company, the company promised and didn’t deliver. And this company said will be affected by this negative review from customer, from supplier, from employees and so on. And this will shrink the sales shrink the market share. This will bring about a negative effect. So this mean that company in the current era cannot get away with this negative behavior, maybe in the past, before social [00:19:00] media, before internet, but not any longer because everything is made public. And most of the news are sensationalistic they will focus on the negative. If there is any company with any scandal, they’ll pick, this company will put all over the place. Mm-hmm. And the company negotiate the, the reputation and negotiation with supplies in a negative way. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. And I think you’re so spot on. It’s the, the social media aspect has really brought to the surface some of the, human rights abuses, the lack of caring that happens. And it’s really, really interesting. I don’t think that companies that continue to use that same approach are gonna survive. And you see it, you see now people are voting with their wallets, right? Like they realize they have more power. What you were talking about in terms of clients being just dollar signs made me think a lot about how marketing companies would go out of their way. Since you, since you focus on marketing [00:20:00] to create needs that weren’t there, if you know what I’m saying? Yes. To create customers out of people rather than reminding them. How abundant they are and how beautiful they are. There’s constantly this creating of need of you’re not good enough, you’re not worthy buy our product, and then you will be better. And so inadvertently they’re hurting the clients that they want to have because they’re helping with a lower self-esteem.  but it’s that drive to want to sell and sell more. Yes. Do you see the future as us having the same level of consumerism? Yes. Or do you see a new way of marketing to people that is more humane? Bruno: Very good question. In the book I included and appended that is titled Marketing and Manipulation, and I mentioned many example of how companies manipulate customer. You mentioned few. For example portraying the ideal woman or the ideal man to aspire. [00:21:00] The perfect body, the perfect house, the perfect job, and these idealistic images that are portrayed by the media, especially advertising. Create an image that for most customers, it’s unachievable and create a lot of anxiety. Create also prompt customer to buy product. For example, uh, the man with the perfect body will buy product like vitamin, I mean supplement in some cases plastic surgery. They push them beyond their basic needs, and we bring about a cycle of consumerism, as you mentioned, that is obviously never ending and continual dissatisfaction because customer continually purchasing the new thrill, they will never get satisfied. But, uh, in many cases, customers that are becoming more conscious realize this negative cycle of continually buying the new thrill, the new model, the new iPhone. And in practice, they stop and reflect on this. There is a very small number of companies that are much more aware and about the, the trend [00:22:00] for consumerism, and they try to act in an opposite way. For example, I remember an advert of Patagonia that is a, an outside company that, eh, in one of these adverts said. Don’t buy this jacket. Do not buy this jacket. This mean that, do not buy this jacket if you don’t need an additional jacket. Why? Because they try to, uh, reduce the amount of goods, the article of clothing that customer buy in some cases needlessly. So in practice, uh, you observe company that tend to be much more conscious, uh, with their approaches on advertising. Try for example, to avoid stereotyping. You have some company like Dove the, the brand of cosmetic product that include, for example, when you see the, you see women of all shapes or ages and all races. This mean that they have an inclusive, approach on advertising. And this mean that there is not an ideal type of woman. All womens are ideal. [00:23:00] In their own nature. So this mean that, but these are deception. What I observed, that I’m specialized in international marketing, that marketing is still in most cases, have a manipulative approach because they try to obviously get the customer by something that. In many cases they don’t need, but companies in a small scale, they can use what I call a service approach. Because here we’re not to sell products to customer. I want to demystify this. Most companies believe that they’re in the marketplace to sell product and service. And you say, but Bruno, this is obvious. No, they’re there to serve customer. That is not the same. So this mean that. It’s a very important point, the attitude of selling. When the company adopt an attitude of selling, they’re focusing on themselves. They try to get as much profit as possible, increase the sale as much as possible, and if the customer want this or not, we don’t care because we want to force, in many cases, this customer to buy the product. [00:24:00] The attitude of service is a completely different approach, its opposite to the attitude of serving, uh, selling and attitude of serving implies that you try to focus on the customers, you try to identify their needs, but not only identify their needs, try to meet their needs and if possible, exceeding their needs. I give you an example. I’m half Italian, and here in London I want to, uh, different coffee shop. I used to drink cappuccino and I went to one of these big chain and I was there, uh, waiting for the cappuccino. I say, can you please bring to the table? Yes, no problem. 20 minutes later, they brought the cappuccino to the table, the, the waiter and, uh, okay, a bit late because 20 minutes for the cappuccino is a bit a long time. It was long out. I didn’t say, I didn’t say anything. I tested the cappuccino. And the cappuccino was cold. I didn’t say anything. I left the place. I went to the competitor’s place the following day for the cappuccino [00:25:00] and the waiter say, oh, we go to the table and we bring the cappuccino. One minute later they brought the cappuccino very promptly. I tried the cappuccino and this was nice, was hot, very savory. But also I observed that the for forgot on the table, a, a tray with biscuit. I said, sorry, there is a mistake. I didn’t order this biscuit. Sorry. Maybe this is for other customers. No, there is no mistake. This is a gift for you, for you to enjoy the cappuccino. So look at this two approaches. The first one. They take customer for granted. They brought the cappuccino late called, I paid already a big amount of money because they’re quite expensive. Here are these cappuccinos and they didn’t even meet the basic needs to have a cappuccino, the right temperature. The second provide me with an additional incentive, a gift. They exceeded my needs. I didn’t ask for this. They surprised me in a positive way. Mm-hmm. They were thinking [00:26:00] about me. They were not taking for granted. And for them, probably this biscuit costed, uh, cost a probably a peace or cents very, very cheap for them. But for me it represented a very big value. So this mean that companies should always focus on giving more than the customer expect. This means what I, I call an approach of generosity. Companies in many cases are very stingy. Oh, I will give this product, but uh, if I give more, this will represent higher cost. No, it is the opposite. If you give more, you are generating a positive cycle of abundance. This customer will be excited, will be thrilled. We call certified or delighted. And this customer will bring about positive reviews, recommend your company to other customer, bring more customer, and generate the positive cycle of word of mouth. So this is the attitude of service. How can I serve this customer? And it’s in case you don’t have the right product for this customer or the right service. [00:27:00] Well, you won’t manipulate this customer, you’ll recommend this customer to another company, can provide them with a service. This is an attitude of honesty. And when you do so, when the customer really need a product from your company, they will come back spontaneously. Gissele: Oh, you said so many great things. Number one, Bruno. That cannot be an appendix. You need a whole book on marketing compassionately, so you get to work on that. The other thing is the challenge is also the product shelf life. Like when I was growing up, a fridge would last you like 20 years, 15 years. Nowadays you buy a new thing, like within five years it breaks, the pieces fall apart. Like it’s like clothing as well. Like my mom used to buy signature pieces that would last her a lifetime and shoes and it’s like, that fast throwaway fashion that also makes it sort of like [00:28:00] increase that consumerism. How can compassionate companies get away from that and move towards greater quality? I. Bruno: Yes. I don’t want to give any name of companies, but there are many companies, especially in the mobile sector, that use what we call in marketing plan obsolete. Planned obsolescence mean that they planned in advance that this product will last less, that the average life span for this product. This mean that they’re purposefully making the product last less. Than the product natural, life, span. So these companies are not acting in an innocent way. They’re acting in a manipulative way. Um, they we’re talking about big brands that I don’t want to mention here, and the idea is that they want, they want the next model of, of mobile phone. They want the next model with the, probably a little difference that or little icon that is a different color. But the mobile, the previous [00:29:00] mobile model is completely right if you want to use it, but won’t last because it made so weak and with the weak type of materials that the, it probably won’t last. . Companies. What they’re doing is, in many cases, they’re focusing much more on quality. They make enduring products. Why? Because they know that the product endure a lot over time is long lasting. This product is more prone to have a positive image in the customer mind and also try in some cases, the company also try to also encourage customer to recycle. This happened with some companies that in, uh, encourage, for example, cartridge and printer companies like HP encourage customer to recycle the cartridges so that they can get a benefit of getting this cartridges recycled and so on, and bring about into the lifecycle of new products in practice. The control is over the, the hands of the company. This mean manufacturing [00:30:00] better quality good, but also in the hands of customer being more selective with the quality of the product that they select when buying, because you mentioned this, the, the voting with the wallet or customer voting with a Wallet. Well, this is so true because at the end, who has the power in the marketplace? It’s the power is in the hands of customers. Company can offer product that are low quality, show the product, but the customer won’t buy this product. Uh, well, this company will, uh, will, won’t offer keep on offering this product because we look for higher quality. And also this can create a positive cycle of higher quality. When one company start offering higher quality, another company start imitating this company and so on. Some company get away because customer, in some cases, they want to save money, but they don’t understand that this product, with the saving of the money, this product might last very little time and they, at the end, will end up being more money than a high quality product. So customer and companies should act in very [00:31:00] specific way, customer be more conscious of the quality. Is the product really certify my needs? Will it last? What is an average, lifespan or is a shoddy product? If so, well look for other product that are, uh, much higher quality. The same with company. Companies shouldn’t be focusing on short material because at the end this will affect that image. If the product is defective, it’s breaking down very easily. Breaking up very easily. This will leave, uh, this will be live in marketing, the customer reviews. So customer reviews will comment about the low quality, low packaging weak packaging, weak materials. Customer are very attentive to this and they’re very talkative about this in on social media, on for platform like Amazon, they leave a lot of detailed comments about the reviews. Incentives include picture when the product is affected, include picture of the product breaking down. This doesn’t look, look good in the eyes of other customer and in the eyes of the company. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. I [00:32:00] would like to emphasize what you said about there is a level of customer responsibility. We are responsible for making sure the products we buy have good carbon environmental footprints, and that requires research, and that requires us taking an active role in what we’re doing. Part of the reason why we are where we are is because we have given our way, our power to these companies because they’re easy and they’re fast and they’re cheap. But then we are reaping what we sow environmentally in terms of human wages, in terms of our, our, our, our spending power. Right. Wages have an increased relative to the cost of living. The cost of living is been. Atrocious now, right? Compared to what the wages are. And we hadn’t noticed, have you heard of this concept called shrink inflammation? Okay, so it’s this where companies like, for example, let’s say you could buy like a big container of [00:33:00] Tide, like right? And you bought like, I don’t know, let’s say, I don’t know, like 200 grams or whatever for a specific price. Companies are now giving you less amount for the same price, but they’re saying it’s more, or they’re not putting the full amount. So when people were going home and weighing it, it wasn’t the full amount. That’s what they call shrink inflammation. And we didn’t notice. We didn’t notice that this was happening. We didn’t notice. We were kind of sleepwalking in our lives about what’s happening until it got bad. And then you’re like, wait a minute, what am I doing with my money? where am I putting my power? Where am I voting? And so I love that you said there’s a twofold, there’s a customer responsibility and there’s a company responsibility. Bruno: Shrinkflation rhymes with a manipulation. It’s a form of manipulation. And also have to be aware that there is a new type of customer, an increasing, uh, group of customer that we call conscious customer. [00:34:00] Yes. This conscious customer are very important because especially the new generation, generation X, millennial. They are part of this, conscious, consumption, which implies that customer won’t look only for a product that satisfy their needs, but they will look also for a product that have a positive social impact and a positive environmentally impact. For example, let’s go back to Patagonia. A Patagonia is a company that offer, uh, outdoor entire products, uh, article of clothing. And this company in one of these, uh, statement on their website says, our main shareholder, our main stakeholder is the planet. So this means that this company’s focusing on environmentally friendly projects. This mean that trying to support green project project that care for the environment, the sea water, the air, the the forest, and. Customer. Many of these customer buying the product from this company know that they’re not only buying high [00:35:00] quality product with good design, but also they’re buying products that are made of organic cotton. This mean that cotton that is not using pesticide or chemical products or any artificial ingredients. So this mean that our products that are environmentally friendly, but also they know that every dollar or pound that they spend on this product, part of this dollar will be used to support environmentally friendly project. So this mean that customer know that they are contributing to their certain extent to make a better world, to make it positive than on the world. And this is, this is the future of consumption. This means not only buying product to satisfy your own needs, what will be only a selfish approach, but also much more selfless approach, which imply I’m satisfy my own needs. Through the product and service that I buy. But at the same time, I’m providing a organization like nonprofit organizations supporting the forest and the environment with [00:36:00] some funds. And my money is not only going to pay the salaries of the company or the CEO and, uh, generate more profit, but also is, um, spilling over, over different organization in the community to bring about better environment, better communities, um, better ecology in general. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. this kind of new conscious purchaser, I know exactly what you’re talking about. You see it a lot on TikTok. They’re talking about consumerism and how to decrease that, how to use what you have. And I think that’s really important to help us create a more compassionate and, better world for the earth and for everyone. so I think that’s definitely very important. I wanted to shift gears a little bit and talk about, something you had mentioned earlier, which is, you know punishment at work. And I just wanted to know your thoughts on forgiveness in the workplace and how can we shift away from a punishment culture to one that is more compassionate? Bruno: [00:37:00] Yes. Let’s define compassion first. Uh, mm. There are many definition of compassion, but the one that I use in, in my book and many other book I saw similar definition is understanding how people think, understanding how people feel connecting to other mental level and emotional level, but also trying to help them, especially when they. Challenging circumstances, and this is connected to the concept of forgiveness because compassion and forgiveness can be including a broad category of being kind to people. So when you are kind to people, you are supportive, you are compassionate, you are forgiving. Why is so important? Let’s give an example, a real example. I cannot mention the name of the company because of confidentiality. Yeah, of course. But let’s imagine, let’s imagine that a company, a real company here in the uk was buying from suppliers. And this supplier delivered the, the goods that they have to deliver according to the, their contract. They deliver this two week late. So, and [00:38:00] without notice anything, and this created a lot of inconveniences in the company buying from the supply. If we go from the strict business perspective, there is a contract. There is a contract that should be respected, and if the company act in a non-compassionate way. The company will be unforgiving and will the co. Why will be unforgiving because we’ll apply the clause that says penalty. When this is not delivered on time and will penalize the supplier, the company will get away because my receive compensation from this supplier, but the relationship between this supplier and the company will break up or will be affecting negatively and this supply might feel resentful even the. Contract condition. Contract. Contract. Mm-hmm. Bruno: But if the company end up a much more compassionate approach and is more forgiving in this case, the company will have a conversation. Instead of applying the clause of the penalty, the company will have a conversation one-to-one if [00:39:00] possibly in person with this, uh, representative of the supplier. And first we’re try to listen to them about inconveniences that they face when they deliver this, uh, merchandise late, this input late. And so we try to listen to them, understand how they felt about this, but also understand the whole picture, how this affected the company dynamics and, and how this was in some cases inevitable. And, and the company in that, that case, it’s acting in a compassionate way and in a forgiving way. Uh, this company will try to suggest some idea on how to avoid these delays in the future. So we’ll try to say, you know what? I know that you have this problem in the past. It will be very important not to be repeated in the future. But why don’t you try to uh, schedule the batches in much more flexible time. We can, uh, go aside a bit from the contract, but I want you to keep your promise and so on. We can be more flexible. In this case, the [00:40:00] company will provide with an option, much more flexible option. I will try to preserve the relationship with the supply and we’ll try to more over. They will strengthen the relationship with the supply because we’ll show trust. We show confidence and will show some support to this supplier. Why so important? Forgiveness that is connected to compassion because in this case, the company did not apply the clause understood the, how the company, uh, was facing this challenge with the delivery, but also gave an opportunity for the company to redeem their behavior in the future, providing them with creative ideas. This is quite important, the example that I mentioned there, because forgiveness is included within the concept of compassion and also implies that we all make mistakes. we all face challenges. And when a person is compassionate with others, understand that. They face challenges, but they themselves can also face challenges. And we understand that we have a common humanity. This mean that this could, the challenge could happen to [00:41:00] anyone. Uh, what I observed, for example, uh, a very famous scandal, when they have some problems with the, cars that they have to recover some car, because in the past few decades ago,  they have implanted in the car sand devices that were not, uh, giving measure that were specifically accurate. And what I saw, uh, this, I mentioned also this example in my book, what I saw that the CEO at that moment, the former CEO of the company was in the media apologizing to the public and to the audience, not indirectly, very directly. Showing his face, being present and apologizing for these make mistakes, this scandal and promise to the audience and to customer as to all the stakeholder, that they will do their best to, do better in the future. I was impressed because it’s not the most common behavior that you observe in a company when the company’s humility important [00:42:00] in a scandal. The next, uh, attitude that you see is being humble. Be a, adopting an attitude of humility or humbleness. On the contrary, they’re trying some cases to hide this facts or hide the scandal as much as possible, or use public relation, uh, tactics or gimmicks. so not to own responsibility. So this mean that when people made mistake, it’s important to own responsibility. To take responsibility and to admit that there was a mistake. But also apologize for this. Offer compensation whenever possible, but also try to bring about a promise of, acting better in the future. So try not to, skew responsibility owning responsibility. Very important. And even there is a scandal when the companies acting in a way that act for forgiveness, apologize for their mistake, they’re more prone to recover part of their reputation that was [00:43:00] tarnished by the scandal. So this is quite important, and most public relation especially will advise companies to face the facts and also apologize whenever possible because show that the company is more likely to recover instead of hiding or avoiding responsibility. Gissele: And there’s actually a lot of research on medical mistakes and that people are less likely to sue if the doctors, admit that a mistake was made. I wanted to go back to a point that you had made, which I think is really, really fundamental, which is the need for companies to be flexible, and it really goes to the part of equity versus equality. And so. the companies that I, I worked at and knew, they always focus on equality. Everybody has to be treated the same. if we give to one person, then we’ll have to do that for everybody, which was never the case. It was just a fear. And, but what happens is that we pigeonhole all these people and try [00:44:00] to fit them into boxes rather than doing what you suggest, which is look at their circumstances, understand with curiosity and with, with kindness and with humanity, to see how you can troubleshoot further. But it’s that, competition of like equality versus equity that I think people struggle with. What are your thoughts? Bruno: Yeah. My thought is that when companies are not flexible, they’re prone to, uh, commit two main mistakes. First off, yeah. Micromanaging. And second lack of delegation. So you observe company that are the least flexible are the one that the control is so tight that employees to go to the toilet have to ask for permission. I’m not exaggerating, I have no, you’re not supermarket. Supermarket here in the UK don’t want to give the name that employees to go to the bathroom have to ask for permission. This how employee can thrive. How can an employee be productive and efficient If they’re [00:45:00] continually controlled, they’re treated like, naughty children, that instead of other people that can be trusted. This generated a negative cycle of distrust and the negative cycle of resentment that bring about the worst uh, workplace. And these are the company that you see in the media where employees are complaining, employee leaving the company in droves. Why? Because employee don’t wanna feel that they’re treated like children. There is a basic human need for autonomy. And autonomy implies I know what I’m doing. Trust me, you can gimme general direction if you’re my manager, but trust me, because I, I can give my best. Well, not continually controlled Doesn’t mean that you don’t have to supervise people, but you give the general guidelines and then you trust them to do the best way possible. And you obviously, you delegate this mean that you allow them to act fully without you interfering in their decision and [00:46:00] their thinking process. So this is quite important because if not, the companies rigid and anything that is rigid tend to break up. Companies that are more thriving over time tend to be flexible. They adapt the way that they approach the workplace, the way that they approach the customer, the technology that they use in this volatile business environment, you need to be flexible and lack of flexibility bring about a, a traditional business approach, lack of creativity, lack of innovation, employee that attracting a very bureaucratic way recently and nothing new can come from there. No high productivity can come from there. So I feel that this is quite important. The concept of equality, I believe in the concept of inclusion and diversity. This mean that you have a workforce that is diverse and mm-hmm need to be included. And this imply that people will have different skills, different competencies, different for example, experiences, background knowledge, [00:47:00] and you have to, what is the common factor of all these people with different skill, different background, different race relation and so on, that you have to make them all thrive. Companies should be, yeah, harnessing their natural skills and developing this, this skill even more. And providing with new skills because at the end. Even employees with good salary, if they don’t feel that they’re growing within their company, if they don’t feel that they’re thriving, they’re learning more, their mental needs won’t be met. If they’re not feeling that they’re recognized and they can have a small achievements or a small wins, this employee is more likely to leave the company. So this mean that there is a myth that only employees with a good salary will remain in the company. This is a myth because employee with good salaries leave the company. Why? Because they feel unrecognized. Unappreciated. They feel bored to death because they’re 24 7 doing the same work and once and again, and they cannot learn new skill. They cannot get into new [00:48:00] project, they cannot interact with other department. Hmm. But some companies are so rigid that they, they have a silo structure. This mean a final department doesn’t communicate with the accounting department and doesn’t communicate with administrative. How can employees can thrive if they don’t get in contact with other areas of the same company where they can learn from? Yeah. Instead, company that are flexible, encourage job rotation, they allow employees to, for example, in some cases, work one week in the marketing department, one week in the human resource department. They know a bit about the whole company, but also provide this employee with free training, continual uh, provision of workshop, seminar, keynote speaker that I invited, especially to this company. In some cases they have some, uh, for example, some retreats also where the employees can, uh, learn some, uh, health techniques and so on. So these are the company that are investing in this employee. They’re not trying to demotivate employees because how is [00:49:00] the best way to demotivate employees? Always allocating the same task, and well on a continual basis without offering employees any novelty. Instead, when you provide with new skills, new tools, new training, and this employee feel that they’re growing, this employees more prone to remain in the company. Gissele: the thing that you mentioned, which I think is fundamental, is the key word of trust, right? Yes. Usually micromanagers are full of fear. Yes, it’s a lack of trust probably of themselves to be able to manage the challenges, but then that’s that lack of self-trust is kind of projected onto their workers in a need to force them to act in a specific way, right? Bruno: Very important. I added in the second edition of the Art of Compassionate Business, a full section on trust and trust in the workplace and trust in relation to stakeholders. And some people will say, oh, but why trust is so important? Because if you don’t bring about a trust based workplace, this increment the costs [00:50:00] within this workplace. Yeah. Why? Because for example, people are less prone to share information or people would like everything in writing because they don’t trust the others words. Or people are less likely to work as a team. Why? Because they don’t trust other people to work together. And some project need to be work in a collective way. Uh, and then simple ways to generate trust. For example, I mentioned according to research that some way to generate trust is to connect to others not only on a work level, but also on a much more emotional level. There is an interesting research study that observe that when an employee, for example, asks other how they feel. But not out of formality, but how they feel, especially when they notice that someone is feeling a bit down. There is a study that observe when people ask, oh for example, they saw a colleague that is a bit down, a bit depressed, say, oh, how do you feel?  So, so well, can you tell me more how you, uh, how you feel? This simple question [00:51:00] bring about trust between them, because shows some care, shows some compassion, so some, some support. So, but also very simple way to bring about trust, keep your promises. I see some company that, that in the opposite way, they oversize their promises and then deliver very little.  the companies in many cases can generate trust in a very simple way. For example, minimizing their promise. And offering more in practice beyond what is promised. Uh, remember the case of the cappuccino. In this case, I was expecting a cappuccino and they deliver the cappuccino plus the biscuits. So this mean that you have a minimal promise and then you surprise others in a positive way. Most company act in the opposite way. They exaggerate their promises and then deliver very little below their promises. This is a way of not generating trust. And trust is so important because as I mentioned, [00:52:00] when you don’t have trust, this bring about what we call a psychologically unsafe workplace. People do not support one another. In some cases when they don not trust each other, they start competing with each other. So you have colleagues that are competing with you for the merit or for this new job opportunity. And what you need in the workplace and also even outside the workplace is cooperation. This mean that we need to cooperate. Within the workplace, all colleagues cooperating with each other, but also the company cooperating with customer. When the company generate trust to our customer, this customer is more prone to become committed, to become loyal. When the company doesn’t show any, uh, attitude of trust to this customer, this customer is more prone to look for other organizations. So, and the same apply with other stakeholders. Gissele: Hmm. And that’s so true. especially when bosses promise you things and then they just keep delaying, whether it be like a, an income increase or position, that trust is broken. You really can’t [00:53:00] work in that same environment. It makes it really, really difficult. Bruno: Mm-hmm. There is a concept that is called psychological contract. Psychological contract in business is applied and it’s a very well known concept, which implies that this, uh. The psychological contract as compared with the legal contract is a set of expectation that the person and another person has has on each other. So this mean that, for example, what the employee expect from the manager and, and vice versa. So why so important? Because when there is no trust is because people have broken before many times the psychological contract. This mean that, yeah, Bruno: people have not met the other’s expectation once and again. And when this happen on a regular basis, well, what you expect, you expect the, the, the most negative thing about the person. If the person promised to deliver the this report on time, and this didn’t happen [00:54:00] many times, well you have a negative expectation about this person and this tend to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So this mean that trust is quite important and is the cement of all. Robust relationship. Uh, there is no relationship that can thrive without trust and, and trust cannot be, cannot be promised. And when someone in business tell you, trust me, well, I will run away from this person because you cannot declare trust. You show this with the, with the facts, with the deeds, with your activity, your action, your how you put your promises into action. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. I love it. I have sort of an interesting question.  traditional businesses are more hierarchical, like somebody at the top, and then you’ve got the, like the majority of the workers at the bottom. How do you feel about more flatter organizations? What are your thoughts? Yeah. Bruno: Yes. Yeah. There are some company that work well, eh, with the flat organization with less levels in some [00:55:00] cases. Obviously, these companies that are very traditional, have many years in the marketplace inherit this hierarchy, this traditional hierarchy. But what companies doing practice, they, they cannot flatten the structure within the company, but they flattened the communication, inputs and outputs between the levels. So I put an example here is a company that have the traditional levels, low level, middle level, and top level, however. Any of the employees in the bottom level can send messages to the high level. This mean that they can skip the middle level and can, supposing that they have a very important idea or a request or something that is fundamental for the company’s performance, they can skip the level. In some cases, the company have been structured in this um, rigid way for many years, and it’s difficult to disassemble this h hierarchy. However, on a communication level, it’s possible that the levels are interactive. Another way to [00:56:00] bypass this structure that is can be reached is when companies use what we call cross-functional meetings. Cross-functional meeting or cross departmental meeting implies that companies try to go beyond the organizational structure. For example, there could be meeting which includes. Representative of the marketing department, representative of the human resources Department, representative of the customer service department, representative of the board of directors. So this mean that you have different representative of the different area and they can discuss one-to-one as equals and everyone can propose ideas, especially this is very important in some Japanese manufacturing companies where the hierarchy key obviously is respected, but on the level of ideas, everyone can propose good ideas and in some cases the meetings that they have on a regular basis, for example, for the purpose of, uh, innovation, for example, or this new designs. Include [00:57:00] employee all labors where they can discuss one-to-one as equals. And all ideas are valuable regardless that they come from the CEO or they come from the person in direct contact with the customer. So these are ways to bypass this hierarchy. In some cases that inherited, we call legacy structure, organizational structure that are difficult to disassemble because obviously there is a symbolic power of the one on the top and the one on the bottom and so on. But on the level of practical terms, uh, is important to bring about much fluid communication. Some company, for example, adopt, um, what we call suggestion boxes, which imply that employee from any level can provide with ideas and any single idea. Regardless, it come from managers of the subordinates will be analyzed thorough by the team specialist team committee that will analyze idea and come bring some of this idea into fruition if they’re suitable for innovation and creativity. Gissele: one of my old [00:58:00] workplaces our boss used to do that with the directors as well. anyone could offer suggestions and ideas on how to improve the organization. and so we really liked that. when I was managing so many different departments, I guess the previous person was the filter through all of them. They never came together. They, they never sat all the departments together to talk about, to troubleshoot, to come do projects together. So that was one of the first things I did is like, okay, we have six or seven departments, so start having meetings as departments together to talk about. And they would have discussions and troubleshoot different things that they’d been wanting to address and come together to work on projects. And I thought like, yeah, that’s how it should be. Like when a one person becomes sort of the filter, that’s when things kind of bottleneck and problems arise, right. Bruno: Very important. And this is a good strategy for many reasons, because when you have people with different level of specialism, different background, different experiences, they can have a different perspective of reality. We all have blind [00:59:00] spots and we have all our beliefs and our biases that are very well ingrained. Mm-hmm. And when you have people with different views, they might spot for us. Our own blind spots. So they might detect our own blind spots and might, might enlighten us in a way with new ideas, fresh approaches that we couldn’t have imagined from our own mind inside, because we are always inside us so we can, having an external view, a completely different view with different type of knowledge, different type of background, enlightened all people in this meeting. And also the reality is so complex in business and the business environment is so complex, which include legal, economic, market factor and so on, that having a group of specialists bringing about their views, even it’s not the area related to them, can, bring about fresher ideas, fresher perspective, and can. Help the company escape from group think because group think is the coffin of a company when [01:00:00] everyone think in the same way and the same yes. Way that they, they think is the wrong way. And they don’t want to change this way because nobody want to offer any decent to this, idea. This general idea that they share, well, many companies, go broke because of this concept of group thing. So this cross-functional meeting across departmental meeting help companies escape group think and also bring about more innovative ideas, friction ideas, and in some cases idea that complement with one another. These sessions could be good to be used for brainstorming anyone suggests ideas without censoring each other and being open to be triggered by other ideas. And also this bring about a much more complex set up, innovative ideas that couldn’t have happen. we were relying only one person. Gissele: Mm. Yeah, absolutely. you know, it’s interesting you were talking about groupthink. here’s the challenge that I have seen. So companies want to bring diversity in. [01:01:00] They wanna bring diversity of thought, diversity of like all the different types of diversity. They don’t prepare the company for the diversity coming in, which means everybody’s still with that group. Think everybody’s still in that kind of culture of like, we all do things this way. And so you bring in this diversity of people and they don’t flourish because they’re still asked to think the same way, or they’re not encouraged to really work from that diversity They’re still trying to make them fit into that old paradigm. And so that’s where diversity really kind of like goes. Just wondering what your experiences has been? Yeah. Bruno: Yes, yes. in the book I included two examples of chapter that are on innovation and creativity and according to research diversity in the workplace, when well applied. Will harness bring about more innovation and creativity, as I mentioned, because different type of mindset, different type [01:02:00] of perspective. Mm-hmm. Different type of qualification and experience when interact with others, bring about better ideas. What happened that companies are a bit reluctant in some cases to harness idea on a practical level. Why? Because they are fearful of uncertainty. New ideas imply uncertainty. Will this work risk or not risk? Why? Why? Risk? Risk And say, why don’t we stick to what we know? Let’s not rock the boat. And in some cases say, no, we’re doing well. Why we change? Yeah, you are doing well, but you can do better. So it’s a concept of conformation means. Okay, conformity. We, we, we stick to this. This mean that we don’t want to rock the boat. We don’t want to innovate, but there is a very famous title of a book that says, and I believe that is true. Innovation or die if you do not innovate. Yeah. If you’re not open to new ideas, it’s a matter of time to see your miss in business. Mm-hmm. Why? Because in practice it’s all about continual [01:03:00] innovation with the fast pace, growth of technology and the environment that is so volatile, how you can be remaining the same for a long time. It’s a matter of flexibility, adaptiveness, and innovation. And if you don’t harness this diversity, that is a very important resource within the company with different views that will help you generate new ideas and innovative product and services and system, well, you will miss the boat of innovation and competitors will act in, in the best way. This mean innovating, creating new products and so on. So it’s important to understand that there is solid research on. The correlation between diversity in the workplace and inclusion and creativity. So this mean that workplaces that are more homogeneous means where people are similar background, similar race, similar belief, and similar qualification. Tend to have [01:04:00] less, fewer creative ideas as compared with the workplace that is more diverse, multicultural, different nation, multi-generational and so on. So it’s important for company to be aware of these facts. Gissele: Mm. You made me think of the blockbuster example. Do you know Blockbuster video was told about streaming way before? Yeah. They were told to invest in it, but they’re like, no, the video’s not going anywhere. And now they’re like, fine. Bruno: Yeah. This is, this is an example I mentioned in the book I remember gonna Blockbuster When Was Big, when I was younger. And yeah, they were powerful, but they were a bit acting in an arrogant way because they believed that they’ll remain forever with this business model and, uh, they couldn’t see because of the rigidity. We can also mention the case of Kodak the photography company. Yep. That were so rigid with this business model that they couldn’t see that being adaptive, being flexible, being open to innovation was the only way for their survival. And we’re talking about companies that were so big in the past [01:05:00] and so prominent, ah, and they now they, we don’t even have a shadow of this company. So this mean that creativity fundamental is, and creativity come from human resources. You can say, oh, artificial intelligence can help me with creativity. Let rely on the most important resource that this not artificial intelligence, that is the human resource. Mm-hmm. We call the human capital within the company that will help us. Generate better artificial intelligence, better business model, better product, better services, and harvesting in a, possibly in a collective way, in this brainstorming meeting, which include people from different section of different department, different areas where they can offer. There is a company here in the UK, in Birmingham, I mentioned in the book Acme Whistle, that is a company that manufacture whistle. Whistle, for example, for the police force, for car and so on. Very famous have been for more than one century. This company, every time that manufacturing [01:06:00] new whistle, before launching the product into the market, the people from different departments, the Administrative department. The Accounting department. The production department, they meet together to give their verdict, their view on the new product, and they are open to offer ideas. This company has been very successful and it’s a model to emulate by other companies, the first one in the sector, and is a unique company in this, uh, to this extent. And what they have done is been open internally, but also externally too. This company has a partnership with the University of Birmingham that. Help the company complement with the University of Birmingham. Had the University of Birmingham here has labs where these products, new product can be tested on a scientific level. This mean that they tested the material, the endurance, so on. So they have a partnership with the complement with external stakeholder open to their view, scientific view, but also internally open to the view of different [01:07:00] department. This is another example, and the company have been driving for decades. Competitor cannot catch up with this company because this company is always launching the new model of whistle going ahead. They try to copy their there, but this company is always one step beyond. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think the importance of that is the feedback, right? The feedback from all the different areas. It made me think I was once working at a company, that shall not be named. And they wanted the staff feedback on the logo. Okay? So they gave us the logo, which was only one logo. So they had already picked it out and They gave us, like, it was specific shades of a color. It was just gradients of that same color. So they had already picked the color and they had already picked the logo. So what are we, what were we being asked for? Like a shade. It just felt like it was just so for show that it just didn’t bode well. It, it didn’t feel like they wanted our feedback at all. And it was just so like, what are we doing here? This is fake. Why [01:08:00] am I wasting my time? Why are you asking me for this? Bruno: Sound like a micromanaging to me let’s give example of big companies that thrive on feedback, on constructive feedback. For example, you might have heard of, big company like Pixar, Pixar, the studio, the animation studio. Yeah. What they do. This company must to make a movie. I mentioned also this in the book, to make a movie take probably a couple of years, two, three years on average to make a movie and employ a lot of, people working in this movie from different areas. There are two main areas that are very directly involved with the movie. That is the technical area. And the artistic area technically is more related to production, and the artistic is related to the design of the character and so on. These two areas since the beginning of the process, they continually and they give feedback on each other. A very honest and candid way because don’t mistake by the end of the process give example. [01:09:00] Technical area will give example about the character and will say, oh no, but this character look too big, or the color could be improved. They’re open to continually give continual feedback on each other area, this and other area also within the company, so that they can provide with a much better performance. They try to support, they know that there are partners in this process. Mm-hmm. If one of the area fails, the other area will be affecting negatively because everything is interdependent. So this mean that, it’s a quite interesting example and they act from a position of humility. This mean that when an area such as this ideas, well they’re open to consider, they don’t, they don’t shut down to new ideas because they know that this is a creative process, that is a collective process. So they, they have the notion of this. Interdependence and the importance of providing each other with support. Gissele: They’re not taking it personally that it’s like personal criticism. It’s about the work. Right. I wanted to go back and ask you [01:10:00] about AI because there’s so much fear right now around AI and it taking jobs, and what does this mean? And you mentioned a little bit about that, but do you feel like there’s any sort of basis in AI taking a whole bunch of jobs in, in, what would that might that mean? Bruno: Yes. Yes. Well, ai, like any technology can be used for good purposes or negative purposes. Like, people are fearful of, new technology always. Yes. This is a common fear. We have to understand that people are fearful of the uncertainty of the new when, when they don’t know the effect. This is in transition. we have seen AI for a very short time, relatively speaking in history, and so we have to understand that there is something that up to now we know that AI will never replace, and this is what employees, managers, and anyone working for a company or advisor should look for. Yeah, ai, AI cannot replace, the human touch, can provide you with a nice [01:11:00] set of answers. They can provide, ate some idea from different sources in on the internet and make a little, like a mix, like a smoothie of ideas and then very easy to to access. But in practice, they want up to now. And I think that will never happen. It can replace the human contact. The human touch. And what I observed that some companies are using a dual approach. This mean that they’re high technology, high tech, high touch. They keep the high tech, they try to use artificial intelligence, the tools and anything that is important. But they keep also a high touch approach. This mean that, for example. So they have a company might have a chatbot that is coming when you enter the website and the chatbot is coming, and this is managed by ai. However, if you want to interact with this, it’s okay by customer are given the option to call the company with a real telephone number, with a real [01:12:00] person that will listen to this complaints or as request for clarification and will have a one-to-one conversation. They have the option so they can use technology. Some customer will like to be more practical, quicker, or they will have a real interaction. What I don’t like when the companies are what we call fully click. Everything is impersonal. Mm-hmm. You can communicate only by chatbot email, no telephone number. You don’t, you don’t connect to, yeah. It’s like you Gissele: can’t find them. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Bruno: So, so this mean that in this area of AI company that will thrive, I would differentiate from the rest are the company that. Very clearly ingrained the aspect of human touch. Human contact. Mm-hmm. Do we connect to others in person or for example, through a zoom or through telephone. So that customer feel that they’re talking not to a robot, to a bot, but to [01:13:00] a real person and they can interact in a different way as compared with the bot. Because when you, I use this bot, and when you interact is so basic that the answer that they provide you, uh, they’re not clarifying any point. So if you have real doubts or you want clarification, you need to talk and you want to express your emotion to how you feel about the, for example, you might feel regret about having bought this product. Talking to a bot is kind of senseless. Doesn’t make any any sense to be really frustrating Gissele: too. Bruno: Be frustrating. So this mean that co companies should bear in mind that should be qualifying their employees and training continually on this human contact. So this mean, for example, Company like supple is a company that sell shoes online, another article online. And this company train employees to have unscripted conversation with customer. So this mean that they don’t have a script to [01:14:00] follow. Say, oh, hello what? What are your concern? No. They connect on a much more natural, spontaneous level and they can take the time that take the conversation to unfold. For example, some company have a very limited time. Oh, it take five minutes with each customer. No, this company. There is one case of a conversation that went on for hours and customer felt very satisfied and they left a lot of positive reviews. And this enhanced the company image. And also this company doesn’t also try to outsource the customer, service department. They use their own employees. So this mean that employees that are, they know the product owning the company’s value. Mm-hmm. They know their product and know the company value. They don’t outsourcing, uh, for example, a less developed country using cheap labor force, but they use their own employees. So this mean that, this is the, the most important example of, uh, human touch connecting to others, giving them time to express. And with this use of technology can be giving you a quick answer, but might [01:15:00] not provide you with details about the specification, the how to use the product. In some cases, this. Machines or bot cannot listen to your feelings and provide you with some empathy or, or, or feedback on your feelings. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, speaking of feelings, a couple of more questions. What is your definition of love or unconditional love? Bruno: Well, yeah, the included different definition in the Book of Love, but, love is one of the important, principles that bridge differences. So I included this as a definition of my own definition, love bridge differences, because at the end, people that are loving in many cases arent focusing on differences. Instead of focusing on the most important commonality that we have in any type of business activity, what is the most important commonality that we are all human beings with? Fears, expectations, negative experiences, [01:16:00] positive experiences, aspirations, dreams, uh, objectives. And I see in business people continually focusing on the difference, different roles, different share of power, different function. I am the customer, you are the supplier, you are the supplier, I’m the buyer and I am the manager. You are the customer service officer. And when you focus on the differences, I’m not saying that we have to ignore the differences, but when you focus exclusively on the differences, you create separation. Yeah. You create lack of connection. Mm-hmm. You create mm-hmm. A communication that have lower rapport and, and, and lower less profound. When you focus on the roles, you forget the human being. Mm-hmm. And the human being was before the roles, the role is only tiny part of the human being. Mm-hmm. And what I observe, what is the, the most important sign of lack of love in an organization that I observe that is very easy to detect when people in this [01:17:00] organization. Even during the break time, they talk about business. This is a sign of lack of love. Why? ’cause organizations that are loving, allow and empower employees to talk about business topics and non-business topics. Mm-hmm. Because non-business topics affect business topics. If you have a problem at home, a health problem, or you’re about to get divorced, this will affect how your performance on a board level. And so in practice company that are very unloving, they’re sad. Why? Because employees talking, talking about only budget objective, that this is very important, but this is the only thing that you talk at work and especially during break times, this mean that you’re not acting as a human being. You’re acting as a, like a automaton. Mm-hmm. That is trying to fulfill objectives and nothing else. And you left your human beingness outside work. Instead, company [01:18:00] that are loving what they do. The opposite, not only encourage employee, for example, that to talk about their, uh, issue. For example, some company consultants in company here in the uk, they have counseling services employees that feel unwell or they feel depress or they feel a bit mood or they have, they offer counseling service at work on site so that the employees can reveal their feeling in a safe space in a confidential way. And this will help them, be more productive, and also have some catharsis about their problems and so on. But this company also, social events, outside work, what they do once a week, they meet, let’s say Friday, they meet for two hours out outside work to have a dinner where the CEO and the customer service officer. Communicate as equals. They can connect to one another. They let their hair down, they can have fun, and they connect to one another on a personal level, and then they go to work back [01:19:00] on Monday revitalized. They knowing not only on the level of role, but they know the level of humanness. And so this is refreshing because they’re not seeing themselves as a little piece in the organizational machinery They are flesh and bone human beings with family problem satisfactions, uh, and so on that are part of their life. Anyone life. So connecting on commonalities is the basis of love, and love is the most important principle in business and in the universe, but also is the product that generate. Very interesting sub products such as kindness, forgiveness, compassion. This, I consider this sub product of love. Love not from the sentimental perspective, love. From the unconditional perspective, we want the best for you. We want the best as a person, we want to support you. And this bring about cycle of reciprocity. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. and if [01:20:00] you truly as a leader, love your staff, you have to be willing to invest in them enough to lose them, right? Yes. If you really care about them enough, Yeah, I used to love to go for breakfast, with my team. I used to take them like on the major holidays and we’d all sit together in one table and then I was taking them for all the major holidays. And some of them would be like, no, you can’t pay all the time, so we’re, we’re all gonna pull our money. And I’m like, I’m good. But they thought about me, they thought about like, oh, you know, how much is this costing you? Which is like, ’cause, so obviously I cared about them to take them out for breakfast and they cared about me and, and my wallet, which was amazing. Yeah. It also made me think about the whole concept of like, professionalism, right? Like how professionalism really just means dehumanize because if I can’t feel my feelings at work, I’m certainly not gonna be able to hold space for your difficult feelings at work. and then that’s kind of the recipe for dehumanization. Yes. Bruno: Very interesting point about emotion, because what I observed that the emotions have.[01:21:00] Two main approaches that I observe at work, first of some emotion, especially The negative ones, I’m not sure that are negative emotion. The one that can be considered disruptive, like a suddenness of fear or anger are discouraged because they say that people can, uh, become less productive or less efficient and so on. However, I think about this, we’re emotional being by nature. When you have this emotion, you can, repress and suppress, but the emotion is that is still there and might come out in very unexpected way if you are not emotional intelligent or you cannot manage this emotion correctly. So this mean that the myth of suppressing or repressing emotion or acting in an emotional way, like where like robots in the workplace doesn’t seem to work in most cases, but also some companies. Also use a second approach on emotion. That is the concept of emotional labor. Emotional labor means we have to use our emotion as resources to [01:22:00] get on well with people. For example, this happen a lot in, in higher education sector. health sector or customer service, activities were regardless how you feel. You have to show a happy face. There was an airline, I mentioned this example in the book, there were training her hostesses to smile and to smile. Even they fell that they were dying. How to put the right smile for enticing customers, uh, in this case passengers on, uh, on air. And so this sounds so artificial because in practice you like any person, you might feel someday that you are in a good mood. Some, uh, sometime you are in a bad mood and doesn’t, not necessarily make you less than a person and less than an employee make you a human being. Mm-hmm. And in practice, companies that are so rigid to this bring about a lot of stress because this emotion that are suppressed or repressed bring about [01:23:00] some somatization in some cases and issues within the, the body or the mind that are.  the result of this emotion, repress or suppress, but also bring about negative communication because when, even when it’s in a bad mood, and when repress the emotion, the emotion is still there. And this will show what’s passive aggressive or dismissive. Or uncaring. So this mean that this myth the important of emotion is harnessing this emotion. If a person has some challenges with their mental health, having advisor in the workplace, in the workplace, not outside where they can resort to impossible, but also allowing some activity like, uh, you mentioned the holidays or retreats where employees can feel playful. I make sure I, I discuss a lot in my book about playfulness, the importance of playfulness. Mm-hmm. And efficiency in the workplace. Some company take it so seriously that even during break times, they allow employees, they set up [01:24:00] in the workplace. For example, some pong. Uh, table tennis or pong tennis that allow employee to play sports during the break or allow this employee, for example, to play video games to have fun. Why? Because it’s a way to bring about a better emotional atmosphere in the workplace, and not only creativity, negative, but more negativity or negative emotion. Gissele: Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t know too many workplaces that would’ve sort of welcome play. Especially in the not-for-profits, like I could see in like certain corporations, you know, like places like Google and stuff like they, they want to do that because you need to be creative. But in the not-for-profits, like there’s sometimes like very rigid, rigid thinking in terms of like, well, the government doesn’t pay us for this. The government doesn’t pay us to play. The government doesn’t pay us to be mindful, the government doesn’t pay us to practice [01:25:00] self. Like, it’s not that rigidity of like, it would look bad if somebody got news that we were doing this, but they don’t see the payoff in terms of like, like you said, employee mental health and play creativity, their wellbeing, relationships and all of that stuff. Bruno: Playfulness, there is research on playfulness that bring, bring about more creativity because when people are playful, they’re not sticking with rigid rules, they’re letting their hair down, they’re more relaxed. And when people are more relaxed, less rigid, the, the, this insights that they’re incubated on an unconscious level tend to come out spontaneously. Instead, when people are continually rigid focus on type deadlines and so on, they’re less prone to become creative. So, and also this playful activity bring about positive emotion and there is a lot of research that eh, show the correlation between positive emotion and creative insights. So when people are feeling positive emotion.[01:26:00] For example, in a playful environment, uh, they’re more prone to generate non-traditional ideas. Instead, when they are in a negative mood, they tend to be much more defensive and they take to stick what is known. Some company here in the uk, uh, they’re organizing event, playful event for company. They’re providing playful event. For example, hide and seek or the treasure hunt for companies to contact their services and organize, they’re setting up all the stage for these games outside the company and play. Can have, for example, once a month, a day of fun playing this game. A treasure hand, for example. I know one of the company that use this one and they have a lot of fun. They love together and laughing together. Also, there is a lot of reserve when people love together in a, in a group. This creates stronger ties, a much better mood, more commit when people trust one another. So. Not to benefit, but what happen if the company’s only focus on the economic aspect? Oh, we can spend this, as you mentioned. So for example, some no-profit organization. Uh, we’ll have a [01:27:00] very limited budget. Uh, we don’t have so much to do because it’s a limited view of seeing business. Well, how do you expect creative ideas to come out if you are always thinking in a inside the box and in a rigid way and, working, according to the procedure? Well, instead of loosening up a bit, the way of acting and way of thinking, not continually, but once in a while and for example, once a week, we’ll help company become more creative, more innovative. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Great way to great way to conclude. So one more question. Where can people find you? Where can people work with you? Oh, Bruno: okay. Okay. Please share. Thank you very much. Well, uh, they can find me, uh, on LinkedIn or they can find my website is www.brunocignacco.com. This is one of my website, easy to find me there. And also they can find my book, the Art of Compassionate Business, the second edition that is a white cover, the first edition black cover, second edition, white covered more than 400 [01:28:00] pages and hundreds of cases of compassionate organization. They can find this online, offline, any bookshop, uh, physical bookshop or online platform. Gissele: Oh, thank you so much, Bruno, for your insights. This was an amazing conversation. Go out and get his book. It’s amazing. And join us soon for another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Bye.

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re gonna be talking about mindfulness in our living spaces, and our guest today is Kim Depole, founder of Depole Design in New York. Seamlessly blends interior design with meditation to create spaces that nurture wellbeing and authentic self-expression. Her mindful process is rooted in the belief design is a collaboration of the mind and heart. Kim guides our clients inward, knowing that one needs to go inside to create a home that fully supports how you live, work, and restore. Please join me in welcoming Kim Depole. Is that right? Kim: You know, I love to say when somebody asks how to pronounce my name, I say, I say there’s the [00:01:00] North Pole. There’s the South pole, but there’s only Depole of design. Gissele: Ooh. I love that. I love that. Can you start by telling the audience a little bit about how you got started and how you decided to combine mindfulness in design? Kim: Well actually interior design is my second career. My first was as a creative director and after I quit my corporate job and lived in Japan and was inspired to travel all, you know, solo through Southeast Asia. When I came back, it was incredibly auspicious because I was offered a job where I was the assistant to somebody that did the first diff a show house, and I literally did not know anything about interior design. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Kim: And they let her go and, and by the second week they put me in charge. So it was trial by fire, but I just fell, absolutely in love. And then [00:02:00] fast forward back to school and started my design studio. So that was the whole trajectory and the connection to meditation, sort of ingrained in me at that time. Gissele: does the Japanese style incorporate mindfulness and spiritual traditions? Yes. I Kim: mean the whole. My favorite word is to ko ro, which is space as a state of being. And I learned so much about how you live in your home and then in terms of optimization, the beauty, the ingrainedness of nature, natural elements were part and parcel of it. So it was almost like, I felt like I was. Steeped in that. And then when I came back to New York, it was, okay, so, you know, how do I integrate this belief into all of what I produce? So I, think you might think of Japanese as style per se, but I think of it [00:03:00] as essence. Mm. Gissele: I love that. It’s so funny because I haven’t really heard anyone. Have that conversation because you think about design, it’s like, well, I buy this piece of furniture and I put these pictures here and I add this color paint, but not as an expression of the inner world, not, it is like connecting that piece. So I think this is why this conversation is for me, it’s so needed and so important because I do feel like our homes are a reflection of who we are. So I think that’s fantastic. So I heard you were on Oprah twice. Yeah, that Kim: was another like, you know, like Manna from Heaven just happened. I was doing a lot of TV shows for, you know, lifetime tv. They would send me to someone’s home. I had exactly like. Two hours to redo the entire, you know, second floor. And one of the producers fast forward, moved to Chicago and called me [00:04:00] and obviously she was in a terrible bind and said, can you drop everything?  for a. Segment for Oprah. So, I mean, needless to say, you know, I put down the phone, danced around the studio, and then it was like, okay, where do you want me? So we wound up going to some place in New Jersey and doing the whole project, but I didn’t get to meet her or go to Chicago, but then they called me again and flew me out with my painter and my assistant. We stayed a whole week and we did two or three design segments and on the last. Day I got to, you know, be on set with her and film and do another like, interview kind of segment. So it was just glorious. It was just Gissele: Oh, that’s fantastic. Kim: Amazingly, yeah, words can’t describe because and what was really very touching for me when my mother was dying of cancer, we would watch Oprah together and she’d sit there and say. Kimmy one day you’re going to be on that show. And I was like, oh [00:05:00] yeah. Right ma. And then, you know, I hear, I think your life was Gissele: full of synchronicities. Yeah, Kim: exactly. It was really in incredible. Amazing. Gissele: Your mom knew. Kim: Oh, oh she did. She actually did. Gissele: Yeah. So how is it that you are able to incorporate mindfulness into your design? Kim: Well, what’s what’s ironic is I had my design studio KDDA corporation for about 25 years, and simultaneously I was going deep in my meditation practice, I would go on retreats. I continued to meditate every day. I would never tell my clients and before they would move into their home or something I finished, I would go in there and do a special blessing meditation and be very clear on what energy and what I wanted the home to contain, especially If a child was coming into the world, that was like the most blissful thing for me to participate [00:06:00] in. So, but I would never tell them I was like a closeted meditator. And literally, sometimes I would meditate in the closet, just close the door. So then, I closed KDD and then the pandemic happens and then, we all did a lot of inner work at that time, didn’t we? So. I just went in deep and I thought, at this time of my life being you know, a little more long in the tooth, how can I serve? How can I bring this kind of awareness to the space I know best, which is the home? It was also because I had. So many opportunities. When I was working with developers to have access to spaces and I would see them devoid. They were like soulless to me, or the ones that would just buy a design, and it didn’t even look like anybody lived there. It was the, you know, it was sort of like. Wow. There’s gotta be a way to [00:07:00] integrate this mindfully, carefully, and that’s what I’m seeking to do now. That’s what my mission is now. Gissele: Yeah. And thank you for mentioning that because I think that was one of the struggles that I have seen in terms of like, for us finding the ideal location and home. We saw so many houses  all the houses look the same, and the decoration looks the same, but where’s the individuality? and I don’t see this just in design, I also see this in terms of everything. Like people wanna look the same. Like, so there’s, a lack of celebration of diversity, which is what you were talking about.  One of the things you talk about is the authenticity, the being really you and showing that in your decor. Can you like just tell me some of the struggles you might have had in trying to incorporate some more authentic designs like if you’re dealing with a developer, for example, versus like people that want a more standardized approach to design. Kim: Well I [00:08:00] got to be incredibly creative when I worked with developers. It was one of the first projects of toll Brothers, which is a very big developing firm. And they had this beautiful property that was right near the hospital. And they kept saying to me, well, sometimes they come, they, these doctors come in their scrubs, literally. So I thought, you know, let me have some fun. So in the closet I had seven days of scrubs. You know, labeled. then I would have you open up the kitchen cabinet and it was filled with takeout. But then there was one little like, you know, reminder that this is not how you, what you should eat. You know, it was almost like lessons every time they would open the door. And it was an incredibly successful project and because I did a lot of model apartments, I would always try and make the bedroom feel like a sensual and appeal to a male sensibility and a female sensibility, but not in just [00:09:00] a style way.  It’s like a layering. It’s very subtle and it’s. And it’s really all the senses because people just think, oh, it’s just what it looks like. No, it’s what it feels like. It’s the texture. It’s the scent. It’s that reminder because your nose is that entry into every memory. Right? So it’s like the memory of home that’s sweet and that you want to recreate, and how do you do that? How do you express all of that? Gissele: And you raise a really important point, which is I think also contributes to us being more standard in our design. And I think it’s people don’t know what to do, right? They don’t know how to design their homes. They don’t know what their style really is. They don’t really know how to tap into that authenticity and express it in design. What would you say would be one approach that they could use to start tapping inward? To try to maybe find their style or to understand what it is [00:10:00] that they really wanna express in their space. Kim: What I try to model is to do a meditation process where they go in and they’re very quiet. It’s not like you could just do that one time. It’s that agreement with yourself to want to express yourself. So I have a ebook I designed that was just sort of a list of questions like, in your childhood, what was the memory of a space that held a great amount of significance for you? What makes you feel secure? and forget about? Style. it’s really the emotion, isn’t it? It’s how you physically feel in the space, and then because everybody just hits right on style. that’s the last of it. I mean, granted, that’s. Fun. That’s what I adore. But we have to go into and investigate who you are and what brings you joy. Is it like a bouquet of gorgeous [00:11:00] sunflowers? That makes me happy. I mean, I just, pick those, put them in the vase, and that just brings me such joy. You know, or having Miss Mona behind me because it’s a reminder I always have to create masterpieces. This is a masterpiece, you know what I mean? So, it’s like those sort of touchstones, to have the confidence to express yourself creatively and not like, look on Instagram It’s really getting close and deep to who you are and what brings you joy and the memory of it, what I like my clients to do is just keep a visual journal, like either in their phone you see something you love.  Take a picture, or maybe it’s just that color of that yellow, it’s not the flower per se, but that’s what I wanna focus on. I like that way, that color makes me feel, so for me, it’s always the feeling, it’s the emotion, it’s the security, it’s all that. The [00:12:00] core of that, and then the next layer is, finding what that looks like for you. Right. It’s the next and then the next layer. it’s really like I don’t like to use an onion analogy. I’m Italian. I like to use a lasagna. Gissele: Lasagnas are delicious for sure.. Yeah. And they don’t make you cry. So I just wanted to point out that sunflowers are such a powerful flower and Apparently the spiritual significance of sunflower is like belief in God’s source universe, right? And so I thought, yeah, yeah, I’ve always loved sunflowers. Kim (2): I down Gissele. Gissele: Yes. Well, you know what, funny story, I was gonna tell you a different story, but I’ll tell you this one was I have three acres in my property and I envisioned sunflowers in my backyard. And I envisioned them for months and months and months. And I actually hadn’t done anything like nothing. And I’ve lived here for like 12, 13 years. So there has been nothing come from anywhere, any seeds flown so [00:13:00] I had like this barren field and so I was dreaming all summer of sunflowers. I have a picture of it in the fall, my husband points to like a stick that’s coming up and he goes, oh, a sunflower is coming up. Kim (2): Just like that. Gissele: Just, just like that. I have a picture of it. Oh. I’ve lived here for 12 years. I’m not joking. I have a picture of it. I’ve lived here for 12 years.  in that time there hasn’t been a single sunflower or anything flown. I mean, you could easily rationalize it in your mind. ’cause I live it in the country. Right. But for 12 years it was nothing. It was just me dreaming of sunflowers coming up. My husband identified, he’s like, oh, there’s a sunflower coming up. And I was like, no way. I didn’t plant anything. I’ll send it to you after. Wow. I love that picture. That makes, so Kim (2): some little bird went from the south of France or, or U Trek and then dropped the seed and dropped Gissele: it in for me. Yeah. And so and so, so sunflowers have a special place in my heart. I wanted to go back to what you [00:14:00] had said about childhood, because I think you’re hitting a really important. Point, especially for me, I think, and I think it’ll really resonate with my listeners. So we bought this house to renovate. Part of it was the fact that we didn’t feel we had enough to have a completed house, like to have the house that we wanted. So we bought a cheaper house, which we would renovating, and we’ve been renovating it for a while and we love it. We do love our property, we love our house. But we’ve been sort of in the process of renovating for a while, and I would always ask myself like. How come I am in this? Like, how come I’m in in alignment with this? Right? Like my husband’s family grew up with renovations all the time and so I could understand why he was sort of in this position, but I didn’t really understand why I was, because growing up, my earliest memory of my house is that my mom had, like, we didn’t have a lot of money, but my mom always decorated things to the nines. Like it was like. Showroom home and everything was finished and everything was clean, everything was white, right? [00:15:00] And so everything was white and everything was clean. And so I was thinking, I was like, why am I a match? And I was having a conversation with my mom one day. We were at the hospital, like my dad was unwell at the time, so he was in the hospital and her and I were having lunch at Tim Horton’s. And I was asking her that question. I’m like, I wonder why I am in this situation. And she said to me, that’s interesting because when you were born in your first few memories, like I think it was a few years I was in that house, was us. We we were living at my grandma’s house and she gave us just the house temporarily and my mom was fixing it in that process. So my earliest years of me living in on earth was in a house in the middle of renovations. Kim: See that I think that has a lot. It’s an imprint, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s the imprint. Of the childhood and it’s so fascinating ’cause when I work with so many different clients and, and for some reason they’ll be like, you can do anything you want, but I don’t wanna see orange. I don’t ever wanna see a trace of orange. And then I went to the [00:16:00] client’s childhood home and her curtains in the bedroom. We’re orange, so I was like, oh my god. You know, it was Gissele: traumatized. Kim: A little confusing, so I thought there might, might have been some conflict with that somewhere. But no, it’s very personal. It’s very psychological. It’s very, it’s imprinted. Absolutely. And then when I say, you know, for those that have had perhaps like a really horrible childhood or they were immigrants and they struggled Then I go right into, yeah, but there was love there wasn’t there? what manifests that love and what makes you feel that? how do you materialize that experience in that way? I mean, that’s what artists do. That’s what musicians do. That’s what poets do, right? No reason why you can’t as well. This is your home. I don’t live there. You do. So it’s a lot of, taking [00:17:00] that. I say responsibility, but I don’t think of it as responsibility. I think of it as just expression. Like, I give you the ticket, I give you the pass card. you can do it. Yeah. I’m here to, champion you. That you can do that. Gissele: Yeah. And, and what I’m hearing you say in what I’ve seen in your work is really that you add like a level of additional layer of depth, right? Like. I’m not saying that people can’t learn to be a designer, it’s that what you’re offering is just such a deep journey of inward to outward, right? Like the expressing of the environment. Also creating spaces that enable opportunities to continue that inward journey. Because I’ve seen in some of the material you were talking about is. Creating spaces for like, for meditation, for mindfulness, for quiet. I haven’t experienced that kind of creating that conscious space to practice. Right. We actually created a meditation room, which. We don’t use, we, it’s a gym. [00:18:00] Kim: Yeah. I mean, if you see, I, it’s a gym. Yeah. I, I mean, I meditate in the New York City subways. Can I tell you that’s not the Mm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It’s not the best place to meditate, but it’s wherever you are. That’s why, to me, I mean, you go on YouTube or whatever and you see, oh, this is how it needs this pillow. It needs, and I really don’t believe in that, but I believe in. Making like a corner that you just can’t wait when you come home to sit in, to have a cup of tea or a glass of wine or read a book or just, or just be, or the way you look at the way light comes through, the way the drapery is that that’s enough. you’re mindful of just that moment in time. You looking at the light. That’s it. So all those little elements of beauty I like to call them. They’re like just little jewels of experience in your home. Gissele: Hmm. And that gets you to appreciate your home way more. Right. Like your space. Kim: Right. No. Absolutely. The place [00:19:00] to be. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. And Kim: then, I mean, for me it’s like be grateful that you have a home. Mm-hmm. I mean, especially at this time and compassion and mindfulness and all of that. i’m not the kind of designer that wants to, advocate, all these brands and it has to look like this. there are people that appreciate that. Mm-hmm. And that’s what they love. But I hope, and I trust that there’s some element of, of them personally in that expression and that it’s not like, when somebody wears. You know, Gucci tags, all over their body and it’s like, okay, well where are you in, you know? Mm-hmm. Gissele: Underneath all that. Yeah. And is that like, that authenticity and tapping into your inner self some of the things you learned while you were studying under Thich nhat hanh?. Kim: Oh God. I learned so much from him. The power of silence. He would command a huge space and he’d come into a [00:20:00] room and just wait, and everyone’s like just sitting there quieting and he’d wait till everybody. Was settled, so it’s having that awareness. What I have an awareness now of is I kind of have a list of moods, like negative or positive, and I literally have them posted all over and I’m very aware of like. Why am I in that state right now? And what can I do to elevate it and just be like, present moment, perfect moment is all he would say. And that’s the reminder. And how to be reminded of that is the breath, isn’t it? It’s just that. I’ve had so many teachers, but for him, he, to me, he’s foundational. Just absolutely foundational and to be so blessed to be in his presence quite a few times, like to be in the same room with maybe 20 people [00:21:00] in it. That was just a blessing. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sounds amazing. I was wondering if we could switch gears a little bit and talk about decluttering. Kim: Oh, goodness. Yes. My favorite subject. Decluttering is never done. Everybody thinks one and done. No, no, no. I keep trying to think of another way to refer to decluttering  just to make it more engaging or inviting I like to say recalibrating. And recalibrate rather than declutter. Because what you’re doing is you’re calibrating your mind because when you are surrounded with clutter, I didn’t know this, your cortisol levels rise, your stress hormones, you have more brain fog because you can’t find what you’re looking for. Gissele: Mm-hmm. So Kim: it, it really is [00:22:00] recalibration. And I have to say I struggle with that myself because I love objects and collecting, and I, no, Kim put half of them away. We curate is another word too. So you’re curating, you’re not decluttering, you’re curating what needs to be around you, so you’re efficient. Right? I have a little feed on Substack and I’m looking for some new subjects. Thank you, Gissele. That’s a perfect one. So Gissele: yeah, Kim: I’m gonna go deep into that. Yeah, I mean, I copy every tip. If there’s a tip about, decluttering, it’s in my Trello, board, but mm-hmm.  you have to find your way there’s, there’s a lot of simple techniques. There’s the list of like three, what I’m going to. Keep when I’m gonna toss, when I’m gonna donate and just keep it on that level. And so I think I’m gonna work on creating like a methodology for that and [00:23:00] also make it more fun. I love to like, give myself a gift afterwards. Like I get to go for a walk. I get to watch a movie or something and I award. Myself, it’s like atomic habits stacking. It’s that same application of stacking what you’re doing when you are, when you’re recurating, so to speak. Mm. That’s, Gissele: yeah. I love the rephrase. Do I write this Kim: one down? This is Gissele: good. Yes, of course. Yeah. And so what you do that, I’m gonna share a story. So I a number of years ago, I did a, it was a 28 day challenge. I think it was for 28 days, you throw away 21 things like you get rid of. Oh, Kim: I love that. See, I did, lemme write that one down. Yeah. Gissele: So listen to this. so 28 days, you throw away 21 things. Okay? And obviously you get to keep the things that really speak to your heart, right? And in the beginning and day one, super easy. Super easy ’cause you’re, you’re just tossing, you’re like, [00:24:00] it’s a great opportunity to clean those drawers you hadn’t cleaned all year, right? Like, so you toss makeup, you toss it by the 28th, day number one, I felt so much lighter. I. So much lighter. It’s just, it was so incredible and it really got me down to the nitty gritty. It got me down to what do I really love and what am I holding onto? One of the things I realized that I was holding onto is I would buy new stuff, like likes new stuff, and then put it away for later well, I’m gonna use this on a special occasion. What I realized was I had kind of that lack thinking that, ah, I can’t use this now. I’m going to use it for when I need a special occasion. And so I started using all the stuff that I had saved for that special occasion now, right? So I’m like, why am I doing this? So, so the learning was amazing, right? The learning was amazing. It was tough by the 28th day, ’cause you’re like, okay, I gotta figure stuff to get rid of. But I had already felt so gifted. [00:25:00] By that experience in terms of me learning about myself, but why am I hoarding all this stuff? Is that, is the belief underneath there that I don’t think I’m gonna get anymore? Right? And therefore I need to save this. Anyway, so I learned so much about myself, but here’s what happened. Kim. People started giving me stuff. So I had gotten rid of, like, I had gotten rid of so many books in my bookshelf, like so many. Right? And I love reading. I love purchasing books. It’s my thing. It’s always been my jam. Kim (2): That’s my thing. I go to this, Gissele: I go to this retreat place and ’cause they had so many free books on meditation and mindfulness written by the monks. I leave with more books than I had thrown out. I throw away shoes. People start giving me brand new shoes that they hadn’t worn my size. So it’s like, it’s so, it reminded me of like, the universe doesn’t like a vacuum. It rushes to fill this place in a Kim: Oh, that’s, that’s wonderful. Mm-hmm. But let me ask you this, Gissele. [00:26:00] What were the three objects? There was no way you were gonna part with them. They are front and center. Gissele: So my kids stuff, like some memory things of my kids when they were young, like hair and teeth and stuff like that. So that’s one. Some some signature pieces that I still wear that are good quality. ’cause I also find with fast fashion, Some of them just kind of breaks apart. Yeah. They Kim: stuff destruct. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. So I have some signature pieces that I have bought that I’ve invested in and my Korean skincare. I love Korean skincare, but I’ll not get rid of, well, Kim: I think it shows, Gissele: but it also showed me, so thank you for asking this question. Great question. It also showed me that there was, there was nothing that I needed to attach to. Mm. It showed me that I didn’t really need to hold onto these things I was holding onto a dear life for, and it actually.[00:27:00] I’m really interested in your thoughts. It made me realize about the issue with hoarding. Hmm. Maybe reflect on hoarding as a protection, as a way to incorporate things to protect yourself from hurt or whatever. Yeah. I’m just wondering what your thoughts are on hoarding. Kim: Well, it’s interesting. I’ve, I’ve done a lot of reading about hoarding because I’ve worked with a number of people that, that really had that, Deeply, and it’s really a fear of death. It’s a fear of your own mortality. And one that was really touching for me was I worked with somebody who saved every card. And so you know what we did? We collected them all and we made a bonfire and Wow. And they were open. Yeah, she, it took a little doing and then it was like, you know. Why are you holding onto this? Oh, this was my dearest auntie that [00:28:00] died. Well, she’s still with you, oh, because sometimes I like to open it and read it and just, and I said, well, but all you have to do is sit and think of some like wonderful memory, and that’s even more beautiful than you opening up just card, right? Mm-hmm. so we did, we did a bonfire. And it, it was, it was quite a bonfire. The other thing I like to encourage, especially with saving cards, ’cause I, full disclosure, I do the same. But I do it more like as an artist in a way because again, my magnificent mother, I. Was a nurse, and you know what she would have us do? We had to take our cards and cut them up and we would make place mats for the children in the children’s hospital for Christmas morning or Easter morning. Isn’t that gorgeous? You would just do a, that’s Gissele: amazing. Kim: a doily And then you would take the cards and they’re in the hospital, so it was always like planting the seed of [00:29:00] compassion. Mm-hmm. You know, my mother was the first farmer, of just like, understand the seed of compassion and how you can plant that seed. Yeah. And I never forget, Thich Nhat Hahn had this board and He did like a drawing of the earth with a circle and all the seeds that are planted. He goes, oh, this one is jealousy. This one is compassion. This one is fear. Oh, but wait, wait, let’s water the compassion one. Oh, look it, see, it’s growing. And look at how big it is. And beautiful. And see these other seeds, you don’t have to water them. You know they’re there, but you don’t have to water them. So yeah. So how, how primorial, I’m talking about fire and water, but it was really, yeah. Yeah. Incredible. Gissele: That’s absolutely incredible. How can we incorporate greater compassion into our living spaces? Kim: Mm. You’re asking me a hard one. I think one [00:30:00] is to always have a section in your home to honor your history, your family. Mm. I love that. Yeah. It actually, that first Oprah show I did, I did just that. This woman was Italian and what we did is we took all her her photographs and we made them made in sepia so they all look like they were antique. So I love doing that. I’ve been doing that for decades now. But I think it’s to have a section in your home that’s devotionals, whether it’s to. For your family or who you, pay homage to in your home is very important to have that. And then also I think to have something that represents beauty to you, like a symbol of beauty to you. And I think the simplest is a bouquet of flowers, because I Gissele: love flowers. Kim: it’s temporary. They don’t last forever. It’s like a reminder, isn’t it? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Kim: [00:31:00] Yeah. The famous yogi that just, when he gave his lecture, his lecture was just holding a flower. He didn’t speak, so that’s enough right there. Having. So I think I Gissele: love that, you know, Kim: honoring your family, having some devotional space, a space to be mindful and meditate and some representation of nature. Always that’s all you need to just start to go a little deeper. If you feel like you’re not expressive So many people will say, oh, I’m not creative. the difference between left brain, right brain, it’s, you know, that’s the part that’s so rewarding is working with a client that never used to go to galleries, like, didn’t have that experience. Ooh, are you kidding? You’re on 57th Street and you’ve never been, blah, blah, blah, blah. Wow. But now she’s telling me where to go. Oh Kim, did you catch this? Mm-hmm. I’m like, how did I not know about that? So it’s, kind of like that. It’s just immerse yourself. ’cause [00:32:00] there’s nothing more wonderful than, you know, being surrounded by Mona Lisa. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. And going back to what you had said before about fire and water, how important is it to include the elements into design? I. Kim: Well, first it starts with the intention of what you’re creating, right? Then the sensory, the harmony of what those choices are.  and the personalization of what those choices are, not like just something because somebody else did. It’s because you, you. Sought it out or whatever. And then I don’t ever wanna forget functionality in the mix too, because mm-hmm. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You Kim: know,  That space better be efficient and workable and mm-hmm. And if it needs to change, you better be able to optimize it like that. And you need to think about that. That’s why in intentions first. And then also just sustainable. I mean, I’m just learning so much about the [00:33:00] effect of plastic in our environment, right? Like the depth of the effect from your clothing to like what you’re consuming. Well, isn’t it the same in your home? Of course. Is there a spray on the carpet? Is there is the fabric? Have some kind of sizing. I mean, there’s all of that. So, and is the paint low? VOC? So, you know, it does an off gas, not just for the nursery, but for your bedroom. So there’s all of that. I mean, there’s so many parts of that that all need to, you know, come together. Gissele: Mm. Thank you for that. And as you were talking, that triggered a question in my head. Is there room for technology in mindful design? Kim: Of course there is, but not in the bedroom. Okay. so people hate me, but I’m like, get the TV outta the bedroom. Get the television out of mm-hmm. The bedroom. You’ll sleep better. You’ll have more connection, you’ll have [00:34:00] more intimacy. it’s not good. So it’s always for me, that’s it. And then technology with smart homes. Oh my God, You could time the temperature, the lighting, all of that kind of aspect as far as Siri and all that. You know, that’s idiosyncratic if you have that preference. I do not. I like to be like, okay, I need to see what time it is or what the weather is or whatever. Mm-hmm. But it’s just to have that separation. That’s why, to me. When I start, I start in the bedroom with clients because that’s where you dream. That’s your place of unconsciousness and consciousness combined. So. That’s where you start. Like even if you just go sit in your bed and meditate and begin that process of finding what brings you that kind of peace, because that’s the place it’ll enter in your dream state. And I also encourage when before you go to sleep, is to [00:35:00] just kind of do a walk through your house. Kim (2): Before you’re Kim: sleeping, just kind of walk through your house and just ask, well, if there’s anything else that could be revealed to me in what I need or what I need to release. And, and, ’cause I’m a true believer that in the morning those answers come to you when you meditate in the morning. Gissele: Yeah. Kim: You get a lot of answers. You know, all you gotta do is ask. Gissele: Hmm. I really love that. Yeah, I love that. As you were talking I was also thinking about like my goal for my house is really to create the most loving and warm, welcoming environment for my guests. Okay. So that’s, that’s my big goal. that’s my heart goal, I would say. And then I have sort of like an ego goal, which is more like always stressing about my house being clean before people come over. Kim: Yeah, everybody Gissele: has that. [00:36:00] Unwelcoming I was making. ’cause there’s an element of me that like if there’s too many people that I, that stresses me out, so then I, maybe I’d rather not entertain or have people over. It’s very strange. I wasn’t aware of how much I was sabotaging my own desire to have people over and to, be that welcoming space. Right. But my own fear of it being like. It has to be clean and stressing myself and stressing my family before people come over. Yeah. Sort of negate that same welcoming thought. What are your thoughts? Kim: Well, I think you have to release perfection. You have an idea of perfection. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think you just have to release that. Mm-hmm. And, you know, it’s that same neurosis of cleaning before even the cleaning lady comes to clean your house. I mean, what is that about? That’s insane, right, isn’t it? Gissele: Yeah, exactly. If she’s judging you, then she’s not the right cleaner. Yeah, Kim: exactly. What kind of cleaner is that? And I should clean my house anyway. I shouldn’t have to hire someone to clean it. Right. So, yeah, fair enough. It’s all [00:37:00] complicated and convoluted. I think you just need to focus on what the intention is to just have a beautiful experience with everybody in your house. And trust me, I mean, Martha Stewart, She’s got staff. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, so I think just be, be kinder to yourself. Mm-hmm. And just think of what your intention is. What I wanna have a beautiful gathering. And then, you know, what are they gonna do? They’re like, oh my God. Gissele, what were you thinking with that, Dr. Oh, Gissele, that cushion. Are you kidding me? It’s like, please. Gissele: It’s so funny how it’s so innocuous though. Like in other areas of my life, I’m very much aware, right? But in this one, I think because I’ve been programmed in terms of like the messaging that I received from my mother in particular, because she got perfection. Your mother Kim: had that. Standard. Oh yes. Because Gissele: it was always showroom home and we don’t even make our beds. Kim: So wait, I gotta ask you a [00:38:00] big question. Sure. Yeah. With a growing up in homes like that, did you feel like you could go in and just be comfortable or was there always like a certain kind of contraction of, oh my God, it has to stay perfect. Gissele: I think you just shifted something, Kim. People are watching this in real life. I think that’s it. I was so anxious in those kind of perfect environments that everything had to be showroom. That it just, it, it’s stresses me out, I think. Yeah. Let it go is why. Let it go. Yeah, let it go. I think it’s time to let go of that story. Oh, I love that. Kim: Shifted when you said, when you said all white. ’cause at one time I had my living room all white. Yeah, yeah. Then, then I got a dog. And guess what, you can’t have all white if you have a dog. Gissele: No, I had, a Doberman [00:39:00] Shepherd. Kim: Exactly. So, and then that’s why I am saying it changes all the time. This is never one and done. It’s an evolution. it’s like the evolution of, your life, right? Your life’s not the same every day. So that’s why your home has to work for you. It’s gotta do heavy lifting. It can’t just be like a pretty place. You know? No. Gissele: No. Kim: Mm-hmm. Right. I mean, it’s just, and you can feel that when you go in someone’s home, can’t you? Like when you go in someone’s home, that’s like show home and then you’re afraid to sit on the chair, or you don’t wanna Yeah. Gissele: But I also found the other extreme is uncomfortable too. Like if it’s too messy or dirty, I find that overwhelming too. No, I won’t dirty. You find that overwhelming Kim: as Gissele: well, Kim: No, no, no. See, that’s the thing. people will say, oh, well I don’t have the money to do that. No, no, no, no. It’s about cleanliness. And that’s, that’s why it’s like, if it’s clean, it, it doesn’t matter. It’s not, not about money. See, that’s the thing too, [00:40:00] is, is you know, it’s not status, it’s not money. It’s not like, oh, that sofa, that Kagan sofa cost me 20,000. Who cares. I mean, nicely if you could afford that. But yeah, if you want something like that, there’s other options. It never has to be just that, you know, whatever. So that’s why, and I think people are like that. Why? Because they’re really insecure with who they are. They need that validation. And you don’t seem, you are not the kind of person that needs that validation. When they come into the house and, you know, look and say, oh, Gissele, I, you know, I’m not sure about that drapery, Gissele: you Kim (2): know? Gissele: No, no, not at all. so I took your quiz online and it said, like, it, it talked about the no drapes. We don’t have drapes, but we live in the country though. Did you get, did Kim: from the design style quiz, did you get your answer? What did it say? Did it say you’re artistic? It was Gissele: urban style? Yeah, but I don’t know if I’m urban. Or like a mix. I think I’m kind of [00:41:00] a little bit more eclectic. So I lec I love the, I love, I love the wooden furniture. I love the classic style, like clean cuts, like leather sofa, we have all wood floors, but I live in a country home, like, it’s like the, it was like a hundred years old. And so I like blues and, and baseboard and. Yeah, no, that sounds, to be honest, I think I’m trying, I’m still trying to find my style. Yeah. No, and I think this is where, yeah, go ahead. Kim: It’s never one, that’s why I think eclectic is, you know, it, it’s a place where a lot of people live. It’s, and it’s fine. It’s just, it’s, it just helps you navigate your choices. That’s all. Gissele: Yeah. Kim: Yeah. And you know, also for people that don’t, that say, oh, I’m not visual, I’m not artistic. You know, I look and see how you’re dress. Okay, let’s go in the closet. What kind, how do you dress? What do you, mm-hmm. What’s your favorite color? You know, it’s like you’re expressing yourself with those choices. All the time, but you just, you know, I think there’s so many, [00:42:00] like design style bullies, I like to call them. Gissele: Mm-hmm. That, you know, Kim: kind of pontificate, you know, this has to be, or you know, and just the way everything for what the last two, three years, all the walls are gray, every room is gray, you know? Mm-hmm. It’s, and that’s the, a very low vibrational color. You don’t feel Gissele: happy Kim: in gray. Mm-hmm. I Gissele: mean, Kim: in green gray, you feel a little happier, you know, or blue gray. But yeah, and it’s just everything is just the same. And interestingly enough, I always go to retailers to just kind of see, okay, what’s everybody else doing? It’s so interesting. All the white and cream now is all green. Olive green or brown, or with a little bit of ethnic pattern in, so it was sort of like reassuring on some level. Like, okay, there’s some like ethnic cultural expression here. Mm-hmm. So, but it was beautiful and it, it was very, and everything has curves [00:43:00] now. Interesting. Everything is very, it’s all centered around nature and sustainability, thank God. Mm. Yeah. But I think now with the situation with furniture, I am a great believer in vintage and I’d sooner go to an antique or an auction or something to buy a beautiful piece of furniture. Then I’m gonna go to a, mass produced retailer. And buy something. I mean, I advise my clients that, and I love upholstery, I love reupholstery and all of that. So you know, I think there’s gonna be a nice new movement in that regard. And I’m trying to like, get ahead of the wave a bit and find resources and clever ways to, you know, address all of that, you know, because that’s, I think what Gissele: you’re saying is spot on.  I am seeing. Especially on TikTok, the trend around like, you know, recycling and moving away from that fast fashion, fast production, Because like, [00:44:00] I’m sure you, you’ve experienced this too, like a fridge that I would buy in the 1950s would last me like 20, 25 years where now. Buy a new fridge. I’m not gonna name a brand. And it’s like within two, three years, there’s things that are cracking and breaking and they’re offering me a new thing or like, I’m like, yeah, why don’t you just make the fridge, fridge to last? I don’t, it’s not a disposable fridge. Like I don’t, I don’t understand. And then it Kim: goes at a land fill and it doesn’t decompose and there’s really that one little thing I’d love to share. It’s like one of my favorite things to do is when I go vintage shopping for like. Interesting fabric in the category of dresses. So I’ll go to the area where big, well, there weren’t so many, like big, like size 20, size 22, and look for incredible fabrics from the. Forties and then I have enough to cover a chair. I have enough to make a [00:45:00] pillow after I clean it or put it on the back of a chair, do some pattern mix. The other thing I always encourage everyone to do is go to museums. I was just at the Cooper UIT Museum and there was the most extraordinary mix of. African fabrics. I was like, oh my goodness, I’m gonna have to like up my game and resources, because it was so fascinating to see you take a French period piece and put a primitive, you know, African pattern on it mixed with something from Ethiopia. I think it’s just, it’s so exciting now because it’s like there’s so many influences and. And enough for the white, everything. You know, who we’re Yeah, Gissele: fair enough. Yeah. My husband used to always say that. He goes, that’s so what did he call it? Sterile hospital. Sterile, yeah. Kind of colors. What would you recommend if you were looking to create like a [00:46:00] sexy bedroom? Like what would be some colors that you might be, or is it not like that? Is it like, it’s things that you should, like meditate on, for example? Kim: Well, I think you, you really have to meditate on it, but the colors that relate, well, if you want, you wanna spice up the bedroom right away. A feng shui cure is red sheets red. Oh, wow. That’s bold though, right? No, no, no. So the sheets could be red, the covering could be be something else. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Right. So it’s a little, it’s a surprise when you get, it’s a Gissele: surprise when you walk in there. Kim: Yeah, Gissele: yeah, yeah, yeah. Kim: But, but I love, like, you know, the idea in bedrooms to do it like, a beautiful, you know, cool, restful, cool with the blue green tones. I did a project just a, a couple of years ago where we did all like exquisite tones of green with white in them. So it did, was so restful in that bedroom. It just was like sublimely beautiful, you know, with, with white, but the whites were, were warm whites. [00:47:00] Not like white, white, like stark whites. And then the big thing in the bedroom is the lighting to do a dimmable light. And the other thing I always like to do, I’ve, I do this all the time, is I love like a big tree, like a either fiddle firm or a ficus. And then you put a light at the bottom of the base so that at night when you’re sleeping, you have the shadows of trees. Reflected. I love any kind of Moroccan light that is the metal, pierced metal, so it gives off like a spray of light. So anything that creates like a beautiful atmosphere. And then also, I mean, I think flowers are beautiful. I spent a month in Bali, and Bali was like a lesson in. The expression of flowers. And just recently in India, in Oroville as you walk to the matri mandir to meditate, they made these incredible. With just one [00:48:00] flower leaf. There were like a hundred different patterns of the flowers laid out. You weren’t supposed to take pictures, but I did because I had to like, I, I, yeah. It was so Gissele: spectacular. Yeah. Yeah. Kim: I couldn’t draw fast enough to be like, oh my God, look at this pattern. It was like the most sublimely beautiful thing. So again, so for the bedroom, that little red sheet surprise, and then you could cover it with whatever other. Color you have. And then how does it feel? I mean, who doesn’t love, 500 count Egyptian sheets or, or like a beautiful mohair you know, like the layering of a bed. I mean, there’s something so sumptuous about, layering of the bed or just your memory of like, oh, I love that hotel. What was there something about the way the bed was in the hotel? And then don’t underestimate your nose because to have an atomizer with lavender and then also [00:49:00] rosemary puts you, no, actually Rosemary stimulates you. Excuse me. Gissele: Yeah. I love rosemary. Kim: Lavender is better. Sage, sage puts you to sleep. So you can have that like. the senses, right? it’s the temperature. It should always be cool. It should not be warm. It should be cool because then you’ll have a better night’s sleep. and then the window, I mean, it’s so interesting. And French culture they cover all the windows. Like everybody closes themselves in the bedroom, so there’s no light, there’s shutters like. No light. Like I, I didn’t even know that until I had a French client and in a New York apartment, I had to make these sidelines to, you know, drapes like this. Yeah. So no light would come in. I felt like it was King Tut’s tomb, you know what I mean? I had to like seal it tight. Gissele: Yeah. That’s funny. Kim: It’s very idiosyncratic for like, whatever your preferences are, but yeah. But I could go on and on with that, so just Oh [00:50:00] yeah. Gissele: No, this was so fabulous. I love it. Couple more questions. I do. Does design start outside of the home?  is the process that of design that you help with. Oh. Is it all just inside or is there any outside components to it? Kim: There’s, oh, there’s, for me, there’s tons of outside. It’s all about gathering. it’s hunting gathering all the time for me. Quite often, I’ll say, oh, you like to travel. Well, send me all the photos, and then I will take a couple and I’ll design the whole room around a photo, or we’ll design the room together around a photo. I’ve done that quite a few times. Mm-hmm. Gissele: And Kim: to the point where other clients will say, oh, could you buy that for me? And I was like, well, I have to ask. You have to ask her, because that’s her picture. You know what I mean? Gissele: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So last question. Where can people find you? Where can people work with you? Where can they come take the quiz? Kim: Well, the quiz is on my website. It’s [00:51:00] absolutely free, and you get an answer pretty quickly. And then if you wanna go deeper and go on the website, we can have a discovery call. There’s also a platform, so my website and then also on my website. It’s something called Buy Me a Coffee, which is a platform where I’m gonna be uploading all of my eBooks and they’re very well priced and all different subjects. I’m getting very prolific in that. And we can also book a session that I invented called Room Scan, and it’s very reasonable. It’s just a one hour session and we, I, I model a little bit of meditation and then. I send you a very detailed report with resources and then you take it from there. So and then I’m also available in the New York City area if you’re in, in the tri-state area. That’s https://www.depoledesign.com. [00:52:00] Gissele: Okay. Awesome. Kim: North Pole, south Pole De-pole Depole. Gissele: Thank you so much, Kim, for being on the show. This was just delightful. I learned so much, including you blowing my mind on this, which was amazing. Go finish Kim: that house. Gissele: Yes. Absolutely. Kim: Go have a party, please. Thank Gissele: you so, so much for being on the show. You were such a delight. You’re welcome back anytime. And please join us again on another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. See you soon.

Transcript Gissele: [00:00:00] Martin Luther King write, does love have the power to turn an enemy into a friend? Does it have the power to heal? This year, we are creating an inspiring documentary, courage to Love the Power of Compassion, which explores the extraordinary stories of those who have chosen to do the unthinkable love and forgive those who are most hurtful Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness love, not only on those offering it, but also those receiving it. In addition, we’ll hear from experts who will explore whether love and compassion are part of our human nature, and how we can bridge divides with those we disagree with. If you’d like to support our film, please donate at [00:01:00] http://olivedrab-lark-105184.hostingersite.com/documentary Penelope: Hello and welcome to The Loving Compassion Podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Gissele: Today we’re talking about compassion to and from animals. And our guest today is Penelope Smith. Since the 1970s, Penelope has been the founding pioneer for the field, whose name she originated, interspecies Telepathic communication, author of the popular classic books in the field, animal Talk when Animals Speak. Animals in spirit, many audio recordings and founding editor of Species Link Magazine. Penelope has held the hub of the growing community of animal communicators worldwide for decades. She has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in social sciences, years [00:02:00] of training and experience on human counseling, nutrition and holistic body energy, balancing methods, research into animal nutrition, anatomy, behavior, and care, plus the firsthand education from thousands of animals. She has contacted Penelope’s Visionary work has been featured in numerous newspapers, articles, magazines throughout the US and beyond, and she has developed true and tried telepathic communication techniques which complement current scientific knowledge and traditional methods. Her methods foster people’s ability to understand and communicate with animals on many levels, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. As a trailblazer and world renowned teacher of basic and advanced interspecies telepathic communication, she has helped launch the careers of numerous professional animal communicators. Penelope feels that the sacred connection we make [00:03:00] through telepathic communication with other species is essential for human wholeness. She believes that everyone is born with the power to communicate with other species, and that although it is long lost for many people, it can be regained for the benefit of all beings on earth. Please join me in welcoming the one and only Penelope Smith. Hi. Penelope: Hi. Thank you. Great to be here. Thank you. Yes. Gissele: Thank you for being on the show. I’m so thrilled to have you on the show. This is a topic I’ve definitely been wanting to talk about, especially around a compassion to and from animals. I was wondering if you could start by telling the audience, how did you discover that you had this incredible gift? Penelope: Well, it was always a part of me. I always loved animals. It’s very natural for kids. To just gravitate to animals until they’re stopped by other humans. You really can’t keep children away from animals. And for me, [00:04:00] I was aware of who I was, my nature as a spiritual being, why I came in and who everybody else was. So the animals, I recognize them as fellow spiritual beings. And I communicated with them, they communicated with me. I got their thoughts and their feelings. They got my thoughts and feelings, no problem. And when people said or tried to discourage me that it was my imagination or it didn’t exist, I just decided, no, you know what? I’m gonna keep this. This is just too good. I love animals. And I just was not. So much into people pleasing. Yeah. You know, I came from a, a abusive background and so the animals were kind of my lifeline. You think I was gonna let go of, of them who understood me, who were kind and loving and we had fun together, including wild animals. And so I just decided, okay, I’ll keep it under wraps. You know, when [00:05:00] kids made fun of me, I went, okay, here we go again. I’ll just keep it to myself. I didn’t know when I was young that, oh, I’m gonna be an animal communicator when I grow up kind of thing. No, there was no such thing. But I just said no. Well, it’s a natural ability. I’m not going to give it up. What’s the price of giving it up? Severe loneliness. Gissele: Yeah. And it’s, it’s so amazing that you found that connection with animals. especially if the people in your life weren’t necessarily supportive. And it’s so amazing that you were able to hold on to your gift rather than allow other people’s judgment and fear, basically. if they haven’t had that experience to, to change that. And so I think this is why you’re the pioneer in this work. Penelope: You know, it’s hard because humans are social beings. we’re all social beings and we want our parents and people around us to approve of us, especially when we’re young [00:06:00] and we’re growing and everything. So, but I was very spiritual and I just recognized the spiritual nature of things. And so it was easier for me to let go of the more social things. Of course, definitely I had wounds and scars from the childhood I had, which was not filled with love to say the least. but you know, that was part of my mission too, was to heal those, turn those into love to help all other beings. And that’s always been my guidance throughout my life. Okay. Everything we do to turn everything into compassion and loving kindness helps all beings on earth, past, present, and future. And that goes for humans and all species. But as we know, humans need the most help. Humans are the ones who forget who they are and need a really, need compassion more than anybody. I mean, compassion should be our middle [00:07:00] name, but I. Humans really need it because we get so messed up our disconnections and our hurts and our woundedness and our mental orientation that we lose our way. And so having compassion for humans who are hurt and wounded and acting it out well, that’s what the animals do for us. You know? They give us that compassion and they go, yeah, you got it hard. Come play with me. You know? Come learn what it’s like to just live in your body and enjoy it. That’s what the animals show us. You still recognize yourself as a spiritual being, playing a game in a particular experience, a species or whatever form of body that you have. Gissele: I really appreciate you saying that because. It’s so funny what we consider reality, right? Like I know many people that don’t believe that animals have souls in the same way that we do. Like there’s this misconception that there’s [00:08:00] this hierarchy of Yeah, like value or consciousness. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’ve discovered in terms of whether or not this is true? Penelope: Well, that, that always blows me away, that even very spiritually aware people will go on and on about humans being special and different than everybody else, and the animals don’t know anything, but I go, they don’t know they’re speaking from ignorance because they haven’t communicated with the animals. It’s just like when you have humans who say a certain race or a certain sex orientation or whatever is inferior. Okay, why? They are not communicating with those beings. They’re finding out who those beings are. They’re not connecting soul to soul and finding out what their plan is for their life. Well, if you can’t do that with animals, then you don’t know them. You have no basis to say they are ignorant. You have [00:09:00] no basis to say they are less conscious. Then you start communicating with them, which more and more researchers are doing, you know, they’re finding the consciousness in the trees and in all the plants and animals that they can consider lower beings, they’re now finding. So there’s complex communication systems here. There’s complex awareness, there’s emotion, there’s decisions. Realize that when I was young, nobody would dare say that animals had any kind of awareness of who they were or that they could make decisions or that they even had emotions. You know, blows you away. But there’s still holdouts in the spiritual world who do not recognize the consciousness of all life. But if you go back to indigenous people and they’ve got it. Mm-hmm. They’ve got it all, you know, you just go back through history with all the indigenous people, including those now, and they hold that all life is [00:10:00] conscious, all life lives and breathes in its own way. Whether it’s an animal, a rock, a mountain, a river, the air, it’s all alive. It’s filled with the same substance that we all are with the same life force. Mm. And in fact, the particles of energy or matter that we call matter are all the same in every being. They’re, they’re all the same, they’re the same particles. So what’s the difference? You know, I just go, wow, examine, talk to that other being and find out. As soon as you talk with other beings, all your judgements, your preconceptions, they start moving aside. Because as long as you’re really listening to the other being and accepting what they’re saying, you realize, oh, this is a living, breathing, thinking being. Whether it’s a dog, a cat, a human, a mountain, this is a being who is conscious. [00:11:00] So I’ve seen a change, you know, I’ve been around for a while and I’ve seen a change over the, over the decades, how the consciousness of people has raised and raised and raised toward all life. So what people would regard animals and everything else as things including themselves. I mean, really they treated each other as things also. Yeah. Now there’s so much more consciousness, so it keeps growing. So I go those holdouts in the spiritual, consciousness movement. I go, they’ll wake up too. I’ve seen some of them, I’ve seen some of them change. I won’t mention names, but I’ve watched their, their evolving consciousness of the life of all beings. Suddenly they’ll have this awareness, oh my goodness. They’ll be in meditation or they’ll take some plant medicine and they’ll go, oh my goodness, I’m getting what the ancestors have communicated that we all are one [00:12:00] life. But they’re feeling it. See, it’s not just a concept. They’re actually feeling it throughout their bodies, through their whole energy. They’re feeling the connection and that changes everything. Mm-hmm. So then they start communicating and you know, many of them will have spontaneous telepathic experiences, you know, everybody can tap into it. Again, with our socialization, we have barriers. We have mental barriers, we have ideas that get in the way. So learning what it’s all about, what telepathic communication is about and opening to it. Sometimes it’s hard for people who are very mentally oriented. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Agreed. And Penelope: then for people who love animals, sometimes their own desire gets in the way. They get so intense that they don’t relax. Mm-hmm. And let it in. You know, they go, I gotta have it. I gotta have it. I love animals so much, I gotta get their communication. You know? So I’ve seen that over and over again. They get in [00:13:00] their own way with their tension. You know, really, this is a very relaxed thing. The, the energy, the communication just flows through all of us. And so to tap into that requires certain ways of being. And again, all the spiritual masters know about this and the ancestors, the ancient ones, the indigenous peoples. They talk about all these states of being. How do you get in touch with yourself? Same way. So there we go. Gissele: thank you so much for that. I, I think the level to which we can connect also depends on the level that of connection that we have with ourselves. ’cause it requires a level of presence. And it’s so funny, and, and let me know your thoughts. I do feel that animals have helped us get here in the sense of, you know, before we didn’t know much about animals, let’s say take whales or dolphins. They were persecuted and hunted. And then we brought them in, into these aquariums and, you know, we grew to love them. And [00:14:00] then realized, wait a minute, this is inhumane to keep these animals that are traveling like, you know, miles and miles every day and to keep them in this tank. And now you have this movement towards freeing these animals and ending all zoos It seemed to kinda had to go through that journey, it seems. What are your thoughts about that? and what are the animals’ perspectives on that? Penelope: Well, what I’ve learned the most from telepathic communication with animals, and I would say the number one lesson that I learned from animals over and over again is compassion. They are extremely compassionate for our dilemma. That’s why so many animals come up to help us. Even wild animals, you know, our, obviously our domesticated animals you know, have made a pact over the centuries to be with us and help us. We need a lot of help. Mm-hmm. You know, I have a thing that I tell people that I think you’d enjoy. You know how they have this pyramid where humans are at the top and everything [00:15:00] else is lower? And I go, yeah, it’s a pyramid. We need the support of every other species, every other being underneath. if you took away those beings, we on the top of that pyramid would fall down and without the the conscious connection, we do fall down. We fall off, we tumble down. And Native Americans, native peoples around the world recognize this. You call on the animals for help. You get the powers of the animals. You ask them for their powers so that you can find your way in this world as a human so that you can remember who you are. You recognize the spiritual nature of all life, and you ask it for help. Mm-hmm. You know? So I see that the animals have been there helping us all the time. It’s us again. Not again, you can trace it back with indigenous peoples and other [00:16:00] groups where they honored animals and they respected them and they called them in. You know, they call them into help, but then there’s the majority in our Western world who just go along in their unconsciousness or on their computers or wherever else they are rolling around in their heads and really don’t have a good connection with what is around them. And so you talked about earlier how we have to have a connection with ourselves. Yes. You know, I mean, one of the things that I do when I’m teaching people is that your closest animal friend is your own human body. Human body is a, an animal body, your closest animal friend. So get in touch with that body because if you don’t and you ignore that, guess who else you’re gonna ignore? The trillions of other beings, you won’t be able to connect well with them. The more you honor and connect well and take care of this animal, you also then take care of the [00:17:00] other animals. and you see this over and over again. When people are eating poorly or they’re overeating or they’re eating junk food, their animals are also obese. Why? Because they’re feeding the animals the same things. They have the unconsciousness about what is healthy for them and their animal friends. They clean up their own diet. They wanna feed the same good things to their animal friends. I’ve seen this over and over again as a very health conscious person. Obviously, I’m a a maniac at feeding the best things for my animal friends. But it, it just, it just follows. I mean, you wouldn’t give them junk if you’re conscious that it’s not healthy. So all this consciousness of who we are, the animals help us over and over again. I, I tell people, notice, do your animals stare at you. And people, almost everybody raises their hands. If we’re in a live audience, they raise their hands. Yeah. Yeah. I said, because they’re communicating with you. You, you may not be getting it. So they’re zeroing in, [00:18:00] they’re putting their intention across and they’re going, can you hear me? I need you to do this, or I need you to wake up, or I need you to let me go out. Or whatever it is, is, yeah, that it is. They’re communicating, but they’ve been there all along. The more we recognize them as fellow beings, fellow spiritual beings, the more they can open up to us. Because if we don’t see, if we don’t hear, if we don’t get their communication, well pretty soon they’re gonna go, well, what’s the point? So they go into their world and they, they go, okay. All the human understands is when I bunk at the door or I pee on the floor, they understand that. Okay, so I guess I have to do that. They don’t, they don’t get the soul to soul, heart to heart, mind to mind, connection. So I’ll do this, but as people wake up, then their animals can expand. The animals brighten up. They go, oh, there’s a whole other level of communication open between my human and I now, [00:19:00] wow, this is fun. And now we can act together differently. So you grow, they grow, you grow together. it’s an incredibly beautiful thing. And along with the communication, compassion increases. Totally. I mean, there’s no doubt about it. The animals are with us on the journey, the plants, the trees, the mountains, the rivers, they’re all with us on the journey. The more we tune into them, the happier we get more fulfilled. We feel in our lives, the more loving and gentle and, and soft life gets, you know, it’s not so hard at the edges. We’re not struggling and fighting and competing, which is the order of the day, you know, for, for most people. You know, it’s how they operate and I wish it to be different. You know, I wish, well, I Gissele: think you, using the pyramid is probably the most effective example because it’s kind [00:20:00] of lonely at the top, right? Like there’s less connection, less everything at the top. And then you have all of this network below that is connected And as you were speaking, I think the more that you’re speaking, the more I realized, I think we would feel less lonely if we, if we realized how much support and connection we have in this world. Yeah. I think we would definitely start to realize just how everything has been created to support each other. Because like you said, we’re all one source. The one question that I did have, and you’ve already answered it, but I wanted to talk about it, is insects, right?  we kind of have this relationship with insects, with where they’re seen as kind of enemies and pests, right? And I kind of did this experiment, but I wanted to know your thoughts. So I had heard about you and your experiences and every year we get like a whole bunch of ants and a whole bunch of flies and a whole bunch of like those ladybugs that are not really ladybugs. And I decided to communicate with the [00:21:00] ladybugs and, actually at one point I felt a lot of love for the, little Beatles. And then they just kind of went away. I. But I had a different approach with the ants because I was in fear and so I was trying to communicate with the ants, but I was like threatening. I was like, if you come back, I’m gonna have to kill you. because my family’s gonna poison you and they don’t want you. And I had that fear base of like, you know, if you see the ones with the wings and they’re gonna, you know, carve into your wood and then that’s gonna be like a big thing. And so I approached it with that. Not only did they not leave well, my family ended up killing some of them. They launched an attack. We ended up having so many and I was like, oh, that didn’t work. And I kind of was reflecting on how I approached both. Different groups differently, right? Yeah. So I was just curious as to your thoughts about how we can communicate with those. Well, look at, I Penelope: mean, you already know. I mean, that fear just, you attract what you fear. So if [00:22:00] you’re going around in fear or you’re projecting this anger, ’cause you, it was not only fear, but you were protecting anger. You do this or you’re gonna be in trouble. Yes. Yes. And that anger, that’s a lot of energy. And so it stimulates a response. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Penelope: And you had the opposite with the little Beatles. You went into a space of love and everything dissolved. The resistance dissolved, and there was no longer any game there. You weren’t creating any game. But with the ants, you went, okay. And ants, you know, I would say to people, people look to other animals, mammals as, oh, well, they’re similar to us. Primates are similar. I said, look at ants. I said, ants have. Big communities, they’re completely social. They require and rely on their communication with each other just like we do. I mean, they have their ant wide web. Mm-hmm. [00:23:00] I mean, it’s big and they also have wars. They have wars on other colonies of ants. You don’t mix ants. You know, I mean there’s all things. You start investigating ants, and I think you will find even more similarities. They also take care of their wounded, you know, they take off their wounded when there’s wars or if somebody’s injured, they take ’em back. I mean, there’s so many similarities to humans. It are very complex. Their societies are extremely complex. But people don’t see that because they don’t communicate. You start communicating with them, and boy, you will be enlightened. These are wise, incredible, intelligent beings who are also have so much similarities. So you wanna, you wanna wage a war on ants? Good luck. I, there’s nobody that can win a war on ants. Well, I learned that the hard way, but then I asked course [00:24:00] poison everything. Then you poison yourself in the earth. And yeah, no. So Gissele: in the end, we ended up not doing that. We, I ended up having a different sort of communication. You know, I asked for help to communicate. Yeah. So that it could be harmonious. And now, oh, great. It’s all good. Yeah. But the what that showed to me, and, and maybe you can give me some perspective on this, is that fear and that anger and frustration came from my doubt. I did not believe. That I was in fact communicating. Let’s, let’s be completely honest. Yeah. I didn’t know how to get through that doubt. And I had more to lose from an ant invasion in terms of like, you know, like the, belief that those carpenter ants are gonna eat through my wood and there’s gonna cause damage and it’s gonna, so I couldn’t get past the doubt that I was in fact communicating, even though I very clearly heard from the ants. ’cause they were very busy. Like, I could hear, I’m busy, I’m busy, I’m [00:25:00] busy. Yes, yes. Yeah. I’m like, okay, is that really, is that me or is that, am I projecting my perspective? So how do we get through the doubt that we are in fact communicating? And it’s not just our heads. Penelope: Well, you try it, you, you keep practicing and you see the results. Like you saw results. Yeah. And so you look at that and then you do it again and keep doing it with various species. See what happens. You, recognizing, I mean, you’re very conscious, so you recognizing your doubts, you recognize you had fear and anger. A lot of people do not. there’s a place to get in before you start communicating, which is the peaceful, centered place where you’re grounded with the earth. Okay? Then you can communicate with the ants as equal beings rather than this, you know, fury who’s out of control. You know, you can communicate as fellow beings and then they’ll tell you the scene. They’ll say, well, we have to live too. They might, you know, I mean, [00:26:00] they can say all kinds of things We have to live too, and we need to chew on wood or whatever. I just make deals with them. You know, we communicate and I say, well, I need to protect my house, so I’m gonna put this cedar oil all around as a barrier or diatomaceous earth, or some, it’s some, I use non-toxic things. I’m gonna put it as a barrier because I need to protect my house. I really don’t wanna kill you guys kill. So just there it is. You know, I need to do what I have to do. I understand you need to do, and I respect your life, your colonies, your living on the earth. And sometimes it’s hard, you know, because then sometimes the ants bite you. I mean, I have these big ants harvester ants. Who I have to be very careful ’cause I’m a gardener and they get very active and they’re also, they’re sting when they bite. Oh my gosh. It’s like a bee sting, you know, it lasts this big well and it itches like men and it lasts a long time. Okay. So I don’t always see that they’re [00:27:00] around, you know, I’m busy with the gardening. I’m not watching for every ant and they’re crawling up my legs into my pants and oh my gosh. You know, once they bite. So, you know, I have to be more conscious. they’re just going, well, there’s the big feet there, the big unconscious feet. Okay. I’ll wake them up, I’ll let them know you’re stepping on our trail. You’re stepping on a whole bunch of ants. You know, so they let me know and I go, right, okay. So I woke up and now I’m more careful. I look around. Okay. After rain, they’re very busy. I know that. So I watch, you know, ’cause I gotta restore their homes underground. And, I said, well, help me to be more conscious. Could you kinda, I, I’d like your help. Send me a message if I’m just walking around and I don’t see you. And I suddenly go, oh, there’s ants underneath me. You know, so we can work in a harmony about it. And, and you know, [00:28:00] sometimes it’s hard for people because they wanna build in certain places and you got the fire ants and, you know, and some people don’t wanna kill them. Other people just wanna wipe them all out. I’ve had long communications and some of them are very willing to move and others are not. And they’ll go Humans, who do you think you are? This is our home. You know, we’re not moving. And then others will say, well, we can move part of our colony, but you know, it doesn’t work with humans. I want everybody to go, you know, I mean, humans always have to have it their way kind of thing. ’cause they think that they’re the rulers. And it really doesn’t work that way because you look at it, if we kill ourselves off with our ingestion of plastic and every other form of pollution and animals will survive, mother Earth will do the cleanup. And many, many animals, particularly insects, will survive and restore the earth. You know? So who are [00:29:00] you talking to? These are the beings that are making the world go round the microorganisms, the insects. Mm-hmm. They make everything go round. Who are you talking to that they should move? So I work out deals with them. Gissele: You know? Yeah, I love that. and I think what you’re talking about is living in harmony with all beings, which we don’t tend to do. It’s so funny. I was contemplating if I had maybe gotten stung, my reaction probably would’ve been like, oh, you know, like, we gotta get them out, or we gotta wipe them out because what if I got stung again? Whereas your response was, oh, okay, I have to be more conscientious. how can I deal with this more in harmony? And I think that goes to show how human beings ’cause of our fear and our desire not to experience any sort of suffering. We really go out of our way to try to control all of these things. And we impinge ourselves and we other other [00:30:00] things. And this is why we have the world we’ve created. Yeah. All of these isms that happen are because of our othering.  You know, even if somebody isn’t interested in animal communication, I think your work helps us be more human. just more ourselves. And I think for that, I. I think that’s incredible. it’s the connection. ’cause we have lost ourselves so much. You can see it in our wars. You can see it how we interact. Penelope: Yeah. And it, it fills in a missing piece. You know, this is a terrible thing for people to be so disconnected. I mean, you see it in the mental illness. You see it in all the different kinds of disease that people have. It’s just so much disconnection. Yeah. And when we step back, breathe, and relax with Mother Earth and all her beings, we find a different way. And again, I go back to the ancestors, and the current native peoples, the wisdom [00:31:00] that’s there. And in the ancient texts and the ancient spiritual teachings. The wisdom is there on how to live on the earth. We aren’t some superior being. Yes, we have tremendous creativity. We have things we don’t even know about, what we can do with our bodies. And we have tremendous lack of foresight on what we do, you know, on the things that we do and the consequences. And we pay for it. We don’t even know how we pay for it. Think people think disease just crops up like it’s an anomaly or it just happened. And I go, well, you know, there’s causes behind these things. You do this, this happens. You eat this, this happens. You put poisons in. This happens. You live under stress. This happens, you know? And a lot of people just don’t see the connection between their [00:32:00] own actions. And so I feel like. The more connection we can get. Like even people that aren’t interested in the communication, if you just look at that fly, okay, the fly lands on your hand, observe them. They’re remarkable. They’re amazing. And people think they’re so dirty, they’re washing themselves all the time. Did you ever watch a fly? They’re constantly washing themselves. Gissele: Yeah. And Penelope: you know, I remember I had a, a rat companions, domesticated rats, and they were just incredible. They taught me right away. I, I picked them up and they said, oh, oh, the oils on my hand. They said, you’re so dirty. Oh, that. And they started washing their fur. You’re so dirty. And I love that laugh because people think rats are so dirty. Mm-hmm. And I kept going, oh, oh, it feels so terrible. Can’t you do something about your hands? And I said, really? Even if I [00:33:00] wash them, I have these oils I carry. Things and the rat adjusted, you know, my rat companion adjusted said, okay, I got it. You’re kinda greasy and we have to clean ourselves. But I won’t be so frantic about it. You know, Gissele: I had a dog that was really smelly ’cause he had like different allergies and I was imagining him thinking the other way about us, Penelope: Do you think, that. Souls incarnate into human beings and then animals and then different things,So souls have their, they have their choices now. I’ve communicated with a gazillion beings that have gone on. I’m very aware of my own past lives. I’m very aware that beings reincarnate and they have choices. It’s not like certain systems that say, again, humans are superior. Everything else is inferior. It’s a punishment it’s not, I remember one being said to me, why he was a dog. He said, well, I’ve been human many times before, but, you know, I wanted to have a lifetime where I [00:34:00] could really live the love, where I could completely express my love. I could be completely in love and express it and have it accepted. And now I can do that and I can completely love and smile and everybody smiles back at me and I’m full of love. I feel complete and it kind of gave me the picture of the dog as being superior. Now, the dog didn’t think this, but I looked at it and I go, well, that’s a higher state or a bigger, wider state of being is to be completely in love while you’re incarnate. Mm-hmm. You know, in the state of love, in the state of love all the time, even while you’re running around and scratching your fleas and eating your food. All the things that we have to do as physical beings, the love is always there. And I just went, well, that’s what we learned from dogs. Gissele: Yeah. That’s why [00:35:00] it’s like, dog spell backwards is God like Yeah. Are you a vegetarian? Are you a vegan? can you consume animals and still kind of have that love and compassion for them? Penelope: Well, I, communicate with my animal body just as I communicate with other bodies. And I give my body what it needs to be healthy at earlier places in my life, if I didn’t have meat, I would get very shaky. I would not be able to do my work. The amount of stress of traveling around the world teaching meat fortified me. And I would talk to the animals and they would say eat. I mean, I would have, sometimes I would not want to eat because again, I would not want to hurt animals. And at the same time, I would find myself followed by this cow. I would see the cow wherever I went. I said, okay, I got it. I got it, thank you. And I, when I ate the cow, it was like manna from heaven. My whole body [00:36:00] was like filled with strength, with energy and it was the right thing. And I thank the cow. And again, this is similar to how native peoples do it. I thank the cow. Yeah. Yes, I understand the system. I understand the factory farming and horrendous. And at the same time, we have to take care of our animal forms. So as my body has changed, my life has changed. I’m not running around the world, I’m not doing what I used to do. And also my body has changed hormonally. Obviously I’m older, I have needed less. So I’m pretty much vegetarian. You know, again, there’s times where body wants a little fish or wants a little of this or a little of that, but very little. I also worked as a holistic energy balancer and I worked with nutrition and I saw that bodies changed all the times. Humans are omnivores, obviously. You look around the world, humans eat everything and they can’t survive, especially [00:37:00] in cold climates without eating. Animal. So I looked at it and I went, you know what? All animals eat to be healthy now. Humans eat unconsciously, you know, eat junk food that kills us and all this kind of thing. Mm-hmm. More conscious you get, if you eat consciously to be healthy, your diet will change over your life. But you don’t see animals denying themselves what they need. The raccoon doesn’t go, oh, well I shouldn’t eat this little bird. No, I’m gonna eat this little bird and then I’m also gonna eat plants and I’m also gonna eat this. You know, because it’s good. And it’s what, let’s say, God has given me, you know? Mm-hmm. The divine, the order of life has given me. Mm-hmm. But we do so much unconsciously. If people ate consciously, you would have very little meat eating compared to what there is now. [00:38:00] Much of the meat eating that is done, is done out of habit, is done out of unconsciousness. It’s done out of advertising. Yeah. You know, and if people were more conscious. You would, you know, if you look at the longest lived people in the world, like the, the Hanza and other people who lived very simple lives, of course they exercised a lot too, but they ate little bits of everything. So they ate a little bit of goat and a little bit of yogurt and lot of plants and, you know, but it wasn’t this unconscious kind of thing. They ate according to what they grew, according to what they raised. Again, I’ve talked with animals. I’ll just give you a conversation that will illustrate how animals have enlightened me on the subject. And I’ve written very consciously and truthfully in my books about it. And some people will will come up very righteously and say, oh, you’re a killer. You’re a this. I said, well, you know, [00:39:00] we have to kill to live. You know, you’re killing plants. Plants are just as alive as animals. Yeah. Mm-hmm. They feel as much as animals. And people go, oh no, no, that’s not true. Well, communicate with them and you’ll find out, okay, all animals and plants have to kill to live. I mean, it’s part of life. It’s all enmeshed in. So I’ll tell, I’ll tell you what this rabbit taught me. I was teaching in Switzerland. I was on this farm and we were holding the class at the farm. And so there were cows and there were horses and there were all different kinds of farm animals, which was very beautiful. I really love being around all kinds of animals. And there were also rabbits. And my first thing was, wow, what beautiful rabbits. And, and I thought, because I have animal companions had animal companions who are rabbits. I first thought, oh, they’re companions. And I went, wait a minute. No, there’s a whole bunch of cages and it’s in the [00:40:00] barn.  these are food rabbits. Okay. So they were beautiful rabbits. I mean, their cages were immaculate, filled with beautiful hay. Everything was pristine. We’re in Switzerland, you know, I mean, they’re taking, they’re taking good care and it’s pristine, definitely. Okay? Mm-hmm. So I decided, I would talk to the rabbit about how he felt about being a food rabbit. ’cause it was real obvious he was a food rabbit. So I said to him just asked him about his life. He said, my life is so good. People take such good care of me. I have. And, and he could see out he out of his cage, which again, there were a lot of cages, little hutches little cages next to each other. They were wooden with wire. And he could look out. I can look out every day. And I watch the wild rabbits and I watch how they always have to be on guard and they struggle and they usually have a very short life. I watch them get taken by hawks. I don’t have any of that problem. I get to lead this beautiful life of meditation, you know?[00:41:00] Mm-hmm. Where I’m taking care of. And then my death is very swift. And I said, oh, okay, I understand that. And then the rabbi said to me, and you too, will be eaten. And I said, oh, what do you mean I, I’ll be eaten? I, I mean, I’m not, I’m not a food animal. You’re like, what’s happening in Switzerland that I don’t know about? Yeah. No, I didn’t think of that, but I’m going, wait a minute. So the, the rabbit said, no, you two will be eaten. And then I saw it. My body will be eaten by microbes. It’ll be given back to the earth. It will all fall apart as nutrients. It will go back into basic nutrients, giving back to all the animals, all the plants, all the earth. There is nothing that doesn’t get eaten. I got it so clearly. And, and again, the rabbit showed me and told me about it’s, it’s how your life is. That counts. And so I always gauge our systems of killing animals by that [00:42:00] directive. Okay. Yeah. Do they get to live a good life? So when you’re talking about regenerative agricultures and the cows are all out on beautiful pastures and they get to raise their babies and they get to live a good life, okay, that’s a life. Okay, then we have to deal with the factory farming. Now that’s something humans do and the amount of it is just really abominable. But why is the amount abominable? Because people aren’t eating consciously. I really do feel if people, ate consciously, you would find mm-hmm. A lot of people. Getting in tune with their health again, that’s a long shot because people are not interested in their health. They’re just eating their horrible food and, dying horrible deaths from cancer and every other thing because of their unconscious. Okay. But the people who want to be conscious, you start to be conscious and you’ll eat differently, but you may not be vegan. Even [00:43:00] being very conscious, you may not be vegan because your body is telling you, I need this amount. Somebody pointed out to me that the Dalai Lama has doctors advised him for his health to eat some meat. Now, this was not part of his spiritual orientation, but it was part of, let’s look at it. The spiritual orientation is the whole thing. Our bodies, our whole being is all part of it. Yeah. So I may kind of go, yes, there are contradictions in our human life. Yes. Who would want to kill animals? Mm-hmm. You know, or hurt them. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Penelope: But again, I’ve learned a lot of different things from people who hunt from animals who hunt and what killing is and what it isn’t. And I juggle all these things together and just do for myself what will help me to be healthy. And again, I’m really [00:44:00] happy at this time. ’cause I tried to force myself to be vegetarian at one point in my life. And I really did not do well. I went for seven years and I was getting less and less energy, feeling bad. Mm-hmm. And I, I talked to the animals, the plants, and They started me with Eat from the Sea. And I said, well, you mean like sea vegetables? You know, no, no sea vegetables. We mean the ones that swim in the sea. And then they started showing me pictures of cows, you know, and then I got much stronger. So, you know, I just go, I cannot ignore my animal body. I understand there are billions of animals being killed. This requires an effort from all of us. It’s not just one person. And again, if we scaled our meat eating way back, we would still be healthy for those who who need meat to be healthy. Gissele: Hmm. Penelope: And we would have a whole different [00:45:00] system. You wouldn’t have to have the factory farming. You know, I’ve learned so much from animals who are killed consciously by conscious people who actually love them and raise them healthily and then kill them. I’ve learned from them it’s a whole different experience than when you’re, let’s not even talk about picture factory farming. It’s horrendous. So, as I said in my book, when animals Speak, I, I said to me, the focus should be on, let’s change the way we treat animals in their whole lives. Let’s change the whole system. And then we have to raise the consciousness of people, not by just telling them it’s bad, or you’re bad, or, or it’s wrong or you are wrong. But by raising the consciousness of what your own body actually needs, not by habit, not by advertising. By what it actually needs. And you’ll find that a lot of how [00:46:00] people operate in feeding their body is by addiction. The sugar, the meat, the alcohol, the all the rest. A lot of it is addiction. So that’s, we’re talking a long way to raise the consciousness of many, many beings. But I think education is the way, not beating people over the head and telling them they’re wrong, but education is the way. And again, at this stage of the game, I’m very grateful that I have to eat very, very little animal. Gissele: Mm. Penelope: Yeah. To be healthy. But I’m at a whole different stage in my life. I couldn’t have done it earlier on when it was menstruating and Yeah. You know, when my whole needs were very, very different. In fact, you know, my family tends to on the female side, tends to be anemic. Mm-hmm. Without meat. Yeah, pretty much dodging a bullet, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, for Gissele: sure. Penelope: So, so again, everybody’s different and I learned that as a health counselor, everybody was so different and they were different [00:47:00] when they had diseases, and as they got better there, there were different, and their diets need to change. So I can’t go one size fits all. I understand how people can get very absolute, but I find that absolutes really don’t work real well. It’s the duality. This is wrong, this is right. You know, this is what causes our conflicts and our wars. Mm. And so if we go into more of let’s, how do we balance it? Just like we talked about the ants. Well, how do we balance it? I need to put some oil, cedar oil around my house or diatomaceous earth. ’cause I need to protect my house. Okay, you guys, you got all this space. I respect that. Oh, but I need to do what I have to do. Can we get along great? We get along. They don’t invade the house. You know, I mean, the whole thing. It works. So can we work out some kind of balance with this? You know, there’s, there’s organic agriculture. People think that animals aren’t killed and, and when they’re eating plants, you are responsible by eating plants for the life of millions of animals who are [00:48:00] run over by tractors, who their homes are taken away. Babies that aren’t seen getting enmeshed. All the animals you’re eating in your food. People don’t realize there’s tons of insects in, in your plant food and mixed to your grains. If you’re talking about flour, For Pete’s sakes. You know, insects aren’t meat. Well, who are they’re animals, you know? Mm-hmm. They’re not plants. Mm-hmm. Gissele: So, Penelope: you know, we have to look at it sort of in a balanced way, and yes, there are a contradiction and yes, we have to learn to live with death, you know, to make life as good as possible and eliminate as much suffering as we can as possible. That’s a compassionate way. And there aren’t absolutes. I can’t walk through li life without hurting somebody. You know? I’m stepping on ants. I’m, my own body is killing microbes constantly just to keep healthy. It’s killing parasites. Microbes is killing off its own cells, you know, just. [00:49:00] How can I be different if I’m living with this body? How can I be different? No. I’m subject to the cycles of life and death, as is every other animal, as is every plant, as is every mountain, as is the air itself. it’s complex. It’s not yes or no. And yet I get with many people saying, well, I’m not, I’m not talking to you again, or I’m, I’m not gonna read your books if you’re not this way. I go, well, I’m sorry. I have learned a lot from talking with animals and I don’t just side with the animals who eat plants. I am on the side of everybody. You know that. I love that the carnivores were dripping blood and my cats who, who will, will tell me how good blood tastes. I’m not rejecting them. Gissele: I think you made so many important and powerful points. I mean, you’re talking about living in harmony, right? Yeah. Like not overeating, [00:50:00] not over consuming you know, living in harmony with nature. And you’re right, nature does have a cycle. Animals eat other animals. Like, that’s just part of nature. So we’re honoring who we are. if people choose to be vegan or vegetarian, that’s their choice. But I love what you said about really asking your body what does it need and actually doing it from a place of honor, like my family makes fun of me. But I do say to my family members and say, I want the animal that we’re going to eat to have had a good life. I want that positive energy and that love that they experienced to come through me, not animals that have been harmed or hurt. Yeah. And at the same time I also acknowledge that. Death isn’t really what we think. Right? I don’t know if animals perceive death the same way. we think that dying is the worst thing that could ever happen to us. Whereas I think one of the things I learned from my dog [00:51:00] is that it’s like death is just sort of the next experience, right? Yeah. it’s a new different his death in particular had the worst impact on me, not on him. And I had a hard time letting go, so what have you learned from the animals about their perspective on death? Penelope: Well, take a look at it. We go on, the animals are aware of this. All beings are programmed to survive with bodies. All bodies. Yeah. Of all kinds, all bodies want to survive. We’re programmed. That’s, that’s the major program in our bodies. All the cells are saying, survive, survive, survive. How can we get healthy? How can we live a good life? How can we, you know get through this disease, et cetera, et cetera. So everything is programmed to survive. So the rabbit runs away from the predator. Yeah. But when the predator comes down, the rabbit leaves the body and goes, okay, well that [00:52:00] body just fed a hawk. I’m going to be a rabbit again. ’cause I really enjoy it. Mm-hmm. And so immediately looks around and goes, may spend some time in the spiritual realm, but I find that animals who live short lives often, they’ll recycle very quickly and they look around and I’ve met rabbits over and over again. I live. with Desert Cottontails, and I know a lot of them, and I recognize them. When they come back again, they say, here I am again. This little baby bunny comes up to me. Here I am again. I said, yeah. I remember when you left, you know, I found, I found their bloody body with the guts lying out. Mm-hmm. You know, and I’m glad you’re back again. But at the same time, that body fed a fox or a coyote or whoever it was meant to feed. So they just let go. You know, again, a lot of the suffering is alleviated because they can let go. They just go, oops, that body’s gone. It’s not coming back. It’s damaged beyond repair. Okay. It’s feeding a coyote right [00:53:00] now. Great. I’m outta here onto the. Yeah. Onto the next chapter. And when you communicate with animals in the spiritual realm like your dog you know, all the animals that have, have gone on, they’ll give you a whole different perspective about how wonderful their life was, how grateful they are to you, how they wanna continue taking care of you. They’re like your guardian angels now. They’re looking after you. They’re going, wow, that was a trip being a dog. And wow, I’m, now, I’m here expanded and full of joy. Now in our lives, and this goes for all animals, plants, nobody wants to suffer. Nobody wants to be tortured. There isn’t anybody, does anybody volunteer? Okay, make me suffer. No. You know, this is not the usual thing If, if somebody volunteers for an experiment or something, they’re doing it for some greater purpose, or they’re helping another being. They know it’s gonna hurt, but they’re helping somebody else. Okay? That’s a whole different thing [00:54:00] then that alleviates your suffering right there when you’re doing service. But let’s just look at it. We are all beings in this together. We are all going to give up our bodies at some point and be food for the earth. Whether it goes through other critters or whether it goes direct to the earth. We’re gonna be food for the earth. And that’s the way it’s, so how can we live in the most harmony? So it’s a whole bunch of systems that can be changed. If that’s your calling to work on. Eliminating factory farming or first educating people on how they’re killing themselves with their food. You know, if they can learn how to be more healthy, they will eat a lot less of the animals. Definitely. I mean, I can guarantee that because you look at the longest lives, people, they don’t eat great amounts of anything. They eat this, this in portions, you know, and it’s all regulated by the amount of exercise and everything. [00:55:00] It’s a balance with the earth. And so if we move in that direction, we move in communication. You learn a lot from the animals and talk to food animals, you know, people go, oh, have you talked to food animals? It must be horrible. Well, it’s horrible if they’re waiting in line at a factory farm and they hear their fellow cows screaming, yes, that’s horrible. But it doesn’t mean their life was horrible, you know? But we have to change the part that is horrible. The part that makes it a long suffering and unconsciousness, which is very different than killing an animal strait. Yeah. Oh yeah. You know for sure. I’ll just tell you a story. Yeah. This farmer who I talked to, he had, he had geese that he raised. Okay. So at Thanksgiving it was time to kill one of the geese for the dinner. So he said he loved his geese and they were [00:56:00] nice and well taken care of and nice and fat. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And he said, so he got his axe and he went up to the geese and he said, and again, they were raised all sort of the same age and they were all very plump. And he said, who will come to be dinner? And the geese. Would lay their head down on the chopping block. Now this may sound very farfetched, but it’s not when you are in touch and he cut off their quickly, it’s done. The other geese were not even traumatized because everybody was in a different kind of harmony. You know, another story from Findhorn, ’cause I knew Peter Caddy, who was a co-founder of Findhorn Garden in Scotland. And he would say that when it was time for the goats, and again they were they ate different kinds of animals, they would ask who is ready and  they would picture maybe a young fat goat or something like that. And that [00:57:00] goat would not come forward and said, no, it’s not me. I’m happy living right here. And another goat would come forward and they say, okay. And so there’s an honoring there. It’s a whole different thing. And Native Americans would go too, they would pray before they would do a hunt. And they would say, please, we need food and clothing for our tribe who will come forward, who will be, able to help us. A whole different thing. And some people may still say, well, it’s still death, it’s still this. Well those are the absolutes. Let’s look at it. Death is a part of life. Mm-hmm. You gotta face it in some form. All of us do. Mm-hmm. I’d rather go with how the animals who are free, you know, the wild animals have a lot to teach us on death and clean death and recognizing predators and being killed that it gets warped in domestication. And we’re domesticated animals. We’re not, obviously not wild [00:58:00] animals. We’re domestic and it gets warped, very warped in domestication. So we need to learn how to unwarp it and get more. In the balance. Yes. There may come a day when we don’t eat anything, or we just breathe the air. I experimented with all these things. I went vegetarian, universe juice. I went fruitarian, I went Breatharian and Los Angeles almost died from pollution, and oh, I did all these things because I thought, well, okay, you know, I live on energy. We’re all just energy bodies. Okay. I will tell you, I had to go back to eating again, especially living in Los Angeles, where mm-hmm. I was on the kind of air in the seventies was not what, I mean, it’s still dirty, but not like it was then. It was very bad. Yeah. So, whatever, you know, I did all these experiments, you know, I wanted to have the least impact, et cetera. Yeah. And at the same time, I would’ve killed off my body, you know? Gissele: You know, as you were talking, it made [00:59:00] me think of the animal that came forward. I got like a feeling of love, right? Like the animals love us so that they’re offering themselves Yeah. That, that’s what sort of came across. I have friends who did a film it’s called Rescued Hearts, and they talk about the power of horses in helping people heal from trauma. I’m just wondering what your thoughts are around is it just a horse in particular or can other animals help us sort of address our trauma? Penelope: Animals are very, very happy to help us. you just call upon them. There’s more and more animals that people are recognizing help us, and are supportive. And they look at us and people are now recognizing what that look is, that look of connection and love. And then the communication continues. It’s a whole different thing. I really appreciated talking to you about the food thing because I don’t get to talk to too [01:00:00] many people publicly about this because it’s such a charged issue and people are into really making you wrong. Some people are, yeah. On the whole thing, and I just have learned so much from animals. I keep thinking of all the lessons that they have taught me about the cycle of life and death, and I can’t ignore that. You know? It just, it has to be a part of the balance. Yeah. So thank you for listening. Gissele: Oh, no, thank you so much for sharing that perspective. I’m so happy that you were so honest about it. Penelope: You know, animals are also conscious. People keep thinking, well, they don’t know they’re victims. They don’t know anything about their life. They don’t know about the ending of their life. But no, you see, they have chosen somewhere along the line, even if they were unconscious, like humans being unconscious somewhere, they’ll find out that they chose every life, every life experience, and it has a purpose. [01:01:00] Okay? So animals go, well, this is a meat body, but I really wanna be a cow. I wanna enjoy it. Okay, yeah. I’m gonna end up, you know, on the plate. But mm-hmm. Being a cow, it’s really a great experience. And yes, if they end up being rescued and they live on a farm with people, wow. I mean, that’s incredible. And at the same time, if they end up being killed, well, I’m not saying it’s a joyful thing.  but there’s something in there that, that being is learning. I’m not here to say what they’re learning, that’s their journey, but I respect their journey. At the same time, part of my journey as a human is to change the things that cause suffering, do my best. And for me it’s through communication to change those things that cause a being suffering that they didn’t want and didn’t really sign up for, but they learned from [01:02:00] it. And they may never, be a that kind of cow again. Or it may be a path, a journey for them to learn, or it’s something for us to learn in relation. I mean, all beings are learning from each other. You know, all species learning from each other. beings are learning from each other. But let’s change the journey. Let’s evolve it, you know, let’s evolve it to a higher place of balance for all beings. But again, I don’t have any quick and fast answers on it. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, for sure. I really appreciated that. I think what you’re talking about is so important. I think one of the things that, that kind of keep coming out for me is I feel like the reason why people are so black and white about it is because we are afraid of death. Yeah. We don’t wanna talk about death. We don’t want to deal with death. And so acknowledging that sort of death. Means thatwe would have to acknowledge and face our own mortality, which I think people are [01:03:00] afraid of. ’cause, you know, when you look about all of these systems, it’s just all based on disharmony, us not being who we truly are. You know, greed, the fact that you don’t have any empathy for animals and you can just grind them up and, and just, it’s beyond me like that you could watch an animal suffer and, not feel something that only shows your own level of disconnection. my first experience was when I was very young. I was, I think I was maybe 14, 15, went to a, a sea world. and they had dolphins and I had never seen a dolphin. And I was so excited. And they had a dolphin petting area. And I, as a 14-year-old, ran up to Pet the Dolphin ’cause I wanted to experience. And everybody’s hands were in that tank and, and the animal had been sedated. And I went to put my hand in and I looked in its eye and it looked at me with so much suffering and I pulled [01:04:00] my hand and to watch all of those people just, they just, they were just there for themselves. Like they were just, and, and no judgment on them because I, as a 14-year-old ran up, that animal looked me right in the eye and I thought, oh my God, what am I doing? What are we doing? How can we be so disconnected from our fellow beings that we can do that? And I couldn’t step in any one of those things again. I. I think I went once when I was older because I felt pressure to take my kids, and I was like, what am I doing? I’m violating my own values. I can’t do this again. I also had to look at myself and how I was othering other beings, right? Like, I, I killed the insects. I, you know, ate the animals. And so for me it’s like you said, it’s not so black and white. We have to really look at ourselves and choose to evolve and choose to love more, and choose to have more compassion, [01:05:00] even compassion for our history, right? Like, I think part of that rigidness comes from shame.  I historically, in the past, I didn’t eat consciously. I do now because I’m more aware thanks to social media, you see more, you are able to see how these animals are being treated. But before, as long as it was a cheaper steak or a cheaper chicken, then I was good. ’cause that met my needs. But now I can’t unlearn what I’ve learned. Yeah. I can’t not know that. I don’t want to eat animals that are suffering. I don’t want to, have that experience. That’s not who I choose to be. I think these conversations are so important and I am so grateful that you were so honest about, in your answer about, and enabled us to have this discussion and conversation. ’cause I think is, is very, very important. I wanted to this is a little bit more selfish. I wanted to go back to the whole concept of talking to animals who have crossed over. I think as I mentioned [01:06:00] before we started recording I’d lost my dog last November. And I think there’s an element of me that. Doesn’t know how to, I talk to him all the time and he was my first animal. And there’s elements of me that I could have been a better dog mummy in so many different ways. And I think that’s very normal in general. Yeah. To, to want to have learned from the experience. But what can somebody do to open themselves up to speak to an animal that may have crossed over? Penelope: Well, first of all, know that they are connected with you and you are connected with them. People disconnect and they go into their guilt. They run guilt trips on themselves. Oh, I could have done something different, or I could have been less impatient or blah, blah, blah. And here your dog friend is shining over you feeling this incredible love. And so realize that as [01:07:00] soon as you think of them, they’re there, there are no limits in the spiritual realm. There isn’t a time limit, there isn’t a space limit. So you just think, and they’re there. So when you say you have conversations with them, you are having conversations with them. Acknowledge that good you are having conversations with them. So have conversations, feel, but most of all feel them because they have gifts for you. They have gifts of that love and compassion and sweetness and expansion and spiritual reality. That they want to share with you and wisdom, they’re like guides for you. Now if you let them, they can help you. So understand that it’s really a natural thing. You can only stop yourself. So, so people get of obviously naturally very much into their grief. All the stages of their grief. Understandable. And [01:08:00] if you can allow some space to honor your connection with your beautiful animal friend who is still there with you, then you will have a different experience. I’m not saying you don’t have to go through emotion. This is part of the human journey. We go through our losses and emotions. Yeah. It’s part of the journey. You’ll feel it. If you don’t feel it, then you’re numb. You know? So you’ll feel it. And you can share with your animal friend. You can even say to them, yeah, I feel guilty that I didn’t, go to the vet 16 times. I only went 15 times. Now, only spent $10,000 instead of $20,000. I feel guilty about that. It goes. And you, I was your smother mother. You don’t just going, it all doesn’t matter. I, well, I love you. I had such a beautiful life with you. We had a pact to be together. We grew together. We love [01:09:00] together. What could be better? I just had a trip with you and I’m continuing my journey with you. I thank you for connecting with me. You know, they’ll be, they’ll be very happy too. They just want you to know how much they love you. Mm. So Gissele: thank you for that. I, Penelope: yeah. And I’ve written my book, animals and Spirit, I just put out a class on video, on connecting with your animals in spirit. So there are ways to do it. And if you allow yourself, it helps. I’m not saying you won’t hurt, you know? Yeah. It’s the way it is. And you’ll evolve. You know, you’ll evolve with your animal friend and you’ll feel their comfort. There’s a gift when your animal friend goes to the spiritual realm. If you accept it, you’ll feel comforted, you know? And then some animals go on, they reincarnate. Some will come back to you. Some have other journeys. [01:10:00] They need to go other places or be in a other species or stay in the spiritual realm longer or whatever it is. But some will come back to you and if you listen, you’ll find out. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. And, and I think it’s important to be more present really focusing on listening and how to listen better because if you’re communicating with anyone listening is just as important as talking. Yeah.  So a couple more questions. So my first question is, what’s your definition of love? Penelope: Love is a state of being that is natural to our consciousness. It is actually what we are made of. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Penelope: And it’s a, it’s an expansive state of being that includes all things. There is also love as an emotion that we feel as an emotion toward people. It’s a, it’s a giving and a taking kind of [01:11:00] thing, but I’m talking about love as a state of being where it encompasses everything. Mm-hmm. And I feel like it translates better because again, we have so many definitions of love translates be better as compassion, as inclusion. As acceptance, because when you include and you have compassion and you’re accepting, what else do you feel about that state of love? Gissele: Yeah. Penelope: You know, so you sit there with people and just have compassion and acceptance. You can’t help but love them. Yeah. You feel that soul. And yes, they have all their contradictions as a human, as we all do. And that’s okay too. You know, acceptance is a part of love. So that’s how it feels to me. You know, that love is actually a state that is natural to our being. That when we get centered in our being, when we get centered with the earth, with our bodies, that’s what we feel. That [01:12:00] open space that we usually can feel right from here, from the heart center right here is the vast cosmos.  that’s what love is to me. Gissele: Oh, thank you for that. And last question. Where can people work with you? Where can they find you? Any offerings you might have in terms of courses, anything you wanna share with the audience? Oh yeah. Penelope: Thank you. So my website is http://www.animaltalk.net, and you’ll find I’m giving courses, online courses. I’m doing work with the Shift Network and there’s a big course coming up. Find the Shift Course here. You also have evergreen courses that you can do both foundation courses and more advanced courses. And I am not available for individual consultations. I have many offerings that help you to learn. Publications and all program using the publications. And there’s a lot of free material on my website and on YouTube [01:13:00] that people get a lot of awarenesses of. I really feel like if you just watch the YouTube and read all the articles, you’d get it and you wouldn’t need anything else. But it’s nice to have a course, you know, and get training too. Gissele: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For those people that need a little bit feel, they need a little bit more support. And there’s also your books as well that are available on Amazon, right? Penelope: Yes. And books and the audio recordings and the videos, Gissele: yeah. Yes, yes. All those things so that people could tap into your wisdom. which we need more of. Penelope: I, would like people to be happy, you know? And how do you get happy? You connect. disconnection is a shrinking that hurts. Mm-hmm. And when we connect and we open and we feel the trees and the animals and other beings, it’s beautiful. And that’s what I would wish for other people. And yes, you have to work on your own journey and your own shadow and all the, the good, the bad and [01:14:00] the ugly. Yeah. and face it. And it comes up for us all. As long as we have human bodies, we’ll have the human program and boy it is filled with everything. Yeah. Gissele: So true. So true. Thank you so much, Penelope, for being on the show and sharing your wisdom with us. This was an amazing conversation. I cried, I laughed. I had all the emotions. Thank Penelope: you. You’re such a beautiful, sweet, loving person. It’s just a joy to connect with you. I feel like we’ve just spent time being friends together, so thank you. Gissele: Me too. Me too. Thank you so, so much. I appreciate it. And thank you everyone who tuned into another episode of the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Have a great day.

Transcript Gissele: Martin Luther King write, does love have the power to turn an enemy into a friend? Does it have the power to heal? This year, we are creating an inspiring documentary, courage to Love the Power of Compassion, which explores the extraordinary stories of those who have chosen to do the unthinkable love and forgive those who are most hurtful Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness love, not only on those offering it, but also those receiving it. In addition, we’ll hear from experts who will explore whether love and compassion are part of our human nature, and how we can bridge divides with those we disagree with. If you’d like to support our film, please donate at [00:01:00] http://olivedrab-lark-105184.hostingersite.com/documentary  . Hello and welcome to The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re gonna be talking about compassion and love in the foster care system. Our guest today is Peter Mutabazi entrepreneur international advocate for children and founder of Now I am known a corporation that supplies resources to encourage and affirm children. Peter is a single dad, foster parent, who was a former street kid in Uganda. He has worked for Compassion International and the Red Cross. He has appeared on BBC in the Today Show and is author of the book now I am known. Please join me in welcoming Peter. Hi Peter. Peter: Hey, how are you? Gissele: I’m good. [00:02:00] How are you? Peter: I’m good. What a joy to be with you today. Gissele: Yes. I’ve been, I’ve been following your story for such a long time. I’m such a huge admirer of the work that you do. I followed your story with Anthony and also I used to work in the child protection system and so lots of issues with children that didn’t feel loved and accepted and with sometimes struggling with foster parents who didn’t understand the behavior problems. And so that’s why your journey is such powerful, powerful reminder of how important it’s to have presence, to have compassion, including for yourself. So I’d like to begin by asking you how you got to this place. Like what was your journey like in terms of going from the streets of Uganda to now having this incredible social media presence and really kind of carving a new way for foster care? Peter: Well, you know, I was, you know, I was born in Uganda among the poor of the poorest you could imagine. You know I [00:03:00] never had one meal a day. I had one meal every other day. We could not afford beans and potatoes, you know, grew up in a place where I had to go fetch water three to four miles away one way twice a day, like there was no time to be a child. And two, you know, at age of four, I began to realize that not only are we poor, but my dad was abusive as well. So grew up in a place where, you know, the only words I heard for my dad was, you’ll never amount to anything. You’re nobody. I wish you never born. So I did not have to feed you. And those are the things I heard for my dad. So for me, internally, life was miserable outside. It was miserable. at the age of, you know, 10, I, I, I knew my father would kill me, so I thought, wait a minute, you know, I would rather die in the hands of a stranger. So I ran away, and that’s how I became a street kid. And from the age 10 to almost 16. As street kids, we are treated more like stray animals. Like really, people viewed us as we are, we are nobody. We are scum of the earth in some way. Mm-hmm. And somehow we believed it because that’s what we looked like. I mean, I lived in a sewer, I ate from the garbage.[00:04:00] So all the things people said, you’re like, well, kind of, I’m kind of that way, you know, until I met a stranger who saw the best in me, He saw a kid who wasn’t a thief. He saw a kid who wasn’t smelling. He saw a kid with just potential and he wanted to make a difference. And that’s who changed my life by really offering me two things. He said, I can feed you once a week or you can go to school where you can eat every day and you, you can survive. And I said, I’ll go to school if there’s food. And that’s how I went to school. And I found out I was smarter than just the food. Gissele: That’s brilliant. I was wondering if you ever got a chance to ask your benefactor what motivated them to help you? Peter: Of course I did ask him. I said, you know, but why me? There were more than 3000 kids in the streets of Kampala. So I said, why me? Like, why me? You know, why didn’t you take the other, why me? You know? And he said, you know, I wanted to be faithful, you know, and you always showed up for food. So you are the one I got to really know. You are the only one. I knew a name, but [00:05:00] you. Always showed up. So it’s like I knew what I cannot do it all I can do for one. And that really, you know, showed a light on, really how we view the world. I think sometimes when we hear a problem, we get overwhelmed. We’re like, that’s too much, you know? But for him, I think, yes, there were hundreds and hundreds of kids on the streets of Kampala. He say like, I can’t do them all, but I can do one. And that one happened to be me. So that truly is what changed my life. Gissele: And that’s such a powerful story because you know, like you said, we often think that it’s such a big problem. Who am I, I am not gonna be able to make a difference. But that person by focusing on one person and then you helping another person, and then it’s just sort of dominoes, right? in terms of creating a, a better, more loving world. And, and how did you transition from that, from school to foster parenting? Peter: You know, so I went to school in, in Uganda and I went to school in England as well. So that’s how I came to United States, you know, when I arrived in the United States, I, I [00:06:00] struggled seeing how much food was thrown away, you know, and at the same time, knowing that there were kids in the same neighborhood that had no place to go so I could understand. And I went to church as well, so I couldn’t understand why. They can say, love your neighbor, love the list of these. Yet there are so many kids in foster care. Like I could not understand. we talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk Yeah. And that really, it, challenged me too, but also I feel like I. I live in the most wealthiest place. I just can’t take for myself like I have to find a way to share with others. But I had traveled all over the world. I had never seen a black person who was adopting in Uganda or in Ethiopia. So because I had never seen anyone who looked like me doing what I love to do. I believed it a lie, like, well, you have to be white, you have to be Caucasian, you have to be married to adopt because they’re the only ones we saw in China anywhere else. So for me, I didn’t believe that I would be allowed to do so until I. [00:07:00] I walked in and I said, Hey, I just wanna mentor teenagers. Would you allow me to have one or two that I can meet weekly? You know? And the social worker received me, said, Hey, have you ever thought of being a foster dad? I was like, I think about that every day, but I’m not qualified. And she said, why? I said, I’m single. And literally she said, 30% of our moms are all single. You can be a foster dad. Literally. I said, where do I sign up? I met her on Monday, on Thursday I signed up for classes to be a foster parent. Gissele: Wow. Yeah, and it’s a lengthy process. I don’t think people realize that. It’s not just like, oh, well I’ve signed up for foster parenting and therefore there, I just get a kid. Like there’s a whole preparation that needs to happen in order for people to foster. Correct. Peter: you have to learn one. You know, remember these children belong to the state, so you have to learn the rules and the trauma as well. You know, so it takes between, you know, four months to a year depending where you live, you know, and also the requirements you have to go through in order to be [00:08:00] licensed. You know, for me it took, took me about five months and then I received my first child, and, and that, that’s where it all began. Gissele: Yeah. And I, I love that story. I just wanted to go back. Do you feel that you were appropriately prepared for the trauma the kids had experienced? ‘Cause some of the feedback that I’ve heard from foster parents in terms of desiring more information on how to manage because the difficult behavior. Is really a mask for a lot of the difficult emotions that young people are feeling. Do you feel you were appropriately trained to manage the trauma? Peter: Yes and no. So for me, remember I was one of those kids, so I went through every trauma most kids have gone through. So I, by experience, I understood that a kid stealing has nothing to do with bad behavior, but there’s a root cause. There’s a reason why they did. So I stole food because it was the only way I can survive. There was no any other but to say, was I stealing? In people’s eyes, [00:09:00] yes. But on my end, it was survival. I was looking for a way to make it through the next day, you know? So for me, yes, I think the experience really helped me, because I can see from a mile, I’m like, yep, I remember what I did. I know what sabotage means. But on the other side too, yes, you are right. Especially with the state, when they train you, they train you on the policies of things you do, don’t do things you have to follow. They really don’t equip you on how to deal with trauma, you know? So for me, I had to go an extra mile and enroll in classes for trauma, read books about trauma, and that really helped me. The other part is I really had to learn more about myself. Like I think as every parent, when you come from a structured parent parenting a child who’s from a non-structured, like those clash. And I think I needed to really revisit my own childhood and say, what will this trigger, you know, what would this cause for me to not be a good parent because I needed to deal with myself first, [00:10:00] and that’s really what helped me the most. I did all the training, not so much for the children, but for my own self. I think like I need, I need to heal, but I need to revisit my childhood as well in order to know how I can be a better parent. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. And, The beautiful part about your journey as challenging as it was, it’s given you both perspectives, the perspective of the child who was hurt, the child who experienced trauma, and the survival mechanisms as well as now from the parent who has to help sort of soothe those. Right. So you had to learn to parent as well, which if you, if you didn’t have that example growing up, must have been challenging. Peter: Correct? And the man who took me in, they didn’t just put him in school, they brought me to his home. So for the first time I saw a family that sat together, I was like, wait, is that normal? Like, can people sit together? No fighting and no one hurt? You know? And then I saw how kind he was, the words he used that I never had before. So now I had an example to say, well, if there’s good behavior, now I know what [00:11:00] it looks like, you know? Mm-hmm. And that’s what, what, what helped me as well. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Can, you’ve shared this numerous times, but for some of my listeners who may not know your story, can you tell a little bit about how you and Anthony sort of found each other? Peter: Yes, as foster parents. we do respite, you know, so I had two kids and had them for a year and a half and they had gone back home. And I can tell you, there’s one thing, they trained me and there’s one thing they did not train me how to say goodbye. You know, so for me, I was not mad, but I was like, I can’t do this like this, this job, this journey is hard. So I told my social worker that, Hey, I need a pause. I need I, I need a pause for six months before I can have a child. And the kids had left on Monday, so the next, literally on Friday, she calls me, she’s like, look, we need respite. Respite is really when you step in to help a child or a, a parent for a couple days. Usually it’s not a long time, it’s like a week. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so they said they needed a weekend, so I was like, oh, come [00:12:00] on, I can’t do this. So I said, sure. Once they told me he was left at the hospital, I think that’s what made me feel like, wait, he can’t stay at the hospital Like I got take him. And that was why I said yes, but I agreed to only the weekend. That’s how I met Anthony. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. And I found that in my experience in the child welfare system as well, is that because there’s sometimes few foster parents that they will keep like asking and asking and asking for more of foster parents because there aren’t enough homes. But then that kind of like sometimes can lead to breakdowns of the homes because foster parents will sometimes take on more than they can. Right. And so I think that’s where more foster homes are needed or more resources and support. In terms of you bonding with Anthony one of the things I remember about your story is how like there was a true connection, right? So from the, the actual [00:13:00] connection to him being adopted did you know quickly that he was gonna be your first adoptive son or was it something that was more like later on in time, you knew that the bond was sort of unbreakable? Peter: You know, in foster care, as you say, like they don’t tell you. You get so little information, you know. But with him once they dropped him outta my home, and so I agreed that they will pick him up on Monday. So on Monday, when they get to pick him up, that’s when I ask, so where is he going? You know? So they say, well, all the parental rights have been terminated. So the only way he can. We can find a place to group home. So I was like, wait, wait, I’ve always wanted to adopt. Can I, you know, I mean literally in one second, I was like, oh, I want him to stay forever literally in front of the social worker who had come to pick him up. I like, oh, no, Just gimme the paperwork for school. And that’s how I knew instantly. But he’s also, when he arrived at three in the morning that Friday. He said, I said, you can call me Mr. Peter, you know, but he looked in my eyes and said, but [00:14:00] can I call you my dad? You know? So I said, hell no. I was like, hell no. It’s like, no. And the reason why, because I had had two kids and they had gone back home, who called me dad every day and I’m like, you cannot come into my home and you are only here for a weekend. And somehow, dang that whole dad thing in front of me. Like, I know it. Just don’t, don’t. So that was my reaction first. Yeah, but for him, he had kind of known since like, you know, I want you to be my dad. But on on the other side, I was like, no, no, that’s not happening. You know, so it on that I said, you know what? This kid knew I’ll be his dad. Yes, I want to be his dad. I. Gissele: Yeah, and what you mentioned, the grief is real, right? Like when you have kids that come into your home, become a part of your life, in your kids’ lives, and obviously the point of the system is to reunify as quickly as possible, and that’s, you know, why you’re helping the parents. That’s probably the most compassionate and loving thing you can do. But allowing [00:15:00] the time or supporting the whole grieving process, I think sometimes. Homes aren’t given enough time to do that by the time a new placement comes in. And so that’s why I love your stories in reminding people that it’s important to take time to grieve that these little lives touch us in so many different ways, and that there’s, it’s a good thing to do, to, feel that, to feel those emotions, right. Peter: Right. Absolutely. You know, some people tell me, Hey, I cannot force that because I cannot bear letting the child go, you know? Mm-hmm. And most time I just say, you are absolutely right. You know? It is hard. It is tough. But remember, foster care is so they can go back home. So going back home should be the celebration, though the bonding that we had with them was. Really real and, able to tell people like, Hey, actually you be the best parent for the one who’s scared of that letting go. You are actually the one that need the most because they want that attachment. No one has ever been for them or [00:16:00] there for them. That would really help them grow in that attachment side of the world unless you love them that much. You know? So it’s been a way of saying like, actually you be the best parents because. Attachment is what they need, you know? Yeah. And I’m always also say yes. It’s really difficult. Like it is hard. It is the hardest part to say goodbye. Yes. You know, you achieved the goal to go back home, but you bonded every day. You went to bed thinking about this kid every night. It was about them. And all of a sudden gone, yes, It is hard. But you Gissele: also live in their hearts and minds, and also you can offer a safe place to be if the home breaks down again. One of the things I’ve seen is that there has also been this trend that sometimes kids come in and out of. Their, their biological homes because parents like, you know, revert or something happens. And so it’s good to have that connection that they don’t have to go into a new home, into a new system. Absolutely. So I think from that perspective is, is really very powerful. [00:17:00] One of the things that I have seen in your stories is talking about how you as a black man adopting white children. The kind of like reaction very much surprised me, but I thought you handled it. You’ve handled that with such grace and compassion for people. Do you wanna tell a little bit about how you have managed those? what sort of preparation do you have to do when you’re traveling as a black man with your white children? Peter: So for us is every day, even just, you know, so we have two cars. Every car has a document for every child because that’s how often we get stopped. I’ve been stopped by the police about 11 times because someone reported, but at the same time, I’ve learned how to really not make that personal,  I use that as an opportunity to really share like, Hey, I know, and some are honestly, like Peter, I have never seen a black family with white kids. Like it’s just not something that I’m aware of. So my. Questioning or my reaction wasn’t because I dislike it, I [00:18:00] just, it’s just not there. And now I’ve taken that more an approach to really educate people, you know, change even when the police comes and say,I know I get this often and I know you have to do your job. You know, so he’s paperwork what else do you need? And most time they’re like, we are, sorry. I’m like, you, you’re doing your job. You know and to, take it with grace as well, that. People. And, and there are some mean ones like sometimes they, they don’t like to see good in people and they’ll do everything to destroy it. And for me, I have refused to let that get in the way. You know, I love the kids and I want to help And rather approach it with grace, you know change the narrative, you know, for those who want to learn. And for those who don’t want to, I can’t really change them, you know? God will at their own time, but for me to really carry on what, what I get to do, and I’ve also educated my kids, you know, my kids are aware, and I think they’re the ones who take it really hard. You know, when people are questioning, is that your father? They’re like. Yes, he’s my dad. How dare you? You know? Because for them, they don’t see, they don’t have a black [00:19:00] dad, they just have a dad, you know? Right. Mm-hmm. Gissele (2): And I think when Peter: people are questioning that, they’re more like, what? What’s going on? And they’re the ones who get hurt most of the time. And I’ve kind of really tried to help them, like, Hey, people who look like me, that’s the attitude we get most of the time. Like, it’s just not me. The most majority of people who look like your dad get that reaction or sometimes questioned for no reason. That I want you to have respect, but also learn how to react as well when you get to see these at school, when you get to see it somewhere else. To really stand up for the people that sometimes are not able to do so. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. And I think what you’re doing is fundamentally changing the system through dialogue. It’s, it could have been very easy for you to get really angry and, and do all of that stuff, and, and then people can feed that anger. But what you’re doing is you are taking the opportunity to educate about the experiences and to get people to understand, okay, this is the process that I have to go through. Some other people aren’t gonna do that, and these are the things I have to do because I love my [00:20:00] children. Right, Gissele (2): and Gissele: so you’re always so child centered. It’s, again, it’s very easy to get pissed off at the people who are making those comments or the cops that are stopping you for the 11th time, but because you’re so child focused, I think to me that that really demonstrate that we can process those things and still be thinking about the impact on our children. And so I think that is, that is phenomenal, right? Peter: Yeah. Gissele: while I was working in the child welfare system I used to have lots of conversations with young people in care about how this system isn’t designed in a way that enables them to have voice and participation in their own experiences. What have you found as a parent of children who are in the system in terms of some of the barriers to participation and perhaps what we could be doing better? Peter: Zero. You know, I mean zero. And it begins from how they were taken from their home. Like there’s no warning for them. So they are at school and a social worker shows up with a police like, oh, we are taking you. And they’re [00:21:00] like, why, why, why? And then they’re moved from home to home. We’ve never been given an explanation of why, you know, I’ve had little ones and I have teenagers. They said they have been in more than 12 homes and no one at, at any particular time did someone say. Hey, by the way, we are moving you tomorrow for reason. 1, 2, 3, 4, none. You know, it’s a decision based on the parents. We, the foster parents and the social workers who decide to say, I want you in my, in my family. Oh, I don’t want you. And they’ll come and pick you up and scramble to take you somewhere. And so it kills the. Their dignity, it kills their voice because from the get go, they just never have an opportunity. They cannot talk to mom. If they do, they have 15 minutes, to talk to mom. They cannot visit with mom. They have to meet that in the office or in a place where their cameras, so from the get go, that connection with their bio parents is cut off in a harsh way. That really is hard for them to even think of, Hey, can I voice myself? [00:22:00] Because they’re afraid. I have kids. Every time a social worker comes, they panic. You know, because the only time they have seen a social worker is when that social worker is taking them away, you know? So is the child right to feel so? Absolutely. You know, and my job is, as a foster parent, is to make sure that, give them a voice, prepare them. You know, I never take a child unless I have an opportunity to visit them, because it’s, if it’s possible, you know, like I would like to meet them where they are. So they feel like, oh, he came to visit us, and then the next week they can say, by the way, the guy who was here came to visit would like to have you. You know? Mm-hmm. Or sometimes I prefer they come for a weekend and then they go back. So they visit for a weekend and then they go back in. That way, we get to give them an opportunity to say, would you like to stay? You know? Yeah. And 99.9, they always say yes because we give them a little time to really think about it. But very, very, very few children get that opportunity. So because your [00:23:00] voice is kind of cut off the, you don’t even, you don’t even bother, you know, literally I have a 21-year-old on, on Christmas. I say, what would you like on Christmas? He’s like, well, I. Anything. And I’m like, no, come on, tell me you, you something is like, I don’t know. And then I go to ask them why they’re like, I asked people ask me for the last eight years I’ve been in foster care, but I never got what I asked for. They always give me handouts or things that don’t fit my age. And so I gave up. That, oh, that breaks me. You know? Yeah. And that’s true. So there’s never voice for them, for sure to, to, you know, court. We go to court, they never come. You know, they get to, to get, they get the information through the fourth or the third person and sometimes it doesn’t feel like you matter And that really the traumatic situation that really affects our kids in foster care. Gissele: Yeah. And you know, that’s, that’s sort of the exact feedback I received from young people. It was like it feels like an alien abduction. ’cause you don’t know [00:24:00] where you’re going. You don’t know what time, you know, you usually get stuff moved in garbage bags and there’s just, you go from place to place and. Like I knew some young people that had been in care 15, 20 years never knew why they were in care. And so then the kids make up stories, right? They internalize this, this must be my fault. And so, and and I, I think there’s an aspect of me that believes that this system is designed this way because that is really how we view and treat children. How often do we give children the right to have say, the right to, to have, say, over their bodies and say over their minds? And, and so I think we’re learning now, but the, the system is so antiquated it really doesn’t have a lot of opportunities for young people to be able to say, this is my life. Ultimately I’m a participant. And even if they wanted to return home. Just giving them the reason why they’re not able to go home at this time without needing to shame or, or belittle the [00:25:00] parent. Just, you can speak honestly, because for me, when we’re thinking about love and compassion, you cannot have love without truth, Peter: right? Mm-hmm. You Gissele: cannot love someone if you’re not truthful to them. You couldn’t even have a, a romantic relationship with someone that you’re being untruthful, sore. So how is it that we are not being truthful to young people in enabling them to have participation? I think there’s a lot of fear in the system.  I don’t think workers themselves are always trained, even though some of them are social workers. I see that they’re not trained in emotional regulation. They don’t know how to emotionally regulate themselves and they don’t know how to hold space for the emotional regulation piece. And so I think that’s where, from my perspective, we could be doing better in terms of training social workers on how to make these systems much more compassionate. Peter: Right. Yes. Follow the policy, but have the humanity in the middle of it as well, you know? Yeah. And that’s for me where I always feel like it’s, [00:26:00] it’s like a, a mechanical, Hey, here’s how we do. We don’t say this. I’m like, wait, wait. You know? But the humanity doesn’t work in that way. We live in a gray area.  and those policies can’t really function in a way that you ask for. And that’s sometimes the way it feels like your robot, you know, like my social workers, most of them are young and never marry, so they have no clue. You know, I’ll take care of kids sometimes I’m like, okay, how do I go to for advice or how do I go? To share with this social worker that absolutely no clue on what parenting, and not just parenting, but parenting with trauma, you know? But yeah, I Gissele: totally, completely agree. ’cause I’ve also spoken to parents in the system, and that was one of their biggest pet peeves. They’re like, I’m having this. 25, 20 7-year-old with a designer bag coming to my house. I am trying to decide between paying my mortgage or feeding my kids. And then you’re talking to me about how to parent when that person doesn’t have any children. [00:27:00] And at the, at the base of those concerns when I would speak to them was, is this person gonna understand me? Is this person gonna be able to really help me when they don’t really understand my situation? And so. I think the beauty of your experience as challenging as it was, is that it’s giving you that perspective of kids with trauma and what it’s like to go to all those different environments and not feel like you belong and not feel like you have voice and participation. Peter: Absolutely. For me, I have a policy that if I have a kid and they’re 13 and above, if they wanna go to court and listen to moms, whatever, like I prefer, so they can hear firsthand, I am not the one passing on information. Like because they’re old enough. Sometimes I feel, I feel like we, we see them as though like. Like they don’t have the brain. They grew up from this. They understand it more than we do, but sometimes I feel like we are shielding them from what they already know, you know? Yeah. That’s, [00:28:00] that doesn’t make sense. Yeah, that’s, Gissele: that’s, that’s actually very true. It’s so funny. So I was talking to the children’s advocate office one time. We were talking about I think it was like healthcare, and she knew that I was working in the child welfare system and she said to me, she goes. Help me understand this. You know, like the trouble welfare system bubble wraps these kids from the time that they come into care and then once they leave care, It’s like putting a bicycle on the highway and say, see ya. And so there is no preparation, zero for, for independence, because if you have tried to shield them from their life, from their truth, from their experiences, and then when they turn 18. It used to be. Yeah. When it turns 18, I think now Ontario has extended it, but then they’re just like, well see you later. Now you’re on your own when you’ve paid for everything, when you’ve technically been the parent. I think this is where the struggle is for young people and how there is sort of a, sometimes a linkage [00:29:00] between that. Homelessness or drug use or being trafficked. And so this people in the system and the people that have created the system and the people that perpetuate the system, including myself while I was working in it don’t fully understand the impact of that, of that inability to prepare kids along the way for their future, as you would if you had your own children. Peter: Well, absolutely, and, and that’s kinda where for me, like I am the child. I’m the parent. I have the kids 99.9 outta the time, but you will not believe the restriction I have for the child. And sometimes I’m like, they are not bubbles, they’re not eggs. You know, these are kids who need to experience, you know, here in the United States, 75% of homelessness. Are kids from foster care. Yeah. 75% of sex track children are former foster kids. So it’s like literally we are a hose to the, you know, to the outside world, And, and for me, the, the hardest part is like, [00:30:00] you know, some of our kids have come from a place where they were living by people in a car, literally, you know? But when they comes to me as foster parents, the regulations and demands, they ask for me out, out of the place. And sometimes I wonder, I’m like, did we just unplug these kids? Put in a place where. It’s, it’s not even a reality for them. They’re like, this temporarily, I don’t really have to work so much because I’ll never attend it. That we really miss the mark of really helping them navigate what’s the world is gonna be next. You know, that is my frustration that sometimes I can I get accused of leaving in my 16-year-old, old at home. I’m like, he’s 16. He needs to learn. Gissele (2): Yes. Yeah, to be Peter: all done. He has a phone. I know where he is, and it’s a way I can teach them to be independent. And they’re like, but I’m like, co. No, no. Gissele: Yeah. And this is where there’s the challenge between like foster parents that wanna play that parental role that see [00:31:00] themselves as the parents, but then there’s also this. Maximum or limit to that. I remember having a conversation with a young person and they said to me ’cause I came for to do a focus group with young people, and they said to me, can you tell me why? It’s okay for me to stay in this foster home and you trust the foster home, but you won’t let me go to a sleepover because you have to criminally check everyone, and so therefore, I’m the only one being excluded. If you trust my foster parent, then you should trust the decisions they make around my sleepovers. And so I took that feedback back to the organization and kudos to the organization because they changed the policy, but I don’t think they realized what the impact was until you actually spoke to young people. And so sometimes inadvertently we create these policies for protection, physical protection, not even emotional protection for the physical protection, but it actually ends up causing them. More isolation, less [00:32:00] belonging because we’re trying to, so much to physically protect them that we’re not enabling them to foster those kinds of relationships. Right. Peter: Correct. Yes. the stigma we created is us the, the policies and the rules we put around. You know that for me, I don’t really encourage my social workers to visit my kids at school. You, they already don’t like you and you show up at school and tell, and Gissele: I like that. It’s true. It is so true. think about it, like stranger danger. we told kids don’t follow a stranger, but here’s somebody who’s showing up at your school just to take you it’s traumatizing. Yeah. They don’t even Peter: tell you. And sometimes they’ll go for visitation, like, oh, we want to see the child, but at school, and I’m like,you can do that every day. But remember, it brings more trauma to that child. And shame too, like to come to school. And then they call that kid, Hey, there’s someone you’ve never met. You don’t know at the principal’s office waiting for you. Oh, like, you have no idea what that takes the child to, you know? And, and we even here, we really try to change the way they do [00:33:00] things, you know? For, for the social worker to trust me, like for 48 hours, if I want my kid to go somewhere, I should not ask for permission. If I can send any of my kids in that place, you should gimme the opportunity to make sure that my child feels at home, but feels they can do whatever they need to do without having to be policed 24 7. Gissele: Yeah, and I think those, a lot of the policies from working within the system are very based on fear, like something negative happened, and to prevent that negative one thing that happened, we’re gonna wallpaper the system with policies so that it doesn’t happen again. But what they don’t realize is that they’re. More and more constricting and they are preventing kids from living full lives. Right? Risk is part of life. These kids have survived sometimes horrible things, right? Yeah. So what do we think we’re protecting them from? Like, I mean, I get it. I mean, there’s been abuses and that has been horrible. So we have to acknowledge that. [00:34:00] And at the same time. Can’t prevent kids from living. What are your thoughts? Peter: Equip me. Yeah. Equip me to be, equip me for those traumas, for me to really be the best friends I can be, but do not restrict the children. So like in North Carolina here, if you have a, if you have siblings, a boy and a girl, and the boy’s foot is four and the girl is five, they cannot sleep in the same bedroom. Gissele: Okay. Peter: Exactly that. they’re saying, well, the, the other one is five. So you’re like, okay, but what, what’s the difference? well, they say, the older kids, they will abuse the little one. I’m like, but it’s not a formula for every child, like that’s. But it’s not a formula how many Canadians or Americans that have kids that share the room, the majority share the room, you know? Mm-hmm. Especially when there’s same sex. And they are young that day until they get a little older. We get that. But the restriction they give us sometimes are just so out there. You’re like, [00:35:00] okay, I, I get that. You know? Yeah. Gissele: And you raise a, a really, really important point, so two things. Number one. It’s, it’s a really great privilege for every kid to have their own room. People don’t realize that, that that’s privilege, right? Not every household is gonna be able to have one kid per room. And certainly, like when I was a kid growing up, my sister and I shared a room. it’s not that farfetched. The second thing is that. Sometimes the system gets so prescriptive. Like for example, one of their policies was always to have siblings together and keep them right, and that is a great policy if and only if the sibling get along. I know of young people that were, one sibling tried to kill the other sibling when they were young. Now they get along, but they were placed together and the one kid specifically told their worker, do not place me with my sibling. I don’t wanna be with my sibling. They tried to hurt me. And so in that case, like [00:36:00] these policies become so deaf mute, right?  you’re not listening to the kid’s voice, which is saying, that doesn’t mean this kid didn’t want a relationship with their sibling. They may have a relationship now, but it was at that moment they didn’t wanna be housed, and they should have taken that into consideration. From my perspective, they really gotta look at the bonding. Sometimes kids are very, very bonded and it’s important to house them together, but sometimes they’re not. And sometimes it’s better for each of them to flourish individually and then come back together later. Peter: Yes. And, and something we’ve learned too as well, like the common abuser is always a sibling that someone in the, the same background, you know, that’s, that’s what’s common. Mm-hmm. And that’s kinda what we say sometimes. yes, you want to keep to them together, but we, we think there’s one who’s a culprit that should not be placed in the same home Gissele: Yeah. They need to heal on their own. Right. They need the, the capacity to be able to heal on their own and have the attention on them perhaps. Right? Yes. Like, maybe that’s just not the time to keep the, the kids together. I wanted to talk about [00:37:00] being single and, and trying to date as a, a foster parent of many children. What has been your experience? Peter: Yeah. Well, also the one thing that I’ve learned is. Fostering is a calling. It’s a calling and it’s hard. You know the, I am able to do it because I love it. I do it in my sleep. I was that kid and I know, I understand my kids and I love doing so, but it’s not for everybody. You know that, that I have to be aware of, like, yes, you might fall in love with someone and love them, but you might make their lives miserable because you’re bringing them in a place where they are not familiar or want to be, you know, and the other part as well, I realized that people, you know people like me because they see me as a dad, but I’m not sure they’re equipped when it comes to handling kids with trauma. Does that make sense? Like they, they idolize you. They see you from a, like a pulpit in some way. And I’m like, well, but there’s more the ugliness and that that comes with it, that I’m sometimes. [00:38:00] Like they are not prepared for, or they’re not aware, you know? So for me, I think I have chosen to really stick with being a parent along the way. Like one day I’m gonna meet someone who has the same passion and loves kids that who they are rather than who they, want them to make them  is my, kind of goal that I’m content for now. But also too, I think my kids. Because all my kids, their moms were taken away. You know, that I don’t think my kids are prepared to have a mom because they’re afraid that person’s gonna take me away because everyone who came into their lives took their mom away. You know, that I am not sure that I can meet someone prepared to really help in that route for my kids to know like, Hey, I’m not taking your dad away. You know, I’m just joining. You know, both of you know of, of him and you. So we can be the. Support you. So for me that that’s it, it’s difficult. Also too, I have a little one, I have a 3-year-old and my oldest is, is 18, so I only have between 10:00 AM [00:39:00] and 3:00 PM. how, how many ladies are gonna meet that are free during that time, you know? Gissele: Yes, exactly. Exactly. But like you said, I think that the perfect person will come at the perfect time. what you said is very, very fair, which is like, people have to be prepared. I mean, yeah. There’s like, oh, you, you’re a very loving parent. And you know, people see that, but. Any parent, there’s the traumas, there’s the challenges, there’s the behaviors. And somebody’s gotta be able to understand that it’s not just you, they’re getting right. It’s, it’s your kids. It’s you’re a family unit and they’ve gotta be able to hold space for those difficult feelings and be able to support, not drive a wedge between your kids and what you’re doing. Right. And I think the, the perfect person will come at the perfect time. Peter: I hope so. Yes. You know, you know someone that when they hear my child calling me every name, but hey, it’s, it’s their problem, but I’m a daddy and I’m gonna be there for my kid or putting holes in my wall to know like, Hey, it’s just a house. Come on. You know? Gissele: And [00:40:00] that’s, that’s so true. you do put boundaries I know recently you had posted about having to say no and how hard it was for one of your children to come back, right? And so that, that love requires those boundaries. And love requires also sometimes that you pick your battles, right? So the hole in the wall and be fixed, right? You’re really are working on mending hearts. Peter: Yes, I’ve written a book that is coming out in May and I’m really excited about this book. You know, really sharing my journey of the lessons I’ve learned along the way. You know, seeing and loving the kids as who they are and, and not taking things they do personally to know that our kids go through a lot of things and my job is not to heal them. My job is to create a space for them to heal at their own time. Gissele: Oof. Oof. That’s a mic drop right there. And I am sure this book is gonna be so helpful for so many foster parents because I think that’s what happens. Oh my gosh. you said in May, right? So soon. Peter: Yeah, it comes out May, yes. Gissele: Love does not conquer at all. Yes. You know? Yes. Because [00:41:00] I think some foster parents, some foster parents believe if I just love harder, right? And why aren’t they loving me back? Why are they doing all of these? It’s like a personal thing. It’s, it’s, it’s not about you. It’s about. The child. Peter: Right. About the child. Absolutely. You know, I love some of the topics that I write there. You know, you cannot expect a child to grow if you’re not willing to learn. You know? Gissele: Yeah. Peter: Parenting will expose your scars as we parent our own scars is gonna come up, you know, so you gotta be prepared to really revisit your own. Those triggers. Kids Gissele: know those triggers. they’re just kind of a mirror for you to look at yourself and then sometimes you’re like, oh my gosh, I don’t like the mirror. Peter: Yes. You’ll not always like your children. It’s true. Like it’s, yeah, you know, it’s true. You not always like them, but it doesn’t mean you don’t love them. But boy, there are some days where you just wanna just. It’s okay. I love Gissele: that you said that because I, and, and it’s such a compassionate thing. It’s a self-compassionate thing to admit, which [00:42:00] is. You love your children. Sometimes they’re not gonna like you and you’re not gonna like them. And how do you navigate those things? And I think sometimes we feel bad as parents. We feel that we’re not good enough. We’re not worthy if we don’t always feel a hundred percent with our kids or give them a hundred percent or do things right. A hundred percent parenting is a journey and it’s challenging. I think it’s one of the hardest things that you do as a human being. You’re raising another human being. I mean, geez. Right. I don’t think that we give it. Ourselves enough credit, and I think being honest with yourself about what you feel. I think it’s the sort of like the. Beginning parts of compassion or being compassionate for yourself, Peter: especially the mom. I think for me, being a male, you know, coming into the world sometimes where we de describe it for only moms, like it is if there, if there’s a man, this is just my, my take. If there was a man Yeah, yeah. That they came home and somehow that something wasn’t right. I don’t know how I would respond. [00:43:00] the energy that takes me to feed my child or to put him to a naptime or put them in a car is so much stress. Yeah. That I’ve worked in the office. I’ve never felt so for an entire day working in the office by putting my child in just the car seat I have male friends who complain about they’re not having sex at home, and I’m, now that I’m a dad, like I don’t know how I can do that. With the stress that you had all day, like, I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain like. Gissele: No, no, I think I get it. Well, first of all, you’re mom and dad, right? Like you’re both right. So you are doing double duty. So my hat off to single parents because they’re carrying the load and it is such a powerful thing to be there as, as in balancing those roles. So as a, as a person who has a partner, I’m very grateful to have a partner because you can sort of like say, okay, I can’t do this right now. Like, I’m not liking the children. Please pick up the load. And so single parents. My [00:44:00] hat’s off to you. And at the same time, I think what you are referring to really is, is like the expectations in how much we don’t acknowledge people that are at home and how much work it takes to do the parenting role. It is exhausting. That doesn’t mean you don’t love your kids, but kids take a lot from you. It takes a lot of effort and energy, especially I want to acknowledge kids with trauma. If they don’t go, Hey, I have trauma. I feel this. Their behavior is their language punched to the wall, poop on the floor. Behavior problems, truancy crime, that’s how they’re communicating their sadness and fear is, that’s difficult. That’s an additional layer of difficulty that you’re parenting through. So then to have somebody who has expectations of you, I can see where you’re like, yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, Peter: wait, what you, we are expecting what My respect for my mom, and my sister is off the hook for [00:45:00] every woman for what they do, the stress and how they’re able to hold it together, still walk out of the home and smile like that is every woman should be given the queen. The queen. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why they got to do. And be normal. And, and for me, the hardest part is that even the expectation we put on moms, like to me it is unnecessary. As a male, I find it really disgusting when we blame moms and we never blame the dad. Like, yeah, it took two, but, but yeah. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. And, I’ve thought a lot about that. It’s not just also coming from males, but females too. There’s a judgment between females. There’s that lateral violence, which is like women judging other women instead of uplifting them up, which is very sad. Instead of like judging what, what they should be doing or how they should be doing it. Yeah. I recently had put a post on TikTok that said The worlds needs more mothers. if we had like, like the essence of mothers, right? Like the [00:46:00] essence of that loving, compassionate, holding space caregiving. We need more of that energy instead of that masculine driven. Power over. I mean, not all males are like that, right? Like you’re the perfect example of that. But I think we need that more of that motherly energy in the world of like that love, that unconditional love, that acceptance. the nurturance. Peter: Yeah, the partnership. Like for me, I feel like partnership means. You step in when I’m not doing well, and when you are high, you help me go high. Like that’s what I think of partnership. You know, having a partner at home that you build each other, you are there for one another. You sense your kids and you are there for them. You know, I have two girls, they’re the best human beings on the planet, you know? Mm-hmm. to see how they adore me as a dad, to know there are some dads who are missing out. Like there are girls who are missing on that. Yeah. journey of having dad who come and play, who do the hair, who do all that. Like, it’s just not mom’s role. It’s really dad’s role as well, and I enjoy being [00:47:00] so, yeah. Gissele: I love that. Oh, I love seeing you on social media, like with getting your makeup on it and doing that, and I’m like, that’s so important too. And it keeps you young to be with children and to. Continue to play and have joy. I think one of the hardest things that we have done to ourselves is stop playing. Is stop being joyful, is stop, like allowing ourselves to flourish. So a couple more questions. The first one is, what is your definition of love? Peter: Oh wow. Definition of love. You know, love is loving somebody. Even sometimes you don’t feel so loving. Someone is loving someone that not necessarily looks like you has what you have or can offer what you need from them. The loving someone is a sacrifice that sometimes you put yourself on the side for the sake of lifting them up. That is love. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Oh, I love that. So last question. Where [00:48:00] can people find you? Where can they buy your books? Not only the one that you showed, but also now. I am known. So where can people find you? Peter: Well, you can find me on Facebook, on TikTok, on whatever Peter Mutabazi or Foster Dad Flipper but also you can join or check us on our website. http://www.nowIamknown.org, so where you can buy a book, but the books are available in any bookstore all over the world, so you can get it anywhere, you know this is my new baby and I love it so much because it’s really giving tools to others. Things I’ve learned that I wish I knew, you know, that I would want someone to not fall into what I went through, but. To be able to say, I can, I can learn one lesson here that would help me be a better parent. Yeah. Gissele: And I think that’s gonna be extraordinary helpful to foster parents everywhere, and even workers as well, to hear that foster parent perspective on how to be more compassionate and loving within the child welfare system. Peter: Yes. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Thank you so much, Peter, for sharing your story. Like. Hug and kisses to all your kids, and [00:49:00] thank you for joining us for another episode of the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele Bye bye.

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re gonna be talking about rethinking how we do business in a time of great upheaval. my guest today is Jeff Ma, who is a director of product development at Culture Plus host of the Love as a business strategy podcast and bestselling author of love as a Business Strategy coming up through a decade in the gaming industry. Jeff eventually found his niche in project management and agile coaching at Soft Way. As he continued working with teams and clients in Scrum and agile environments, however, he started seeing the stronger underlying importance of culture in truly high functioning performing teams. Pushed by a combination of his own introspection, feedback from [00:01:00] his colleagues, and a whole lot of uncomfortable practice, Jeff shifted head first into a new mission that he shares with his team. To bring humanity back to the workplace. Nowadays, he’s hyper-focused on helping people find a workplace culture that allows them to be their whole selves, their best selves. Jeff is leading the development of various products and tools that are crafted with the culture of love at its center. As a facilitator of Culture Rise and other experiences in the Culture Plus Suite, he’s also connecting and transforming leaders around the world directly helping them to improve their mindsets, behaviors, and leadership capabilities. Please join me in welcoming Jeff. Hi Jeff. Jeff: Hello, how are you, Gissele? Gissele: I’m doing great. I think this is a perfect conversation to have nowadays because I feel like the world is in a little bit of an upheaval when it comes to the economics, I [00:02:00] think, Jeff: In terms of a lot of things. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah, for sure. So to get started I wanted you to tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work. Jeff: Wow. So it’s, it’s actually a lot of the book that we wrote, love is a business strategy centers around this change. But, you know, I was just like anybody else working a, you know, a, a kind of a job in a nine to five kind of technology company called Soft Way, which I still do today, but software was very different back then. But basically software went through an interesting change. Around 2016, it almost went outta business. And the story centers around our CEO Mohammed, who’s a co-author of the book as well. But it starts with Mohammed and kind of grows into others. But the gist of it is, mm-hmm. That when we’re kind of in our worst moment where we had done mass layoffs, morals, and all time low Gissele: Yeah. Jeff: Things are not looking good. Mohammed kind of had a moment of, of. [00:03:00] Self-realization in which he went to actually a football game, a University of Houston football game, which he’s a huge fan of. Mm-hmm. But they played a game that was really important. It was like their 10th, 10th straight victory with no losses that season, if they could pull it off. But they were down by by insurmountable amount in the fourth quarter, and all the statistics showed that it was over. They had a 0.1% chance of winning, and basically people were already leaving that game, leaving that stadium turning off their TVs, and Mohamed decided to stay in that game. He witnessed one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the program. And they came back and won. And that really invigorated him to try to figure out what it is that makes a great team resilient like that. And that coach in particular, that, that was a rookie coach his first year, and he took a team of, you know, not particularly talented players and brought them to this level.  he wanted to really [00:04:00] understand that secret and what that was and what, what he said in what that coach said. Tom Herman, what he said in a co, in a press conference afterwards was that it was love that that brought them through and, and so Mohammed kind of went on this mission over the next, you know, I would say we’re still on it to this day. So over the next decade or more, but it, it set us on a mission to uncover what that meant. And in, in that process, it shifted our focus, not, we still, we still ran the business, but it shifted our focus also to how do we really impact culture? And we learned that that’s through behaviors and mindsets and attitudes. And then we developed our pillars of love. So. Anyways, there’s, that’s the, that’s the Cliff’s Notes version of the story. But there’s a lot more to it and a lot of things that we did wrong along the way. But ultimately that brought us to where I am today. ’cause I have my own personal journey within all that, which brought us to our mission to bring humanity back to the workplace. And that’s [00:05:00] what we do today. Gissele: Yeah. Oh, what a great story. One of the things that I really wanna emphasize is that I even tell my kids too, it’s not over till it’s over. Right? Like, it’s not over till it’s over. Unless it’s over, it’s not over. And so you, there’s always an opportunity to turn it around. So I love that messaging. Absolutely. The second one is, is it’s amazing to see like the whole concept of love sort of. Be spoken about in sports because as a mother who has kids in sports as a, partner to somebody who has been involved in sports leadership as well, it’s not often something that people talk about. And there’s seldom a conversation about love and business. And so What were people’s reactions when you were talking about, oh, we need to bring more love in a business. Jeff: Sure. I mean, if you go all the way back to when Mohammad first got this epiphany that he wanted to pursue love. ’cause at the time he thought, he asked himself, do I love my team? Do I love my, the [00:06:00] people of my company? And he said. No, if I’m honest, I don’t. And so he went on this mission to practice loving and learn love. And so he did some weird stuff, you know, like he would go around the office, like all of a sudden he, the, one of the first things he did, he gathered everybody together in a, in a meeting. And we thought this was because we’ve been doing so poorly, we’d just done layoffs and things like that. We assumed that this was kind of. The end. Yeah. This is the meeting of like world Yeah. The beginning of the end. Gissele: Yeah. Jeff: But he got everyone together and he said, I just want everybody to know that I’m not giving up. I wanna fight. And I, and I love you all. And we were all just like, what is happening? Like, who is this man? Gissele: Like, oh, what is going on with? It was person, she’s finally lost it. Jeff: Yes. We thought he had gone off the deep end and what, what followed though for days, then weeks, then months, because we thought it might just been a flavor of the month, you know, or some sort of, he read a book and he wants to, you know, he’s just trying something out. But Gissele: yeah, Jeff: what [00:07:00] started there and really hasn’t ended since was this really big shift in how. He looked at the world, but how he treated others, it wasn’t this night and day overnight, like he just transformed a different human. But he started doing a few things differently, just here and there. And then he would stick to that. He would start like he, had classically brought this giant Tupperware of food that his wife would cook for him. His wife is an incredible cook and she makes this amazing stuff every day. He said he has this huge. Meal for lunch every day. But he started going around and just asking people around lunchtime, like if they had any food and if they didn’t, he would just like pour a huge portion of his food onto a plate and was like, you gotta eat this. It’s really good. And it always was. But he would do this every day and I, I think he. Skip most lunches ’cause he gave away all his food every day. Or he would people would be working late trying to hit a deadline. And as they’re, as they’re finishing up, they look up and he’s still there and he ordered some like food or dinner or something to make sure people weren’t, he’d just still be there. And he would leave [00:08:00] like notes. He left me like a handwritten note that. Expressed appreciation, not just for me, but also for my family. And he said, here, here. And he put like a, like, I think it was like a hundred dollars bill in there from his wallet. Oh wow. And it was all crumpled up ’cause it was in his wallet. But he said, here, I want, I want the, this is for your wife and your kids. Can you, I wanna make sure that you spend it on them this weekend. I know how much you’ve been away from home this last, you know, and, and just stuff like little things like that. Really started. You know, changing, you know, our perception over time of just him and of, of him at the time, but not just him, we started kind of following suit. We all started thinking, Hey, this, this is something that we can all practice and do together. And so it’s, it shifted our culture over time in a very, very potent way. I kind of forgot the question you originally asked as I went on this story. Oh, no, no. This Gissele: is, this is, this is perfect. This is perfect. Because I [00:09:00] think it, it goes to show that, that it’s contagious, right? Like fear is contagious. Hate is contagious. Love is contagious, right? And so if people start to demonstrate love, then that helps fill other people’s buckets, and then they have more to give. And so it sort of spreads. And I’ve always been so curious how the leadership really sets the tone for the whole business. But that’s because people give their power away to the leadership. they determine that they’re going to follow suit, right? So if they stopped following suit, then the person would have no leadership whatsoever. You have a group of people who choose to follow a specific individual, right? Yeah. And so for the longest time, I would see. Because I was in leadership, I was a director at a children’s aid and had been management for many, many years and saw how people, like, they had a little bit of the baby bird syndrome, which is like, tell me what to do, tell me how to act, right? Mm-hmm. And so cultures [00:10:00] that help breed that independence, that, that upliftment are really, really powerful. And I think in this time of great upheaval. I would hope that we would be moving towards those kinds of cultures that help elevate everyone. What are your thoughts on currently what’s happening in the world in terms from a finance perspective, and what are some thoughts around how maybe this love culture could help us address some of them? Jeff: Wow. It’s a big Gissele: question. Yeah. Jeff: Yeah. Jump, jump right into it. I, I wouldn’t consider myself. An expert in the field of economics and finance and world, especially at the world level, at the political level. Fair enough. And things like that. But love as a, an important factor in, in business has been a driving kind of passion because I believe that business as a whole is driving the world.[00:11:00] And so if you’re talking about finance and we can get political, we can all this, but if, if you look at kind of what’s happening, ultimately, you know, money is, is power and it is, you know, the power follows the money. Money follows the power. And then you have, you know, to some extent, you have, you know, government officials and you have all these things and then you have. The influence, right? You have the billionaires, you have the lobbyists, you have the special interests, you have money. That makes a lot of decisions at the end of the day. And so when it comes down to it, I think what businesses choose to do and how business cultures evolve, really impact the world at a scale that we don’t really appreciate, right? Like, Gissele: hmm. Jeff: Like, yeah. Call it something simple like ethical business or morals. But really there’s more to it, I think. Mm-hmm. And I think it does come down to [00:12:00] change that’s needed, but what that looks like is yet to be determined and, and I think it’s, it’s gonna take time, but I don’t know that we all agree on what that looks like, what that needs to be yet. And so I think the easy thing to do is to kind of. I guess stick to what we do know, which is, and I think, I think love is a pretty universal language and I think no matter what you believe and what you you fight for and kind of where you stand on different spectrums, I think there’s this universal, you know, binding that love creates. When we access it and when we, when we allow it to. And I think that’s gonna be the key to us overcoming our differences and kind of the conflicts that are in play. Because I think these conflicts are necessary for us as a society and as a people of this earth. Mm-hmm. To get through, but. You [00:13:00] know, I think people are, everyone’s looking for kind of a quick decision that everybody’s happy with something that happens, that everybody agrees with, that’s just not gonna happen. Gissele: Mm-hmm. And Jeff: so it’s gonna take work and I think that work is not something people are willing to do unless we are doing it out of love. And so Right. You know, not a direct answer to your question, but definitely where I stand when it comes to those intersections. Gissele: so speaking about the, the hard work that you have had to do as a culture for the company what sort of outcomes have you guys seen not only in your own company from using sort of the, the ethic of love, but also in the people that you’ve worked with and have coached? Jeff: Yeah. So when it comes to the work that we actually did for ourselves and that we do for our customers and our partners today it come, it very much comes from this very intentional place of discomfort [00:14:00] when we talk about love. Earlier you called it a contagious element. We, we actually look at it as an environment that you create. Mm-hmm. And so it’s not that it spreads so much as you create a space in which it is the norm and, and Gissele: beautiful. Jeff: We act, we actually learned this in a very interesting way. It’s because, you know, Mohammed He has a brother who manages our India office. We have an India, an office in India, and his brother Taj, he manages that side of the business. And when I first visited India, I. I sat in a car that Taj drove. He drove me around, I think from the airport. And just for the first day, he drove me around. And what I learned about Taj Ray quickly was that he is a very, in my opinion, reckless driver. And I feared for my life at several times in those, in those car rides. And, but to him, it’s nothing [00:15:00] right To him. It’s like, this is like, this is how I drive. This is normal. Mm-hmm. But to me it’s like, I feel like he’s doing donuts and, and, and this is like in India where there’s like, no. Roads or lanes and lights or signals. People are just everywhere. You’re surrounded by people. Right. But he, he’s just driving like mm-hmm. However he wants. And so, yeah, I, you know, that’s, that was my experience. And then we had this aha moment because he was kind of known for that behavior. I. And then he visited the US and we decided, hey, let’s see how he drives on, on US roads to see if he, you know, how he pulls it off. And then you know, he gets in and he like puts on his seatbelt and then he like drives to a stop sign and stops. And he looks both ways and he turns and uses his signal and we’re like, what is happening? I, we didn’t even know he knew he had a turn signal. ’cause that’s not used at all. Gissele: Right. Jeff: We realized that he, he had changed his behavior almost overnight. Gissele: Mm-hmm. [00:16:00] Jeff: And we, when we really asked why. It was, you know, because people often say you can’t, you know, people often just take a stance. Like you can’t really change behavior because you’re, you’re born a certain way. You’re raised a certain way. Yeah. It’s just how you are. And you know, he was born and raised in India the way and, and was taught to be able to drive that way. But as soon as you enter an environment where it’s clear what the norms are, it’s clear what’s expected, it’s clear what’s right and wrong, or what others expect of you. It becomes much easier to change something, even if it’s not, you know, quote unquote natural to you. And it becomes natural to you when you spend time in that environment. And so we went about on a mission to truly alter our environment, not just change a behavior here or there, but really how do we create environments that create change in the end, in in people for behavior, right? And so yeah, I thought I’d share that anecdote because I think that that’s similar to how we have to look at change in the [00:17:00] workplace and change at a global scale. If we talk about culture, I think it’s imperative that we understand that we have to create this environment, and that doesn’t just mean kind of creating a policy or a rule or using new fancy words about culture. I think it really is this element of how we individually treat each other and having this consciousness of like what that, what impact that has on others. Gissele: Yeah. Agreed. And it is an individual journey for us to change. Right. And so because individuals make up that culture, and so, like you said, putting a policy and procedure isn’t gonna change. You know, when you compare the policy versus the culture, the culture wins. Hands down. It doesn’t matter what policy you have. Right. And I love that you said that, you know. A lot of this journey has to do with discomfort ’cause it’s very true. Some of the, the most uncomfortable things that we feel are sort of the path [00:18:00] towards growth. Right. Absolutely. What role do you feel fear has in sort some of the more negative business practices? Jeff: All of it. Love as a business strategy was, was written as we told stories and came up with all of our philosophy around love as a business strategy. We, we had an inside joke that really like this alternate universe, kind of bizarro world, you know, inverse of love as a business strategy is love, is a, is fear as a business strategy. Gissele: And Jeff: basically like we wrote the book to try to counter that because fear from our perspective. Is the current business strategy. That’s what we’re trying to change, right? And so it shows up in everything. I mean, if you, if you just simply imagine you, anyone listening right now can do this. You can just picture somebody coming to you and saying, Hey, there was a meeting on the calendar yesterday we were all there. You weren’t there. And like, they’re just letting you know [00:19:00] that you missed a meeting yesterday. Like. That moment in all of us invokes all kinds of feelings. And we don’t always recognize that it’s a source of fear. I mean, there’s the, there’s the pure, just like, oh, I’m gonna get fired. Kind of fear. Oh, I’m in trouble. Fear. But there’s also like fear of letting people down. Fear of not living up to your own standards, right? Just fear. Fear of, you know, the impacts that that creates for others. There’s other types of fear that drive us and cause us to react and. I think that that fear also leads to us doing things like that discomfort that it creates it each time we face that fear. We kind of are, are faced with a kind of fork in the road, if you will, just to simplify it. Obviously there’s more than two choices at any given time, but most of the time it gives us this choice of what we call choose your hard. So there’s this myth that. There’s an easy and there’s a hard, but the reality in life is that it’s all hard. It’s just [00:20:00] hard and harder. And more times than not, the hard is right in front of you and the harder is the impacts and the consequence later if you don’t choose this hard. And so you’re, you’re often faced with this crossroad. Like for instance, in my example of missing a meeting, you know, the hard might be to, you know what? I apologize, I missed this meeting. I messed up. Can we talk about it? Can we, can you help me understand like how to get back on track or what I, what I can do to make this right? The harder would be making excuses kind of like, you know, I. You know, kind of kicking the can down the road or some sort of, you know, just like deflection technique or any of these kind of tactics to just kind of make yourself feel safer. Kind of like, whatcha you talking about? What meeting? Like, oh, like I didn’t, I didn’t do that. Someone else must have moved. Somebody must have, yeah. You know, and like all this deflection, but you know, the harder that you pay for it down the road First [00:21:00] of all, those tactics are usually seen right through, or, you know, people can, their BS meter kind of goes off and you don’t, you don’t form a relationship with this person or the team that’s necessary to overcome future mistakes and errors. And so you become seen as less reliable. You become seen as someone who kind of skirts their way out of things and they’re not gonna rely on you. And you’d also missed out on an opportunity to really show vulnerability, show courage, and show leadership or whatever it is that you need to show in that space. And so it might feel like you chose the more comfortable, you know, easier. Path in the moment, but there’s these little costs for it that we don’t realize that if we had chosen the hard, our future is much, much better. And the same is with especially true with conflict, which happens all the time. If personal conflict, relational conflict. Within the workplace, it’s just, it’s just rampant. But we have built a culture where we’re [00:22:00] afraid to address those things and it’s not appropriate to address those things. It’s, it’s like nails on a chalkboard to imagine going up to our coworker and saying, Hey, I disagree. you know, like having a direct conversation about. Something that, that feels like conflict is very uncomfortable. Feedback is hard. You know, telling someone that they, they did something wrong is just difficult. And so when you have all this built up environment, like I said earlier, environment that makes that difficult. Nobody does it and nobody wants to burst that bubble. And everyone wants to smile and be happy, be happy and like be friendly. But nobody wants to be honest and nobody wants to like bring forth those realities. And we’re all choosing this hard right now. That’s. Down the road. This, you get thrust into change. You get thrust into conflict that can’t be avoided and nobody know. Nobody has the relationships to get through that together. Nobody has the resilience to actually come together as a team and face it. Instead, we’re all busy. Deflecting, hiding, playing it safe. Yeah. And trying to point the [00:23:00] finger at somebody else and we fall apart and so. That’s just a, a critical piece. This, this, that level of discomfort to practice that is a critical piece of what we practice and teach others. And what I do, I mean, it’s, it’s imperative. Being able to have these uncomfortable moments changes everything. Gissele: Yeah. I think one of the things I learned when I was In leadership and in managing people for many years is that people don’t know how to emotionally regulate enough to stay in a conversation. So what happens is that when somebody gives feedback, there’s all of these difficult feelings, like you were talking about, shame, guilt feelings of unworthiness, and people don’t know how to stay in that. Those feelings and how to like, you know, use compassion and use love to, to regulate themselves enough to know that, oh, it’s not personal.  so I, I’m gonna be able to receive this and then be able to process it. But I [00:24:00] don’t think that we have done enough work. I think we were raised by people that couldn’t regulate emotionally. And so we have a generations of individuals that don’t know how to emotionally regulate enough to have difficult conversations. And I remember in my old workplaces, people didn’t wanna have those conversations and people weren’t truthful about things. But like you said, it’s a pay now pay later.  just thinking back on your journey in particular, what helped you lean into those difficult feelings? ’cause it can feel quite uncomfortable, like it can feel icky and yucky. What helped you be willing to work from that place? Jeff: So, you know, discomfort is kind of my job nowadays, I think. Mm-hmm. Okay. As, as, as Culture Plus has grown and evolved, what I do most days is work with leaders, teams, and companies. In [00:25:00] what we call experiences. But some call them, you know, if you want to really boil them down, they could be called workshops. But they’re very, they’re designed to. Be uncomfortable and to access those parts and practice. We call them culture practice workshops where we’re practicing that muscle of leaning into discomfort and it’s because that was the journey I had to go on. I think, as I mentioned earlier, Mohamed, our CEO went on his own personal journey, but at no point in that early phase of his journey did he turn to us and say. Here’s what I’m doing. You guys need to do it too. Like you got, you’re a leader, so you also have to do this. He never did that. And in fact, that’s kind of why it worked, was he was very much just doing and showing and demonstrating and leading by example, and the rest of us started, you know, learning and following and growing in that way.[00:26:00] But that journey included a lot of those conversations naturally, not, not as a. A mechanical kind of way to fabricate anything. It was just literally like if we’re gonna. If we’re gonna be loving, we have to learn to be honest. And so we had these tough love conversations mm-hmm. Where it’s like tough feedback given in a, in a way that’s as earnest as possible, but not avoided. And we learned very quickly that that was the, that was the key because we hated it. It was very uncomfortable. And, and, and, but every time afterwards we felt, man, we really did grow a lot stronger after that. And I think we all know this, I think we all deep down know we could all name someone in our lives that we can have these kind of conversations with. But they’re just not at work. You know, like, we’re just like, just not at work. Mm-hmm. When I go to work, I don’t want that. I just wanna do the work. I just want to go home afterwards and just like, go back to my family and I’ll, I’ll [00:27:00] do all that stuff there. And we’re just like, for some reason we’ve just gotten to this point where we’re like, just, we don’t want this at work when we get to work. I just want like severance, you know, any severance fans, we. We just wanna like, yeah, like have Gissele: your brain. this part of my brain’s gonna work, this part of my brain’s staying home. Jeff: Yeah, but that, but that’s just crazy, right? That’s wild. That you go, ’cause we spend more awake hours at work than we do anywhere else in our lives with our families, with, you know, our friends, our loved ones. Like we’re spending all of our, like most of our lives at the end, we have been spent with these coworkers and it’s like we don’t get to just. Divorce ourselves from these realities of our lives. If we’re having a bad day, it follows us into the workplace, and if we’re frustrated at work, it follows us back home. So it just kind of doesn’t it just, when you really break it down, it doesn’t make sense to. Think that discomfort has no place in the workplace. Because if, yeah, if you ask anyone what they would want in, in the workplace is Harmony. You want everyone just to be harmonious and you pass [00:28:00] by. How are you? Great, awesome. Hope you have a great weekend, and just all this stuff. And, but like underneath Harmony is always this like unspoken honesty. And people have a lot of honesty to give and know where to put it in the workplace. Nowhere to let it out, you know, like no one’s lying to each other at the workplace, but we’re definitely not telling the truth, if that makes sense. There’s people who have annoyed us for years, and instead we go around talking about them in ways that we may not realize, you know, like, oh, we wanna get this done, maybe we should give to Gissele. It’s like, oh, well, let’s not give to Gissele, Gissele. You know, she can’t be, you know, you know, that’s just Gissele, you know, like, like, and it’s like we, we kind of, oh, that’s just Jeff. That’s just Bob. You know, like these people we just frame them up as just, that’s just who they are and no one’s gonna talk to them. And. It just becomes this culture and this like gossip and this, this deeper thing that grows into something. When you look back, you’re like, oh my [00:29:00] gosh, this culture is is broken or horrible or something. You can’t put your finger on why, and I’ll tell you, you can trace it generally back to just these little forks in the road, these little hards that weren’t chosen of just being. More honest and less harmonious. Like it’s okay if we all kind of get upset for a little bit here, because afterwards Gissele: Yeah. Jeff: humans are incredibly good at bouncing back from that and, and repairing what was broken to making it stronger. It’s like a muscle. You have to like tear the fibers to rebuild it stronger. Like that’s what we’re doing when we’re working out. We’re just tearing those muscle fibers. So we gotta do with relationships, you gotta break ’em down a little bit to, to uncover the strength inside them. So. Gissele: It’s easier to do that when it’s like micro things than waiting for it all to build up And I will say that I had this similar experience of what you were talking about. People were seen as one dimensional characters that they were never gonna change because they did something 20 years ago that nobody actually told them about, that people just kept [00:30:00] talking about them behind their back. And I’m like, well, did anybody ever speak to them about it? Oh no. Even the work plans weren’t honest. Like they didn’t outline exactly what behavior they needed to see and what they were doing. They were just kind of theoretical. And I’m like, well, how’s the person gonna change if they’re not gonna know exactly what it is? You expect them to do I truly believe in truth. Now, I do have a way in terms of how I communicate the truth, and I begin by giving the person the benefit of the doubt.  for example, it might not be your intention, but this is the impact of what you said. You may not have meant it, but this is, so I validate myself while I also give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe they didn’t do it on purpose but that doesn’t matter because the impact is still. Whatever. And so that, I find that that opens up the dialogue a little bit more, but it’s so interesting to observe how we are not talking to one another in the workplace because it just feels so uncomfortable. And I just wanna say one and more [00:31:00] thing, but what you had said earlier before, which is really thinking about Vulnerability in, in coming together. We’re taught that professional means emotional distance, right? growing up we were taught that professionalism meant emotional distance, but my experience has been that the more we do that, the more we dehumanize other people because we’re not allowed to feel our emotions as difficult as it might be at work. What has been your experience in terms of what may, be some other factors that lead to that dehumanization process? Jeff: Well, I think I covered an example of the big one, which is just lack of honesty over harmony. Jeff (2): Mm-hmm. Jeff: I think this, this unspoken rule of. What you’re allowed to bring to the workplace is just, is just the big, the big killer. But one of our six pillars, we have six pillars of love, and one of them is one that I think just never gets talking, spoken about, which is forgiveness. [00:32:00] Yeah. And, and you just don’t hear that word in the workplace. And everything we just kind of described is actually sourced in what we call unforgiveness. Right? is that 20 year ago mistake. Yeah. That stays with you. And you know, as much as we want to like just call it, oh, that was a professional mistake, and whatever, There’s an element of unforgiveness built into that, that sentiment. Mm-hmm. If, if we, if we truly loved and cared and, or, or you know what, even if we, we didn’t, but we just truly thought it was a professional work skill mistake, that’d be a very easy. Check the box. Here’s how you’re supposed to do it. Do it like this next time. Mistake that we could just correct and move on. But the fact that it hangs with us for years and years and years, and it follows our reputation, means that there’s more to that story, right? There’s more to what happened, and there’s hurt feelings. There’s impacts that people haven’t gotten over, [00:33:00] and there’s assumptions about the person’s character or the person’s, you know. All these things follow it, and they just go into these big balls of messy things. And, and what we don’t talk about enough is just forgiveness. Yeah. Like the ability to just, yes. Have the difficult conversation, but have it lead to moments of, you know what, like, I didn’t know that that’s where you’re coming from. I didn’t know. And, and here’s where I’m coming from. And now that we can share that openly, you know what, maybe I can find it. In my heart to maybe understand you in a different way and try a different thing, like little steps towards forgiveness are never spoken about, but forgiveness, lemme tell you, is hidden behind like every dollar. Made and lost. It’s hidden behind every decision in a boardroom. Mm-hmm. In a meeting. And like it’s hidden behind performance reviews and decisions on who gets what project. It’s hidden behind how meetings go and like how we, how much we enjoy our work. Like it’s all. Be really, [00:34:00] really deep behind the scenes, just hiding in the shadows because it’s just there. And when you’re, when you go to work, you can, I mean, if we’re honest with ourselves, we, we can name a few people at work right now that we have some unforgiveness towards. Mm-hmm. Whether it’s intentional by them or not, we wouldn’t know unless we talk about it. But in our minds, we have it all laid out. I mean, that’s the power of the human storyteller is that we’re just built to be these. You know, historically we’ve, we’ve evolved as a species because of our ability to tell stories about how we mm-hmm. We’ve, we’ve written them down, we turn ’em into movies. We’re in credible storytellers. And when we don’t have all the facts, that same skill turns into the ability to assume and to fill in the blanks. And, you know, you know, we have, we have data point A, we have Data point E, and somehow we can tell you exactly what BC and D are. Even if we have no proof, evidence or, you know, testimony around it. And so that’s what happens in the workplace. Like I said, we spend more time with these people than anybody else. Of course, things are gonna [00:35:00] happen, you know, conflicts arise and all these different, you know, scenarios that come across daily. If we’re not trying to have an active, you know, level of forgiveness with each other, we are going to fall and slip into. Spaces of distance and stuff, like, it’s much easier to just stick to, you know, I’m the boss, so I’m just gonna make these decisions. If you don’t like it, then just deal with it. Just work. You know? I don’t, you know, no, no tears allowed, no feelings allowed. But the reality is sometimes, you know, like that decision you made just made, made me feel unvalued. It made me feel hurt, and it made me feel like what I do here doesn’t matter. And. Like being able to say that out loud and then being able to have someone respond to it and say. Whatever it is they need to say. I mean, that’s a different conversation to have at work, but let me tell you, from that point on, [00:36:00] you’ll work very differently together and we have this fear that it’ll go really bad. Like, oh my gosh, you’re gonna get into a big fight. But I find that while that may be true, there is, I’m not gonna say there’s no chance that things don’t escalate mm-hmm. Into something uglier more often than not. We learn something about each other and we find a more common ground because we were willing to be genuine and vulnerable and courageous with each other. We respect each other more for it, but we’re just, we’re just so scared of that. Let’s call it arbitrarily, 1% chance that, you know, things will blow up into a, into a massive fallout. That we hold back and, and then, like you mentioned earlier, it does blow up one day because it can only go so long. Yeah. And then there’s your data point there. That’s why people don’t wanna speak up. ’cause they’re like, oh, that, that blew up and that blew up. Yeah. And that blew up. But they don’t realize that all these blow ups are like big old time bombs. And if you just let it, if you just let it go, if you just practice it every day, [00:37:00] you’ll never have the blow up. You’ll just have constant little, little uncomfortable moments that build stronger bonds. So. I love that. Gissele: Yeah. Jeff: Again, again, I rambled, forgot the question, but there you go. Gissele: No, no. I think you answered it perfectly. I love that you talked about forgiveness, because at least the majority of workplaces that I had worked at, like that wasn’t even on the radar the way that. Conflict was managed, or mistakes were managed with usually punitive approaches. It was like sort of like, you know, three strikes and you’re out or there’s, but people don’t learn from that. They only see themselves as victims, right? Like they don’t see how the impact of their behavior or their mistake, it doesn’t leave room for growth. It only leads more fear, meaning that, that people then become afraid of making a mistake, and then they’re more likely to hide mistakes so they don’t see how it’s all interconnected, right? Yes. If I use punitive approaches, [00:38:00] then people are not gonna be honest. They’re going to try to hide stuff, and they’re more likely to make mistakes. And so, and that’s in the medical literature, the more likely that, like for example, doctors were able to be honest about mistakes, the more likely that patients were to forgive and not necessarily sue, and then get to some resolution. But it’s interesting how we’ve gotten so far away from that humanity in the workplace. It’s, Fascinating. you mentioned vulnerability a couple of times. People don’t like to be vulnerable. How do you get your clients to kind of get past that fear being vulnerable? Jeff: Well, I think vulnerability is one of the, one of the hardest things to do. And at the same time, one of the easiest things I think that a leader can do, like when you say, where can I start? What should I do first? My first thing, like, just go be vulnerable first. It’s one of the easiest things you can do right now. Everyone can right now go be vulnerable and. [00:39:00] One core thing of being vulnerable is just recognizing your own, your own weakness. I think sometimes we feel like vulnerability is gonna require some sort of huge, deep outpouring of our deepest, darkest secret or some sort of re big reveal. Mm-hmm. But vulnerability is sometimes is just, Hey, I, I don’t know the answer to this. I need help. Gissele: Yeah. Jeff: I messed, I messed up like. That’s so hard to say in the workplace that I, mm-hmm. I messed up. That’s my fault. Because it’s like, why would I admit to that? Why? Like I’d rather find all the reasons why I made the right decision and it just happened to be somebody else. It happened to be some situation, or it’s the economy or whatever it is, right? Yeah. But to just, just straight out say like, I made a mistake, period. No excuses, no other like things and be real about it. To genuinely share that, that’s the very core of vulnerability. Mm-hmm. And you can practice that today. And like I said, it’s hard as hell. Gissele: Yeah, Jeff: nobody wants to do that. But it’s [00:40:00] also very easy. It’s like straightforward. It’s like there’s no other steps to it. It’s like, step one, admit your mistake, step two, nothing else. Like you’re done. And, and so, you know, when it comes to practicing that or helping others practice that, I think you have to everything that all, a lot of our fears are rooted in belief. I. They’re rooted in, if I say this, then I believe that they are gonna respond this way. And, and our beliefs are, are, you know, they’re scientifically like, kind of evolutionarily built into us to protect us. Like I, I believe that if I, you know, leave my front door open, then I’m inviting danger and strangers into my house. Which is not safe. Like we have beliefs that are good for us, but we also have beliefs that are no longer serving us that we hang on to. And I think. That that’s what comes into play. That’s what comes in the way of vulnerability [00:41:00] being more practiced, more regularly, is that we have beliefs that if we, if we show that side of ourselves, we’ll be judged, that we’ll be criticized, that we’ll be ostracized or wherever it is. Those are formed in beliefs, and so science has shown that the way to change a belief. Is through experiences like our beliefs are formed through experiences, something’s happened to us. We’ve experienced something that creates that belief. So the way to change it is you can’t just tell people, Hey, you’re wrong about your belief. they have to experience something different. And so that’s why we do what we do actually like our cultural practice workshops. And it really, everything we do, we never, that’s, we never go and just say, here, here’s step one, step two, step three, here’s all the things you’re doing. Like, it is never like that. It’s, it has to be a real experience. And so if I’m helping a leader really access vulnerability, we’re gonna be genuinely bringing up conflicts that exist. Like currently and then [00:42:00] having you, like you and your colleagues address it and we’ll coach you through it. Like we’ll be there to moderate it and to show you that it give you kind of a safer, safer way to get through it. Gissele: Mm. But when Jeff: you get through it and realize, oh wow, I just talked about something, I’ve been really, I was never gonna talk about that ever. I would take that to my grave, but I just said it out loud and it was received and I’m alive. We can all be adults about it and we can all appreciate it. That’s when you start unraveling this belief like, oh, so it’s not the end of the world. Like, and I do feel a lot better getting it off my chest and I really respected how they responded. Like these little experiences we have then start chipping away at these beliefs we have until you can get to a point where, you know what, and it’s never gonna get easy. Just just to be clear. Vulnerability will never be easy. But you do at least get to a point where you recognize that it’s worth, it’s worth the work and it, it is the easier of the hards to [00:43:00] choose at, at at any given time, and that’s where we want to get to. Right. A a strong culture is one, not one that’s perfect and happy and rainbows and butterflies all the time. A strong culture is one that’s actually kind of tough, rough around the edges and kind of raw and real. So the strongest cultures are those who are like kind of in it, kind of, you know? Mm-hmm. Going at it at times. But because that’s because we’re unwilling to let those things kind of just sit idly and become unforgiveness, we will fight for a good culture and that, that takes work. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jeff: Yeah. And Gissele: it takes courage. Yeah. Jeff: A lot. Yes. Gissele: as we’re coming to the end I wanted to talk about leadership. Because the model that we have, at least that I grew up with was that power over, you know, like doesn’t show, errors and mistakes. And I think that’s kind of what we’re seeing sort of dying off.  what is your perspective on what real power is and how has [00:44:00] that changed over time? Jeff: Right. So power has been categorized into two different types. there’s personal power and then there’s, oh god, gosh, I forgot the term itself. Is it Gissele: systemic? Jeff: It’s like, okay, I don’t wanna hang on too long to it. But basically, yeah, that’s okay. The two types of power, there’s there’s, there’s power that you can wield. Because you’re given it. And if you were to lose that title, position authority, you no longer have the power. And then there’s personal types of power, which they follow you wherever you go. Like they are part of you. They can’t be taken away from you. Right. And, and I think it’s really important to understand that power is not good or evil on its own. Mm. It is not inherently flavored in one way or the other. It’s like a hammer. You can use it to destroy something or you could use it to build something as well. Mm-hmm. And it’s how we use power that creates this idea of, of, you know, good, bad leadership and all this other stuff, [00:45:00] right? Mm-hmm. And so on one end of the power spectrum, you have like coercive power, reward power, legitimate power. Like, you know what I’m the CEOI have the power to fire, hire, and fire and give bonuses and all this other stuff. And this is that power that you know, you can wield. Good or evil, right? You can say, yeah, you can use it in ways that are not too good or you can use it in ways that really healthier, unhealthy, really. Yeah. Yeah. But then you have these personal types of power, and I think this is where leadership is. I. It’s just been missing for a very long time. So when we talk about bringing humanity back to the workplace and you look at leadership, we’re looking at, we’re looking to try to build a generation or you know, a future of leaders where this is the type of power that’s valued, expected, and wielded in the right way more often than the others. There’s always a place for those legitimate types of power. But the personal has of power, which is like your expertise and your, your influence, [00:46:00] right. your power to be influential and it’s called Referent Power, essentially, which is where people follow you because you know, like you’re a leader because you’re followed A lot of times when we work with a lot of businesses, yeah, we don’t, we don’t call their their managers leaders. We say they’re managers because leaders. Leaders have to be followed. Like you have to earn leadership. And that, that’s because this referent power comes by way of essentially being liked, if you will. But basically respected and followed for who you are and how you hold yourself and how you handle situations, Sometimes we have a problem at work or some sort of thing that, and we’ll call up a, we’ll call up a friend or we’ll call up a trusted, mentor that has no expertise or knowledge in the situation at all. But we really wanna hear what they have to say about it. And that’s kind of reference power at work because you want, you wanna follow kind of what they think and feel about it because you respect them in that way and you feel that way about them. [00:47:00] And this type of power, again, can be good or evil. Just to be clear, it’s, not inherently good or bad. Yeah. There’s referent power, you know, if you look at like mobs or mean girls, if you watch that movie yeah, that’s, that’s referent power and play cliques and like, you know, things used in like bad ways. In fact, some of the, some of some of your worst culture kind of situations might have some reference power in play in terms of. People who are causing this toxic culture to get worse and worse because they are kind of rallying people through leadership, through this power to be more toxic, to be more gossipy, to be more, you know, all that. So I. I think understanding these types of power is super important as a leader. And to ask yourself, I have to ask myself this all the time. What type of power am I wielding at any given time in a situation? Yeah. And, and I think we’ve gotten really comfortable at just wielding our kind of big coercive reward. Like, like sometimes we feel [00:48:00] like, oh, I want culture to get better. So instead of doing coercive power, I’m gonna do. Reward power, and it’s like that ’cause that’s so much better. But reward power can just as easily be kind of abused, misused. Mm-hmm. It has terrible outcomes. Sometimes it could be good, but yeah. It doesn’t make it like, it doesn’t make, doesn’t change culture if that’s still the type of power people are following. What really morphs culture is when people start, kind of like in my example with Mohamed like behaving differently, showing up differently, treating people differently. Hmm. You know, you think of someone when you start thinking of someone as a human and thinking of ’em differently. Now you’re talking about real impacts and real changes. Because I don’t just view it as a job anymore. I view it as a relationship. I view it as, as a team, as coming together and really, really working together. And that, I mean, that that changes everything. Everything, everything. Gissele: Yeah. When Mohammad became the lighthouse, right? People followed, right? Yes. Like through his behavior, [00:49:00] his willingness to change, and he became that lighthouse that other people went, Hey, wait a minute. I’d like to be like that lighthouse. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So a couple more questions. The first one is, what is your definition of love? The unconditional love or love? Sometimes people get stuck on the word unconditional. So what’s your definition? Jeff: Ooh. I had a whole, on my podcast, I had a guest that came and did a whole. A whole episode on definition of love, and I learned a lot because love is a super loaded word that we use in English to mean a lot of different things. Whereas he was bringing about, like in, in like Greek, there’s like, and I, I forget, I have to go back and look, but there’s, I think there’s like six, six or seven words for love Be depending on what, like there’s the love for like a, it’s agape. Like a romantic love. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Agape Gissele: arrows. Yeah. Jeff: Yes, there’s, and it’s like all these, there’s like the friendship type love. Mm-hmm. There’s the love of like a food or like a, like a activity. And [00:50:00] so when we say love, just to be clear, we are not talking about the romantic, obviously we’re not talking about all that. But what we are talking about is, and the reason we use our sports story as an analogy is because this love is doing things out of care for others. And if you look at some of the strongest. Like sports team analogies, those real like gritty winning teams, it’s because those players go out in the field to fight for each other. Not for themselves or some other purpose, right? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jeff: And, and you know, a lot of people are like, oh, I love, you know, my workplace is pretty cool. We are like, you know, we’re like a family and I cringe. I’m like, Hmm. Yeah. Because I’m like, Ooh, is that what you want though? Because we don’t get to pick our family, you know? We don’t get to choose. We don’t get to leave. Like Gissele: Yeah. Families can be dysfunctional. Jeff: Yeah. Families can be very dysfunctional. Mm-hmm. and that’s where you’re like, you’re almost obligated into a family. You’re stuck in a family at [00:51:00] times. But then you look at like a team where we choose to be there. We tried out to be there. We earned our spot there, and then we have a common goal and we look to our left and our right, and we are pulling each other forward together. That kind of love and care, putting each other your heart in, you know, someone else’s hands. That’s the kind of love we’re talking about. I know I’m getting very like. Philosophical about it. Not, oh, it’s great. It’s not concrete. But that’s the kind of love that we’re talking about because that kind of love also includes accountability. Yeah. And I think that’s super important in in, because when we first went on our journey to try to figure out love. Man, we swung that pendulum so far the wrong way. It just became, for a moment, it was like just nice. It was just being nice and soft and quote unquote care caring all the time. So if someone, someone had a little cough, oh, oh, we love you. Please go home. You know, go home. You’re sick, we’ll take care of it from here. Just go, we love you. Oh my [00:52:00] gosh. And then they go home and we look around, we’re like, do any of you know how to do that person’s job? I don’t know how to do that job. And then we all just fail together. That’s not love, you know, that’s sympathy. But then we learn that real love is actually, you know what? Like we have to have tougher conversations. We have to be a little more real to each other, and that takes more than just, you know, soft gushy feelings. Gissele: Yeah, absolutely. Love that. Authenticity is love. Love us. Yes. Yes. So final question. Where can people find you? Where can people work with you? What do you wanna share with the audience about your work? Sure. Jeff: Absolutely. If you enjoyed my voice for whatever reason, you can hear as much of it as you want. I. At Love and the Love as a business strategy podcast, which is available in all major podcasting. But if you wanna also learn more about what we’re doing, you can go to love as the strategy.com because we are, we have Love as a business strategy, which is our first wall Street Journal [00:53:00] bestseller. But later this year, I don’t know when you’ll be posting this, but basically October of 2025, we should be coming out with Love as a Change Strategy, which is our next, it’s our follow up to the book, and we’re very proud of that. A lot of really good stories in that one. So follow along. For those books you wanna check out, go loveasastrategy.com to check out like information on both of those. And if you’re interested in kind of just the actual work we do, if you’re like a business interested in kind of finding out more about the programs and practicing culture with us, you can go to culture-plus.com, which is weird ’cause it’s like culture minus plus.com. But it’s, it’s Gissele: it’s culture. Jeff: Plus do com. Mm-hmm. Dot com. So yeah, check us out. You can find me on LinkedIn or anything. And I, I hope, I hope to hear from some of you. Gissele: Yes. Thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your wisdom. And thank you for tuning into another episode of the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. Have a great day. Jeff: Thank you.

Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Sean Hemeon is an award-winning actor, writer, an abstract, expressionist painter. He has appeared in 9 1 1 Criminal Minds, true blood, which I loved in cws husbands. Sean began his career as an art gallery director in Santa Monica before transitioning to a full-time artist. His work has been exhibited in galleries across Los Angeles as a writer. Sean’s forthcoming book, the Good Little Drug, Lord, is an Ode to Redemption Recovery and the Mother Son Bond. Ultimately uplifting memoir about a gay Mormon drug dealing informant for the federal government. That [00:01:00] sounds really interesting. Originally from Northern Virginia, Sean now resides in Los Angeles with his husband and their two Boston Terriers, Ludo and Gusgus. He’s the recipient of WBCs Lgbtqiaa Plus Writers Fellowship and has published works in Beyond Queer Words after a decades long absence. He recently completed his BA in Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, and this year marks 20 years of Sean’s sobriety. Please join me in welcoming Sean. Hi, Sean. Yay. Yay. So excited to chat with you, by the way. I love True Bloods. Such a good show. Let’s do It was fun to work on was such. Yes, it’s It’s awesome. Awesome show. I was wondering if you could just tell the audience a little bit about how you got to writing the good Little Drug, Lord. Sean: How did I get to writing it? Well, you know, well, okay. [00:02:00] There is a very clear response to that. Okay. For me that I will share. But I got there creatively. Just, you know, by the last 20 years, just continuing to write. I’ve always been a person who’s journaled. I’ve journaled since my teen years, so journaling and writing has always been a part of my life. And I’ve been writing all kinds of different things. One man shows screenplays, other writing things. So I’ve always been writing. And then it was, it was the push at UVA working with my professors who are all published authors that sort of just kind of ushered me into this next phase. But, but why now and why, you know, 20 years later the story is so, I mean, gay Mormon drug dealing narc for the federal government. I mean, so I, it seems like, Gissele: where do you start? Why don’t we start with the Mormonism? So you were raised Mormon. Sean: I was raised Mormon. Not in Utah though. I am from Northern [00:03:00] Virginia. There are big Mormon wards lots of, you know wonderful Mormons. And that’s where I was raised. And with, I have six other siblings. I’m the middle child of seven. Wow. The thing that’s slightly different about my family is my father never was, nor never will be. Well, he’s passed on, but it was never Mormon. we were raised by him, but also by the other fathers of the church wards Doing like the Boy Scouts, all that kind of stuff. Still, I’m sure it’s more acceptable now, but like having a non-Mormon father was low key, like shameful, like ugh, that that poor Hemeon family, how, you know? So we felt that, but it didn’t matter. I was devoted to my mother. My mother was my person and she very much made me her person. You know, little, little gay boys we’re emotional. and my father wasn’t giving my mom much. Poor guy was exhausted trying to, raise a family of seven. So you could imagine how that’s a big family. Gissele: Yeah. Sean: I Gissele: mean mm-hmm. Sean: I have two kids Gissele: and I gotta tell you two, sticking my butt. So imagine [00:04:00] seven. Sean: I can’t even, I can’t even, and it, it’s more than it. It truly, it truly takes a village. Like truly like back in the day when we were tribes and villages, the whole village would raise a kid, you know, unity. Gissele: Yeah. We’ve totally lost that. Yeah. Sean: Yeah. And so my mom just was lost in all of that, raising the kids and, you know dealing with her own depression and anxieties and that kind of stuff.  and she leaned heavily onto the Mormon church, almost like in a codependent way, to the point where it was like the church was above her family. Like she just had no sort of structure, stability to really own it. So like, everything was dependent upon that. So, you know, it, everything was about saving our soul, like forcing us to go to church. You don’t understand like, I’m saving your soul. So you can imagine that’s what they Gissele: truly believed, right? They truly believed that that’s what it was, that they were doing it. So it, it came from a good place. It’s just the, the perspective [00:05:00] is yeah. Sean: Different now, they’re slightly not different because it’s still, it still comes from the belief of the afterlife. Like, we’re living this life for the afterlife. And so like what we do now really depends upon, upon what we do that gets us to the afterlife. I mean, my mother’s never gonna get her own planet ’cause she’s not male. Sorry. That was a back, that was a cheap one. That was No, that was Gissele: hilarious though. Sean: I’m sorry. I’m apologies to, Gissele: apologies to Sean: everyone Gissele: and it was funny. Sean: If there’s Mormons listening, I’m not like resentful anymore, but just more power to you. If that’s true, then you know what? I got it so wrong. Gissele: Yeah, I, but I have a hard time reconciling, I think when it comes to religion in particular is the sometimes conflicting perspectives of, well, you know, we’re living for the aam, we’re saving your soul. We care. And at the same time, there’s certain people that are excluded. Right. Like people from the gay community, they’re [00:06:00] not included. Like, the whole thing that I can’t ever reconcile with myself is like how the teachings, ’cause all of these are basically based on the Bible. I could be totally wrong. I I’m a spiritual, not religious. But, but the fundamental beliefs about love being the true essence, right? Like God loves his children, Jesus loves his siblings, and, but that, that sometimes religions deviates so much that there’s certain groups of people that are unacceptable. Is that what led to your, exit from the church? Sean: Essential essentially, yes. You know, I mean, most religions are based upon a man’s interpretation of these ancient texts. The Mormons. And had a single man, Joseph Smith write his own text and Really Be Bend. That’s right. The book of Mormon, I remember and really, really bend it to his will. And he was having revelations [00:07:00] directly from God, which were all very convenient with what he needed at the time. It’s just specific, they’re, Gissele: it’s just, and that’s why like, is this God or is this man? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sean: Yeah. If you, if you asked him, he would’ve said God, but that’s just where our, our brains can go. Our brains can make, we don’t make us believe anything with a, with enough, with enough power. Gissele: You raised something that I really also always struggled with in terms of religion. And again, like religion has been a really important factor for people that I know in my life. It’s basically been lifesaving, so I’m not saying anything against religion, but the only thing that I always found puzzling, even as a kid, I remember thinking like I. Why are some people spoken to directly and why do some of us have to go through other people? Like I would just wanna start Yeah. Talk straight to the Lord. Right. It’s like, it’s so it, Sean: I thought No, no. I thought that at eight years old. That’s so funny you said that like in Sunday school, I was like, I had a lot of questions about the founding of the church. Like why are there not the [00:08:00] miracles now? Why can’t I talk to God directly? Like I had all of those. Yes. And I, I was told, I was like, I was told to go pray more. I didn’t have enough faith. Like I was told I was wrong for thinking that like I didn’t have enough faith.  That truly is what my spirituality is based on now. Yeah. Just direct contact to whatever I believe in. Of course that’s there. But this whole middle person is making a lot of people suffer in this world, in my opinion. You know, I like to tell myself that, that the shame is manmade. I, that doesn’t exist in my spirituality or with my God or with whatever I believe shame is, shame is manmade to control people. Gissele: Yeah. Wow. I completely, completely agree. I definitely think that it’s not from like, you know, God source universe, like there’s nothing but loving and accepting unconditionally. And some people don’t like the word unconditional love, but it’s that, that love, like the true love, not the, the love with expectations or with judgment or with criticism or [00:09:00] conditional, it’s that, yeah, it’s, it’s that unconditional love for, for all fellow human beings. And that’s where like, I. Religion lost me. That’s where in its absence of accepting certain people, because to me, I couldn’t reconcile the loving God who loves everyone. And it’s made man in its image, which means all of these different variety of people, it’s made in God’s image and that some people are not acceptable. I just, it didn’t compute in my little brain and I really, really struggle with that, which is why I’m not a religious person. I can understand people’s need for support and what you were talking about, community, religion and churches give people community and that I feel we have lost so much, which is I think why people are so strongly they move forward towards religion and, and the in religion as an institution. ’cause I think we’ve lost that. But at the same time I [00:10:00] really struggled with like, I. There was this, there’s this meme that was shared on Facebook, and it’s my absolute favorite. And there’s, it’s a picture of Jesus talking to the 12 apostles and there’s Jesus saying, okay, love everybody. And then some of the apostles go, even those people over there. And then Jesus goes, I’m gonna start again. tell me where I’ve lost you. Because that’s basically his messaging is like, love everybody. Not, not just some people like love everyone. Everybody is worthy of love. Sean: It, it’s a much better experience for me now, coming from living from living with a worldview based upon fear. And there was demons and devil everywhere. There was a lot of fear. But living now from a worldview of, well, we were created for love, to love by love. Mm-hmm. I really, I really love the teachings of this man named Meher Baba, who lived in the last century. Actually, [00:11:00] most people would know him ’cause of don’t worry, be happy. It’s a very famous phrase. And, and Meher Baba was like, listen, everything that’s needed to be said has been said, so I’m not gonna speak for 42 years. And just be an example and don’t worry. Be happy. Do your best and leave the rest to God or the universe or whatever you believe. And I’m like that, that, that I can, I will subscribe to that. I will subscribe to the universe being created for love and to love. I mean, I can do that. Gissele: we talk a lot about what we should do, but we don’t follow,  growing up, I was, I was raised by two people that experienced serious trauma and we weren’t taught to trust. And so one of the things that I looked for was people’s behavior. You could have told me anything. I didn’t care what you said. You could have told me that you were the best person in the world, but it was how you acted that demonstrated. And I think the person you were just mentioning is, I’m gonna be the lighthouse, I’m gonna be the example. If people choose to follow me or not, I’m gonna stop giving advice because everyone’s always telling people what to do, [00:12:00] right? It’s like, go do this, do that. But are we embodying love and compassion are we embodying these essences. And I really had to ask myself that question when there was lots of things in my life where I was not embodying love and compassion, but I was telling people they should. And so then I was like, I need to stop talking and I need to start doing and being, and so what I, what you just said, I think is, is super important. Sean: I think Meher Baba was raised Zoroastrian, and I may have this wrong, but a lot of that is based upon your actions with Zoroastrian. Mm. It’s like, it’s like how you exist in the world. I may have that wrong, but that, that feels right. Like as far as like, it matters how we show up, you know? Gissele: Yeah. Anyway. Absolutely. I, I love that. So I just wanted to transition in terms of how you began, like your. Relationship with addictions. Was it, yeah. So, so what was a pivoting point and why do you think that that you kind of leaned into Addictions? Sean: Yeah I will, let you know Sean’s idea in theory of the addiction cycle, [00:13:00] which is very simply this, I already. Shared about my thoughts about shame and in, in my world, and this is speaking from 20 years of being in recovery, this is speaking from bouncing through a few different 12 step programs. ’cause, you know, I wanna make a t-shirt that says there’s a program for that. ’cause you know, there’s a money program, there’s like a food program, there’s a sex program, a relationship program. It be, I, you know, there’s 12 steps is is all about just sort of having, gaining a spiritual sense awareness about yourself and the world and healing from your past trauma. So like, really that’s what it is. It manifests all kinds of different ways, but for me, what I have noticed, despite what the outside looks like, what the different programs, it’s always essentially coming from this core of not enough, this, this bedrock of messaging that says I am worthless, I’m not enough. And anybody can chart their childhood and point to different things that reinforce that. And my ego’s job is to reinforce the personality that’s being built. It doesn’t know if it’s right or wrong, it just reinforces what’s there. [00:14:00] And so it strove to reinforce this not enoughness. And that’s the lens I looked at through the world and built a case file of, you know, reinforcing, you know, Sean, as he exists, is a not enough person. So with that, with that bedrock shame that I existed in, there’s a lot of pain that came from that. And what happens with addictions is like they provide, you know, at first it’s fine. I’m not knocking people who do drugs or drink. It’s just like, at first it’s like, oh my gosh. Yeah. But with somebody like myself, you know, when I first had my first sip of alcohol at like 15, 14, or when I had my first hit of methamphetamines at 19, I literally said out loud, oh my God, I wanna feel like this all the time. That’s trouble. the addiction cycle is this. you have that thing. It provides relief from that clear existential angst emotionals, you know? And so you re keep reaching for the thing. But what happens is, you know, our brains are built on habits. That’s, that’s what they, our belief is just a repeated thought over and over until it becomes unconscious. And we, [00:15:00] that’s the way the brain, just the mechanics of it are. So if you keep reaching for a certain thing based upon a trigger or a cue, it just gets embedded. It gets so embedded that an addiction is basically a reflex. That’s all it is. It’s just like, once you get the thought, the thought becomes. The thing that puts you on the rollercoaster, I could think of using the thing and I’m done for, I’m done for, because I get locked into the thought pattern in my brain and I have to finish that rollercoaster, which means using, but at that point, using has become such consequential, so consequential in my life that it just creates more shame. And so I actually think the addiction is not the thing itself, but the payoff, which is more shame, which is more not enoughness. And I’m more addicted to reinforcing the belief that I’m not enough. So I’ll keep using to reinforce that all of that feels powerless because it’s all happening unconscious below my prefrontal cortex to stop it. So that’s why I believe in the powerlessness of it. I am, yes, [00:16:00] I don’t have control over this thing, so I need to avoid triggers that make me. Think of it or places people, places things, that kind of stuff. So that’s Sean’s theory of addiction. Take it or leave it. But it’s, it’s generally accurate, I think, in what I’ve experienced. So, so when I’m 13, my hormones are kicking in. I already have messaging that homosexuality is gonna send me to hell and definitely not have my mother love me, which is even worse. Gissele (2): Yeah. Sean: Well, when I start noticing I have a different feeling about my male classmates, I automatically go to a place of, oh wow, I did something so bad to this Mormon god that he cursed me with the disease of gayness. Mm-hmm. I am worse than a piece of crap. I don’t know if I’m supposed to cuss, but I, I am worse than that. Mm-hmm. I did something so bad that I have been given this thing, this punishment, and that’s what I thought. And I [00:17:00] immediately wanted it to die at 13, I was just like, what’s the point? You know? So when I first had my first weed, well, weed made me paranoid, but I still did a lot of it. Gissele: But as weed can do, yeah, Sean: yeah. No. And so in my family, unfortunately, fortunately it’s kind of cute, but not really cute, but like the eldest brother got that brother drunk for the first time. That brother got that brother drunk for the first time. That brother got me drunk for the first time. Mm-hmm. Cute. And like, oh yeah, brothers are bonding. It’s like, sure. But like at the same time it’s like addiction ran in our family. So it was our way of bonding the best we could. Mm-hmm. It’s totally fine. I’m not really knocking it, but when I have, of course. When I had, when I had that, that first, those first couple beers and realizing how good I felt, like, how there was another option of how to feel in the world. I was like this, I want more of this and I want this all the time. And that same day, going home and being pretty inebriated for a 14, 15-year-old in front of my mother. And she not even giving a clue ’cause she’s just so much in denial or naive or with the Mormon stuff. The fact that I got away with it really [00:18:00] solidified like, cool, this is, this is what I’m doing. So by the time I graduated from high school, I was already blacking out. My drinking was kept to the weekends, but it started creeping into the week at 18. You know, and so I was already experimenting with other drugs ’cause you know, tolerance, tolerance builds for everything. And so, yeah. Mm-hmm. Gissele: It’s your body’s way of reaching homeostasis, right. Yeah. So you need more and more and more and more to get to that same level. Sean: the alcohol relieved me. It didn’t save me. What actually saved me was finding out that my, my new best friend from eighth grade, ninth grade, this other fellow, this other guy, felt like I did. And we, we fell madly in love in ninth grade and we hid our relationship all four years of high school. Part of that is super romantic, like Romeo and Romeo. Yeah, Gissele: I know I am, Sean: but the other half of that is super tragic because I’m trying to be football captain home. I’m a total cliche homecoming court dating the girls. Like we’d have to go on double [00:19:00] dates, watch each other, like, you know, hook up with the girl. Like it was tragic. And so by the time I’m also 18, that thing has started. We didn’t have the emotional. Intelligence. We didn’t, no, but he even lived at my home junior year in high school because his home situation was so terrible that my mother asked him to stay. So my like madly in love with boyfriend lived with me It saved my life because. I was like, how could something so wrong feel this? Right? Like, love, love. We had love, we did not have the, vessel to hold this love. Mm-hmm. It was Gissele (2): a, Sean: a mess, but we had this love and it saved me.  and so, so when that tragically ended at 19 mostly because we did not have the tools at all. Yeah. I mean, we were teenagers. I was already messing up and terrible. He needed to break up with me, but I blamed him because he left me for another, I started coming out my freshman year in college and he came down, visited me, met one of my new friends, and they went off together. And I was like, the world [00:20:00] hates me. And so 19 is when I went off the deep end. And really since he was my world, since he became my God at thir at 14 Gissele (2): mm-hmm. Sean: With him gone. I had nothing. I had nothing, nothing, nothing. So that was when I attempted. My suicide. But really, I will say it wasn’t, it’s, it was different. Somebody who really wants to do suicide, they do the goodbyes, they really plan it. They really, like, they know they’re doing it two weeks from now. Mine was all improvised. The night of, it was one of those, I’m cutting my wrists, I’m stabbing, you know, mirror shards in my wrist, I’m gonna bleed out. If I do, that’s great. If I don’t, whatever. That’s kind of like, it was more of this cry for help. My mother found me. Yeah, of course. And this was my, this was my coming out to her. This was my, you know, the, the next day I saw a therapist and she encouraged me to tell my mother. And I did. And my mother was not prepared. Not prepared with her naive ignorant, I don’t wanna say she’s stupid, ignorant, but like, just ignorant, just not having all the full information. So of course the very first thing she asked me was, do you have aids? And I’m like. Girl, [00:21:00] I don’t have aids. Like, Gissele (2): oh my God. And then she Sean: start, she starts crying, making it about herself because she was like, I’m not gonna have grandchildren. And it was like, ’cause this is mid nineties. No, this is, Gissele: oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sean: Oh no, this is 2000. But isn’t it Gissele: funny how like, parents just do that? Like, the only thing I, I kept thinking was like, what world do we live in where we make people feel like they’re not enough? Like that, that it just, it, it just breaks my heart so much.  that, Certain love’s unacceptable. It’s love. It’s love is love is love is love. Like I don’t care who my kids marry. I, I am like, marry an alien. Marry. Like, it’s, you don’t fall in love with gender. You fall in love with beings, the whole essence of the person. They love a, a being. They, it’s. Well, how could love be wrong? And it just, it just breaks my heart so much that every single day there’s, there’s these beliefs outta fear, out of sheer fear. And to be honest, I don’t really know [00:22:00] what they’re really afraid of. Like, what’s the real fear behind it? Oh yeah. What is it like, Sean: maybe as, oh, I have Gissele: two Sean: thoughts on that. Gissele: Oh, okay. Go tell me. I have, I have, Sean: I have, well, I have two thoughts and they’re both related so my mother with the religious side and then my eldest brother was a perfect Mormon. Went on his mission, went to BYU married in the church, but he’s left the church since then. But like, he was the shining example for my mother. My two other brothers were like my dad, they left the church and they were like, that’s, that’s a crock of shit. Like golden plates my butt. Like, you know, they were making fun of it. They were doing all those things now. But my sexuality was a threat to both and here’s why. One for the religion. I could speak to the Mormons. I don’t know about the other, Christian faith. My, the believing in my right to marry based upon it not being a choice, meaning I was born into the sexuality and I get to love who I wanna love is a direct assault against the core of the Mormon faith, which is the family [00:23:00] is the centerpiece. It is the key to the afterlife. You get, tied to your family for eternity. Everything is based upon the male female unit. So if they were to fully. accept they allow gay people in the church, but you can’t act in the lifestyle, which is what my mother said to me. She’s like, well, we know we love you and accept you, but just not the lifestyle, which is Christian Code for sex with other men, but it is a direct assault against their core, so they can never accept it as mm-hmm. Some something that you’re born with. Now my dad’s side, you know, my dad being, you know, a child of the 1950s, you know, man’s man, you know, just that kind of stuff. Even though, you know, he was a hippie, he was chill and everything, but still he was a man. Man. He was a man. Mm-hmm. Like misogynistic man. And I think homosexuality is a direct assault against toxic masculinity as well. In fact, it needs homosexuality to exist. For it to exist because it needs what [00:24:00] they think is that mirror of like, well, that’s weak, that is feminine, which is also very sexist. And this is, this is how they react to it. So it is a direct assault against, you know, the Hemeon man family line, because now we’re all gonna be seen as weak and feminine, which is messed up, but also mm-hmm. It’s, but mostly actually not, also, mostly because of that. So that’s why, and, and if they were to accept. Homosexuality as not being a choice. I get to love who I wanna love. It’s a direct assault against their manhood as they see it, their manhood as they see their place in the world. It’s how they exist. So for both sides, it’s an existential crisis for them to allow to accept me as I fully am, as you understand me to be, as many of your listeners understand me to be.  and most people in this world do not have the emotional intelligence, the mental capacities to walk through this existential crisis. [00:25:00] So they double down on it, you know, or Yeah, they evolve. My mom’s evolved. Gissele: And, and that’s important because people can change and can be more open. As you were talking, I was thinking about, have you heard of Alok? Alok was saying that the reason why people are so threatened by other people, like let’s say homosexuality, is that if you allow people to live their dreams and be themselves, that shatters the fact that they are living who they think they should be. And by watching somebody live their most authentic life, be who they really are, sort of breaks that mirror of like, oh my God, they’re living exactly how they wanna live authentically. we can’t do that. We have to live like people expect us to. We have to follow this, stay in this box. And I think it’s very scary for people to see people living. Their biggest, boldest dreams and so [00:26:00] rather than thinking I can go there and align, they’re like, no, you gotta come down. You gotta come to this level. You gotta come down here. Sean: Yeah. No, it’s, it’s scary. Yeah, you’re right. It’s total threat to that. I mean, I can spot, I can spot a Mormon anywhere. To me, they have the same sort of energy and the same sort of look, I mean, especially the cultural Mormons, like mm-hmm. You become, you become generic. you become a piece of the many. And, my mom certainly, you know, lived with so many fears about continuing to be accepted in that community. Living through what she did with me, she was already battling it with marrying a non-Mormon. But, you know, it like, yeah. Just, just to give her some grace, you know, her first husband my mom is gorgeous, was gorgeous. Mm. At BYU, she marries the BYU football captain. Mm-hmm. But it, it turns out this a-hole was incredibly verbally, physically, emotionally abusive. I mean, they’re 21, 22, but still, like he was abusive. Mm-hmm. To the point. I also come to find out he was abusive because, you know, the cops arrested him for dealing steroids. [00:27:00] So my mother comes from Utah to her family in Northern Virginia. ’cause my grandfather worked for the US Geological Survey and my grandfather wouldn’t talk to my mother because she got a divorce. It was too embarrassing for him at the church. So, of course, my broken bird of a mother gets swooped up by my very charming father and they get married four months later. ’cause you know, she’s taught to believe that like her save is through a man is through getting married. So this charming man comes through and promises to save her and there you go. Mm-hmm. So it’s, you know. It’s all set. It’s a, the system is set up against you. Gissele: But I was just thinking as you were talking, thinking about Alok’s perspective, if you are allowed to live your dream and, and completely disregard the church’s perspective, right? If you married your amazing husband, what’s to stop other people from saying, you know what, I don’t need to follow this. I [00:28:00] can just live my dream by myself. I could just follow my heart and live my dream, and then it’s a threat to the whole institution. Gissele (2): Mm-hmm. Thank you. That was Gissele: really, that really kind of hammered it in there for me. I’m like, oh, I get it. There’s all of that fundamental fear of people really stepping into their own power and accepting themselves, right? Yep. There is an element of religiosity that, or at least of, of the religion as an institution that requires people to feel they’re less than, right. Yeah. Sean: The back to the shame, which is what that shame. Gissele: and I was gonna talk about that. ’cause one of the most important things that I feel, I mean you said many critical things, is you talked about the shame spiral. Mm-hmm. Which is people going like, you know, they use because they feel like they’re not good enough. And then after they use, they feel like, well, I’m already here. I’ve already a terrible, worse person because I now on top of that used, I’m gonna keep going. Mm-hmm. And then you get down that shame spiral, which makes [00:29:00] recovery so much worse. But we don’t treat people for shame. We treat people for addictions Right Sean: at, at first. And if you want long-term recovery, okay. At first. ’cause in my, in my, in my world, if you want long-term recovery, it’s you then therefore have to go after the shame. But what happens, what happens if you have a keen awareness of this as I kind of did, meaning like I. I recognized that I just didn’t feel enough. And what happened to me after I came out to my mother and why, you know, I started this whole thing with like gay Mormon drug dealing narc for the federal government. What essentially happened to me was I took that mantle as like, I’m just f you all. I am not enough. Like I took, I embodied the shame. I embodied this powerful rebel energy. When I say powerful, it just made me feel powerful because it was a major f you to the Mormon God, to my mother, to the world. I had so much rage. ’cause there was just [00:30:00] so many things that happened in my life up to that point that just seemed so effing unfair. That just seemed so wrong. And I was like low key unconscious, being like, okay, you want me to hurt? I’m gonna make you hurt. Watch this. And that’s when I found crystal meth. And that’s when I was like. I’m 22, I’m 21, I’m invincible. I can stop when I want to. None of the consequences will happen to me. That’s how I started.  and I started that with also like, I wanna feel like this all the time. Very dangerous words, very, very dangerous words. And and I went hard. I went hard and every single consequence happened to me times 10. I got lucky. I got incredibly profoundly lucky to the point I think it had to happen that way. So I can sit here and talk to you about it. That’s the only way of explaining it. Gissele: Yeah. Oh, wow. so in terms of the shifting from being a drug taker to a drug [00:31:00] dealer, how would that shift? were you using at the same time when you were a drug dealer as well? Sean: Of course. So I went to theater school in Richmond, Virginia because it was like, when it came time to decide what to do with college, I loved my theater classes. I didn’t think of it as a profession. I loved my theater classes in high school, but I was so forced into playing sports and living up to this idea that my brothers gave me and trying to be straight. And but I would even play, I would do like half of the beginning of like whatever play we were doing. And then Rod down to the lacrosse field at the same, it was, it was, it was fun. The director really respected me. I think he knew the director was a mentor of mine. He definitely knew and could see lots in me that I couldn’t see and stuff. But when it came time for college, I was like, oh, I can still do the theater thing. That’s kind of fun. But I never took it fully serious as I obviously do now. But, Gissele (2): so Sean: I, I went to school at VCU in Richmond, Virginia, 90 miles south of DC And while I was there I. The first couple years I will say, like, I ended up dating somebody else and it is, we were just lots of weed [00:32:00] and 911 happened. I lived in New York for a sec. All that doesn’t matter by my, what does matter is I got to a point where after that relationship ended, I couldn’t face another breakups. So I went hardcore into the DC scene every weekend from DC with a friend. We would just party all through the weekend. We’d stay up for two days and come back and I would do my classes and I was like, cool, I can do this. I can do theater, school and party from Friday at night to Sunday and come back. Gissele: But you were a functioning drug user? Sean: Yeah. Okay. Yes, because, but I was like 22, so it was like, you know, the easier to metabolism. Yeah, exactly. Easier to hide, easier to bounce back from. It changed when I met, a drug dealer who became my boyfriend because it was the allure of, you know, this nightlife thing, the allure of the drugs of doing this thing was all there. But when he walked in and like. You know, the seas parted. It was the second coming. It was like, who is this? What is this? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He immediately took a liking to me and I went off with him, and then I was suddenly like seeing the most drugs [00:33:00] I’ve ever seen in my entire life. You know, it was like, it went from like, you know, being in high school and like four friends splitting one tiny pill of ecstasy to like in one joint.  Did any Gissele: part of you go, maybe this isn’t the way like that any part of you go like, Sean: well, I, yes and no because again, I was living under the illusion that I’m so young, this is really cool, but I knew wasn’t the part of this. Yeah. That Exactly, exactly, exactly. That. Like, like, this is thrilling for tonight. Like, this is really cool for tonight, and that’s what, that’s how I looked at it and it was like, you know, it was the first, you know, I, somebody was smoking the meth. I was like, that. That scared me. That was a little like. What? No, that’s real addicts over there. But I ended up dating him because I was so still so fascinated with the world. I was also very fascinated with getting free drugs and mm-hmm. and it didn’t take long for, you know, that fall semester just sort of fall apart because to get back to school, I needed drugs to drive, but he was getting it late. So suddenly I’m missing Monday classes, and then [00:34:00] suddenly I’m missing Monday, Tuesday classes. And then it sort of started creeping into my schedule a little bit. I totally messed up and missed many rehearsals. I got almost booted from school by the director and, and, and I didn’t wanna admit that like my, he couldn’t keep up with my addiction. So what ended up happening washe did a lot of drugs, but he liked ketamine and if you do enough, you kind of go to sleep. And so he did that. There, there was, there was one night where, you know, he was a big dealer in DC but his phone was just blowing up and he passed out and I knew his people, his clients. And so I went and made the deliveries. ’cause I wanted to feel what it was like just for the night. But then when I came back after being successful, you know, like, Hey, look, I’m running your business. And also I’m watching him like feeling like I could do better. Yeah. But still, like, not even thinking of that. Anyway, he just, he went off the deep end and just accused me of all these kinds of things. And so with my rebel resentful energy, I was like, f you, I proved to you that I [00:35:00] can do this. And so I was like, okay, for three months I’m gonna be a dealer. Mm-hmm. And that’s how I started. The dealing, but, you know and in that time I drove my car under the back of a Mack truck because I fell asleep at the wheel, which should have been a warning call. I failed a bunch of finals, which should have been a wake up call. It wasn’t, I I chose not to go back to spring semester school also should have been a wake up call, but it wasn’t. But it started weighing on me. And so I was like, okay, I’m just gonna prove I’m better than that stupid ex-boyfriend and take all of his clients. Mm-hmm. And, and I did. And I had a really busy weekend. I was like, great, I have all this money. I proved my point. Now I can go back to school. And, by that point I built the dream of, working in Hollywood. And especially after, you know, watching my mom see the celebrities at the Oscars, or my dad, I’d go to the movies with him the way he looked at like. Tom Hanks or Sylvester Stallone. Wow. Or like, I would just be like, oh, I wish my dad would look at me that way. So I was like, okay, I’m [00:36:00] gonna be a big famous actor. But that weekend was the weekend I got arrested. I fell asleep at the wheel in an alleyway. My, license was suspended. I didn’t know it because of the car accident. And at that time, I believe the ex-boyfriend who I was confronting right before then, called the cops on me. So I was just about to get out. I was just about to go, you know, do it some other way. And I was arrested.  I was arrested with possession, with intent to distribute. And the great irony here is, they had a mandatory debrief with these federal agents. And they were, they were essentially in so many words saying, Hey kid, you gotta keep doing what you were doing. If you want to give us some intel, that will help your case out. But I was like, People are gonna know I was arrested, they’re not gonna deal with me. And they essentially said, you know, figure it out. And I was like, I have to deal more than that. suddenly I’m being faced with having to find a way to deal bigger amounts of drugs in order to get connections to suppliers [00:37:00] bigger than my ex-boyfriend in order to give them actual intel that will get my case.  my court appointed lawyer he was saying it’d be like three years in jail. I was like, three years is a long time. But the agents were like, Hey, we could do 10 plus years. We can find ways to make this happen. I’m just like, what is happening here?  but I also saw enough movies. I was like, I’m not a narc. I’m not gonna narc, I’m not gonna do all these things. snitches get stitches. I know, but, and exactly. And by this point, I hadn’t drawn a sober breath since the fall it just suddenly dawned on me as like, I forgot what it was like to be sober. And by this point I just started smoking it. I rationalized like I needed to. I just started smoking it. As long as I don’t inject it, then I’m not an addict and I don’t have a problem. That was the belief. But I was smoking a lot and, and that was like my baseline. And then I was doing ketamine and, well, I was doing GHB, which is a party drug that makes you feel like you’re drunk and euphoric. I was doing that to actually feel happy and high. So GHB and meth, I was doing 24 7. Wow. And then ecstasy, ketamine on top of that. And Gissele: [00:38:00] holy micro. Sean: Well, I mean, I’m now dealing with the anxiety and stress of potentially being an informant dealer. Gissele: No, Sean: I’ve never successfully. Described or portrayed the profound sense of loneliness that I felt because I already felt lonely as a teenager, hiding, being in the closet hiding who I really am. But with the drug addicts, it was like I was now part of the outcast. So I already felt lonely there. But now being this potential informant, I couldn’t even tell the outcast. So I suddenly felt like this outcast of the outcast of the outcast, like I, I flaunted it in front of my family. They all knew. And, and you know, They were telling me to inform. They knew everything. ’cause I was like, look at me now. Look at me. Make all this money. And my brothers would make fun of me. They were like, is there like a gay mafia? Do you all have like matching pink guns? And I’m like, trying to take this serious. So I started traveling other cities to bring drugs back, to get connections to [00:39:00] suppliers near DC that would help. And, I met somebody in Atlanta and the city DC became dry, which means there was no drugs. And so eventually everybody started buying from me. I’m on top of the world. This is amazing. The agents want intel, but I’m enjoying being like legendary status dealer, DC I’m enjoying this power. Big money, big money, big all, I’m a celebrity. I have talked about power, like power. And as a Gissele: person who has felt powerless in the past, that must have felt Sean: I was, I was primed and ready for crystal meth. Crystal meth, man, that makes you feel like you’re Superman, the president and a porn star all in one. and it’s tragic because if you’re as repressed as I was, it allowed me to like, the thing I loved truly. If you asked me deep down like, what did you really love about being out there? If there was anything you loved, well, there’s two things I loved. One was finding connection in the lowest of places. ’cause it had such profound meaning for those people closest to me, we were all just hurting. And we recognized that. Gissele (2): Yeah. But Sean: yeah. But the other main thing was my goodness. [00:40:00] I could dance for hours. I just pushed everything away and I would go dance for six, eight hours. And the liberation of that was so the excising what society thought of me, my family I was definitely on drugs doing it, but there was also some part of it that no drug could touch. And so that’s what, but, but at this point in the story, even that like was pulling away from me because I’m so bonkers. But you asked me originally why the book now, what ended up happening was I was involved in an incident in Atlanta where a young man who I just met that night, he died. he OD’ed on GHB and we think he went away and had alcohol. I provided the drugs, but he had done many drugs before me and I was with a supplier, his friend, but classic movie scenario, we dropped his body at the ER and sped away. And, you know, I walked away realizing I potentially had a chance to save his life, but I acted too late because my paranoid brain, my disillusioned, like all the, like, it was, [00:41:00] it was all of that. And so two weeks later I get a call from this young man’s mother ’cause I was the last number on his phone bill. And she just begged me to know what happened, begged me. I was paranoid, I was all the things and I hung up on her. And that is one of my biggest regrets from this time. Obviously there’s a lot, but this one, like, I robbed her. Of the sense of closure for her son. I tried to find her a year later when I got sober. I tried to find her writing the book, but the book is like a message in a bottle. There’s a whole chapter just for her just to be like, this is what happened to your son. That messed me up. So I stopped traveling. Then I had one of my runners who would run the drugs around. He had a connection to this straight guy who supposedly worked for the Russian mafia. I got desperate at that point. I was like, okay, maybe, maybe this will be a big enough get for the agents. And then and so I met the guy and young like me and he was really messed up ’cause he was very attractive. And I was like, I really sexualizing my anxiety and stress of [00:42:00] feeling rooting for this guy. You would put, you know, like, I mean, the gun would be in my face, like pinned up gun in my face, especially when I owed him money. And I’m just like looking like he’s close to my face. I’m like, just kiss me. It’s so bad. Yeah. Gissele: It’s just like, he’s so handsome. Sean: He’s so bad. It, so bad. Oh my God. I just, I just think that’s the Probably kept you alive. Yeah. Yeah. Right. If you would’ve Gissele: been probably more afraid. Sean: the meth would just, again, make me feel invincible. and mm-hmm. It also turns out he had the best meth that I think DC had ever seen before, ever. That I had ever seen. It was just this. Mm-hmm. And so it was so good that I started and I was so. Now tragically messed up after what happened to the boy and the mother. And also wrestling. Like, I don’t wanna be a narc  that I started using more than I started selling and I started owing him money. And then he became very volatile. Very like threatening. And so when it came time to do my sentencing [00:43:00] hearing I, I’m so paraphrasing, people should definitely read the book Gissele: ’cause it’s, I’m sure a lot of people have questions ’cause I’m jumping through things here. When it came down, when it came down for my sentencing I gave up. I was like, one, I started actually believing like, oh, I really can’t stop using drugs. Sean: Two, I’m afraid of what this mafia guy will do. Do. Yeah. Yeah. And I don’t wanna live the rest of my life with the shame of being a rat, which is I, which is so funny to me now, thinking of how like that’s embedded in our society. That, that, like, that’s really what I believe. But really it was just, I was terrified.  I was profoundly terrified of prison. Like the not not being able to stop using and the mafia guy just eclipsed that fear just by like 1% for me to be like, Gissele (2): mm. Sean: But when I showed up for my sentencing, the federal prosecutor asked for the case to be dismissed. You know, my court appointed lawyer, this guy named Dennis Braddock, who like heart of gold [00:44:00] does thousands of these, pulls me aside. He was like, what did you do? I was like, I didn’t do anything. He’s like, I’ve never seen that before. Like, I mean, he was blown away. And Gissele: not meant to be there. I, Sean: I still don’t know why to this day I really don’t. And I lasted six more weeks out there. it really was to keep using, but I convinced myself like, oh, I should find a way to pay. His name was well in the book. His name is Vadim. I should find a way to pay him back because now I’m worried he is gonna go after my family. ’cause now he’s threatening my friends. Gissele (2): Mm-hmm. Sean: But really that was a lie to keep me, I mean, kind of true, but also a lie to keep me using. I lasted six more weeks until I made that call to my parents. And and in that moment of clarity, when I called my parents and being confronted by Vadim, I’ll say this and then I’ll move on from the story. Two weeks prior that my best friend out there, this girl who was with me through every step of it, she was, raped in college and that’s why she was like hiding out amongst the gay boy drug addicts and, and she was somebody I, I loved and could trust and, but I didn’t tell her. But [00:45:00] I, at this point, I, when I told her everything after the case was dropped, she said she wanted to go to rehab. And I kid you not. I looked at her and I was like, you can do that. Like, I really thought rehab was for Requiem for a Dream or the, the guy’s doing heroin. And, and I was like, well let, okay, two weeks is my birthday. We’ll have a going away party, which is hilarious. Anyway, that time came and that was when I really got to my knees and realized I couldn’t stop ’cause I wasn’t stopping. And that, that broke my brain, all illusions, A window of clarity opened. I called my parents and they came, she called her parents who lived in Boston, which was nine hours away. They got in the car half an hour later and were zooming down to her and then, and then Vadim confronted me and I didn’t know any what else to do. So I was just honest. I was like. I’m, I’m, I’m gonna go to rehab and can I do like a payment plan when I get a job? Who was a payment plan with the mafia? I’m not kidding. My editor made me change this in the book because it sounded too [00:46:00] unrealistic. Yes. So the wording is different. You got it. Here, you you’re gonna tell the truth here. Go ahead. The truth is, I, I kid you not vadim, when I said this to him, took a moment and he goes, you can do that. Like, he didn’t even know that and I was like, yeah, that’s, yeah, yeah, man, you can, you can totally do that. And then he took a long pause and then he was like, you know, I’ve always wanted to sell real estate And I was like, I. Man, you can, you can do that. And then a long pause again. And then, you know, we had a few months together. Like we made a connection. We had a connection, you know, was  And then he was like, okay, yeah, man, you know what? Forget about the money. Best of luck. Gissele: Oh. Sean: And and then I got, Sean got, got in the minivan with my parents and, you know, started my journey in recovery. Gissele: Yeah. Sean: There was a lot. I I gave you the big bullet points. There’s obviously, there’s a lot more in [00:47:00] there. Well, Gissele: I’m gonna read the book, so I’m excited for that. Yeah. Sean: Well, I go backwards in time because this is relevant to our previous conversations because, the experience of Okay. Being confronted with my actions of most of my actions were my bad choices that were consequential to me. Gissele (2): Yeah. Sean: When the experience happened with the young boy in Atlanta and I acted too late because I was like telling myself like, he’s not dying. Like this can’t be happening. Gissele: Yeah. You don’t wanna believe it. Sean: it really made me confront like, I already knew. I felt like a piece of crap about myself, like worthless. I owned that. I was like, don’t like myself. Self-loathing, physical harm all, doesn’t matter. Hate, yeah, hate this, but I still felt like I was a good person, which is different than feeling like a pile of crap, you know, self-loathing. Mm-hmm. maybe the Mormon upbringing me, like, I still was like, but I [00:48:00] like, I still nice because you, Gissele: you felt like you hadn’t hurt anyone other than yourself. Yeah. Sean: I  People fought me like I had knives.  vadim with the gun and stuff like that. I defended myself when I had to, but otherwise it was like, no, I think I’m a kind, good person. I’m lower than dirt. Like I don’t belong to be here, but but this experience with the young man made me confront that like, I’m not a good person. Or is that what that means? And then especially, the mother, her voice still echoes in my mind, really made me confront like, am I evil? so I go backwards in time in my book, like I started at 19 at the suicide, but I go backwards in time. Mm-hmm. To really dig into what led to the experiences of everything I just described, and especially led to that moment of. Really being confronted with thinking I was a good person or not. Based upon these actions, these consequences that occurred. Again, up to that point, only involved myself, which didn’t matter because I hated myself. You know? then going backwards in time is a lot [00:49:00] of what I’ve already shared with you in this podcast. I mean, the clarity with which I was able to share it was because I was digging into the book and going backwards in time and gaining this deeper awareness, which, you know, leads to compassion for oneself. Yes, Gissele: yes. So what role did forgiveness and then compassion have and helping you get to the other side of that in being able to face your experiences with that mom and young person? Sean: I’ll be completely honest with you. I don’t know. On a deeper, deeper, deeper level, if I’ve fully forgiven myself. I think forgiveness is active. I don’t think I say, I forgive you, and then it’s like, mm-hmm. Yeah, no, because I’m still dealing with the same mode of thinking that led to the actions. I, forgiveness needs a change in behavior. It needs an amends, it needs [00:50:00] something. And, and I think forgiving myself by having compassion, understanding the circumstances that led to that. that led to it on the day and also on the day of hanging up on the mother, understanding the circumstances, which I’ve already explained. You guys can fully understand that. But then even going beyond that and understanding my. My history my adolescence, my childhood that even led to that point is like, yeah, my goodness, that poor boy Allows the compassion, which makes the forgiveness, like, yeah, I, Sean, I forgive you. Like, yes. It makes sense. You know, you did the best you could with what you had. Like, it allows for that and, and forgiveness being active, it’s just the constant reminder of that. I think of like 80% there, because there’s sometimes, especially writing the book. And I think that’s also why now with the book, personally, because I have the capacities to really walk through this, but there’s been certain, even doing some of these podcasts, there’s been certain triggers that have brought up [00:51:00] deeper parts.  I don’t wanna say new triggers, but triggers that have brought up a shade of that story that like, ooh, whoa, I haven’t felt. That kind of icky shame there, you know in a really long time, which doesn’t mean I necessarily may feel shame currently, I just think it’s kind of energetically in the body and coming up. And so giving space for that to continue to come up. And also facing it like, you know, the first couple times I did podcasts, like back in January and, and sharing the story about the young man, like, ooh, ooh, the vulnerability hangover was like you said too much. you’re embarrassing. Like, you know, it was a lot. So I feel like I’m absolutely getting it there with the more I’m talking about it, the more I’m bringing it into the light, the more the more head nods I get. Like, like, you’re okay. You’re okay. Gissele: I just wanna stress how powerful that is because I think forgiveness, especially self-forgiveness. It’s a multi-layered [00:52:00] thing. It’s an ongoing journey and it’s the same with compassion. and I think that’s where it’s helpful to know that it’s a process. The other key part that I think is so fundamental, which is why I so much wanted to talk to you, is that from my perspective, only thing that get us to really, really understand how our behavior impacts someone else is if we’re able to sit with that discomfort. And we can only do that if we can be loving and compassionate and forgiving with ourselves, because shame has a very innocuous way of trying to not get us to see, to convince us of things, to try to avoid things. And so. People think that it’s like, oh, you’re gonna, condone or you’re gonna let yourself off the hook. There is nothing more difficult to do than to be compassionate and forgiving to yourself when you don’t feel you deserve it. [00:53:00] And so what helped you get to that point where you are able to confront this is being able to sit with it with some level of kindness. Criticism doesn’t get you there. Criticism only gets you down. The shame spiral further. And so this is why this story is so important and so powerful, I feel in helping us come together as a, you know, in this world, you can’t address racism if you don’t experience the shame of being racist. You can’t address homophobia unless you’ve addressed the shame of being homophobic. And you can do that more willingly. By sitting with compassionate curiosity, which I think you’ve been able to some extent to do. But I think it’s extremely powerful to understand that this is an ongoing journey. And I do hope that that woman’s able to read the book and understand and maybe at some point come together with you and reconciliation in, in [00:54:00] conversation. And you’ll have different feelings in those moments. And so I think this is why your work is so important, So I commend you for your courage in being able to face that. ’cause it’s very difficult, especially since it’s somebody’s child, right. I commend you for sharing that story. Sean: Thank you. I, I appreciate hearing that because it is really confronting the shame because without the perspective that you just shared, it just compounds. It can compound the shame. So maybe my first 10 years of sharing my story, I got a lot of validation out of it, but I may not have shared about the young man and the woman’s phone call publicly because in those, the few first few times I might have it, it made me feel more ashamed which just makes things a lot worse.  you know, hurt people, hurt people, I was very selfish, but rightly so, because I was dealing with a lot of wounds and trauma. So it made me very [00:55:00] protective. Totally fine. Makes complete sense. Healing. Healing the traumas allows me to, you know not be as selfish. we get on people so hard for being so selfish and egocentric. It’s like they’re probably really hurting, like really, really, really hurting. And so it starts with having that compassion for ourself. I also think in my experience, if I am feeling shame about something, I’m actually not healing. I’m not growing. I’m stuck in that shame cycle. And so for me, it, it has been this commitment, this hardcore commitment to radical acceptance radical self-acceptance.  there’s a line I’m not here preaching the, aa 12 step ways, but there is a line in what we call the big blue book. Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. And. acceptance is the antidote to shame. And, resentment is the block from even getting to the shame.  it’s a fortress made of resentment, protecting the shame. we gotta own our part in the [00:56:00] situation, which kills resentment. Owning our part kills the resentment. Acceptance heals the shame. And then we grow, and then we grow, and then the love just comes when it’s supposed to. I did not force myself to love myself. I did not force my heart to wake up. Mm. It just, just happened when it was supposed to, I did not know this then, but in the last couple years, it has come to my attention and it is now a belief of mine that what I learn, when I learn how I learn is not up to me.  I really believe that. I read every gosh darn self-help book. You probab possibly could filled up my mind with all, like the self-help things, but like, when it actually clicked over that happened when it was supposed to and how it was supposed to, You know, so, that leaves me off the hook of having to try to control even my recovery. ’cause I was trying to control my life before it leaves me off the hook. And all I have to do is focus on today with you right now and finding a way to be okay with what’s happening right now in this podcast. Like, that’s it. I’m gonna [00:57:00] hang up with this and I’m gonna go about my day and find a way to be okay with what’s happening in my life. That’s acceptance. Gissele: I love that. So I have this kind of theory as to, like you were talking about when you, you put all this efforting in, right? So I believe that everything that you did to support yourself was like planting a seed. Like when you plant seeds, you just put them in the ground, you keep watering it, you give it sunshine, but you don’t know on what day approximately you do. But some are gonna germinate, some are not. And it’s the same thing with the, with the habits. Going back to what you had said earlier, the habits that feed our soul, right? Like the habits of, of that compassionate curiosity, the habits of, of being willing to forgive ourselves, the habit of, of trying to understand the impact of our own behavior and how we, we got there. I think all those are those seeds that you’re planting, that germinate on whatever nth day so that you have no control over. But all of the stuff you did beforehand that you were investing was an [00:58:00] investment in yourself, right? Mm-hmm. And so I do feel like all of that helped you in your journey? And so, because I hear a lot with people that I’ve worked with and people that I, I’ve communicated and supported is that they’re like, well, I’m doing all of these things.  but  when you’re beginning to love yourself in this journey, you don’t feel like anything is changing. And you’re like, why am I even bothering? But something happens on that n date. Like you wake up and you feel a little bit different, or you feel a little bit more worthy. And so, yeah. So it’s an, I feel it’s an investment that you’re planting seeds in those moments that, you know, germinate when you think they will, but you’re investing in that. Anyways, Sean: I’ll, I’ll one up your metaphor, because I Nice  ’cause for the, for the longest time, I, you know, you heard me talk about this rebel energy, this sort of like, yeah, fu energy, which is really powerful. But come to find out the fuel of that is resentment. The fuel of that is like, even in recovery, it was like, you know, [00:59:00] growing up with my parents, like, Hollywood, your what actor? Like I’ll prove them wrong. I’ll prove everybody wrong I mean, simple example, the drug dealer boyfriend. Like, you can’t deal, you’re an idiot. I’ll prove you wrong. You know, for spite. Yeah, yeah. That energy. Prove ’em all wrong. Fueled by resentment is the same energy I think a lot of people use to climb the mountain, the, the mountain that they’re on. Like, I’m going to climb up this mountain and I’m gonna be on top and prove you all wrong. And yes, it’s lonely up there, but who cares? I’m gonna make it, I’m gonna make something of it. Mm-hmm. It’s, it is all resentment. I’ve gotten off the mountain, I’ve gone down to the valley and I am like, I’m gonna make my garden here. Y’all can come to me. That’s how I’ve approached Hollywood now, and it has been so much more loving. It has been so much more like, I’m just gonna tend to my garden and plant my seeds and let you all come to me and I’m gonna sit and I’m gonna meditate in the middle of my garden because I, I want to enjoy it more. So let’s calm the [01:00:00] voices down so I can look at, oh, how beautiful the pansies are, or whatever you want to call ’em. But, you know since getting off the mountain, my life is far more peaceful and this is actually really good. The mountain breeded, the, the need to be the best or the greatest. That’s the only place I could land in order to prove everybody wrong. When I went off the mountain, down to the valley, it, it shifted to being my best, the greatest in my life. It wasn’t about this otherness, it was about how can I be the best version of me in my life? And, I needed peace and solitude for mindfulness, for these things to really come up and emerge and, it’s great. And I think our job is to be our best in everything that we do. Like I definitely strive to be my best in acting. Absolutely. And in writing this book. Gissele (2): Yeah. Sean: But not the best, not better than the other person. [01:01:00] Gissele: Mm-hmm. Wow. I think your comment about authenticity is so important because so often, going back to what we had talked about earlier with the whole institution thing, we think we should be all of these things. We should, we think we should desire all of these things, you know, the house the marriage the cars and the vacations and all of those things. But we’re not listening to our hearts in terms of like, what would be my dream life? Who do I wanna be? What kind of person? Irrespective of other people, it may not be following what they wanna do, but that’s my dream and my joy. I was talking to an interior designer who like does work in mindfulness as well as interior design. She was talking about how everything is such a cookie cutter. Like everything just looks the same. People are all trying to be the same. And it’s like, where is the beauty of the authenticity as demonstrated in somebody’s personal environment? And I think that’s where. Like authenticity really leads us to our happiest [01:02:00] life, our most authentic version. The other thing I was thinking about was, and I had this conversation with myself ’cause I was a real achiever. I had a lot of that fu energy that you were talking about that I’ll show you. I definitely did that. And I also had this, this whole, because I didn’t feel I was good enough. I just, I never felt good enough for many different reasons. And I always connected my worth with achievement. I had to like, had to achieve, like, had to be the director had to make this much money. Sean: Yep. Gissele: I once had a conversation with myself and I asked myself, can I still love myself? If I accomplish nothing? If I don’t do anything in this world, I don’t make an impact. I don’t achieve the thing. I, I don’t even, can I still love myself. Woo. Yeah. Sean: That’s even hard to ask myself right now. Gissele: ’cause it goes to the essence of we don’t have to earn our own love. We are enough [01:03:00] just as we are in this moment. We don’t have to do that. And that was hard for me to look at because I had attached my worth to my achievement. Yeah. Oh, for sure. And then the question was, who am I? If I’m not these things? What makes me worthy? And that’s, it’s, it’s tough. It’s tough for us to talk about, but if we could get there, if we could teach our children that they’re so beautiful and worthy just as they are, they don’t gotta earn it. They don’t have to be a specific way. They don’t have to look a specific way. And I think our world could change. Oh my God. Or maybe it wasn’t, maybe I, we could still love it as it is. Like you talked about acceptance, right? Can we accept the world? As it is and just choose to be more loving. Right. But hard questions. Sean: Oh, I mean, that just cuts right to it. I’ve come to, come to believe that [01:04:00] my purpose in life is to be the most authentic version of myself. I mean, that’s, and I’ve been led there by accepting the hardest parts of myself, which was first my sexuality, and then, you know, I fell into being a painter. I didn’t even expect that. Like how my, I think my creativity and how it expresses itself is, is also something I didn’t choose, is something I accept about myself. And so, yeah, my expressions come out. I, I have so much joy with acting, with writing, with painting. Mm-hmm. And that’s just how it expresses itself. And so, Gissele (2): yeah. Sean: That’s, that’s my job. That’s, I think my, my job is, and acceptance, by the way, is how you lead to authenticity, because you are accepting who you are on that path to that. But. We have these really powerfully annoying parts of ourselves called the Ego, who just gets so wrapped up in the Western world and how society raised us and all the externals and constantly reinforced to do the [01:05:00] exact opposite of what everything you just said. So it’s so, it’s so hard. It’s really hard to just hold onto that. Gissele: It’s, it’s hard to be, yeah. Sean: Because it’s like, yeah, could I be, if, if, if no more success happened in my life and I had all the financial stuff I needed. Sure. You know, financial freedom, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And there’s no more success. You Gissele: can’t think about that without security. You need at least to be able to feed yourself and pay your bills. Yeah. Sean: By, by the way, imagining that right now of just like. You know, pay my bills great. And I don’t need any more success or achieving, I just had a big sigh of relief, so I just, yeah. Gissele: Yeah. There’s, there’s no pressure. Yeah. Sean: If I dream life for me, if, if I could just, if I, if I could just sit in my studio and paint and then every so often act and then write something like I am living, that I truly am living that now. Gissele (2): Mm-hmm. Sean: I think I would be so satisfied and be okay with that. I do know for myself, the, challenge of showing up and being opposite Angela Bassett [01:06:00] or Gissele (2): mm-hmm. Sean: Getting a book written and sold or like, is now the new thing that feeds me. Mm-hmm. It isn’t like, look what I did. It’s like, look what I did. Like I showed up on set and I went toe to toe with Angela Bassett and then like, oh my goodness. And my, my painting is evolving, like that feeds me in a very different, different way rather than. Look what I did. Accept me. Love me. so I am fed by that creative challenge and that feels authentic to me. But that’s a tough question. I just, Gissele: yeah. I just wanted to say, Sean, as you were talking even before that, I have such a strong feeling that this book should be a movie. Gissele (2): Yeah. Gissele: Because there’s so many parts that are so incredible, right? Yeah. And I think it should be that you gotta put it back, like the thing that they made you take out. I think that has to go back into the movie. Yeah. ’cause I think that’s so extraordinary. ’cause I think we’re living in a world now where we’re starting to realize, Hey, people are more focusing on manifestation and all of [01:07:00] these things happening. Quantum jumping. I think there’s much more receptivity to things happening out of the blue in terms of like, how is it that you got off? Yeah. Without, yeah. Like, right. Yeah. How is it that this person just said a big mafia boss? Like, okay, well you don’t have to pay me. that’s extraordinary. Yeah. And I think it would make a wicked movie. Sean: I Gissele: think. I think I would go Sean: see it for sure. I think I’m definitely, definitely thinking of that. Definitely brainstorming that, I’m almost at the point where one way of continuing telling this specific story in a different format would be like, you know what if it was like a TV series? Because that way we actually get to tell the full length of my story, but also, but we get to spend time there. There are some characters that true to life characters that just like you wanna spend time with. And also because, you know, when I was out there, and this is all, this all relates to everything we’re saying was. Obviously you and I can understand this from this perspective or outside of it, but when I was like in the story, it was a big [01:08:00] deal that at one point I’m looking around at the people I’m with and the people I’m dealing with, all, all addicts, all tweakers, all crazy, whatever. But I realized at one point, look, in talking to all of them, we all had tragic stories. We all had some one-upping of some terrible things that happened. Like that girl, like I told you, she was running away from a terrible rape incident, so she was hiding out in the safety of the gay boys, gay drug addicts. But, imagine like a television show where we’re just, we’re we got my story, but we’re expanding and, and following some of these other folks exploring. Yeah. And really, really settling into all these other characters so it becomes yes. A protagonist story, but more of an ensemble kind of piece, which I think is fascinating to give voice to this. And also to give an understanding to the, the Washington, DC judicial system, especially at that time, which was very, very, racist. I mean, when I was arrested and I was put in the holding cell with 50 other men, I [01:09:00] was like one of three white guys. Gissele (2): Wow. Sean: So there’s a lot to say there outside of my story. Gissele: And how many people actually got off the way that you did, or how many people who would face drug charges ended with years in jail? I, Sean: well the, I was arrested like Sunday and I was put in front of the judge on a Monday and I was brought in. It was a whole. Experience disorienting, tragic. And then I’m brought in and I’m waiting to go next. And there’s these two young black men who are before me with this old white guy, balding. He’s laying into them for a dime bag of cocaine. And he’s saying things like, you know, you gotta do better for your community. You gotta be a better example for your community. And he set like the bail at, at like a thousand dollars or something. Like, like he was leaning into these guys. And I’m sitting here like, I’m going next. Possession with intent to distribute. Got more than a dime. And so I’m expecting to be eviscerated. And I, and I step up there and this old [01:10:00] man, this old judge, he looks at my file, he looks up at me and he looks at him in my file and he looks up and he is like, son, are you in school? And I like, and I’m like, yeah, I go to VCU in Richmond, Virginia, and the guy’s eyes light up. At that time, I didn’t know this. He goes, he goes, oh my goodness, how about those rams? Because the men’s basketball team was now on their way to, like, the NCAA’s never happened before. And so the guy’s like, oh my gosh, how about those rams? He starts talking basketball with me. I’m like, I didn’t even know we had a team. I’m like, yeah, great. You’re like, yeah. And then he goes, he goes, I’m gonna say whatever Gissele: you want, judge. Sean: Yeah, no. And then he was really, he was like, well, okay, all right, well if you’re in school, you know, go back to school. I’m gonna ban you from Washington dc which I was for a couple months. Mm-hmm. And then he said, you know, he let me off of my own recognizance. Didn’t set a bail or anything. So just the disparity between. This college white boy stepping up there versus these two young black men who were probably about my same age for like, I’ll never forget that. Like I, I’m just like, [01:11:00] never forget that. So I don’t know how much white privilege, I don’t know how much racism. These are things that I’ve only thought about in writing the book and understanding from that time period, you know, my case might have been dismissed because their case files were so massive and they just needed to get rid of something. Who knows? I don’t, you know, again, my court appointed lawyer was like, this does not happen. So, Gissele: wow. Yeah. There is, maybe there was an element of divine intervention in terms of you needing to be somewhere else. Right? Like Sean: when I drove the car under the Mack truck, when I fell asleep at the wheel, I, in my sleep said something said to push my foot on the brake. So I was pushing the break as I was waking up, as it was crunching under the thing. I walked away from that. Like there was some divine even then that blew my mind. Yeah. So I have many elements like that. Yes, I’m one lucky SOB, but also was a divine to be here story. I think there’s divine guidance Gissele: for sure. Like I’ve heard that divine guidance, right? And then it makes you kind of [01:12:00] like, oh, talk to me now. They need the advice now. And it’s like, it’s not on command. It’s not on command in terms of like, you know, you gotta learn to tap in and listen to your higher wisdom. But Sean: yeah, definitely. I don’t know yet if this is a film or if this is a TV show. I’m still kind of working through that and seeing what happens. the drug world is so different now because fentanyl wasn’t around then, and that’s like laced with everything and Oh my gosh. And, and methamphetamine is now 10 times stronger. It’s just, yeah. It’s just, I don’t, I know of it because being in recovery, people come in, but like, I just don’t have much experience with that.  thank goodness I got out when I did. Gissele: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well couple of more questions, if you don’t mind. Yeah, yeah. My next one is what’s your definition of unconditional love? Sean: Well, conditional love is, I will love you if you act like this, this, and this, which says more about me than you. Gissele (2): Hmm. Sean: So then unconditional love to me [01:13:00] is being able to accept that which I love fully and wholly as they are. I have unconditional love for my two little doggies. They make me mad when they misbehave, but it doesn’t make me love them any less. Gissele (2): True. Yeah. Sean: unconditional love is radical acceptance. That’s what it is. It’s holding space for them to be their most authentic self. Gissele: Mm. Sean: What a gift. Gissele: Yeah. What a, yeah, what a gift and what a gift dogs are. I used to have a dog. He was doorman shepherd, unconditionally loving, always just so happy to be there. So happy to be alive. so grateful for everything, right. Yeah, he was like my best teacher. I miss him quite a bit. Sean: Hmm. I don’t want to think about mine going to away. No, no, Gissele: no, no. You don’t have to. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be a downer. I know. They’re so, Sean: they’re two and four. I still have them for another 10 years. Got plenty. But like, I know, but it’s like, I can’t even face it now. Gissele: Yeah. It’s it’s yeah, it [01:14:00] is very overwhelming. And it was his time to go just because he was suffering from seizures and he had mobility issues, so he was very old when he died. But but yeah, like you keep, you keep those memories in your heart forever. So last question is, where can people find you? Where can they, you know, like where can they work with you? Can they buy their books? What do you wanna share? Sean: Well, I want to put in the, okay, so if people are listening to this before I have the publication date it’s totally fine ’cause you will add it when I give it to you, when I do actually have that. However, however, if you wanna be in the know about everything, I try to put everything on Instagram. I, you know, the book, the Acting, the Art, all of that there. So it’s like one place. So that’s @seanhemeon, which again, we can put in the show notes. Also, my website has, has my writing, my acting, but mostly of my art, but it’s also the place that I put everything. So and that’s seanhemeon. Com. So those are the best places to find me. Follow me, keep up with me, talk to me. Let’s chat. [01:15:00] Hey, you know, yes. Gissele: Oh, thank you so much, Sean, for this conversation. It was enlightening and definitely needed. Thank you for sharing your story and hopefully there’s going to be another, another visit in the future maybe to update us on the story. And I’m definitely gonna get the book and I hope you do too. Sean: Yeah, well, you know, I, I’ll come back and when I have the actual publication date, because there’s a whole arc with my mother that is perfect for Oh, Gissele: perfect. Oh, perfect. We’ll just do it. absolutely. I enjoy you so much. Yeah, this is good for many different levels and yeah, and I’m looking forward to reading the book. And thank you everyone for joining us for another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Have a great day. Sean: Thank you.

Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. I’d like to take this opportunity to share with you an exciting project that I’m working on with a team of researchers and worldwide guests. I’m directing a documentary called Courage to Love the Power of Compassion, and we’ll be sharing stories of individuals who are doing the unthinkable, loving those who are most hurtful. Through this documentary, we’ll be answering the question, whether love does have the power to transform enemies into friends and challenges into opportunities to support our documentary. Please look for us in the fundraiser at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/courage-to-love-the-power-of-compassion We’ll be offering lots of perks for your contribution, including associate director credit for our film. So look, look out for that. On today’s podcast, we’ll be talking [00:01:00] about the relationship between Love and Money, and we have a special guest today. It’s my friend Ghary. Gh ary. David Wong is a spiritual explorer who sheds lights on life’s steps through hospice care, mortality insights, and a bout of homelessness. Departing from a corporate career, he offers a unique perspective on purpose and abundance. In his latest book, abundance Soul, abundant Life, he shares love’s transformative power for a purposeful existence based on personal discoveries. Please join me in welcoming my friend Ghary. Hi Ghary. Ghary: Hi, Gissele. I’m so glad to be here. Gissele: Yes, thank you for being here with us. We’re gonna talk about love and money, and often those two aren’t associated, actually very seldom. And so I’m super excited to talk to you and talk about your [00:02:00] book. But to begin with, can you tell our listeners what got you started on this journey? Ghary: Boy, you know, interestingly, I thought I was gonna write a book about, strictly about Money, but you actually read the book. It ends up it, you know, it’s a book about love. Mm-hmm. And you know, this, this has been a long time journey for me. I mean, I’ve studied with a lot of different people like Wayne Dyer and Neil Donald Walsh, those kind of people.  You know, I, I started journaling from 1991. Wow. And I’ve been, I’ve been keeping a daily journal and after a certain point in time I had a section in there which I call reflections. And what happened was that these are sort of insights that I’ve had, and over the years I’ve realized that [00:03:00] those, those reflections actually come from my guides. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Love that.  And so unexpected, right? Like, one of the things I lot I love about this journey that we are on, sort of like with this humanity is that often the most surprising and most beautiful things are unexpected, right? You went in thinking you are gonna write this book on money, and you came out writing this book on love and the relationship with money, right? And so it’s, it’s been an amazing journey just to watch as a friend. For those of the listeners who haven’t yet gotten your book, tell us a little bit about kind of how is money even related to love? Ghary: You know, I, I look at money as part, part and parcel to everything that we, we wish for or that we work to achieve in this lifetime. Gissele: Hmm. Ghary: And so it is part of what I call abundance. [00:04:00] It is everything. So you know, it’s, it’s to me the most important thing in life is to experience love in all of its various cues and shades. It starts with loving ourselves. And then when we have enough love within ourselves, we have the desire to express that outwardly to others. Mm-hmm. And that’s the same as saying something like what is your passion? Mm-hmm. I believe that when we move in that direction and we move towards this place where we feel better about ourselves and feel more worthy, then everything that comes to us, right? Mm-hmm. So, so my feeling is that we come here to experience love and to express it to others. And then of course, the second thing is just to have fun while we’re here, [00:05:00] you know? Gissele: Yeah, definitely. I love what you said. I’m gonna pick up on just the, the sense of worth. I know in my experience you know, you know, thinking about worth. And there was a time in my life when I wasn’t really kind of out picturing kind of the, the kind of abundance that I was wanting. And I remember going into a meditation and, you know, I, I kind of said to myself, out of nowhere, I don’t feel worthy to receive. So that was interesting because I didn’t think I believed that about myself. I didn’t think that I, I had those feelings of worthiness, but they were showing up in specific ways. how did worthiness come up for you during your most challenging moments? Ghary: You know, I have to take a step back. When I was in Los Angeles, I had gone to a local McDonald’s, and while I was, when I was walking in, I happened to bump into this homeless man who asked me for some spare change. But [00:06:00] what I did is instead of giving him some change, I asked him, what do you want? I’ll buy you anything on the menu. Gissele: Hmm. Ghary: So, so he, when I asked him, what do you want? He, he couldn’t think of anything. It took him over a minute to figure out. What he was gonna ask me for. And in the end, he asked me for, he said, well, just gimme a hamburger and a small drink. So obviously when I go in there, I, I order the supersized meal and everything with everything. So I gave it to him. And then when I gave it to him, he, he sort of lowered his eyes and he, he thanked me under his breath. And then this man really touched me because when I went back to my car, I started sobbing. I, I couldn’t help it because I realized that this man had lost all of his self-esteem. He couldn’t even, someone asks you what [00:07:00] you want, anything, and he tells me the, the smallest thing on the, on the menu. And that really affected me. So later when I had returned here to Hawaii myself, you know, this, my home. I got into some financial problems and I actually had to be living on the street myself. I was lucky enough to have, have a friend that loaned me their car to live in, and this happened for about 10 months. Gissele: Wow. But it was, that’s a long time. Ghary: It was that experience. I think that I realized, I said, you know, I need to make sure that my self-esteem doesn’t get so low that I can’t even ask for more. And I’ve always believed in, in the law of attraction, law of assumption that I need to raise my vibration. Mm-hmm. And Honda and his, his book, [00:08:00] happy Money, talks about the fact that, you know, whatever you put out, just like the law of attraction, whatever you put out, you get back. He believes that you have to raise your vibration to that. And so I was thinking to myself, how can I receive anything being homeless if I’m not giving back myself? And I’m not saying giving back of money to somebody else. I’m saying giving back who I’m the essence to share this, this person of whatever I can give to someone else. And I think that that’s the key is that that’s what we come here for. You know, it’s, it’s great to, to get the car, get the girl, get the college get the house and all these other things. But in reality, we can’t take anything with us, you know? Mm-hmm. When we, we transition over to the other side, nothing is gonna go with us except our [00:09:00] experience and our memories. And so that’s why I, I, I think that the only reason why we’re here is to. To experience and express love and to help someone else learn the same thing and help them to move on themselves, you know? Yeah, Gissele: yeah. Did, did the actual raising your vibration and energy help you like, get outta homelessness?  did you know that you were done with homelessness before you actually saw it in reality? Or was it something that you were just continuing your, to uplift your vibration and then there was a change? Ghary: I would say that obviously in the beginning I’m in it deep. Gissele: Yeah. Ghary: Just like anything else, in any other problem, we search for for solutions, right? We figure out how can I get out of this situation? [00:10:00] We ask how did we get into this situation the first place? Gissele: Yeah. And then Ghary: how do I get out of it? Mm-hmm. So after a while I started thinking about it and I said, how can I get out of this? And I started thinking about that man that I met and the importance of staying in this positive you know, feeling in order to manifest. Gissele: Mm-hmm. And did you, did that lead to a number of synchronicities that helped you get out of that? Because it’s an extraordinary thing to go from that place to being outside of poverty, right. Especially when there were circumstances that led you to that. Ghary: You know, I, I can’t pinpoint actual synchronicities other than the fact that, I mean, one of the, the biggest change that happened was that I actually developed a a medical problem when I was there.[00:11:00] So I was, I was actually taking showers, cold showers out down at the beach. You know, they have the, oh wow. free showers when you come out of the water. And I was living in the car and some friends of mine from the beach noticed that I had a problem with my leg. It had turned red. So they looked at me and they said, you better go to the hospital or see her doctor. And they didn’t know my situation. So, so they said, look, unless you go to your doctor or go to the hospital, we’re gonna take you there if you don’t do it. Gissele: Hmm. Ghary: So, so I said, okay. So I went to see my doctor and as soon as he saw my leg, he, he put me in a wheelchair and he pushed me across the street because he is right across from the hospital. And I had to stay in the in the hospital for 13 days. Mm-hmm. And I had, [00:12:00] I had this thing called I think it was called cellulitis, which is an infection. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Ghary: And I was told by relatives and friends who are in the medical field, that 13 days was a long time for an infection like that. I could have, I could have died. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Ghary: The nice thing was that after that happened, a friend of mine had come to me and he said, I need someone to help me to house sit. So said Yeah. So that, yeah, that one of the, one of the things that had happened, so. Gissele: Mm. That’s interesting. That’s, it shows how something that was challenging got you. Out of that situation Right. And got you into a new environment when there could be a change. So yeah, sometimes these things seem like a worsening, but sometimes it can be seen as, as a [00:13:00] help. Right. Ghary: I would say that I spend more time seeing synchronistic situations now than before. I think actually have to tune into that. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Because. Ghary: We’re not aware of those kind of little, small, little things. It’s just gonna pass you by. Yeah. Yeah. And I think definitely that the, I think that God or the angels or whatever you wanna call, sends it to us all the time. We, we put out this desire what we want, and it said, okay, here you go. And it’s like, oop goes over your head if you don’t see it, you know? So, yeah. Gissele: Yeah, not, and that was one of the things that I’ve, I’ve realized in my life that there were so many times that there were so many, it’s, it’s weird. We think the situations come out of nowhere, right? Like, but they’re kind of all around us. It’s just, we don’t, we just don’t see it because we’ve got these blinders [00:14:00] on. It’s like when you ask one of your kids to look for something, it’s literally right there. And then they’re like, I can’t find it. And then you just go and pick it up. It was always there. It’s just because we have these filters of fear that we don’t, we are not able to see it. And so that, that’s sort of, it’s been my experience. And that relates to what you were talking about in terms of the, the being able to kind of expand your awareness of it, right. And be able to see those synchronicities and, and opportunities when God source universe is helping you Ghary: You know something happened to me a few months ago. I was, I was thinking to myself because my father passed away years ago. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Ghary: But he was, he was he made, was a little bit over a hundred years old. Gissele: Wow. Ghary: Yeah. That’s amazing. I know my mother passed at 95, so. Wow. After, Gissele: after your point, you gotta tell me what their secret to longevity is. Go ahead. [00:15:00] Ghary: Anyway I, I always have this feeling that my father is around watching me and helping me. Mm-hmm. As with my mother. Gissele: Mm. Ghary: And I don’t know what it is, but I was just thinking about it and I said, you know, dad, I hope you’re around helping me. Gissele: Yeah. Ghary: And I happened to call this friend of mine up in, up in San Francisco, and we were chatting about something completely. About something else. And she stops our conversation. She says, Ghary, I don’t know why I have to tell you this, but I wanted to just say that your father said that he’s your father, said that he is listening to you. Mm. Gissele: And Ghary: Oh, okay. And then afterwards it hit me. I said, oh my God. You know? Yeah. That’s exactly what happened the other day when I was, I had asked whether he was there listening. [00:16:00] So obviously, you know. Gissele: Mm-hmm. You know, Ghary: some people go, oh yeah. You know? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Hmm. I love that. So one of the things you also mentioned earlier was about finding our passions, but some people don’t know how to do that. Like it’s hard for them to, and I, I kind of have this theory. You let me know what you think. I. If you as a kid maybe had passions, but maybe they weren’t encouraged or maybe they were diminished, right? Like, they’re like, oh, that’s silly, or that’s ridiculous. You may be less likely to want to pursue those things other than the things you think you should do out of fear, maybe to be shamed or out of like, worry that people are gonna think that whatever your passion is is ridiculous. What sort of things have you seen in, in people’s journeys in trying to find their passions? Ghary: Okay, so my, my idea is that [00:17:00] when we come to this place, which is basically an illusion, it is a place where, where God sets it up, where we can experience different things, and that is love. In order for us to understand. Things, there has to be separation between us. Mm-hmm. When we come the source, we’re all together, so it’s impossible to see ourselves. Gissele: Mm. Ghary: But, but when we are separated, we can see someone else and we can see that reflection of ourselves. Mm-hmm. So I believe that there’s an whole purpose of this separation. And that could be lost too. Right? Separation is also loss. Yeah. So I think that what happens is that the separation causes us to, it gives us the ability [00:18:00] to contrast things and to, to look at things. So when we come to this place, we come separated and the ego develops as a young child. In order to help us understand what separation is. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Ghary: The first, the first known thing is when they cut the umbilical cord, right? Yes. Or when you’re with your mother and then you, you’re pulled away from her breasts and you realize, mm-hmm.  I’m not connected with my mother anymore. So I think that there’s a purpose in for all of this. That’s why, you know, we have such things as people around the world that don’t make us happy. But through those situations of contrast, we come to understand and make a choice. Do I wanna act the same way as that person? Do I wanna [00:19:00] be. Sometimes growing up you say, gee, I wanna be a fireman, because you happen to see some firemen doing something. Or I a singer because you know, somebody that’s a, a great singer, you see a great performance or something like that. I think that all of life, we, we look at ourselves in contrast to others, and then we make that decision. And so through the, through that and through for some people like myself and through other I have a friend that was an alcoholic and he lost his wife, almost lost, I’m sorry, almost lost his family because of that. And you know, he, he came, he hit rock bottom just like I did. He came out of that and through the lessons, now he’s better able to help others of the same. Way, just like I am in the, [00:20:00] in the knowledge that I have come through, you know? So this, that’s what I believe is, is in order to figure out what your passion is, sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes it has to do with some very, very deep wound that you have suffered in your path. You know, that you vow that you’re gonna change, like being bullied in the school and then after that saying, you know, I’m not gonna let that happen. Im gonna create sort situation where it can help these kids. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you for that. I was reflecting on my own life. So. I never thought that I would be doing what I’m doing now. I never, I had a specific plan in my, and that was my dream. Like my dream was to work in the field of child welfare until I was old and gray and to sort of revolutionize it and whatever. So imagine my surprise when I’m there, you know, [00:21:00] trying to bring compassionate love into child welfare, and all I’m doing is hitting walls, right? Like, it’s like I’m swimming upstream and I get this inner calling that I’m supposed to be doing something else. I’m supposed to go somewhere else. I’m supposed to be, and now I’m doing something completely else. But it, I, I could not have planned it. That’s the beauty of the, of this sort of, inner wisdom that exists within us. And so this inner wisdom that exists within us, that is constantly guiding us. But if I had only stuck to what I thought my original passion was, I would not be doing some of the most extraordinary things I’m doing now and some way more exciting than anything I could have thought. But I kind of had to go through the wall of like burning out in the child welfare system and having all of these struggles in terms of people accepting my message so that I could end up here. What helped you find your passions, Ghary: I would say so. I’ve always loved helping people to [00:22:00] understand life. Gissele: Mm mm-hmm. Ghary: At a very young age that I could see things, big picture and be able to break them down to be, to explain it to someone else. Gissele: Yeah. Ghary: So that’s why my book talks about, you know, when I use the term ego mm-hmm. The way I see is this is this other persona of ourselves that lives to receive accolades from others. So we make choices based on that. Like we ask questions internally, like, why is this person receiving more income than me and I’m doing the same amount? Or shouldn’t I be buying a, a brand new car so that other people can see how well I. Yeah. You know, or when I used to go to class reunions, you know, a person has been [00:23:00] doing so well and they, they have this home and they have all these kids and grandkids and, you know, my life is completely different. So yeah. Along with Wayne Dyer’s belief, you know, is that get on purpose. So the, there’s a movement at some point of moving from living a life of ego, which I believe is much more much more tough because we’re always worried about what other people are thinking of us to a point of living purpose so that we, we move in the direction that we feel is right for us to help others rather than trying to compete with anybody else. That’s why, things like being a politician to me is, this is one of the most idiotic things because they go into it figuring out that you’re gonna help others. But you spend almost all your trying time [00:24:00] trying to live up to the expectations of your voters and trying to get their vote. You know? Hmm. You’re sitting in this massive ego type of type of thing. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. What do you think are some helpful ways or some good questions that people can ask themselves to begin to discover their passions? Ghary: You know, I think having a conversation with ourselves is one of the best things to mm-hmm. To sit down and actually have this conversation. Mm. I learned this from Sarah McCrum who wrote the book love Money, money Loves You, and Ended having a conversation with money, which I did, and I was, I, I found it really interesting that money told me why are you so afraid of me? That’s the first thing. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Ghary: I’ve doing, I’ve been doing this kind of [00:25:00] internal asking of questions Gissele: and being Ghary: open to what those answers are as to what I. If you look at if you’ve ever listened to Steve Jobs doing that Stanford University commencement exercise, it is one of the most watched YouTube videos around. But he talks about this interesting point, which it, it’s totally applicable. And that is he said that you don’t realize what your life is all about until you look back and you are able to connect the dots. Gissele: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Ghary: Or you have no idea how to, what to do. You just have to follow, like a lot of these spiritual people. Follow your bliss. Yeah. Figure out what makes you happy and just follow that. There’s a entity called Bashar, who’s Gissele: mm-hmm. [00:26:00] Ghary: He is he is brought by Daryl Anka. Bahar said, I remember once he said, just follow what you every day in the morning, throughout the day, just follow what makes you happy. And pretty soon what happens that I’ve discovered is that answers will start coming to you. Gissele: Yeah. About Ghary: what, what you’re here for. So for me on that, on that specific part, you know, I’ve just been going along. I was in business for a while, for a long time. Gissele: Hmm. Ghary: I always thought I was gonna make all of my money in that I was in commercial real estate. I was in funding and things like that, and did quite well in some parts. But towards the end I just, I just realized that, you know, business wasn’t for me. I just wasn’t to be there, you know? Mm-hmm. I just was, yeah, I was struggling too much. [00:27:00] You know? And I think that that part is that we have to be, we have to be really cognizant about what’s happening to us, you know? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that level of self-awareness in terms of like, so you in the, takes courage, right? Because especially if you were a successful commercial real estate person, to go from that to like your inner callings, like, I wanna write books, I wanna share my wisdom, I wanna help people. It might be a bit of a gap, right? Like to leave the security of a job or to leave the security of something that you know, is a sure thing to follow that path sometimes feels really overwhelming. There’s been times when I’ve been guided to do things and I’m like. What am I doing? Like why am I doing this? Like it doesn’t compute in my logical mind. I know enough now to follow it, but it can cause some real discomfort in terms of your, like your logical mind is telling [00:28:00] you, no, no, no. Stay in this job and then try to do this on the side until it works. Where’s your heart saying, no, jump in. We got you. And, and if you grew up in an environment where you didn’t trust like me, you know, I grew up with parents that experienced not so great childhoods. And they didn’t trust people. They didn’t trust life. They didn’t trust themselves. And so I wasn’t taught to trust. And so to go from that and to I’m gonna trust the universe fully and completely seemed like a big chasm for me. Ghary: Well, you know, it sounds kind of strange, but I think I was fortunate enough that I became homeless, which finally kicked me, you know, in the head. Gotcha. You know I describe my life as taking the road less traveled Gissele: and mm-hmm. Ghary: Often taking detour along the path to look at different things in our, in my life. And then stopping at a lot of roadside [00:29:00] distractions. Gissele: Yeah. Ghary: Right. Yeah. So, yeah. But, you know, I, I, I have to say that, following that inner voice of ours and listening. Yeah. Probably one of the most important things we can do. Seeing things that are happening to our life, why certain things are happening here and what, what the outcome is all lead to the same place, you know, and if you just allow it, I think is if you just allow it, it opens up to you. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So going back to the question that you, when you were talking about talk to money, right? Talk to money and see what comes up. How do you know for yourself if the answer is coming from your inner self or higher self versus your ego self that’s telling you, oh, this should, you should do this, or you should do that. How do you know when you’re actually listening to your inner [00:30:00] guidance versus your eagle self that thinks or is like, you know, portraying itself as if it’s the higher mind? Ghary: Well, one of the things that I look at is, is the solution there to make me look good? Yeah. Or something that really is internal to me, because that’s what the ego is telling, right? Mm-hmm. Do it this way because people are gonna, are gonna respect you for it, or people are not gonna laugh at you for doing it. Gissele: Yeah. Ghary: Right? Mm-hmm. Most difficult things in life are the things that, that we have a fear for, like speaking in public or something like that. Gissele: Yeah. And Ghary: yet, and what, you know, inside of us, we recognize that this is where we are headed and that’s where we need to be, right? Gissele: Yeah. Ghary: [00:31:00] So I think those, those inner messages come to us. Like for me, a lot of, a lot of the stuff in my book, I had no clue as to what they were. I mean, Gissele: when I wrote, Ghary: I was thinking, you know, I was reading through some of the passages in my book and I was thinking, who wrote this? Gissele: You know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ghary: But it, it certainly, I didn’t have this thought, Gissele: none of Ghary: the information that I had read in other books had this thought, so I was thinking where did this come from anyway. Gissele: Yeah. Ghary: You know? Gissele: Mm-hmm. Ghary: So that’s, I think that’s the trust that we have to have, you know, either you even that there is no such thing as, as God, and there’s no such thing as inner guidance, then it’s not gonna happen until you get to where you believe that.[00:32:00] There is a guiding force for us and that it’s good that it’s not there to, to punish us, but it’s there to help us. You know, it’s, it’s that, you know, Neil talks about Neil, Donald Walsh talks about the fact that he calls God love, Gissele: you Ghary: know? Gissele: Yeah. Ghary: So any, anything that we talk about in this world of love is also God, and God is love. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ghary: And if we come from, from that place, we are part of it all. We are God, we are love. Mm-hmm. Right. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Ghary: The other thing too I is that most people believe love and happiness comes from outside of us. Gissele: Yeah, true. Ghary: That’s a big issue that a lot of people, you know, you, you see a lot of things. I’m [00:33:00] not into relationship. I’m not suggesting that I am a, a expert on relationship, but I do have to say that, that I think that love and, and happiness all comes internally. It’s always there. It’s always been there. That’s where we had come from. You can’t get rid of it, but you just that we don’t, we don’t realize that we have it here. So we turn, we turn to other people, and we turn to other things to make us happy and to make, and to make us feel like we’re loved. Yeah. You know? Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. I think, I mean, that has been my experience in terms of like, I was a very insecure, young person. I didn’t think I was lovable or attractive enough and all of these things, and I was constantly looking for outside to tell me that I was worthy. And even from my partner, my current partner, it was like that, and it caused me a lot of [00:34:00] suffering. And it was only when I realized that what I was looking for externally I could give to myself. Right. I, it was when I realized, I’m like, I’m the person who’s looking to accept myself. And when you tap into that, you tap into this, like you mentioned, this kind of unlimited, well, happiness and love and all these things are an inside job. So often we’re looking for other people, and when I kind of stop having that. Resistance, the need for people to, to reassure me, the need for people to validate me and to do all of those things. My relationship with those people changed because I no longer expected them to do that. I could do it for myself and then sort of like the dynamics changed, but if I hadn’t lived it, I probably wouldn’t have believed it, if you know what I mean? Ghary: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. like what you had told me months ago or the other year when we were talking about it, that you [00:35:00] said that when you had found love inside yourself, you just kept looking in the mirror and loving yourself, and then one day it happened, and that’s true. I do have to say one thing that I’ve done recently that is really helpful is I was working on a bucket list of things that I wanna do before I pass. And in doing so, I also made a list of items. So I went on the website and I, I found this website that says, these are all the great things you can do before you die. Gissele: Mm-hmm. And I, Ghary: I realized that in that list of 50 things, I had done like 20 of them already. Gissele: Oh, wow. Ghary: That’s amazing. So, yeah. So I began to realize, I said, you know, after all, I’m worth it. You know, I’ve ever, you’ve Gissele: lived a full life. Yeah. Great. Yeah. [00:36:00] Ghary: Elevated. It’s actually elevated my idea of my booking list now Gissele: mm-hmm. That Ghary: myself to do more. Gissele: Yeah. Oh, that’s so great. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I, and I did, sorry, going back to the point you had made about the conversation we had had that, that was my experience as well, is I was planting seeds of loving myself. And there was times when I didn’t feel anything was changing, and then one day there was like a switch. I, I don’t know what determines it’s on the nth day. It could be the second day. It could be like the, you know, 850th day for someone. But it’s like you’re planting seeds and you’re just waiting for it to sprout. And the more seeds you plant and the more you tend to it, the, the more likely it comes out. We just can’t determine when it comes out. Right. The other thing I wanted to talk about, which you had mentioned is this concept of death. Right. Because I think that’s probably mankinds or [00:37:00] humankind’s last hurdle to address. Is the fear of death, is the fear that this body, this humanity, like this, this thing that we’re carrying is it for us. And so, and I think it limits us in a lot of way. People, a lot of people are just surviving instead of living fearlessly. What helped you overcome your fear of death and and how might that have helped you live more? You know, this is a tough subject. Mm. Because I believe that there’s a reason for feeling this way of loss. Mm. Yeah. That big lesson of separation. Mm-hmm. That loss, you know, for, for a infant that dies or a child that dies. I mean, even when my parents died, yeah. I, Ghary: I lost and I was [00:38:00] depressed. But one thing I’ve come to, so I think that addressing this idea of death is difficult. It may take a few lifetimes. I don’t know. For me, what happens is that I lived I lived in Los Angeles for a quite while, and then I had returned to, and when I returned to Hawaii, my parents were around 86 years old, thereabouts. Gissele: Mm. Ghary: Yeah. And so I kind of was thinking to myself, you know, I should prepare myself for their death. Ultimate passing. I, I didn’t realize that they released, I think you Gissele: did it too early. Go ahead. Ghary: So I started reading up a lot about the death and dying. Gissele: Mm. Elizabeth Ghary: books you know, a lot of these different books. One book that changed my life, I don’t even remember the name, but it, it [00:39:00] basically says when you, you come to the when you come to embrace death, you live a much better life. Gissele: Yeah. Ghary: Because there is no connection or there’s no, you know, being held by that. So I did some hospice work actually for about three years. I was a volunteer for, Gissele: I sat Ghary: with the dying which was an amazing experience. I recommend anybody to donate your time to do that. All you’re doing is respite. I was just doing respite work, which meant that when the families wanted to go to a movie or go out and buy something or do something, they didn’t have to worry about their father or mother that I would be sitting there with them and doing that. I was fortunate enough to have a gentleman that he actually lived about 13 months before he passed. He was 26 years [00:40:00] old and he passed at 97. And we would have all these wonderful conversations about death and dying, you know also facilitated a non-grief, death and dying discussion group here in Hawaii. Gissele: Hmm. Ghary: Because nobody was talking about non-G grief stuff. They were talking about, Gissele: yeah. Ghary: How to resolve grief. So I started this, I received, there was so many people at this meeting that we would have twice a month. It was just so much fun. And then I also interviewed a whole bunch of people that were doing near death studies that had an experience. Just so happens the International Association of Near Death studies ions had their national conference here in Hawaii. So I, I went to it and I interviewed about 20 or 30 people, not, not on tape, just [00:41:00] talking. And I met this one guy who had told me that he had lost his fear of death. And I asked him, how did you do that? He says, you know, I don’t look at life and death the way it is that most people think. I look at it like a circle. It’s like a un circle that we go through life and death. Life and death. Right. And so he changed me completely after that, I lost my fear of death. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Then through Ghary: discussion group, we would, we would chat about different things, and then through my. Through my experience with that man who I sat in hospice. Yeah, Gissele: yeah. Ghary: Also changed me quite a bit, you know? Gissele: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ghary: Wow. I’ll tell a story that in my death and dying discussion that we had, we were showing videos [00:42:00] and there was this one video of that woman what was her name? She’s, she’s a psychic. Her name evades me right now. Sovia Brown? No, no, she’s, she’s national. She’s the one with the blonde hair? No. Oh. Anyway, so she’s good. So she’s telling this story that she’s in the hospital with her grandmother who was in a coma. Yeah. And the grand, the grandmother’s Italian speaks only Italian. So all of a sudden the grandmother comes out of her Cobo and she starts speaking to her late husband who had died in Italian. Gissele: Mm-hmm. So it wasn’t, you know, the, it wasn’t the fact that she was speaking in Italian, but she was chatting with her, her late husband, and then at some point after the whole episode, she was just sitting there in her bed and she had this big smile on her face. [00:43:00] Oh, her name is Jean Houston. Jean Houston. Ghary: That’s, oh, Gissele: yeah. Okay. Ghary: so she says, she, she asked the grandmother, grandma, why are you smiling? And the grandmother said, well, I can see over on the other side already. Gissele: Mm. Mm-hmm. Ghary: Really? What does it look like? And the grandmother says, well, it kind of looks like there’s a party going on over there. Gissele: Hmm. Ghary: So from that video, I went to my guy that weekend to sit with him. Gissele: Mm-hmm. And I asked, Ghary: I said, Hey I said, Hey Henry, can you see over the other side yet? And he thinks for a second. Yeah, I guess so. And I said, what does it look like anyway? So he thinks about for a second. Then he says to me, well, it kind of looks like there’s a party going on over there. Gissele: Wow. Yeah. Ghary: And I was thinking, [00:44:00] oh, you know, there’s some truth someplace in all of this. Right? Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ghary: Shut your off to shut yourself off from, from things like this means that you’re denying what reality is. It’s like, it’s like believing that flat, right? And it, people are starting to say, no, the world is round. And you say, no, no, no, no. I don’t believe it. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. It’s, it’s so funny that you mentioned that. ’cause I do see that, I feel like the veil is thinner as we age. Right. And some people get really scared by that. like you mentioned, there’s also a concept or an aspect of it, of loss, right? Like the death is always harder for the people that stay behind. either you transition and nothing happens, which you can believe, or you transition and you go to that big party But the people that are staying behind are the ones that have to experience that loss. And for [00:45:00] us, human beings, it’s hard. It can feel really, really challenging. What, what did your parents say was the key to their longevity? Did they ever mention that? Did you ever ask them? Ghary: My father would. My father would say that one glass of red wine at for dinner. Gissele: Oh, okay. Ghary: You know what he used to, he used to, at a hundred years old or more, he was bench, bench pressing a hundred pounds. You know, he would go to the thing. He would just, before he died, he, he would go out to drive himself in his own car to go to the other side of the island to play golf. Yeah. You know, 18. Do you think Gissele: physical activity has a lot to do with it? Like the mobility, like physical activity, good diet. Right, because you know, you’re moving the chi right. So it’s like the more you move, the less likely you are to kind of decline. Right. So that makes a lot of sense. Was your mom as as mobile as well?[00:46:00] Ghary: No, my mom. No, my mother unfortunately had Parkinson’s Oh, I’m Gissele: sorry about that. Yeah. My dad has Parkinson’s, so I know what it’s like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ghary: having parents that living that long really is, is obviously a different kind of situation. But, but a friend of mine who was a, a hospice counselor told me that when your parents, both your parents die, you end up feeling like an orphan, even though I have siblings and I couldn’t figure out what he meant. So it happened to me and then I realized he. Gissele: It’s, it’s interesting how it hits you even if you are like older, right? Like you would think, okay, well I’m older and I should be able to be okay with my parents passing. But there’s like, sometimes there’s so much going on. Like you there might have [00:47:00] things you never got a chance to say or, you know, like even if you had a good relationship, you’re gonna miss their companionship. Like all of these things, all these dynamics that kind of come into play. So a couple more questions before we go. I did wanna ask you a question about authenticity. ’cause you mentioned that in the book and I, I thought it was really important to mention. What do you think is the key to living an authentic life? Ghary: Boy you know, I, I think it, it couples with the idea of ego. Gissele: Hmm. Ghary: You can choose to live by this. By this persona of the ego, which to me is, is like a ma a mask sometimes that we place on ourselves that others will, will like us. You know, for some people back in school, they were the class clown because it felt so insecure that they felt good when people were laughing with them rather than laughing at them. Yeah. So I think that I think that [00:48:00] authenticity is one of the keys to, to truth really, because especially for men who have a hard time crying in public or showing emotions. Gissele: Yeah, I Ghary: think, I think really authenticity is power. That because authenticity oftentimes reveals vulnerability. But to me, vulnerability is power. Mm-hmm. Once, once you show that no one can take that part away from you, you know, for me to hide, for me to hide problems that I’ve had in my past, like being homeless Gissele: mm-hmm. Ghary: That was happening. I, I did not wanna see friends. Yeah. I grew up with like that. Mm-hmm. And yet Gissele: mm-hmm. Ghary: There a time when I had to tell the world of [00:49:00] that fact and it, and it was, it was one of the most freeing. So I think authenticity comes with living that passionate life, really. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ghary: Yeah. I think it’s hard to, I think it’s hard to live authentically. On a life of ego and wanting to, you know, create something that’s not us. That when we figure out is we’re moving in that direction of authenticity and that is who we are. That is, that is what we are sharing for ourselves and to others. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned, you mentioned the whole concept of how difficult sometimes it can be to be vulnerable. Right. I feel like some boys, in our society have been conditioned not to be vulnerable, not to express emotions such as crying or [00:50:00] weakness or vulnerability. And so that does prevent them from being authentically themselves. And so you kind of have to have this persona of stoicism, stoicism. But, the payoff of that is that you might not be living an authentic life. You can’t authentically express your emotions, the, the spectrum of full emotions. And so that can, that can actually kind of hinder you from really living authentically and therefore potentially also finding your passion. So, so I think that’s Ghary: I think that just the idea of choosing to live that way, to live the truth. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Ghary: That is the idea of living your passion. I mean, Gissele: yeah. Ghary: If, if you were doing something completely different, you weren’t, you, you are not living authentically because you’re not being true to yourself. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ghary: Right. So I keep asking myself, I keep asking myself, am I doing this? Am I true? Do I [00:51:00] believe is what I’m feeling true to myself? And do I believe in what I’m doing? Gissele: Yeah. Ghary: You know? Gissele: Yeah. Absolutely. So I ask all my guests what their definition of unconditional love is. So if you could share yours, that would be great. Ghary: Every time I think of unconditional love, I think the first thing I think about is my mother. Gissele: Hmm. Ghary: Is the, the very person that taught me taught unconditional love. Gissele: Yeah. Ghary: I never, I ended up doing the eulogy for my mother. Mm. So I asked I interviewed a lot of friends and family. Gissele: Mm. And Ghary: well, obviously at that time, no one spoke ill of her, but, you know, I, I couldn’t remember a time when I ever heard her spoke ill of anybody else. She would get mad at some things mad at me, of course, [00:52:00] for. She was the epitome of un unconditional love. So that, for me, that picture I have in my mind and person is, is one that does that is it, is, it is going out and living a life. And, you know, I, I don’t say that I’m gonna live fully that way. I keep trying, working on it, you know, I keep working towards that. So that every day I, I remind myself. But I think choosing to live with that in, in that respect Gissele: mm-hmm. Ghary: And be best to yourself on how you wanna live creates a much, much easier way of, of finding your, finding your passion and, and, and bringing to you all the things that you desire in life, you know? Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. So last question. Where can people find you? Where, you know, [00:53:00] what are you doing, what do you wanna share with the audience? Where can people find your book? Please share. Ghary: I guess the best way, www Ghary David won.com. And my name, first name is with an H, so it’s G-H-A-R-Y. David won WON dot com. You can go over there, they can find out all about me. I’m actually creating some new content now of courses and other things, so to help people with that. And yeah, I, anything I can do to help anybody else, I’m very much open to doing. So, you know. Gissele: Thank you Ghary, and thank you for being a guest on the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele and tune in once again for another episode. Ghary: Thank.

Conversation with Scott [00:00:00] Scott: Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Gissele: Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. This year we’re creating an inspiring documentary called Courage to Love, the Power of Compassion, which explores the extraordinary stories of those who have chosen to do the unthinkable. Love and forgive those who have caused them deep harm. Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness, not only to those offering it, but also those receiving it. we’ll hear from experts who will explore whether love and reconciliation are part of our human nature and how we can bridge divides with those we disagree with. We are launching a fundraising campaign in March, offering incredible perks to our supporters. If you’re interested in our documentary, know somebody whose story should be featured, or would like to contribute financially, stay tuned. Speaking of divided, [00:01:00] today’s topic is about how to love others during divided times. Our guest today is Scott Stabile. He is a Breathwork Facilitator.  and author of the acclaimed motivational memoir, Big Love, The Undeniable Joy of Following Your Heart, the short prose collection, Enough As You Are, and the inspirational art book, Just Love. A passionate love advocate, Scott is a compassionate and soulful storyteller, unafraid to dive deep into the human experience. Through his books, talks, personal empowerment workshops, and sub stack newsletter, Scott invites us to choose love even in the darkest times. to fully embrace our messy, beautiful selves. He’s not just a teacher. He’s a fellow traveler navigating the hard, sacred work of being human. Please join me in welcoming Scott. Hi, Scott. Scott: Hi [00:02:00] Gissele. Gissele: I’m so excited to have this chat, it feels like if we’re just living in such a divided world, it feels like we’re almost living in two separate worlds of people that are wanting to love and have compassion. And then this other group that is maybe struggling with that. And it feels like we’re more divided than ever. I was wondering if you could start by telling the audience how you got into the work of love. Scott: How did I get into the work of love? I mean, I would say the most Honest answer is I was in a cult in the in the Bay Area in the 90s. In my early 20s, I got involved with a spiritual teacher and a spiritual community. And the, you know, the teachings from my former guru were, you know, love, unconditional love, unconditional friendship. It didn’t end up turning out that [00:03:00] way when, I mean, it ended in a very dark way, which I won’t go into right now. But when I reflect back on those times, I was really consumed with enlightenment in the possibility of becoming enlightened. That’s what I cared about the most. And what I saw as the path to enlightenment was love. and compassion and forgiveness and all of these beautiful energies that we know when we’re engaging with those energies we feel so much better. And what I came to discover when I decided that I didn’t want to be a part of this community anymore and that when I was going to let go of chasing enlightenment, when I realized it’s not something that I could achieve, that’s not how enlightenment works. That I still felt called to be as loving as possible and as compassionate as possible. Nothing, nothing changed about me other than my drive to become enlightened, which only created for me a lot of suffering and misery, [00:04:00] honestly. And when I could let go of that, I was able to just bring more acceptance to who I was and who I am in the moment, rather than needing to be a more evolved version of myself. So that’s what really started me. Really seeing the healing power of love in our lives and really committing to being directed by that energy as much as possible because and it’s only because it’s not because I’m some selfless Buddha. It’s because it feels good to love and we know that it feels good to offer compassion to others. It feels good to forgive all of these things. Things for me are the most beautiful way to feel, and I want to feel good, you know, as often as I can. So this is the path that I’ve chosen to create that possibility. Gissele: I said so many powerful things. The first thing I want to tackle is I have found in my experience that there are many groups that kind of co opt the whole love and [00:05:00] compassion piece and use it for their own, it’s, it’s very similar to the whole concept of God and religion and, and how some of these messages are co opted for their own. purposes, not for the purpose of love and compassion. Has that been your experience? Scott: Well, if I, I feel like if I’m understanding what you’re saying, it’s the idea that there are any number of people out there preaching certain things who aren’t acting in alignment with what they’re preaching. Is that what you’re saying? Gissele: Yes. Yes. Basically. So it’s like, it’s teaching that love and compassion is the way, but not towards those people. you can’t exclude certain groups if you’re going to teach love and compassion. Scott: Yeah, absolutely. And, and honestly, Yes, 100%. I think we’re seeing that in all different ways across certainly in the US. I know you’re in Canada in this country for sure. And in probably most countries around the world. But what I’m what I’m seeing, though, is it’s it’s from every direction, right? Like, I think it’s very easy to look upon. Look [00:06:00] at the people who are on opposite political in opposite political arenas than who we are and see them as the people who aren’t speaking up for love and compassion, right? The, the laws they’re seeking to put into place or the way they’re talking about certain communities. It feels extremely devoid of compassion, right? And what I’m noticing and have been noticing is that those of us. Many of us who are, who are like compassion and love are being wildly dehumanizing and shameful toward those who aren’t speaking up for love and compassion in the way that they see as appropriate. So it’s really coming from all directions. And I’d say, you know, honestly, for me, that’s been. One of the more disheartening aspects of the past several years is seeing whole groups of people with whom I felt deeply aligned show up in ways that for me are extremely ugly and not [00:07:00] anything I want to be a part of. I’m not, I’m not interested. I’m, I’m clear about my convictions. generally speaking, I believe. And I, I know in politically speaking there, I’m much more progressive in my politics. That’s the, where I steer. And yet I don’t align with a lot of what I see in the, the progressive community because there’s so much dehumanization and, and shaming of those who don’t. Feel the same way or believe the same things and I can connect to that because when I’m in my mind and when I’m in my ego, I am as dehumanizing and shaming as any other person on the planet and it doesn’t feel good. And I don’t believe it helps anything. So for me, the invitation is always, well, how can I get back into my heart? And when I am in my heart and when I am aligning with the energy of love, what is that communication? And for me, that communication is always to find empathy and [00:08:00] compassion for other human beings, no matter how they’re showing up. And by doing so, that doesn’t, it doesn’t separate me in any way from my convictions or for what feels most important to me, or from what I’m going to talk about. It’s simply. connects me to the deepest truth I know, which is that without love, healing cannot be created. You need love for healing. So that’s where my commitment lives. Gissele: Yeah. Scott: Yeah. What about you? Gissele: I completely agree. And I think that’s been one of the challenges. I’ve been interested in understanding love for a very long time. First I did it in the way from, in terms of its absence, right? I worked with the child protection system, you know, child welfare to understand what the absence of love looks like. And so one of the things I’ve come to, to realize is that it really, if love is truly the answer as, as the spiritual teacher say it is, I have to be willing to love those that I deem unlovable. Whose [00:09:00] behavior seems so hurtful and so just purposeful. I have to be willing to see their humanity so that they can see mine. I cannot use the same strategy and isolate them and other them that they’re doing. And that’s hard, Scott. It’s so hard. Because I think one of the things I’ve realized is that my trigger, one of my triggers has been injustice. Like, when I see the little guy, I’m like, I got to fight for the little guy. But one of the things I realized is that that’s also disempowering for the little guy. That person has power. They have power. They always have power in their present moment  So feeling bad or sorry and all of that is disempowering, but it feels so hard, so hard to love during those moments. How do you do it? Scott: I don’t always do it successfully. I’m just really committed to doing it. Like what I would say, one thing I want to say to what you just said too, is that I feel like if you’re, if in your heart, you’re feeling called to stand up [00:10:00] and, and be a voice. For those you know, who are enduring the injustices, that’s a beautiful thing. I don’t think that that has to in any way be disempowering if your energy is about support and empowering others, right? I think it’s like what we bring to our activism is what we bring. That’s the energy we’re going to create. And yeah, this is, I think hating people is easy, right? Like finding love. When it would be so much easier to just hate or shame is is some of the hardest work that we can do, and I guess for me, it’s about first and foremost understanding. I do not believe that someone is not worthy of love. That is just not how I. operate. It’s not what I understand to be true. So I know that if I’m unable to access love in my heart for someone, no matter how abhorrent I find their words and actions, that there’s work for me to do because [00:11:00] I can only take responsibility and control how I’m showing up. And the example I’m setting, I profess myself to be this love activist, and I’m always talking about love and self love. So how am I modeling that? And, and then also Gissele offering myself a tremendous amount of grace when I find myself caught up in the, the mental. struggle and the, just the judgment and I get lost in just the, Gissele: you know, Scott: like the thing that we all do. Gissele: Oh my God. Scott: Yeah. It’s part of the experience. It’s like, and, and also I don’t kind of, what I’m sitting with a lot right now is, is, is also recognizing that. that when I am not in harm’s way in my own life immediately is when I really have the opportunity to really center in my heart and, and come from that place of love. I think sometimes when, when you’re in a [00:12:00] crisis situation and the, the, like You don’t have to worry about like, you’re worrying about surviving. Like the last thing you need to be worrying about is finding love and forgiveness for the people who have put you in this crisis situation. But when I’m not is when we can, those of us who aren’t, that’s when we can really hold space for this energy because it’s this energy of compassion and empathy that’s going to create real healing in our world. It isn’t what we’re seeing. It’s not the, the division and the screaming and the hatred. That’s not, that’s just going to lead us to another version of what we’re all trying to extricate ourselves from already, you know, so I just. I’m just a big fan of like, how am I showing up? How can I be more loving? How can I honor what feels most true to me? How can I maintain my commitment to recognizing the humanity in every other human being? This is why I feel I’m here in the world. And so, [00:13:00] and this is where I feel the most at home in myself. So I’m just going to keep working at it and struggle through it when I’m like feeling hateful and nasty. Gissele: I just want to point out the fact that, you know, what you said about survival is so, so true. It’s hard to care about other people and to kind of sit with that if you’re just trying to survive. And I think. What, what happens for people is that they just can’t see beyond their, their survival. So everything is a threat. Everyone is a grizzly bear, right? And so it’s hard for us to have conversations about caring And, and at the same time, I think it’s our responsibility to help ourselves shift out of that survival. And what I mean is that, that you can be. Very abundant and still be in survival mode. You can’t say to me that you are not making hundreds of millions of dollars And that’s still not enough for you [00:14:00] You’re you’re coming from a place of lack Right. Like greed is just another perspective on lack because you’re trying to throw money at something that, that it’s clearly, it’s not about that. So what is it? And so, so each of us are responsible for helping ourselves through that journey of. shifting away from survival into thriving. it’s my responsibility to help myself through that journey through love and compassion, you know, with the grace that you were talking about. It can feel, it can feel challenging to do so. What helped you really tap into that during probably your most difficult moments? Scott: Honestly, I think just bringing awareness to how I feel. When I do tap into it, it’s a completely different feeling in my being, right? It’s the difference between like a general sense of peacefulness and at home in myself versus like this [00:15:00] anxious, awkward, horrible feeling that, that is elicited through hatred or shaming others or dehumanizing others like they’re, I’m, as I said in the beginning, like it, obviously in this human experience, it’s not all about feeling good. Like the world is full of insanity and, and also like. Outside of the insanity, just very real painful things happen. People die in our lives. we have breakups in relationships, things that create pain, right? But essentially, it’s just the more awareness I bring to How I am feeling in the moment in that moment of awareness is when you have an opportunity to redirect if what you’re thinking about is creating for you a lot of anxiety, a question I might ask myself is like, what else can I think about in this moment that might create a bit more peace? How can I steer my thoughts in a different direction? Like, ask myself generative questions that lead me to a different [00:16:00] place. And if thinking about myself in the moment is uplifting. I’m cycling through self abuse and all it’s creating for me is misery. Then I encourage myself to think about anything else like quit thinking about myself if I can’t do so In a way in this moment that feels good It’s like i’m going to think about my nieces and nephews who bring me joy Or i’m going to think about the cute puppy next door or whatever it is It’s like, we’re not bound to thoughts that create for us misery and suffering, you know, we can make different choices. And I think that all begins with awareness, like really bringing, really checking in with yourself. I’m really anxious right now. Okay. What are you thinking about that might be creating that anxiety and what can you do about those thoughts, if anything, in this moment, Gissele: you’ve just given us how to help us shift out of survival, right? Because we think that we get out of survival mode through external things. Like we have been taught that, you know, once I have the paying job or once I have the partner, once I have all of these [00:17:00] things, then I will be able to feel comfortable. And the more we control our environment, the more safe we will feel. Scott: But I think what you’ve just given us is the beginning on how to shift. Some of that perspective through that awareness and then making a different choice. And that requires consistency and that requires showing up for yourself, which I think is really important. Absolutely. And you’re speaking to safety, like feeling safe. And I, and I think that, you know, I, I came to this realization several years ago. It was heavy at first. It was this realization that, wow, no matter what choices I make, people are going to judge me. And that felt really heavy. It was this acknowledgement of how judgmental we all are and how easily judgmental we all are and just tear each other apart. But then several moments later, it, I had the same realization from a completely different place. It was like, whoa. Okay. So no matter what I do, people are, some people are going to judge me. And it felt like this [00:18:00] invitation, it felt like liberation. And it’s like, I can choose to live in my box of conditioning. And that might be safer because I’m not putting myself out there in a more authentic, honest way. Or I can choose to live in this liberated authenticity and either choice is going to lead to some people judging me. So why would I ever choose the box when I can get the benefits of living in my authenticity and liberation, you know? Gissele: I love that you said that it’s, you know, like there is a level of freedom and understanding that no matter which way you go, you’re not going to please some, so you might as well please yourself. Right. Scott: Exactly, because the benefits that come from that are, they just so greatly outweigh what could ever be created from the conditioned box of conformity. Gissele: Yeah. I have a little bit of a leaning question. You know, when I, when I look at the world and who is behaving in a way that I, I feel from my perspective does not align with love and [00:19:00] compassion, it tends to be the white male. And, and, and so I always ask myself, like, What sort of world have we created for men in particular, like, and I mean co created, as children, like, what sort of messaging have men received that they seem to be the driving forceto be this catalyst of being the anti love, the anti compassion and so I’m coming at a place from curiosity, because I’m curioushow have we in, in ways sort of co created this reality where you have this group of people that have this particular perspective that seems to contradict. love and compassion Scott: Well, I would say a couple of things. First and foremost, I would say that it’s tends to be white men in power, which is why we’re able to bear witness to people who [00:20:00] are living outside of love and compassion and the laws that they’re creating. And, but I, I, I don’t think it is limited to white. I think. again, as I was saying earlier, what I’ve come to discover over these past years is I’ve, I’ve been watching some of the most progressive voices and some of the, the people speaking most beautifully about loving your neighbor and then saying just the most toxic things around, you know, their political rivals that for me is not an expression of love and compassion. So, so I feel like we’re all wired. To be jerks, we’re all wired to, you know, and yet white men tend to hold the power. And so we’re seeing it on a, on a big stage, just how, how toxic those energies can be. And I can’t speak to Canada and I can only speak from my perspective to the U. S. But, you know, this, this country was founded on genocide. [00:21:00] Followed by slavery. I mean, we, we are an extraordinarily racist country in our bones. And I think that even though there has been some evolution away from racism, that this is still very present in the air we breathe. And if you grow up in the United States as a white person, again, I feel I’m a very progressive white male. And I see the racism in me and it isn’t even conscious. It is just like wired into me. I see the way that I will sometimes react if I’m walking down the street and it’s four black men that my, my antenna are going to go up in a different way than if it’s four white men. And that is not even conscious. It’s just like bred into me from growing up in this country. Right. And so for me, when that’s happening for me, I, I do my best in the moment to just really acknowledge like, Hey, this is, this is the [00:22:00] internal racism from being born in a racist nation. This does, this is what’s happening in your head. It’s what’s happening in your fear. And it doesn’t represent what you believe to be most true in your heart, at least to have that conversation with myself. So I’m not just letting myself be afraid of black men because we’re told that black men are dangerous and scary in this country it’s ridiculous, you know, so I guess I’m not really answering your question other than, than I don’t believe that we have in any way raised men in general across the board in this country. To be healthy versions of masculinity and that’s just from the masculinity front. That’s not even addressing the racist front That we have to contend with in our country or the the sexist Front the misogynist front that all men are raised with to some degree, too it’s The problem for me, Giselle, is that [00:23:00] seeing again, at least in our country now, the men in control, from my perspective, they are men who are bound to this idea that women are less than, that other races are less than, so right now they’re in power again, which is going to make it that much harder. We’re certainly not going to have our schools suddenly having curriculum that, if anything, those types of curriculum are being eliminated from our schools. So, I think you answered it beautifully, because what you said was that We have all co created this. This is a long history of hate and racism that has been embedded within and this person’s a mirror of us, all of us all of our internalized racism and all of our fears and all of those things and, and where you are taking responsibility. Gissele: And I think that takes a level of, you said, honesty. Authenticity and grace, that you’re acknowledging to yourself, the [00:24:00] things you need to heal within yourself so that you can embody that love and compassion. And it’s. Hard for us as human beings to do that. I think sometimes shame and guilt comes up. I shouldn’t feel that way. I shouldn’t be but the truth of matter is the only way to change it is if we acknowledge it. And, and I mean, so I think it’s huge for you to have even made that example of saying, you know, like there’s, there’s certain levels of me that have that internalized racism. And the only way that can change is if I acknowledge it, become aware of it, give it grace, and then choose to change. nobody: Absolutely. Yeah. Gissele: You mentioned the concept of power, from my perspective, people that are trying to hold on to power and are trying to put power over, that’s not true power. Truly powerful people don’t need to disempower others. Their power comes from within. And so what I’m seeing, I’m not seeing truly powerful people, I’m seeing truly powerless people that are desperately trying to cling to power. Scott: but [00:25:00] their choices make a difference. Like they’re writing laws that affect millions of people. So there is, there is power in what they’re able to create, even if the reasons why they’re seeking to create it aren’t from this strength, inner strength, it’s fear and insecurity. And, and yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that’s what I call Gissele: systemic power that they have, right. So systems power, right. Like But to what extent have people allowed or accepted, this we didn’t just get here today. There’s so many things that have slowly we’ve accepted that we have turned a blind eye on or not wanted to deal with. We are here because of a series of steps that we have allowed, likethe. Willingness to only love some people but not others. Any othering creates the conditions for racism, that’s hard for us, that’s really, really hard to not see those other people over there that are writing these laws that are [00:26:00] blatantly hurting people. It’s hard to look at them and to say, I’m willing to love you. I’m willing to see your humanity, even though you don’t see mine or my people’s. Scott: To me, that is the greatest power, though you are. That is power. When you look upon someone that is extraordinarily difficult to like and still love them, I feel most powerful when I’m in my heart and when I’m in love. It’s like, I just feel like nothing can touch me in that space. Not really. And, and I don’t even need to like, I’m not committed to liking people. I’m committed to loving them. Like there, there are people I there’s, I don’t see any path to liking certain people, honestly. But I, I absolutely can love them because love doesn’t require me to like. anything anyone’s doing. Love just requires me to remember this is another human being who has walked an [00:27:00] entire journey that had I been in their shoes and walked that journey I could not honestly say that I wouldn’t have landed in the exact same place they landed saying and doing the exact same things they’re saying and doing and in that understanding is where empathy Is built is where compassion is built. And so that’s what helps me get there is I’m, I’m continuously reminding myself. I haven’t lived their life. I can’t relate to what they’re saying and doing, but maybe had I lived their life, I would understand why they’re saying and doing it. And so at least that opens my heart to them, even if I’m going to be actively like saying something that’s completely counter to what they’re saying, I’m not gonna like other them, as you say, and dehumanize, it doesn’t do anything. Gissele: I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing many people. that have done extraordinary things like forgive And the willingness to just understand completely changes people, the willingness to just bear witness to their humanity has the power to [00:28:00] transform. And We don’t understand that. it’s a true power from my perspective that we don’t, that we don’t really understand. I know in your work in particular, you emphasize the importance of self love and compassion for yourself. Why is that so important in terms of being able to love other people? Scott: I believe our relationship with ourselves informs how we relate to everyone and everything else. So when I’m seeing people out there saying hateful things, one of the first things I think is this is a person who’s not in a loving relationship with themselves. Or they would never be acting in this way. Because the more connected you are to self love, the more naturally you extend love to others. It’s the, it’s the only possibility. For me, it’s like it’s one plus one equals two. There is no other possibility. And that’s why I just can’t imagine. I can’t imagine a greater priority than strengthening, [00:29:00] deepening, fostering a more loving relationship with yourself. We all know on the most basic level, if you are well nourished, and if you’ve gotten sleep, you’re going to be kinder to the people in your life. You’re going to show up differently. If you’re feeling like you’re taken care of and feeling good, how you show up is, and that’s why people get caught up in this idea that self love is selfish, and you shouldn’t be focused on yourself, you should be focused on others, when in fact, Yes, it’s selfish. It’s the most beautiful selfishness there is. Love is a pure positive energy. It only serves all. So it, self love always transcends self. Always. Every single time. So yeah, I’m a big, I feel like it’s mostly what I talk about these days, is the importance of self love and the power of self love. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. And I completely agree. It makes me think of that Wayne Dwyer analogy. He asks his audience, they’re like, you know, when you squeeze an orange, what [00:30:00] comes out and everyone says orange juice. And he’s like, why? Because that’s what’s on the inside. And so when you have love in your heart for yourself, you can’t. help but love other people because that’s what’s on the inside, right? And especially when you’re pressured. And so I agree that that’s, the work I think that each of us can choose to do. But it’s so funny how we have you know incarnated in a world where that’s not reinforced. You were talking about, like, people say it’s selfish, it’s narcissistic, the whole concept of narcissism. I don’t think people understand the whole difference between narcissism and self love. If you want to tackle it by all means. And, and I think. We’ve been programmed to focus on other, we haven’t been really that it’s, it’s service to other, look at other, Scott: Yeah, women are conditioned intensely around that, always make sure everyone else is taken care of before you’re taken care of. That makes a good woman, that makes a good mother, that makes, [00:31:00] you know, it’s such nonsense and yet, and even though. Yes. Thank you. Though we’re aware, there, there are many women listening to this who understand that that’s nonsense, who are still affected by the conditioning because the conditioning has been from the time we’re tiny kids until now. And it’s just like racism. It’s like, you know, better, you understand the, how irrational it is. And yet it’s in you. So you’re still reacting in alignment with this conditioning. But, and I wanted to say something to what you said earlier too, about. Loving loving ourselves. And one of the reasons it’s so important is because I think that that part of the reason we see so much rage and in so much division is that people are not willing to be honest with themselves about the harder aspects of their personality and to look upon those with love. And so because people are shunning aspects of themselves. It becomes so much easier to point fingers at others and to make [00:32:00] all the issues and all the problems about another person’s actions But the more you love yourself The less inclined you are To hide aspects of yourself the less inclined you are to shame and shun aspects of yourself and naturally The less inclined you are to point fingers at others because you’re not needing to make excuses for your own bad behavior, your own unlikable traits, you’re okay with who you are. So you’re not seeking out ugly things in others because you recognize you’ve offered yourself the grace of your own humanity. So you recognize that in others more naturally. That’s been my experience. Gissele: Yeah, I would, I would agree with that. Absolutely. I found that the kinder I was to myself, the less self critical, the less critical I was of other people. The more forgiving I was of my own flaws and follies, the less other people’s flaws and follies [00:33:00] bothered me. Scott: Absolutely. Gissele: And so, yeah, and, and it’s amazing how that works. You wouldn’t think that that the two would be related, but they absolutely are. And so, Looking in the mirror can be really hard.  When I was young, I faced some, some trauma and was actually raised by two traumatized people, parents that endured like child abuse, neglect, all kinds of stuff. And I remember when I was older and I was like really working hard at living my dreams and how do I make my dreams happen? And I remember sitting in meditation, And what came out for me was something that I was shocked about because I would never had that negative self talk that was obvious, you know, like that negative self talk, you suck, you loser, you’re stupid, never that. But I remember sitting in meditation and I remember this feeling of. I’m not worthy to live my dreams. nobody: And Gissele: that just hit me because I was like, [00:34:00] where is that coming from? Why would I feel that way about myself?When that came up for me, I was like, I didn’t know that was even in there. Where were you hiding? But yeah, and it was hard for me to look at my sense of unworthiness and be able to sit with it in a way that didn’t want to make me shut it. What do you find can really help people start to kind of sit with those aspects of themselves that Make it hard for them to look at Scott: the first thing that’s coming to me right now is just have a willingness to love yourself No matter what literally I think willingness is such a big part of this whole story in this whole journey And it’s like I I feel like that is the starting point Are you willing to love yourself? No matter what you discover when you get honest with yourself because that willing and can you stay [00:35:00] committed to that willingness? Right, because that willingness and that commitment to loving yourself, no matter what, is, will be the first step, I think, that will nudge you into looking at the places inside that aren’t easy to look at. And then remember that everything you find about yourself is entirely human. You, if, if you are thinking it, and you are speaking it, and you are feeling it, It’s human to think feel you’re human. So it’s got to be human. And, and you are so not the only one, no matter how insane you think your thoughts are your problems or your whatever you are so not the only one, you know, and I’ll use for, I’ll use an example for myself, one of the hardest things. It’s a to look at is how envious my mind can be and my mind is just envies everyone for everything. It will find reasons to envy everyone. And for me, that that is a really, it’s a really [00:36:00] tough energy. It feels kind of gross to feel envious. And yet. What I used to do is I used to pretend it wasn’t happening. So I was talking to a friend years ago. He got a big promotion and a big raise at his job. And I was happy for him for like 10 seconds before my mind turned into envy. And so I’m talking with him and thinking, Oh, now he makes, he’s got this fancy job. He’s way more successful than I am. All of these things playing through my mind. But as I was talking to my friend, what I was doing was like, telling myself, Oh, no, you’re not envious, like pretending it wasn’t happening, even though my whole body, because it’s so monstrous to feel envious against a, a good friend, right? That’s how it felt inside. And so what I do now in that, and that doesn’t do anything. Cause if you’re feeling envious, you’re feeling envious. You can, you can try to put it away, but that it’s not going anywhere. And if anything, the aspects of ourselves that we try to bury or put in the dungeon. They’re going to be pounding on the door and informing our words and choices in ways that [00:37:00] we wouldn’t want them to be. So suddenly you might be acting really passive aggressive with someone because really what you’re feeling is envy. And instead of just acknowledging it in yourself and dealing with it in yourself, you end up projecting it onto another person. So what I’ve done now with envy is if I’m feeling it, I’m just, what I’m saying, the internal dialogue is like. your mind’s envious. It’s entirely natural to be envious. Every human mind on the planet deals with envy at sometimes. Okay. Envy too is welcome here. I might not like it, but I’m sure as hell going to love it because I know that there’s great benefit in creating friendship with everything that’s going on within you. And anytime I try to shun or shame something, I’m going to war with a part of myself and it only creates war. It doesn’t serve us. So what does love invite? It invites me to to make room at the table for all aspects of who I am. And then what I find is if I can just be honest with my envy and also recognize [00:38:00] my envy is a product of my mind. And my mind is consistently lying to me. So I don’t. My envy is real, but it is not true. What’s coming from my heart is most true to me. So even recognizing that distinction helps me just be with my envy in a more casual way and remind myself, it’s okay, you’re human, no problem. nobody: What’s Scott: next? What happens if we, for everyone listening, it’s like, what happens if you approach the harder aspects of who you are, the things your thoughts are, your mind is thinking about you that aren’t necessarily kind? What happens if you’re like, Oh, it’s okay. It’s just human. This is just a mind doing what all human minds do. Can you bring. Like an energy of curiosity and nonchalance to it instead of this heaviness like I’m a piece of crap because my mind tells me I’m a piece of crap. No, you’re just a human being with a mind that’s telling you lies like all human [00:39:00] minds on the planet. Gissele: Yeah. And I love how much grace you offer to yourself, Because I think what you’re saying also enables you to let go. And I find that when I let go and allow that’s really when my manifestations and things come through. Like for any of us who are like into this whole manifestation thing, right? One of the hardest things I had to learn about the whole thing  You’re doing it to yourself, right? You, you create these things for yourself. It’s all coming from your mind, all of these things. And then when, when you create things that you don’t like, there’s a tendency to want to get angry at yourself. Cause you’re like, Oh crap, I’m the source. Like nobody’s going to save me about me, but this sucks. Why did I create this? And so there’s a tendency to go inward when you know too much. Right? Like when you stop looking out there and saying, I’m the victim, it’s their fault. And you’re like, Oh crap, it’s my fault. Scott: Right? Sure. Gissele: It can be hard to be kind to yourself and giving yourself that [00:40:00] grace and understanding that you were just on your journey and other people’s journeys are different. And yeah, they might be doing things that you’re like, Oh, wouldn’t it be neat if I could just have these apple come out of nowhere or, you know, like things appear out of nowhere, it would not be great. But giving yourself that kindness, I think really goesa long way in terms of helping you evolve. it can feel hard, right? Especially when you realize you’re like, Oh, everything is my fault. But it’s also a good thing, too, because anything is your fault. Everything then is in your power, right? Scott: Yes, exactly. That’s like liberation turned to it, which is wonderful. And why not, why not seek that perspective? Like, why live in the perspective, it’s all my fault, when you could live in the perspective, like, oh, it’s all within my power. Right? Like I, I’m, I’m consistently looking for ways to approach my life that support the possibility of deeper peace, more connection, more meaning. So if I’m lost in a, in a [00:41:00] cycle of thought that I’m aware doesn’t support that at all, it’s incumbent upon me. To look at new ways to think about things if I’m able and we are able if we’re here and we’re breathing It’s always what we do from this moment on that’s going to matter the most so there’s always new opportunity to create transformation in our lives and I want to just say that self love invites Even when you’re judging yourself Can you love the part that’s judging, right? That’s the invitation of self love. It’s like if you want to be in real self acceptance, then part of it, that acceptance is accepting the part of me that is unable to accept all the parts of me because that part of me too is welcome here. And that, when you can, when you can open that way energetically, then it’s alright, I’m good with all of it. I’m good with all of it, even the part that’s not good with any of it, Gissele: right? Yeah. What helped you attain this level of like. [00:42:00] inner acceptance. I know my audience are going to want to know. They’re like, what is that guy drinking? Scott: Well, I mean, honestly, it’s just commitment because I’m, I’m also someone my, my mind is as self abusive as anyone else’s mind, right? Like I’m not always living in this place of acceptance. I’m just, I’m someone who’s consistently looking at Well, how am I feeling? What am I thinking? That’s making me feel this way. What, how can I work with what’s going on here? So I’m not living in a, in an overall state of acceptance all the time. And I’m much more accepting of myself than I’ve ever been. I’m much more loving than I’ve ever been. So I’ve seen progress. Because I see self love as a skill. So like any skill, the more you practice at it, the better you’re going to become. Self acceptance is the same. The more you practice at it, the better you’ll become. So for those of you listening who are like, I have no idea how to accept myself. My guess is. A lot of people aren’t even entertaining the possibility. They’re not even [00:43:00] seeing it as something that is achievable. So start there, recognize that your heart, your heart center, the energy of love within you is in full acceptance of who you are. All the time is never out of alignment with acceptance. So if you’re struggling to find that acceptance, it’s because you’re in your mind. It’s because we’re in our egos. So the invitation there is like, how do you get back into your heart? And, and how do you connect to your heart? How do you connect to anything in the world? If I want to connect to a friend, I’m going to reach out to my friend. I’m going to send an invitation. So when I’m feeling like I need more heart energy, it’s like, I pray to my heart. Please love within me. I need you right now. I’m really lost in the cycle of my mind and could use your wisdom could use your energy. I’ll write letters to my heart. I’ll write letters from my heart. Dear love. What would you have me know right now? And these are practices that that Tangibly engage us [00:44:00] with an energy outside of our minds with the voice of love and the more often you are engaging with the voice of love with the energy of love, the more natural it’s going to become to find it This is what I’ve noticed. This is a profound thing I’ve noticed in my life. Is that when my mind is cycling through self abuse, I’m aware of it much faster than I’ve ever been in the gap between the self abuse and self love, which may have been here. It just gets shorter and shorter and shorter. So you’re not mired in this self abusive talk as long you get right back into, well, wait a minute. That’s not true. I’m worthy. This is not, you know, that mind doing that thing minds do. I’m worthy. I’m enough. I’m beautiful just as I am. Right. You just with practice you that muscle builds so that that connection to your heart is just more available and resonant. Gissele: I love that you said that. And, I also feel [00:45:00] like I asked you a question like psychically and then you answered it psychically, which is very weird. And I’ll tell you why. So I was having a thought as you were talking, I was thinking about people that I know that felt betrayed by their heart, they felt like they fell in love with, with the wrong person, right? And so they felt betrayed by their heart and have a hard time. And then when I asked that question, I felt like something came back from you. That was like, that’s not the heart. That’s their mind. I was like, Oh, okay. So I’m not going to ask that question, but it was funny. Cause as you were talking, that’s kind of what came back  I love that Scott: you’re bringing this up because a lot of people will say, you know, I love too much and it just creates heartbreak for me or struggle. And I’m like, that’s not love, honey. It’s the attachments to love. It’s the expectations around the love. And as soon as you’re attaching anything to love, It’s no longer love. As soon as you’re putting expectations on love, it’s no longer love. It’s a creation of the mind. Love. As I said in the beginning, again, I speak from my experience. Love is a pure positive energy. It is only [00:46:00] of service. So you’re, you are not hurting because you love, you’re hurting because you have a whole bunch of stories that you are attaching to this idea of love. And those stories are creating the suffering Gissele: in my Scott: experience. Gissele: No, this is, yeah, that’s so great. I wanted to ask you a few more questions. You know, you mentioned enlightenment early in the in our conversation and you were talking about how you were, you kept seeking it and then it kept evading you. What helped you let go of the pursuit of enlightenment? And like, where do you find your journey now? Scott: What helped me let go is really coming to understand that enlightenment is not something you achieve, right? Like you it’s not like the 10, 000 hours idea that you become a professional or an expert in something You know, you can give 10, 000 hours to the pursuit of enlightenment and it doesn’t at all mean that you’re going to be enlightened That’s just that isn’t my experience of how [00:47:00] enlightenment works, you know, and I don’t even How many people are enlightened on this planet? Eight? I don’t know. Like it’s not many. And there are a lot of people giving a lot of energy to their spiritual path and to their work. So, so that was the main thing. It was like, wait a minute. I have no control over this. Whether I become enlightened or not, what I have control over is how I’m choosing to show up. What I have control over is how loving I am, how compassionate I am. That’s, that’s the work I can do. And what I noticed for myself, Gissele, was that I was constantly judging myself against a more enlightened version, which is to say, it’s I was responding in some way. And I’m like, if I were more enlightened, I wouldn’t be responding the way I’m responding to. And why can’t I be that way? Instead of just bringing acceptance to who I actually am and not needing to be a different version, because really like for me, that is actually the essence of enlightenment. Ironically, it’s like full [00:48:00] acceptance of who you are and how you’re showing up in the moment Gissele: in this moment. Yeah. Yeah. Scott: And so it’s like, I’m just, I’m engaged with the work I’m doing as I see myself as a messenger of love and a messenger of the power of love. And, and that’s really what I feel most committed to. And that’s enough, which doesn’t mean That I’m also not seeking and working toward deeper peace and more personal responsibility and all these things that I believe create a more fulfilling life. Absolutely, but it’s without attachment to the goal of where that could all lead. It’s just created a lot of freedom. Like I don’t need, I don’t expect to be enlightened in this lifetime. I don’t need to be enlightened and I’m going to continuously seek to become more loving and peaceful. Gissele: Those Scott: things are true. Gissele: But what a beautiful way to summarize that so a few more questions I always ask all my guests, what is [00:49:00] their definition of unconditional love? Scott: Well, one, it’s redundant because I don’t think, I don’t believe love has conditions. So the moment you put a condition on love, it’s not love. So I don’t even usually say unconditional love, but it’s, it’s, it’s really just, I see love as energy. That’s my experience of love. So for me, it’s just about aligning with that energy and acting from that place. So for me, when I’m in my heart, the message is, and what I love so much about connecting to my heart is there’s no confusion. The message is always just love. And so, and then I’m like, even that person in my heart’s like, yeah, even that person, like, that just love. So that is for me, what love is. It’s aligning with that energy and then moving forward with my words and actions in that place. And every time I do, I feel better in my [00:50:00] life. Gissele: The reason why I was reacting to that is because I remember I was in my bathroom getting ready for work and I was working at a place that I loved. And I felt I had been doing all of these initiatives for the staff. And I didn’t feel like that was acknowledged I felt like people were just complaining And I was like, Oh, I can’t believe it. I was doing all these things and they’re complaining and I heard a voice say to me, love them anyways. Love them anyways. And I was like, where did that come from? And I was like, Oh yeah, crap. Yes, that’s right. Love them anyways. Even though they, you feel them might be giving you a hard time love them anyways. Yeah. And I, yes. And it didn’t come from like me, me. maybe it came through me or like from my heart, but it was not an answer I was expecting. I was expecting my higher self to be like, yeah, you’re right. They suck. I can’t believe they’re not appreciating all that. It was like, love them anyways. Scott: Yeah, I love that. Gissele: So last question, where can [00:51:00] people work with you? Where can they find you? Where can they find your books and everything else that you want to offer? Please share. Scott: Oh, thank you so much. I, I’ve got a couple books, Enough As You Are, and then Big Love. The, the paperback is finally coming out in late February after seven years of being out there. So perfect time. Yeah, those two books. And then, you know, my website’s just http://www.scottstabile.Com. I would love for people to find me through my newsletter though, which is scottstabile.substack. com. And then I’m also being a lot more engaged with Insight Timer. So I’m going to be sharing more meditations and more live talks on that app because that the energy of that app feels really resonant with me. I’ve taken myself out of meta for potentially indefinitely and we’ll see, but I just want to be connecting with platforms that feel really good and Insight Timer does right now and Substack does right now. So Gissele: in particular for listeners, Insight Timer offers free meditations, free, lots of things that you can, you [00:52:00] can go. So please go check out Scott’s work, check out his books. And thank you, Scott, for coming in and chatting with us. This was an amazing conversation and I feel like just what I needed for this week left on my soul and please join us for another episode of the loving compassion podcast, which is out. Thank you so much. Scott: Thank you.

Transcript [00:00:00] Gissele: Hello and welcome to the love and compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our worlds. Don’t forget to like, and subscribe for more amazing content. we’re doing an amazing documentary called the courage to love. Focusing on sharing stories of those who have chosen to do the unthinkable, loving and forgiving those who are the most hurtful through their stories, we will find out what the impact of forgiving and caring for our opponents is for those doing the forgiving. And for those who were forgiven, we’ll also hear from experts about whether it is in our nature to love and to come together with those with whom we disagree. We’ll be doing fundraising in March with lots of amazing perks. If you’re interested in the documentary, you want to nominate someone or support us financially, Please look out for the information coming out in March. On today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about [00:01:00] punishment free parenting. Our guest today is Rebecca Wolf. She is author of the book, The Gift of a Punishment Free Childhood. She is a parenting mentor, educator, and mother. She supports parents through mentoring and workshops and navigating their parenting journeys. Using punishment free practices, however, her most important work was raising her own children without punishment. Her extensive personal experiences, contribute to her ability to guide others on their parenting journeys. Rebecca is a certified parenting educator for the redirecting children’s behavior program. and has conducted extensive research on how punishment impacts children’s behavior. Rebecca has a Ph. D. from the University of Northern Colorado in education and has been a lifelong teacher and learner. Please join me in welcoming Rebecca. Hi, Rebecca. [00:02:00] Hello. Rebecca: Thank you, Gissele: Giselle. As I was saying to you before, I love your book. Absolutely love it. I wish I had found this book earlier in my parenting experience. Because I feel like my husband and I really had to struggle to learn by making lots of mistakes with our kids. So I wish we had found your book. And so I was strongly encouraging my listeners, especially who are starting out in the parenting journey, or even if they have kids today, because you talk about teens to get it. Can you tell the audience a little bit about how you decided to go punishment free? Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. So, as you shared in my biography, I was trained to work for the Redirecting Children’s Behavior Parenting Workshops. And in that work, it, it, There still was punishment included, but it really started to emphasize the idea of redirecting right rather than punishing. Let’s [00:03:00] redirect. And so I had kind of this solid foundation. And but what I’ll share is that it was really when I started thinking about some of the crises that we’re seeing. In the world now. I live in Colorado. And so the Columbine high school shooting that happened back in 1999 was pretty impactful for me. I spent a lot of time thinking about that, thinking about that family, those parents you know, the parents on both sides, the parents of the shooters, the parents of those who lost their lives that day. And there are many, many factors that go into a situation like that. But Rebecca: it was clear that the reason those two boys walked into that high school was to punish their classmates. And so I’m like, why do we think that that is the solution? And if you think about it, it’s because that’s what most, most children, it’s how they are. It’s the relationship they have with their [00:04:00] parents. It’s their primary relationship is one of love. When I misbehave, I’m punished. And if we can shift that paradigm where making a mistake or even misbehaving is actually just an opportunity to learn rather than to be punished, could we shift that paradigm around punishment? We also know that that on a, not a significant scale, but still very important is that our adult relationships are very much informed. By how we relate to our parents. And so we see punishment in in our intimate relationships as well as relationships At work and with friends, so I decided with I had two children already who are about 10 and 12. I was divorced and remarried and had to two fresh souls. They were brand new and 2 years old. And I said, I’m [00:05:00] going to conduct a social experiment. Can we raise children without punishment? Gissele: I completely resonated with what you wrote about the fact that, it trickles down. It starts in the home, right? Like we’re taught to punish, we’re taught to have violence. Like if you spank your children, for example, and then these individuals go out in the world. And like you said, like, if you look at everything, it is about punishment. You, you do commit a crime, you go to jail. Like all of these things are about punishment and power. And a little bit later, I want to talk about the difference between like, I don’t know, true power and force. But the first thing I did want to say was like. How courageous of you to actually even try to parent your kids without punishment, because I think one of the first thoughts that came into my head was, well, then how did you do discipline, right?  How did you navigate those difficult moments where you sometimes feel like you, you don’t know what to do? can [00:06:00] you share a little bit about that? Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and it’s, it’s interesting. Another conversation I had not too long ago, the question was, well, if you don’t punish your children, they’ll have no moral compass. Right? And so I think that gets at the meat of this question as well. So, you know, I had that same fear. I will be honest. I’m like, oh my gosh, am I going to just wreck these children? But I, I had to try. And What I discovered is that once you build that relationship with your child for one, it becomes easier, but you’re right in those early stages, having to be creative and having to pause and think, okay, how am I going to address this behavior? It was a little bit challenging. You know people are when they hear punishment free, they sometimes think, oh my gosh, these children are just going to run wild and, you know, they’ll run the household and, and that is, not true, right?  as a parent, you’re still definitely [00:07:00] parenting. You’re still providing discipline, but it’s really through teaching. Right. And I think it’s why I love the title of your podcast, right? It is through love and compassion, right? It’s being that support structure for them. You know, a child who grows up in a family where they feel supported and loved will thrive. So much better than someone who is notI can start with an example, you know, let’s say that a child is four years old, right? and you’ve had breakfast and like we’re gonna go to the zoo today and but before we go I’m gonna put these dishes in the dishwasher and if you could put your blocks away and Then we will be ready to go. So now it’s time to go, and the blocks aren’t put away. The easy answer to that, right? Because punishment is easy, and that’s why we fall back on that so often. The easy thing to do is say, You’re in trouble, I told you to pick [00:08:00] up those blocks. And depending on the situation, We’re not going to go to the zoo today. Or, when we get home, you’re going to spend an hour in your room. Or, you know, whatever, whatever happens with that particular. Situation instead, right? Instead of reacting my kind of my three stage process, right? Is the first thing you do is just observe, right? and and describe your observation, right? Because it’s easy for us to. To go right into blame and what’s wrong. So you just state calmly the observation. Hey, you know, we were going to have the house cleaned up. I was going to do dishes and you were going to clean up the blocks before we went. And I can see that the blocks aren’t picked up, right? It’s just an observation. And so then, of course, the child would probably be a little sheepish or maybe come up with a few excuses. And so at that point, you would say, you know, it’s going to it’s important to do what you say you’re going to do. And for us to work. [00:09:00] You know, to make this happen, let’s take a few minutes and get these blocks cleaned up, right? So then they feel that support, right? They feel that connection with you. You make sure that they help you, right? I’ll put in one block and you throw two blocks in or whatever and get the blocks cleaned up and go have a great time at the zoo, right? And because you’ve built that relationship, because they’re starting to see the importance of that, they are actually much less likely to not do what you’ve agreed to do in the future. So your parenting as your child matures and develops actually gets easier because you have that strong relationship. Gissele: Yeah, and this is so powerful because I think, you know, people think that the, the power over approaches, the spanking, the punishment gives them power. But the truth of the matter is it takes a lot more power, self power to stop regulate ourselves, then be able to support the child. And I’ve noticed that in [00:10:00] myself, like I grew up in a household where we were hit, and. love my parents very much and they’re wonderful people, but they were also people who were taught that they were taught that hitting was acceptable. And so I remember one time when. My sister and I were getting hit. I remember noticing in my mom’s face, the anger, the frustration, like it was almost like she was like you said in the book, like venting her own anger at life, at frustration things. And I remember looking at her in the face and I was like. Wow. I never wanted to do that to my child. And I didn’t really respect my parents growing up. I mean, to be honest, we didn’t have established that relationship. It was that power over relationship. but what I hadn’t noticed is that when I decided not to spank my children. I didn’t realize that I wasn’t still using power over approaches in a different way. I was using the timeouts. Then definitely the taking away stuff was something that we would do like, Oh, we can’t [00:11:00] do that. Or we would do that. Or we would do the fake taking away. We’d never took away anything, but we always talked about taking away, which was like, Right.  I have a great relationship with my children. Thank goodness. I kind of had to learn by realizing I’m tired of this power struggle, tired of this. It’s so overwhelming. Can I ask, how did you get to the point where you were able to look at your own responses and pause? Because sometimes I notice that I like my default was to react first and then reflect later. How did you get to the point where you were able to just kind of go, okay, I need to create some space between my reaction and the response. Rebecca: Yeah, you know, I will tell you that that just takes practice. Right? So, and I did, like I said, have the benefit of that previous work of redirecting. And, and so one of the examples that I use in the book came from that and I talked with lots of parents [00:12:00] about this, which I think really helped. Right. But if two children are fighting and we know if this could be siblings, it could be cousins, right? It could be someone has a friend over often, you know, you’re going to have those disagreements and. Children don’t have filters like we do to control their emotions as well. So typically it’s high energy, lots of anger, lots of frustration. And thinking through the idea let’s say you’re in the kitchen and you hear this and, and it just, you’re like, Oh, I hate when my kids fight. Right. I see it as a. As me not being a good parent. So now all of my self worth stuff comes up, right? Just as an example. And so now my energy is up. And I storm into the room. And I say, why are you fighting? And we don’t fight. Right? And what I’ve done is I’ve added fuel to the fire. I’ve just contributed even more negative energy to that room. And so recognizing that, right, it really is a very, [00:13:00] very conscious approach to parenting rather than from the hip. And so walking in, you know, before you walk into that room, deep breath, I need to be the calm person here. I need to bring calmness. To this situation, because that’s what I want my Children to learn. I want them to learn that you can address conflict without having it escalate so much. And it’s going to help me facilitate them, you know, coming back together and figuring out how to solve this issue. Gissele: And I think you mentioned one really fundamental thing that I think I’ve noticed in myself. Was that the. The underlying or undercurrent of feelings that we don’t realize are happening, like feelings of self worth or feelings of like adequacy as a parent that we don’t know are kind of running in the background that cause us to react like when I. I’m triggered by something. My first question to myself is, okay, why am I being triggered? What’s going on for me? But that took a lot of [00:14:00] work for me to get there because before it was just kind of like knee jerk reaction, right? It just triggering or seeing like it’s somebody else’s fault, like blaming our kids for causing that. And I’m lucky to have a partner where we can have discussions. And so one of our issues was cleaning. I grew up in a household where everything had to be showroom home. And so cleaning was a real source of stress for me. And I was making my kids so miserable over the cleaning. So one of the things I love in your book that you say is like, okay, first of all, you got to let go of the perfectionism. That’s got to go. That’s going to scale down. And what I came to realize a while back, cause I was making myself miserable too, is that I kind of let it go. I kind of just. Said to them, look, this is about your contribution. This is about you learning to take care of your personal body and your, your house, like your space. And then these are the expectations in terms of us cohabitating together. And, you know, like, the [00:15:00] expectation is that once a week, we do our chores and. Then I let go of my resistance and if they didn’t do it one week, they didn’t do it one week, if they was two weeks and it was two weeks and if I really wanted it done because somebody was coming over, I would ask them, but if it wasn’t, if they weren’t able to do it because they’re like, I’m so busy or whatever, I would do it myself and switching that approach. Really helped me and it was so helpful to see in your book, it outlined like in terms of like, oh, yeah, that it’s true that that does work when you let go of the resistance within yourself, but you really have to have kind of that. Insight, right? You do. Rebecca: It’s really, you know, that emotional maturity, that emotional intelligence, right? I mean, that’s when, when people are like, Oh, you’re just taking the easy route, not punishing. There’s nothing. This isn’t an easy route, right? This is a, this is a route that does require you to, to be self aware, right? That’s why there’s a whole chapter about [00:16:00] that, right? It requires you to be kind of conscious. Yes. You know, about what you want. But yeah, you’re exactly right. And, and, you know, chores and contributions to the household. You know, everything in the book I say really is depends on your family and your values, right? And your children, you know, anyone listening who has more than one child knows that it’s almost astonishing how different children can be in the same, in the same household. And so I would, you know, especially like with their rooms, it’s their room, right? And if I, if I want that room to be clean, like we said, then maybe I should go in and clean it. But if they don’t want it to be clean, you know, then it doesn’t have to be clean to my standard. Now, you have a conversation with them that says, you know, the, here’s just the basics, you know, you can’t. You know, you can’t leave food in the room because then, you know, we have problems. So, you know, let’s just all make sure we bring dirty dishes down So if a child doesn’t want their, [00:17:00] you know, and I don’t want to say the child doesn’t want their room to be clean. I think most humans have an instinct to have at least some order and some cleanliness. It’s just that that threshold is different. It’s going to be different based on your child and it’s going to be it’s we see it in our in our partners. Our partners probably have a different threshold. You know, I’m oftentimes grateful that my partners threshold is lower because then I know that if I don’t get to get to something, it’s not going to bother them so much. But But having those conversations about what does it mean to have organization to be clean and to have their input for a parent to go in and say, you know, I need I need your bedroom cleaned at least once a week. And to this level, right? I mean, just as I say that I can just feel how overwhelming that could be for a child, right? Whereas if I said, Hey, let’s, you know, let’s talk about what it means to have a clean room. What’s important to you,let’s talk about, you know, how, where your toys [00:18:00] are, you know, and let them say, What’s important to them. And then that then it’s much easier to get them to collaborate. They have to have a voice in it in the work that happens around the home. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. Two things that really stood out to me as you were talking and, and what I remember from the book is number one, giving. It’s not a permission, but just acknowledging that children need different parenting styles. Like each child is unique in that we’re not going to try to cut and paste between children because they will need different things and they will come with different challenges. I have a boy and a girl my girl is older, my son is younger. They each come with different challenges and different things that I, that my husband and I are navigating through and I’m lucky enough to have a partner that is able to help me co parent. And so I think that that is really, really important. And the other thing you said, I think, is. The [00:19:00] child’s right to have voice and participation. And I love that you’re saying that because I think historically, children really aren’t seen as having agency or that should have agency. It’s usually if you go to a doctor, the doctor talks to the parent, not the child usually. What feedback have you received about the role of voice and participation in children in some of the parents that you have done work with? Rebecca: Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m going to add one thing when you’re talking about children needing different approaches. Your child’s developmental stage also Changes as they grow up, right? So you are constantly changing your parenting to meet the point in time where, you know, what your child needs back to the agency. You know, I think what I have found to be the most gratifying about that concept is that. It is typically the solution when a, when a parent is having a problem with the child [00:20:00] and when I say, give them a voice, you know, have a conversation about this and then they do it and they see the results. That, that’s when it makes the most sense and that’s what I have seen the best. You know, I had not too long ago like a middle school aged person who just would not get out of bed in the morning, right? Just didn’t want to. And so we talked about. You know, giving her more voice, not even around just bedtime and getting up and all that, but around the house, right? Because I think that it’s, it’s not unusual for us to want to keep our children young, right? It’s, it’s hard to watch them mature and grow. And so I think, especially in that age group from like, 11 to 12. Yeah. 14. There’s a part of you that wants to keep them young, but that is when they are, they are ready. They’re ready to start having that voice. They’re ready to be making decisions on their own. And the more they can do that while they are [00:21:00] in the comfort of your own home, where you’re providing that safety net, if they make a mistake, the better, right? You want them to be able to go out into the world and make decisions on their own rather than. Gissele: Then you having to tell them how to do things. So I would say by giving children voice one, it definitely makes for a much more peaceful household. And two, you know, I say this all the time in the book, we’re not raising children. We’re raising adults, right? We want to give them every tool we can Yeah, thank you for that. Just because I, you know, I’m smiling as, as you were talking currently we’re having an issue with one of our Children that they have a hard time getting up early in the morning and they could just, I mean, One of my children could literally sleep all day and that’s kind of a developmental stage as well. Like, you know, like sleep is important at this time. They’re growing brains, they’re growing. But I find it interesting that you made that connection to agency because he’s the youngest. [00:22:00] I saw the kids the youngest. And I do, I will reflect and say there is an element of me. That wants to mother that wants to kind of baby. And so my other, my other child has said, you know, you baby him. And so one of the things I had to do is really reflect on because, you know we didn’t want him to miss the bus. So we would wake him up, but it was always a struggle. And then, you know, like. I was talking to my husband and I’m like, should we just let him sleep in and just like miss class and then manage, like, have the consequences of that, those experiences and that’s kind of where we landed, but it’s been really uncomfortable in terms of like, okay, well, this is now what’s going to be. How did you make the connection between sleeping in, in like having more choice in the household? Like, how did that come together? Because that’s pretty, it’s got Rebecca: me Gissele: reflecting on like, yeah, Rebecca: maybe he needs Gissele: to step up in power. Rebecca: Yeah. Well, it’s because usually misbehavior, which in many ways this is right, [00:23:00] is the result of Kind of pushing back, especially, you know, when they’re older, it’s a way of saying, you know, I’m in charge of myself. And, and I mean, to take this idea to an extreme situation, right is is when we see eating disorders. In young people, and it’s because they oftentimes not always, but oftentimes it is because there’s someone in their life that is controlling absolutely everything. You’ll do this at this time. You’ll do this this way, right? I know best, you know, you’ll be happier if you do it my way to even put a positive spin on it. Right? I can keep you from making mistakes. You need to listen to me. Right? And so. They find something that they have control over. Right. So, and, and often to, you know, eating, it’s hard to force somebody to eat something, right. And [00:24:00] it’s hard. And so typically at that age, if there’s misbehavior, that’s part of the problem. They need that, that voice. Right. So, and I do, I think, you know, I think your approach makes sense, you know, let him see why this is important from his own lens, right? And it’s, this is always the the balance with any approach to parenting, right? Is when do you let them learn from, from these mistakes? And then when do you kind of help them through these mistakes, right? So you certainly, if he’s late to school one day a week. You, that’s probably fine. And the teacher is going to eventually say you’re missing points and you know, however that works. Now, if it’s a situation where he’s late every single day, where it’s compromising his education, then a parent needs to step in, right? And so it’s finding that balance that works for you and your family and your children in helping them learn. You know, the [00:25:00] example I give in the book, and I think this is hard. For some parents, but it’s when students, when children are forgetful, right? And so it’s finding that fine line of when do you run back? You know, I think I give the example of like a musical instrument. They have band that day. They let their clarinet at home and kind of my recommendation. And of course it always depends is if you can bring them that recorder. Or bring it to them, right? But if you can’t, because all of us have very busy lives. I mean, if I have a meeting with my supervisor, I can’t drop everything and bring that recorder. And so, but rather than saying, you know, this will teach you to forget, right? Say, give them tools. So, you forgot your recorder. I, we can’t help you and get it to you. Can you talk to your teacher, you know, or can you explain to [00:26:00] them, or is there. You know, instruments that can be loaned, help them problem solve on because they feel supported in this. Right. That actually enables them in remembering versus if they just get in trouble, all that does is make them feel angry and it actually inhibits Gissele: memory. Yeah. And it can cause some shame and guilt, right? I think, so what we would do historically in the past is like we would bring it to them, but there was a whole lecture that would go with that. Right. And so you’re still punishing, like, you’re still giving them the gear. So like, Oh, I did that because we were put out. But then I had to reflect on that and say, you know, this is not like, it was about the energy behind it. It was about the intent. Like, is my intent to punish or to like, pass on my frustration to you? Or is my intent to teach you something? Right. And so, and, and that. That has [00:27:00] really gone a long way in terms of impacting my relationship with my kids, whom I love more than anyone, like anything in this world, right? Of course. And I always wanted to have a good relationship because I didn’t always feel like I had that closeness with my parents that I wanted. Rebecca: So another, another helpful tool when you’re thinking about how you approach someone who’s a child who’s made a mistake. Forgotten something. If your partner called you, you’re, you’re at home and your partner called and said, Oh, I’m about 10 minutes away. I just realized I left my laptop, laptop on the kitchen sink or kitchen counter. Right. Would you, would you stop and take that laptop to them? Or would you say, Oh, nope, sorry. You’ve got to learn not to forget things. Right. It’s yeah, I would take it. Yeah. How we. Almost set a higher bar for these young people who are brand new to the planet, still trying to figure everything out. We almost set a [00:28:00] higher bar for them than we do for the adults in our lives. And so something to keep in mind is, is as much as possible, don’t say something to a child that you would never say to an adult. Gissele: I love that. And it goes to my next question of like, it was very clear to me in your book that you were talking about the difference between power versus force or coercion and punishment. It’s usually about coercion or force. Can you talk a little bit about that distinction? Rebecca: Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I would say that, you know, I think in that conversation, it’s a lot around how easy it is to use that power or to use power for coercion, because it works. Right. And it works everywhere. Right. It works at a national political scenario and it works in our own homes. Right. And so if I’m bigger, stronger and control the food, [00:29:00] right, I can coerce you into doing almost anything. Right. So do this or I’m going to spank you or I’m going to take something away because these humans are so dependent on us. They really have no choice but to comply. So it does become very coercive. Right. And, and same would be true if, you know, if, if you know, someone came up to you with, you know, threatening you in a physical way, you would respond and probably do what they wanted. So, you know, it’s really an abuse of power in, in that situation, right. To use it to control somebody’s behavior, Gissele: truly empowered people don’t need to disempower others, including children. Exactly. they regulate themselves and are able to do that so that they can then hold space and then help navigate. And I wanna talk a little bit about, since you mentioned compassion because parenting fails can cause a [00:30:00] lot of shame and guilt. ’cause we all like, at least for me, I want to be the best mother that I can be for these kids. I love them so, so much. And I’ve really had to use compassion to reflect on all my parenting mistakes like I’ve made so many in one of the things I did do right, though, is that I did top conversations with my children and say, look, I’m, I’m not always going to get it right. I’m going to make lots of mistakes and I’m. But I will come and apologize for that. And we can have this conversation and I want you to feel okay and telling me when I’m making a mistake and they do like, trust me, they do. But that was 1 of the things is I didn’t want to seem infallible. As sometimes kids can see. Can think their parents are, and then they kind of fall off a pedestal, Sowhat is the role of compassion in terms of helping parents become better parents? Rebecca: You know, it’s interesting that. You know, as, as you get to the end of the book, and, you know, I’ll kind of give, give away the [00:31:00] ending, so to speak, you know, spoiler alert, is that what I realized is the gift of a punishment free childhood is really the gift to the parent, because. Having to control somebody’s behavior, getting everything the way that you want it having to meet out punishment, all of that is exhausting. And when Rebecca: I didn’t have to do that, it was incredible. When I looked back at my experience of, of being a parent, it was Incredibly improved when I stepped away from that and the getting to answer your question, what I really recognized in that is that expression that as without so within. Right? And so, as you are compassionate to others, you tend to be compassionate to yourself, right? If you’re punishing to others, you tend to be punishing to yourself. [00:32:00] Right. And so I think that that concept of compassion in parenting is to recognize the value of compassion and that the more you engage in, in having compassion in relationships, the more compassionate you are with yourself. And it just makes for a much better. Life and much better experience, right? When you can be kind to yourself and when you’re kind to others, because it, it, it works the other way, right? If you can’t be kind to others, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever be kind to yourself. Gissele: Yeah, yeah, so true. And the other thing I was thinking as you were talking was you know, we tend to have this parenting pressure, which makes you think of like, you know, when you’re a grandparent, there’s sort of not the same pressure. You can actually enjoy them more. So the gift of your book is being able to help parents enjoy their parenting journey, which I think is so, so important. This also goes to the concept of [00:33:00] fear and the reason why I think people have struggled to practice, right? Can you talk a little bit about the role of how fear really prevents us from practicing a punishment free parenting style? Rebecca: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that’s the core, right? I think that’s the key question today is you know, fear it’s a powerful force. Let’s start with that. And as a parent, there are so many fears. Right. So, you know, if I, you know, my initial fear, you know, I’m conducting a social experience experiment on my children, am I going to wreck them? Right. That, that foundational fear and what, what I had to approach, right. Yeah. But, oh my gosh, there’s so many fears that come into play. One is, is you’ve already mentioned too, is the fear of not being needed, right? You want that. It feels wonderful to mother a child. And so, or to father, right, to any kind of parent, right. And so the fear of [00:34:00] not being needed is one that can get in the way of this the fear of not being in control. I think that, I mean, that was certainly something that, that I learned in my life, right. When I started out, I, I tell people the story that there was a time in my life with my first child that I thought I could actually control what happened at. a three year old birthday party. And it was such an eye opening experience to me when it just was a disaster, right? Where everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and you know what? Everybody still had fun, and we still celebrated, and the children didn’t know any different. The children didn’t know that the birthday candles weren’t the right color or whatever the issue was. And so I think having to control situations is something that many, many people have to address. And certainly I was one of them. So fear of not having control or fear of losing control. There’s just [00:35:00] numerous fears that, that we, that we have to face. When parenting, right? The end, the worst, right? The fear of losing your child, right? And so even the fear of them getting hurt. And so all of that. And I mean, recognizing that fear doesn’t It doesn’t prevent bad things from happening. All it does is create restriction within us. And so it’s it’s, it’s part of the, of the work, right? It is recognizing when I’m coming from a place of fear, recognizing that that is probably creating that restriction, right? Or resistance, and then moving beyond it. And there’s not an easy answer there, but it is, it is important to recognize, you know, recognize what fear feels like in your body so that you can start to be more aware. Like, you know, how do I, how does my stomach feel when I’m. [00:36:00] fearful or how is my breath and heart rate when I’m fearful, right? So that you can begin to say, now, wait a minute, this is coming from a place of fear. And, you know, is it rational? I mean, sometimes it is right. We don’t, there are situations where we have to tell our child, no, you can’t do that because you could die, but, you know, really recognizing where fear is having a too much voice. Gissele: Yeah, very true. Is this the approach you used when dealing with like maybe judgments from other people’s on your parenting styles when you started your experiment? Because that’s the other fear, the fear of being judged, right? That’s the thing that I, especially in mothers, we seem to be judged in so many different ways. Oh, that kid should have a sweater or you’re not doing this right. Or I think that that fear of being judged is real, right? Feels real. Rebecca: Oh, it’s very real. Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s one of the things that I talked to parents about when we’re, that they will hear that, right? They’ll most [00:37:00] likely hear it within their own family. They’ll hear it from friends, right? That, that this, this will never work. Right. That you’re, that you’re not thinking soundly in, in taking this approach. And, and so all I can really tell parents is you just have to be courageous and you just have to say, this is important to me. And this is, this is what I’m going to do, but you will hear it. I mean, I still hear it. Right. And I have been on, on other podcasts where people have said, you’re, you know, have stated all those things. Now. You know, I have Children that demonstrate that this really does work. it’s amazing how positive the effect is. On children once they get to be young adults, and, you know, I was one of them. We were at a family gathering and someone said, well, you know, how did I gave the book to somebody who was about to have a baby? And they’re like, well, [00:38:00] how did that work? And, you know, all of that. And I said, well, let’s ask because one of my daughters was there and what was interesting for them. It’s a little hard to articulate because they don’t know anything different. Right? They don’t know what it would be like, but. This particular daughter, she said, one of the things that my friends tell me all the time is that I hardly ever get angry. That it takes a lot for me to, to get to that angry point. And she said, and I think that’s, that’s because of this, because one, you know, one of the exercises I do with parents all the time is I have them remember a time that they were punished and what that. Does is it makes them realize that when, when you punish someone, they’re not learning, right? They are angry. They are defensive. I would imagine some, you know, that’s the typical one. Some of them would actually like, just feel really bad about [00:39:00] themselves. Right. But Rebecca: all punishment does is really trigger all those feelings. And. When they’re not, you know, being punished the whole time that they’re growing up, at least at home, then, you know, they’re that that anger doesn’t doesn’t build up and I will say the teen years were much easier because they weren’t angry. Gissele: Yeah. Oh, so good. I just want to applaud the courage that it takes to do something different from the norm because there is so much push to do things a specific way. But thank God hindsight is 20 20 in the sense that we know enough that our parenting practices that we had, like letting your kids cry, thank God we don’t do that anymore. It was awful. I’m so glad that we have the capacity to learn.  I’m curious as to your insights around Santa and lying, because you, you have a little section of lying and each of my kids reacted very [00:40:00] differently. 1 of my kids reacted with absolute betrayal. Like, what else are you lying to me about? And we had to go through like, you know, tooth fairy and so on and so forth. And there, there was like upset for at least a little bit, like a day or so. And then the other child was sort of like, kind of thought it wasn’t true. And so it’s, it’s so interesting to see And originally when we had children, my husband and I didn’t want to do the santa thing. We didn’t want to lie. We wanted to be truthful but cave to the pressure of everyone else telling us. Well, our kids are going to believe, are your kids going to tell our kids and then what’s going to happen there and you’re robbing them of the magic of Christmas and so on. So I’m curious as to what your advice on this matter would be. Rebecca: Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. Rebecca: Yeah. So we did, we did do Santa and Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy and all of that. Right. I think that and I would say to that, that it’s, it’s kind of what you stated, it’s [00:41:00] It’s part of our culture, right? It’s a, it’s a cultural norm for children to have that time of believing in, in all of that. I think from a developmental stage, it’s in some ways appropriate for very young children, right? They live in a world of imagination. Make believe. Of not. Really understanding reality and really not understanding lying. So to your point, I know I do talk about lying quite a fair amount in the book. And it truly fascinates me. Right. You know, as I had my journey on this planet, one of the things that I’ve really realized about lying,for a long time, I was, it would make me so mad when people would lie to me. And so I’d have to really go. So, and then I got to the point of why does that bother me so much? And then I got to the point where it’s like. I am going to take responsibility when people lie to me. And why have I created a situation where this person can’t be truthful with [00:42:00] me, right? So almost taking some ownership over lying. And so I probably to talk about it almost too much in the book, but it, it’s a fascinating topic. You know, one piece of it is developmentally, a child doesn’t really understand the concept of lying until they’re about four years old. So to punish a two year old or three year old for lying, it’s just totally confusing to them because they don’t even understand the concept of it. And then, you know, a lot of the approaches that we take with parenting, we put our children in situations where we probably would lie to if we were in that situation, right? Very true. Back someone into a corner and tell them they’re a bad person because they did this. And you know, if you don’t admit that you did this and I mean, we’ve just, we’ve cornered them literally. Yeah. And, and. And any human in that situation is likely to lie. And so [00:43:00] it’s, yeah, it Gissele: goes back to what you say. If you’re going to get punished for lying, why would you admit to it? Like, unless it, you know, unless your approach is one of fostering truth in that, you know, we’re learning from this as an opportunity. It’s not like, but how we react to lying at times based on our whole punishment approach in our society, no wonder people don’t want to tell the truth. They don’t want to get punished. Right. And like, that makes a lot of sense. And this goes along the lines of cheating. And I love what you said. And what you said about it just made so much sense. Can you share with the audience what you said about kids that cheat at games in particular? I thought it was like, wow, it just kind of blew my mind. So yeah, Rebecca: yeah, well, it’s, you know. Cheating is there. It’s kind of that self preservation, right? They’re, they’re doing it because they you know, I think the example with the game is that they were tired of losing and how [00:44:00] that made them feel. And so helping them understand that they That, you know, there’s other ways that you wouldn’t want somebody cheating, right? If, if your friend cheated, how would that make you feel? And really just having that conversation around cheating, but we don’t want to say you’re a bad person, right? We should never say that to our children. You know, it’s, there is, there is inappropriate behavior and we help them recognize. What’s appropriate and what’s inappropriate. Gissele: Yeah. And to add to that  what really resonated with me in the book, you’re talking about how sometimes really high achieving homes where there’s a level of perfectionism and a level of expectation of high achievement, then the individuals are more likely to cheat because. They want to be seen as winners. They want to be seen as people that are accomplishing. And I was like, wow, that really resonated with me because it’s not about the cheating itself. It’s about other factors, like very similar to what you were talking about, the [00:45:00] sleeping and the having agency and participation. Sometimes it’s not what you think, which,really is, completely fascinating to me. some parents like me are going to find this book kind of later in life and they’re still going to be grateful for it. But I was just wondering if you can name one thing that parents can start to do today to begin parenting in a punishment free way. Rebecca: No, that’s a great question. You know, I think, you know, I ideally it be, it becomes a, we’re gonna have a punishment free household. Right? To, to, to do it halfway can, can kind of be confusing for children, right? Because then they don’t know. When will I be punished? When will I not be punished? Right? So, I want to, you know, just have that out there as well, but certainly anything we can do towards moving towards punishment free, you know, I, the first thing I would say is before you [00:46:00] do something to your child, stop and ask yourself if you would want someone to do that to you. Right. You know, I, I was reading a Brene Brown book, and I cannot remember the exact way she said it because it was phenomenal how she said it. But in essence, what she said is, we are the people who know the most about what our children value. Right. And what they love and what’s important to them. And then we need to take that and we use it against them. Right. I mean, when the way she said it was so impactful because it was like, Oh my gosh, we’re monsters. Right now we’re not, I’m exaggerating, right. But it’s that idea of stop and think before you do something to your child, before you punish them, stop and think is what I want someone to do this to me. Right. And, and then I would say the second thing is what we talked about early, which would be giving your children voice, you know, [00:47:00] and what I say choice and voice, right, let them make decisions, let them have a voice. And then I also have the third one in that and it doesn’t rhyme, but it’s really. Give them that opportunity to be an expert or to share, right? Let them, let them almost like be the boss of an area or be the one who has the expertise, right? Like, wow, you know, I never played soccer growing up and you are excellent out there on the soccer field. Tell me about that. And, you know, what tips would you have for me if I decided to, you know, give them an area where they can be the center? So Gissele: beautiful. Was that the Atlas of the Heart you were talking about or which book? Rebecca: Oh, I can’t remember. I’ve read several. I’d have to go look it up. Gissele: I think the Atlas of the Heart is the big thick one. The red one. Yeah. Rebecca: Yeah. Gissele: It has a heart on it. Rebecca: Yeah. I don’t think it was that one. Gissele: Oh, Rebecca: so, Gissele: so a couple of last [00:48:00] questions before we get finished. The first one is what is your definition of unconditional love? Rebecca: Ooh. Wow. I mean, my definition of unconditional love is that you are loved regardless. Right. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, no matter how you look, no matter you, you’re loved and nothing will change that. Gissele: one of the things that I loved about your book is the fact that you talk about, once we change ourselves and reflect in terms of, our parenting journeys and raise different children’s that are. Rebecca: Not quick to anger and not quick to punish, that really is the path to changing the world, right? Like, if we could change ourselves and address our difficult feelings and share power with our children and enable them to have voice and participation, I think our world could look so different. My subtitle is a new way to parent for a new world. Gissele: Absolutely. [00:49:00] So, please tell people where they can work with you, where they can get the book yeah, share with them what what you’re working on. Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. So the book’s available on Amazon. I think that’s probably the easiest way to access it. And you can look it up under my, my name, Rebecca Wolf, or the gift of a punishment free childhood. And then I also have a website, and it’s http://www.rebeccawoulfe.com so R E B E C C A and then Wolf is W O U L F E. So we’d love to hear from folks and just. Especially if you’re a new Gissele: parent, but even if you’re an older one, like me, go get The Gift of the Punishment Free Childhood. Great, great book. Thank you so much, Rebecca, for being with us today. We had an amazing conversation and I really do see this as sort of the way of the future. And thank you everyone for joining us for another episode of the love and compassion podcast with Gissele. See you soon. Bye. Rebecca: Thanks everyone. Bye.

Transcript Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re going to be talking about the power of intimacy and connection. And our guest today is Lyuba Benablo. And she’s a highly trained sex and relationship coach, passionate about helping men discover what women truly crave for within intimate connections. Having led countless women only pleasure retreats, Luba has gained a vast understanding of women’s needs to feel deeply fulfilled. And with this, she identified a calling that speaks to her, guiding men towards becoming the most impactful and authentic lovers. They can be Lyuba’s authentic lovers for men program empowers men to explore the depths of intimacy, the specific needs that women struggle [00:01:00] to openly express known for her approachable style and real world insights. Lyuba practices, everything she teaches. Embodying the lessons she shares with her clients. Please join me in welcoming Lyuba. Lyuba: Hi Giselle. How are you? I am, I’m so good. I just, I just had a session with a young couple. Like in their 20s and I, I just turned 41 and you know, I feel like I’m this like an older, wiser woman who is just like teaching them about how to be closer, how to have fun in their relationship. So my heart is full. I, I love doing what I do. Gissele: Oh, that is so amazing. And you know, like kudos to them for actually looking to explore that so that they can get that greater intimacy. So that’s amazing. Where did you get started in this work? Can you [00:02:00] share? Lyuba: Yeah, so I, I started, I started when COVID started, so that’s, that’s my starting point. Okay, okay, nice. And, and, and that was the time when I used to work in software industry. When I moved to United States, my first company was Google. So, I was like out there. Wow. Go on. Yeah. And then I was taking these like a weekend training where we were like really feeling inside looking inside. And there was this like, like a calling that I want to work with people like on intimacy, sexuality. I want to help people to connect. And that was just like, okay, I have to do it. And I started as COVID started, you know, couldn’t wait longer. Gissele: Oh, that’s so funny. That’s incredible. Having been a coach for a little while, what do you, what do you think the biggest mistake is that women and men make around intimacy? Lyuba: [00:03:00] Oh, yeah. The biggest, you know, it’s like no one teaches us. That’s, that’s the first thing to start that in our families, for most of us, it’s not modeled. The intimacy is not modeled. Right. And then schools don’t teach us. And so how are we supposed to know? So we enter relationships that we don’t know how to create intimacy. I feel like I experienced my first intimacy, like being close with another person when I was 30. So it’s just like, I didn’t have it as a little kid, you know? And I just, I remember I, I cried the whole weekend because it felt so good. And I was so sad that. I haven’t had it in my life, right, that so that I haven’t experienced it earlier in my life that I was missing it and craving it. Gissele: Yeah, it’s so funny. Absolutely. I mean, I was thinking about my own family in my own family. Like, sex was a no talk. Like, it was [00:04:00] like, you don’t mention that you don’t talk about pleasure. You certainly don’t talk about intimacy. And I would say that I was taught it was supposed to be fairly mechanical. Like, it was just like, you know, something you did and and it was like, there was definitely no talk about women’s pleasure. There was definitely no talk about in particular. It was. Maybe it was, like, considered acceptable for it to be a men’s pleasure, but I don’t know so much about women, so that’s that’s, that’s a very good point that you’ve made. What did you learn in working with both women, women that really surprised you about how sex and intimacy is happens between the sexes? Lyuba: It’s just, like, there are so many, there are so many surprises, because the first one that no one teaches us about female sexuality. I feel like sexologists, historically, they used to be men, like, like women came in later. Gissele: Right? [00:05:00] It’s so true. Here’s what I think that clitoris does. Yeah, that’s so fair. Yeah, yeah. Lyuba: Yeah, yeah. And so, and there is this like whole expected women, we are expected to, Show up sexually, same as men, but we are so different. Like simply most women don’t have orgasm from penetration. Yeah. Right. And I remember, I’m one of them, I don’t like, I need vibrator on my clitoris to like, to have orgasm and, and so I used to be, I felt something wrong with me because I thought like when you have penetrative sex. That’s when men and women have orgasm, but then like looking into anatomy, our clitoris is outside. We have some tissue inside, but most of it outside. So it’s mostly like, Oh, those women who have orgasm just from penetration, how, how does it happen? It’s like almost like, right. So just normalizing like a lot of sins and other sin for women, we are [00:06:00] slower. So it just, I love this analogy, woman is like water and man is fire. So man, like he feels attraction, he turned on, he’s hard, he’s ready to go. And for women, it takes us like, I say 40 minutes, at least 40 minutes foreplay. It takes us time to warm up, but then we last longer. How about that? Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah. And I would say men and women show up differently, right? Like, like what women want or the kind of level intimacy women want, they look different in terms of men, like how they show up in terms of when they want to initiate intimacy. What have you found? Lyuba: Yeah. Yeah. Like, like the, usually. It’s, it’s so fascinating because men like a typical man who is seeking coaching, they want to be the best lover. So they really want to please their partner. And so, and they seem [00:07:00] that like they need to work, they need to last longer, or like like if erection is an issue, like to work on erection, so they focus on their penis. But then it’s fascinating because that’s not what women want. So, we want that emotional presence. That emotional availability to be able to share and that he holds you. And that he like, he’s just like present. Right. And so this is what, like, they come to work on their penis and we end up working on, like, so many other things which, like, penis is icing on the cake. Yeah. This is so funny. It is, it is, yeah. And then, like, women, like, usually women comes for coaching because they have low libido, so they don’t feel like having sex. And then we are looking Are they having sex that they really will be like satisfying because a lot of times they don’t a lot of [00:08:00] times like you said it’s mechanical it’s just like genitals rubbing have orgasm and then it’s just like no wonder they don’t feel like having sex and then like low libido what if woman had a satisfying sex then how about that that you recreate that experience for her and then she’s like all hungry she wants more Gissele: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It reminded me of like what you were talking about before about the whole, like the women want to be romanced versus the men just, you know, they’re speaking about like the whole penetration piece of it. I was reminded of so there’s this comedian Taylor Tomlinson that was talking about how her friends had introduced her to female porn, like on radio and what it was, it was basically this guy like doing things like fixing a tire and talking to her or like emotionally supporting her. So it’s 20 minutes of the guy, like, helping her calm down and reassuring her that everything was gonna be okay. And I’m like, that’s hilarious. It’s so funny [00:09:00] how we show up in these intimate moments. And it’s not just about sex. It’s about intimacy. It’s about coming together. It’s about like the unification or unity, right? And I think men crave that too, right? Like they crave that connection, Lyuba: but Gissele: how it shows up is different. Lyuba: Yeah. It’s like all, all humans, they crave intimacy and by intimacy, I don’t mean sex. We crave that closeness. We want to be close. And then like sex can be added to it and it’s beautiful for some people, but there are people that they don’t want intimacy and sex together. So we’re all different. That’s what like, that’s what the important thing I learned. One size doesn’t fit all that. Like we’re all very different. So like, let’s say for me, intimacy and sex, they come so good together. Right. And it’s just like mainly women are like that. And there are people, men and women. who separate them. So they, they seek some like, like, you know, like having [00:10:00] sex with a stranger or like, like some newness and intimacy is kind of gets in the way. But that’s like, but that’s totally fine. We don’t choose this, like this desire they formed in us as we are little kids. And then like later we want to experience it sexually. So it’s just, yeah, it’s beautiful, you know, psychology of sex. Psychology of lovemaking. That’s what I’m so fascinated about. Because like, again, like no one teaches us, right? But just understanding what psychologically turns person on. It’s not like position, how many people sing, or like some sensation necessarily. It’s like the psychology, what they want to feel. Yeah, absolutely. And there is this, like, funny example I wanted to share, like, how you talked, like, different, right? Like, men and women different. That, like, men and women, they have, they have great sex. They both loved it. It was an amazing experience. And so, [00:11:00] woman is telling, like, how we have this, like, the moments that are highlights for us. Right. And so woman is talking about her highlights and she, she would say something like, Oh my God, he looked in my eyes and like, I felt electricity in my body, then we were making out for hours or like he held my hand and it just like, I felt his desire. Right. And so the same experience, like same sex, same man is talking, man would say something like, Oh my God, she got on top of me and she was riding me and her hair was like all flying. And then she was so hungry And she just went down on me. And it just like, they both had No one is lying. They both had all of those moments and they all enjoyed, but the highlights for women and for men a lot of times different. Gissele: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Lyuba: It Gissele: is, it is very fascinating and there’s an aspect of me that wonders whether some of that is a bit of [00:12:00] socialization for men. And the reason why I mentioned that is because, you know one of the things I’ve been really pondering is the issue of. That, you know, men, it seems in our society, and I could totally be wrong, but it seems like in our society, we are taught that the primary acceptable emotion for men is anger and the primary way to achieve closeness is sex. So, it doesn’t seem to me that boys are really nurtured, like, they’re not really reinforced to seek nurturance without that climax and sex, that intimacy without it leading to something else. And now this is maybe the way I was socialized. But it is really, it seems to me that just in terms of like, my family units and the, the things that I see from people that I’ve surrounded it, there’s that disconnect in between, like, that, that usually that some sort of level of touch leads to, or has to lead to. And I think there’s sometimes that expectation of [00:13:00] women, and this is why some women are like, well, I don’t feel like it because you assume that touch is automatically going to lead to to. to having something when sometimes touch is just a hug or comfort. And so I think I see, I have seen at least in, in my environment, this disconnect of the socialization of men for, you know, that, that that’s sex is for intimacy and that’s the way we, we get closeness. And And not necessarily like just the intimacy itself, if you know what I mean. Lyuba: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that’s what like the intimacy is like the aspect that a lot of times people just like I said earlier, like never learned how to do it and like never experience. And so like when I have clients in my office and so my coaching is experiential that if it’s a couple, like they do. Experience with each other, but [00:14:00] if individual is coming, they do the experience it like I do it with them. So we would just like look in the eyes and connect and then just like gently touching like I would like play music and touch, you know, like phrase just I’m not turning them on just like this owner in touch that like, wow, like this human being, like, I’m just, I’m so honored to touch you. And it’s like including hair and just touching like for the sake of touching right. And a lot of times people start crying that there is that like men and women that like wow like I never been touched like that because somehow touch connected to sex right that like okay we are about to have sex like let’s touch to warm up so it’s like a foreplay to which is great it works yeah yeah not only for that right yeah just like touching for the sake of touching and something I learned and we have been doing it with my husband and I highly recommend for people to [00:15:00] do it that to have 15 minutes each. So I would just lay down and we have a timer that like, that, you know, that, that we know, and just like, he will touch me from head to toe. And we discuss boundaries. That like, even we married for eight years, sometimes I don’t feel like my, I don’t want my genitals to be touched, or my breasts to be touched. I want to be like, pure non sexual. And so just like, receiving that touch, and then I flip, and he touches like, my back, like all, from head to toe. And there is something, it’s like I had a meal, it’s just like this energetical meal and we felt so closer because this is, this is my honey, this is my close person who just like nourished me. not warming me up for sex. Right. So we just, after that we continue with our day. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. I love what you said that you said, because it also builds [00:16:00] different levels of intimacy, right? Like it’s not just about like, there’s, there’s also a timing aspect of it. People think they just got to get to the punchline and move on right. Like that, that sometimes like in this kind of world that we’re so hurried, we just kind of want to get there. Whereas what you’re talking about is, is like time. Separated to spend together, which I think is really important. The other thing I think that you mentioned, which is critical, is just because you’re married doesn’t mean you don’t have boundaries. Just because Lyuba: or that Gissele: you don’t have like you can’t voice your desires. And I think that has been an issue in terms of like domestic violence and issues of like, you know, assault within marriages because people are like, well, you’re married. No, you have your boundaries. You have you still it’s your body still right. And so to be able to communicate with your partner in a very fair way. I think it’s, it’s most, most appropriate. Yeah, Lyuba: yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, totally, yeah. Gissele: And going back to the issue of time too doesn’t it seem like [00:17:00] in general we make time one of the things that my husband and I talk about is like he loves to spend time together, but he doesn’t like it to be you know what I’m saying? Like, he doesn’t, he doesn’t want us to be like, every Friday we’re going out on date night. Right. Whereas I’m like, I’m sometimes like, I have so many things that I’m juggling. Like, for me, it’s like, oh, it would be great if we could separate the times because and sometimes like a week will go by and then we don’t get to spend that time together. And I’m like, well, we didn’t spend that time together. I mean, we’re both lucky that we both work from home. So we’re able to carve those times when we’ll have breakfast together or we’ll have lunch together. Right. And so I’m able to do that. But the times when I feel like. I’m craving a little bit more closeness. For me, having that time is like, oh, a special thing I’m looking forward to. Whereas he prefers the most spontaneous things. Do you find that time is a factor in terms of when people are considering the amount of closeness or intimacy that they [00:18:00] spend as a couple? Lyuba: Yeah, yeah, this is this time is one factor, like there are several factors, and I want to mention others later, but time, you’re right, this time, because, like, you have, we are all busy, and then if you have children, or anyone you take care of, right, it just, it all adds up, and then we become like this, like like partners, roommates in a way, but there is no, there is no time for sex or any quality time, right? My mother in law used Gissele: to call it ships passing in the night. Lyuba: She Gissele: Exactly. Yeah. It’s just Lyuba: like you’re passing by, you don’t meet each other. Right. And that’s what you want to meet each other. And the first, my first I met this, like, like my mentor, when I met her, she, she’d been 20 years with her husband. And when I visited them there, you know, like they’re all over each other. They’re like touching each other. Like they just met and like, wait a second. Like I’m like three years in my [00:19:00] marriage and we don’t do that. I was just like, so curious. And she said this like this just like it got in me like set in stone it just was so like the struck me She said we schedule our dates We have we have scheduled dates and I swear to God when I started doing that It’s a game changer and we will talk in a moment about like how your husband doesn’t like to do that Yeah, yeah, yeah But something we do we have this like six hour date every week And like six hours, it’s a lot of time, right? It is, yeah. And I feel like that’s, that’s our saver. Because, like, life gets so busy. And at first, we tried to schedule over it. It’s like, oh, it’s six hours. Like, let’s spend the first hour talking about finances. Let’s do this, like, no, no, no, no, no. So that’s a, it’s a golden rule. Nothing can be, nothing overrided. Like, there is nothing more important. It’s our sixth. hours. [00:20:00] And then when we have this six hours, like I feel this, the spaciousness, right? So I feel like my partner is fully present. We start with the check in and we have this vulnerable check in where sometimes like I would talk about like what is hard for me and just like maybe cry about something and he’s holding me and he does the same. And I feel like the moment we do that, I’m just like, for me, and again, we’re all different, but for me, that vulnerability, just like, It’s kind of like it turns me on in a way, you know, like, I just, I feel so open. And then we might go somewhere for a walk, we might go have like lunch together or whatever. Or sometimes we just spend in bed like all the rest of five hours. And so that’s like, that’s our time. And we have it every week. And like, nothing gets in the way. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, no, go ahead. But then so I’m thinking that. For your partner that. There can be something that [00:21:00] like spontaneity is important like being spontaneous, right? Yeah, and it could be even like core desire like like that can be Something that is just like hot for him something that like if it’s planned it kills the moment, right? Hmm So I am thinking like how to get creative here. I wonder what if, like, maybe if you scheduled it for yourself and then, like, came. It’s a surprise to him Gissele: when he’s coming down the stairs. Actually, that sounds like pretty good. That Lyuba: sounds that makes. Yeah, that’s that sounds pretty good. Just like to get creative, to play with it, because that’s, that’s what I, that’s what I talk with my clients a lot that when we meet, we find this like, Oh, this is our favorite position. This is the way like we have orgasm. And then when we do it for years, it becomes kind of like stale and used to it. We want to bring that creativity to understand the core desire of [00:22:00] your person and. Then just like keep exploring like, oh, what if I try this? What if I try that? And just dance with Gissele: it, Lyuba: right? Gissele: Yeah, I love that. I was just thinking, as you were talking before, I was thinking about how I’m, I’m guilty of that. So, when we are spending time together, I will immediately go into mom mode in the beginning, like, so you were talking about 6 hours. You’re right. Like, the 1st, 5 minutes, I’ll be like, okay, what do we have to do and for the kids that are that. And he’s like, and I’m like, Oh, so I just noticed as you were talking, I’m like, Oh, that’s me. I do that. I immediately go into, into like, okay, what do we have to, we have this time together. What do we have to sort out? And then I will say that I do check myself. but I feel the need at times just to talk about it first and just to kind of almost get it out of the way. So I’m like, so I think it’s a pretty cool rule to say, this is not the time for that. Like, this is not the time, it’s, [00:23:00] it’s, this is our protected time, and that’s the time to do that. So I do like that a lot. Yeah. Lyuba: And there is difference. Like, one thing is like, you’re in a planning mode and you’re planning, like that you want to put out, but then like maybe something you’re struggling, right? Like maybe something like you’re not connecting with your kid or like something your kid said and it really hurt you, or you feel like you’re not present enough, right? So those things like they are, there is something powerful about like sharing them or sharing your struggles and like getting vulnerable, right? Like really opening up. We just, a deeper place opens up when we connect with our partners. Gissele: And we definitely do that. Like I talk to my husband a lot about like things that trigger me, things like old history and stuff. And like we talk about like emptying our buckets that way. I will say that, like, I don’t know if vulnerability is as. Reinforced in men, [00:24:00] like, I think my husband is, I feel now able to talk to me in a very vulnerable way, but it wasn’t always the case. I think that men have been not all men, but some men have been conditioned to be like the, this, the stoic. Like, I have to be not like, not cry, be the one that holds my family together, like that kind of so vulnerability can sometimes feel a little bit like weakness or scary. What do you do that you work with around how to open themselves up to be more vulnerable so that they don’t feel like it’s a weakness, but rather step towards coming closer. Lyuba: Yeah, and that’s, you are spot on, Giselle. You’re so spot on because men are not taught that, that like, you’re totally right, that it is, they, they see it as a weakness and, and a lot of times they just don’t know how to do it. I’m like, okay, could you share something vulnerable? And they talk about like [00:25:00] yesterday at lunch, something that doesn’t matter. Right. And so, but he gave me a Gissele: sandwich Lyuba: instead of giving me a turkey sandwich. And I was like, yeah, yeah. Right. And, and so that’s just, it’s, it’s hard and it is hard to get vulnerable. Right. And so what, what works really well that when I, when interact with men. I model it by example, so I will get vulnerable and I share, I notice whenever I get vulnerable, the person, the humans, they open up towards it. For some humans, it takes longer, right? there might be resistance. For some, it’s like works right away, but there is something about like one person, it’s like, One opens, and then the rest, it just like, cracks the rest, and then everyone opens. Right? So just like, but real vulnerability, right? Like, I just, I would like share something like real, and people feel that energy of like, how I put [00:26:00] myself like, out there, right? And so they want to respond with the same. They just like, they jump in. And the important thing I say when, when people practice, like when they’re not used to it, you want to share it with someone who can hold you. You’re not just like sharing with a person, like I remember I shared something vulnerable with my dad and he started scolding me. He’s like, you should not have done it. Gissele: Yeah. Lyuba: And that’s not, you don’t want to get involved in a Gissele: purpose. No. The last thing you want to do is when you put yourself out there, somebody tell you like you’re doing that wrong, but there is a real generational thing, right? Like when I think about, even think about my father in law when he was alive, like I remember my husband mentioning that he, Like, he didn’t really hug them until he was 13, like it was something that his wife, his mother, like my mother in law would encourage him to do. As he got older in life, he totally craved those hugs. He was a hugger. He was a nonstop hugger because he, [00:27:00] like his parents, like he died and he had all this trauma and you kind of build all these walls and then, but it’s, love has a way of melting that. It has a way of, of when you’re reaching out for that touch and when you’re able to move that forward, really. Opening up that space for people, but there’s definitely a generational thing when it comes to intimacy. Yeah, Lyuba: there is. Yeah. That’s like, like, like I wasn’t touched by my parents much, like, like we didn’t have hugs. And so that’s like, I, I crave it. I remember craving it. And then when I learned all of these, right, like the importance of touch and that, like, like as of today, Like, I do touch, like, I touch with my clients, like, with their permission, it’s like, they’re a choice, right? Yeah, of course. But we do this, like, touch. And then with my friends, like, I have friends, we are not sexual, and we just like, we hold hands as we are talking, you know, and then we will do this exercise, like, touching each other, and it’s like, non [00:28:00] sexual touch, it’s so nourishing. And I’m thinking, what if What if the world was more open to touch? Gissele: Yeah, because I think if I knew you, I think we’d be great friends. Cause I’m such a touchy person. I think that’s my love language. It’s so true. I think that we would totally be like people that would be like hugging each other and touching if I was your friend. Cause I’m like, I’m so that way in. It’s so funny how, like, my kids and my husband have, like, a different love language. Mine came up first, in terms of, like, mine’s a physical touch. Like, I gotta touch them, like, right? And so, since they’re teenagers now, they’re kind of like, Eh, can you give me some space? They used to have a dog, and if My kids used to call it my emotional support dog, because if nobody wanted to give me a hug, I would hug the dog and make him uncomfortable. Unfortunately, my beloved dog has since passed. But, but yeah, it was like, I crave that physical touch. And I would tell my kids, I’m like, you know, it says [00:29:00] research says that, you know, you have to hug for like 10 seconds For this hug to impact you, whereas, like, my husband’s love language is more like acts of service, like, he will do things so many different things for his family, like, he’s always like, he’s kind of a rock, right? And my kids are different, like, when we all did it, we all kind of ended up with something different and it’s so funny how people communicate their needs. Definitely physical touch is one of mine for sure. Aw Lyuba: I I love it. . And, but, but as well, like something that we miss a lot of times with love languages that there is given and receiving love language, right? Yes. So maybe for you both given and receiving this touch and it can be like so, so when your partners, right, like with your kids, with your. Partner, like again, like you getting vulnerable, I imagine, and like sharing, like this is my love language. I crave it. I really want, like, I would love a hug that would made my day if you just hug me in the moment and leave it at that, right? Like it doesn’t, it doesn’t mean they have to do it. They’re a choice. [00:30:00] Everyone is a choice, right? Agreed. But just agreed. But just putting it out there, right? Mm-hmm. That like asking for what you want. And being ready to hear no. Yeah. I hear no a lot. Gissele: Sometimes they go like, Okay. But yeah, I’m open. That’s why they’re like, Mom, you should get another dog. I’m like, Lyuba: yeah. And with pets, that’s what like a lot of times when people don’t have a sexual partner, they don’t get touch. Right? In our society, where else do you get touch? You can go for massage, but like, Not everyone likes massages, it gets pricey, right? So, like, where do you get touch? People get pets. And so this is exactly what you’re saying, that, like, because pet, like, we still, like, we have this warm being that we can touch, but then we don’t get, they’re not touching us the way how human can touch us, right? So, like, that part is still missing. Gissele: Yeah, I know. That’s [00:31:00] totally true. Yeah. Lyuba: Yeah. Another thing about the hugs with I remember coming across this research that. When we don’t have any hugs, it’s easy to get depressed and feel moody. And that’s just like, it’s proven that even like grownups, like babies can develop mental illness if they’re not touched enough. But grownups, we, we like, we learn to survive, like we are okay, but we kind of like they’re getting depressed and then having like three or four hugs. That’s what, we are okay. That’s like fine. So if we get three, four hugs per day, we are okay. And then having something like ten hugs makes us thrive. Gissele: Yeah, I was like, what’s that statistic? And I’m like, gotta do ten hugs! They’re like, yeah, I’m not buying a mom. I love that. I did tell them that. I was like, you know, but said 10 hugs is for you to describe. It’s for you to be from, [00:32:00] I’m doing you a favor. Yeah. Like talking about physical touch, like during COVID, it really showed us how much we craved contact, how much. Being in connection with people right and I feel like we’re going through this whole thing about people feel so disconnected. They feel so. distant, right? They’re so pitted against one another for all these things. And I just think like we really need more connection, more touch, more intimacy and understanding how to gain that intimacy and how to vocalize that intimacy. Cause I think it can be difficult for some women to express what they need. Right. And why do you think that is? Lyuba: Yeah, that what you’re talking how in the world we feel distance, something that breaks my heart that I see distance. between partners, so that people who are the closest, right, you’re supposed to have this person to be your closest, [00:33:00] but they end up over time instead of growing closer and deepening, right, kind of like more and more. Separating and like living together, having kids, having house and feeling that distance that, right? And so I experienced it a lot that like a couple would come that like, oh, like we don’t have sex. sexless marriage. We want to have sex. But then, like, I have so many tools for teaching sex, but, like, I see this wall between them. Like, there is no tool we’ll apply until we remove the wall. Because, like, you can’t have sex with a wall between you. Gissele: No, I think that’s one of the things that my husband and I talked about And I think that I remember him saying, like, we were early on and he said, you know, like, the relationship has to be important. We have to prioritize seeing ourselves beyond just parents. That really stuck with me. Because I hadn’t heard that before. I, I kind of saw my parents as [00:34:00] people that their priority in terms of, like, oh, you have to do all of these tasks and all these things. Relationship was just there. So I didn’t see because I didn’t see a lot of intimacy and connection and all of that. Yeah, it was, it was challenging for me in the beginning to really be vulnerable and really be. To allow myself to have that vulnerability within the relationship. Lyuba: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think, like, I agree with that, that like to nourish relationship, right? Like to that, that like, I love this analogy that when you start playing tennis, Like, you you buy all of these, like, equipment, you go regularly practice, right? And then when you get into relationship, you kind of, like, put it on the side. Like Yeah. Gissele: You’re like, come on, I have my rackets over there, gaining, like, dust. Or they use it as something else, like, you know, like you, like, you put your clothes on the piano or something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Lyuba: yeah, yeah. Like, like, keep [00:35:00] exercising it, right? So that’s one thing. And I think there is something, like, very important and that like, again, like no one tells us about this, that I love this, like the concept, Emily Nagoski explains it. So there is a book, Come As You Are. This book is about female sexuality. And as well, she mentioned there is, when we have, like, let’s say we are two people, we get together, at first it’s flowing, right? Like, like each other, it’s so great, and then we step on each other toes, like, inevitably, we will hurt each other, the closer we are, like, the, the more hurtful whatever our partner is doing, right? Like, so. The more Gissele: vulnerable we feel, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So, so we Lyuba: hurt each other and we swallow it. And so Emily describes that it’s like a hedgehog. Let’s say my partner did something and I felt an ouch. And so when I felt that ouch and I didn’t clear it, I put a hedgehog. And so another hedgehog. And there are like small hedgehogs. Like maybe [00:36:00] he didn’t do dishes or like something and there are big hedgehogs like maybe I felt betrayed or he didn’t show up for me or right like so and we put that pile of hedgehogs between us and then it’s like either it’s a wall or it’s a hedgehogs right like we have that so that’s how we create the distance. And so, how to not create them, to clear them, that like to commit to, it’s almost like brushing teeth. Every time I feel a little ouch, I would be like, hey honey, I have a hedgehog. Like, are you open to hear? And sometimes he was maybe like, oh no, let’s do later. I’m like focused on something. But when he is open, right, and then I will share it in, I feel respected, not that like, how dare are you, you just like, right, like not blaming, but you know, like something happened and I felt this, like you left dishes and I felt like I saw it and I felt like, oh, I’m not important like that. I’m not important for you. You know [00:37:00] how I love clean kitchen. Right. And so, and just like, I’m not saying it to change my partner. It’s important that I don’t try to manipulate, like, I’m just saying it to remove that hedgehog that I don’t hold it against my partner. And this has been such a amazing tool that we just, we make sure we don’t have any hedgehogs. And when there is a hedgehog, we just sit down. If it’s a big one, like the small one, we kind of like do it quickly, but then we sit down. And as I share it for someone who’s receiving, it’s important for them to like have empathy. Like, not go into this, like, because a lot of times, especially men, they’re like, Okay, we’ll fix it. I will, I will do the dishes. Starting tomorrow, I will do all the dishes. And it’s not about that. It’s about like, Oh, honey, I get it. Yeah, you really, you really like you looked almost like repeating your own words, right? Like you, you went into the, you came into the kitchen and you’re like, what the [00:38:00] heck? Like, like, like, You felt like something dropped, right? To just like really have an empathy and after empathy sharing, like, Oh, I was so sleepy. And like, I didn’t feel like doing dishes. And so I think that’s just like the most important tool for relationships. Gissele: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I can think about early in my relationship. I was my husband for a long time. My daughter is now 17. And so, and we were, I think, together two, three years even before that. And I remember, like, early in the relationship, I didn’t realize how I didn’t love myself and value myself enough. I didn’t think I was worthy. And so I kind of molded myself and had all these expectations of what my partner should be. Lyuba: And I think I realized Gissele: that once I stopped needing him to be the stuff that I needed for myself, that I could give myself, and I really did see a shift in our relationship in terms of like, I no longer expected him to to meet all [00:39:00] those needs, all these needs that I had that he didn’t even know I had. That because I never vocalized, I just expected him to psychically know, right? Like if you love me and you knew me, you should know what I don’t make those assumptions of like, Oh, he must know what I need. And I will say, you know, Try to have conversations. I’m not always successful. Sometimes I’m just triggered and I’m like, okay, you need to give me a moment. But when I, when I’m, when I’m there, we can talk about like, look, I know it wasn’t your intention to do that, but this is the impact of whatever that happened. I know you would never mean to hurt me because that’s just because I know you love me. This is the impact or this is why I was triggered. Sometimes I can’t stop myself from being triggered. I’ll just react. Like I’ll just have a trigger and then I’ll be like, okay. No, but that’s how trigger works. Yes. It’s not exactly, and then I’m like, it’s not you, it’s everyone. Yeah. It’s like, but, but then I know when I’m triggered, it’s something about me, like if, if, if there’s something that needs to [00:40:00] heal within me. And so I have seen that shift. But I will say that I. Like, from what I had seen going back to the socialization of some men and I was thinking more heterosexual men there hasn’t really been that thought about how to hold space for those difficult conversations. Because sometimes what I had found with my partner, like, early on was a defensiveness, the shame and guilt would come up. And they didn’t know how to manage it because they weren’t taught, they weren’t taught to be okay with difficult feelings and be okay with everything that comes up. They were just told to suppress and just only show anger. And so it’s interesting to see how we have sort of evolved, you know, managing our own mistakes and making mistakes and coming together to be able to communicate in that way. But it takes work. Like people think, you know, I was reflecting, you know, when I got [00:41:00] married, I was like 27. So assume I’m going to make a decision when I was 27, that’s going to hold the same for like, it doesn’t like the whole life, you can’t assume you’re always going to feel the same way. And the good thing is that. My husband and I have evolved and continue to desire to evolve. But it’s interesting how we make a decision when we’re 27 and we’re like, yeah, okay, this is how I’m always going to feel. But if anything, life is constantly changing and you’re always in a state of flux. So you don’t know if how you’re going to feel when you’re in your fifties. Right. Lyuba: Yeah. It’s kind of paradoxical. And then, and then the fairy tales like, we learn how, like, when you meet that perfect person, they will know, they will feel everything, they will know everything. And it’s just like, and the truth is that person doesn’t exist. And like, but what we can tell them, right, when I tell what I desire. And [00:42:00] then my partner is so happy to do it, then he becomes that, that prince who does all the stuff, but I have to tell him because he doesn’t know Gissele: otherwise. Yeah, yeah, that is, that is so true and it’s so funny because you mentioned fairy tales. If you actually look at those fairy tales, historically, I would say not so much now. I think Disney has evolved to some level but historically, the end game was marriage. It wasn’t a successful relationship 50 years down the road. It was always just get the ring on your finger. They never showed Cinderella being in the castle, being all upset if the prince forgot their her birthday or whatever. They never showed any of that. It was always end game was marriage. Now, I’m glad that it’s changed, but it’s interesting in my generation. The end game was that it wasn’t it wasn’t necessarily even having a successful marriage long term. It wasn’t even having a successful intimate relationship. It was you find this person. Marry this person at the [00:43:00] end Lyuba: and then what do you do then? Right? Yeah, exactly. Nobody told you. Yeah. When things are not working, we feel like, oh, something wrong with me. We feel shame about it. And we say we get quiet and we kind of like chug along. Right. But then, like, there are so much that I like, like all of these. Tools, approaches. That’s what I, I love what I do because all of these scenes, like not only I get to share with people, I can apply into my life and it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For, for sure. And that’s, and that’s how you make it. You make it work, you know. And another thing I wanted to say, like, man holding space for women. So what you mentioned earlier that, that, that, I feel like, like, yes, that’s, that’s important and it needs to be practiced because it’s easier said than it is done, right? And, and so something that, like, I, I love, I just had this, like, coaching call with my, with my [00:44:00] men, men members and I shared I practiced with them. I said, I have hedgehog for all of you. So I sent feedback form and no one filled it out. And I shared how I felt. Right. So I said that like I felt so like I don’t matter. And that you know, that I’m too much like all my feelings. Like I shared what I had. Right. And it was fascinating to see how. they immediately jumped into like, okay, I will fill it up right now. I will like, I will like kind of explain and why they didn’t do it. And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Empathy, give me empathy. And then we practiced like, okay, like really feel what I feel. And that’s how you hold space, right? You just, you try to feel, you try to step into other person’s shoes and feel. What they are feeling, right? And like, sometimes maybe help them to like, Oh, perhaps you feel this. Like, maybe you felt really sad. Right? And then [00:45:00] they will say like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or maybe, no, I didn’t feel sad. Right? So, we drop into feelings and we really feel instead of like, Solving it or apologizing or explaining yourself right away. Gissele: It’s so funny. As you were mentioning that I immediately went to the thought of like, they’re trying to fix it so that you could stop emoting, like, do you know what I’m saying? Like, they’re like, I got to solve this problem right now, because what I have found is that. That some men’s discomfort with those emotions, because they can’t hold space for them, because that’s been conditioned out because you can’t hold space for their own difficult feelings. The immediate response is got to fix this. So she’s fine. Got to respond and give her a reason. So she’s fine. And so it’s that need to immediately need to give something or do something or the other end of the extreme is silence. Some people just can’t manage it. So [00:46:00] then what they do is they go, they’re like, they do the freeze response. So, you know, like a turtle or they’ll do that freeze response that animals do, which is like, can’t manage this difficult feeling. Is it going to go away if I don’t move? So it’s, it’s that it’s that being able to be in that difficult moment and I love how you’re giving them an opportunity to say, no, slow down. Hold this space with me, manage your difficult emotions so that you can understand how to hold space. That is so huge in today’s society. We have no idea how to hold that kind of space for difficult dialogue. And that’s the thing, what is marriage, if anything, that you have to have difficult dialogue, right? You have to have difficult conversations. You may not agree on how you’re managing the kids. You might not agree on. On whatever, but so being like on your bills, being able to hold [00:47:00] those conversations and have difficult conversations in a way that doesn’t shame or guilt the other person, but still honors your truth, I think is really, really key. It’s really important. Lyuba: It is. It is. And that’s what like, that’s what we need for connection. Yeah, that’s just see it in those like when I have hard feelings, don’t fix me because then I think something wrong with me, right? Be in those feelings with me, hold me. And that’s what requires the practice. And then when they do do it, right, like when my partner Is doing it today as of today, this is like, oh my God, like, this is so amazing. This is, this is, this is wonderful. This is the most, this is tremendous, right? Like that’s, that’s how we have like satisfied this like amazing relationship. And I heard how they say that. When, when I’m in pain and emotional pain and to have another person who is willing to share that [00:48:00] pain with me, to just sit in that pain, that’s healing, just, just that is healing. Just being there, listening, don’t have to fix, don’t have to come up with emotion solutions. Just be. And feel, and share, and hold, yes. And sometimes silence, maybe be in silence. That can be hard too, and that can be beautiful, to just be quiet with each other. And just like, sit in that. Gissele: Yeah, I think it depends how you hold the silence against somebody in silence with love, with non judgment with not, but in the, or you could do the freeze response, which is like, and it’s like, okay, I don’t know what to do. I’m just frozen solid and expecting, like, I don’t know how to manage. Because like, I think that can make a person feel. Not heard, like, and not witnessed, right? Because a person’s like, how long do I have to sit here before I can move [00:49:00] on? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Oh, it’s so funny. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s very interesting. What have you found that the men that you work with say they need? In terms of like intimacy and relationships. And was it anything surprising? Lyuba: So the touch, a lot of times the touch comes up. That like man really, really crave, really need touch. There is another scene that like being acknowledged, being appreciated a lot of times, like, man, they have these, like, they want to please you. They want to be this, like, great lover. They want to do things and they don’t feel appreciated. And that’s like appreciation. That’s something that it’s like glue in relationship, just like sharing meaningful appreciations, not like, Oh, you’re a great partner, you’re a great man, not that just like, Oh my God, that’s like when you did, when you put that like painting on the wall, I just felt like a superhero entered my house. I just, [00:50:00] it felt so great. Right. So just like really sharing those feelings, right? Like the happy feelings. Then man you know, just like there is something, there is something like the, the sexual aspect that penis like touching their genitals, like touching their penis in a non sexual environment. It’s just like, I was, I was shocked when I realized that. Yeah. So what does that mean? So, so let me tell you this. I was, I was surprised myself for women. So that’s again, like for women, if someone comes to me and touch my genitals, I will be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like you need to warm me up for 14 minutes. And then I feel like, okay, now I’m open. Now my pussy is on fire. Right. Oh man, there is something so connecting and so nourishing that like, let’s say we’re watching TV and I just hold his penis. And, and we know that I’m not inviting him to have [00:51:00] sex. There is, it’s something so nourishing. And again, check with your man, there are exceptions, right? It’s not like It’s really interesting. Yeah. But this is like, like when I, with my, with my partner, when we talked about it, I’m like Don’t hold my genitals. I don’t like that if you’re not sexual, but for him, I just hold like we just we’re sitting there. I just hold gently and he’s soft like most likely. So maybe he gets hard. So I’m just holding where it’s a sexual moment, but he feels He feels this, like, the sense of, like, he’s seen, he’s, like, that connection. There is something just, like, bringing extra, like, that non sexual touch to the penis. How amazing is that? No one ever told me until I figured it out. Gissele: Yeah, and Lyuba: I think Gissele: what you’re pointing out to is very important, which is that communication with your partner about what feels good. Communication with your partner about how [00:52:00] We can help each other get there in that intimacy and how it can show up for your partner. It may be that touching that genital for other partners. It may be differently. Right? It really there’s no right or wrong. It’s about how we can attain that same goal, which we all want, which is like, closeness and intimacy and sex and, you know, like, kind of like. Excitement in the relationship, right? Lyuba: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s like the communication is key. Communication is lubrication. That’s like, that’s, that’s, that’s where it starts. Gissele: I can use it in any other context other than this conversation. Lyuba: No, but it’s just like, it’s, it’s even lubrication for relationship. It’s like, like, it’s good for sex. Yes. And in general, it’s just like. It’s kind of, you know, like lubricates everything that’s like when we have those communication moments, [00:53:00] right? Like when we can openly talk, then I can ask something that is edgy. Something that like, like for me, asking my partner to massage my shoulders, like I, I was afraid, you know, like, and I wanted every evening and I was afraid that like, oh, that’s too much or it will be like a burden for him. And the moment I asked, he was like, oh my God, I never thought about it. Oh, it’s so good to know. Like now I get my shoulders massaged all the time. But before I asked, that wasn’t happening. Gissele: Exactly. Yeah, I think it goes back to the whole aspect of vulnerability and, and, you know, as a, as a, as a child. You didn’t feel like you get your needs met by your parents, let’s say, for example, or the adults in your life, maybe it might feel a little bit scary and vulnerable to really ask for what you need. Because I think sometimes you might feel afraid of being disappointed. I’m not sure kind of like the kind [00:54:00] of conversations that the school systems have. I know conversations I had with my children to the extent that they’re open and willing to like both my husband and I are fairly open about things, but to the extent I would say I’m more closed off than he is.  his mom is a nurse or was a nurse, and so she was very open with them about things because she didn’t want them to experience a lot of shame. so he’s much more open to talking about different things. And I certainly was not. I kind of had to get comfortable opening up on things. we do kind of do a disservice to each other by not engaging in that open dialogue about pleasure, women’s pleasure in particular, and about communication about what we need. Lyuba: Yeah. Yeah. And, and to add to that, that like, no matter how long I do it, every time there is something I’m about to bring up something that feels a little bit of a stretch, it feels like jumping in a cold plunge.[00:55:00] Yeah. It’s like, there is this like nervousness, a little discomfort and biting my tongue and thinking like, maybe not, maybe not good time kind of convincing myself. And so what would I know to be true that every time I. Power through that, and I still do it. I might even say like, hey, I want to bring up something. I feel nervous. Right. And then my partner already, he’s like, he’s holding the space. He’s like, extra curious. Now he’s like, very curious. Like, what is she like? What are you going to bring up? Yeah. And it’s just like holding that tenderness together. Right. And every time I bring it up, I’m so happy I brought it up. So happy every time. Just like, Gissele: yeah, this, question just popped into my head. Do you ever have like situations where what if your partner wanted something that was just like a no go for you,  because I think. Fear gets in the way of us being open and honest. Like, I think if my partner said, I want to have a 3 or something, I’ll [00:56:00] be like, there is no way. Like, it’s just not something I would be like, no. Right. And so I think that. Some people might be worried about opening up a can of worms of things that may not want to Lyuba: experience. How do you manage that? Yeah, and that’s, that’s beautiful. I love how deep you go, Gissele. It’s just like, I feel like I could talk with you for hours. That’s just so good. And if I saw you physically, I’d give you a hug. Yeah. So that’s like those things that a lot of times. We, we want something like, let’s say I might have fantasies that I even don’t want them to be true. Right. And so there is juice in talking about this. Right. And so, like, let’s say if I have fear, like, maybe I’m thinking about Srisam, like, let’s use your example. Right. And I’m like, I’m afraid to scare my partner. Right. And I don’t know, like, and just to talk like, you know what, it’s not an invitation. It just [00:57:00] came to me and I want to share with you. I want, I want, like, I want to share everything with you. Like, I want to. You know that extra closeness because it does create extra closeness, right? So this is my mind, where my mind went. And maybe, maybe I don’t even want to do it. Or maybe I do, but we will never do it. But I just want to share it. And just sharing it. I, like, sometimes I share stuff and we just both get so turned on that it facilitates that, like, yummy experience for us. And we will never have it in real life. It just feels like too much, right? Gissele: there’s a level of honesty that needs to happen. Like there’s a level of honesty and safety that you have to have in your relationship, right? For you to put stuff out there and not worry that you’re getting judged, right? Like, I don’t know what if you’re like, like SNM or whatever, right? Like, and your partner’s like, oh, no, right? Like, you don’t, you don’t want to put something out there that you’re like, oh, they’re judging me from here [00:58:00] on. So there has to be a level of safety. There has to be a level of comfort that you are able to put stuff out there. Yeah, Lyuba: and you build it. Yeah, like, like you start with smaller things. You like, maybe like share something less edgy. And as well, like, I always invite, like, whatever you feel, those fears speak them. That like, okay, honey, I want to share this, but I’m afraid you will judge Gissele: me. Lyuba: And just like, and putting that out there, it already It, it shapes them, they’re like, Oh my God, they see me as like that. I can judge that. Like, I wonder what, right? Like, so it opens up like kind of learning each other. Conversation. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Lyuba: Because you can spend a long time, like you can spend years together and not know the depths of each other. Gissele: Yeah. That is really interesting to me that, that. You could be in the same household, and then some people don’t really know each other, or they don’t really spend time together and they [00:59:00] don’t really. Yeah, that there is, like, there’s no closeness, but. You’re sharing like, home, like you’re sharing, you know, like the time and space together in those moments. And it’s amazing how, especially when you have resentment, like, when you have built resentment over things, and you don’t, like you said, you don’t deal with the hedgehogs, you have to deal with the hedgehogs. Otherwise, like, a new hedgehog come up in, in. When you’re bringing it up in conversation, this is one of the things I used to do that my husband pointed out to me was that if I had a hedgehog and there was a new one there, I would bring them both at the same time. Like this one, and then this other hedgehog, and then this hedgehog. And then they say, it’s like, wait a minute. You didn’t tell me about the other two hedgehogs. Like, why are you bringing up all three now? Right. So I really had to look and say, okay, you know what? Like, first of all, that’s not fair. We have to manage each hedgehog individually as it happens, so that I’m [01:00:00] not bringing three hedgehogs, four hedgehogs, five hedgehogs to the conversation. Lyuba: And kill him with hedgehogs. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, because when you share a hedgehog, you want to see how they respond. It’s good if he is like having empathy and he’s holding you, he might get triggered and now you might want to step in and take care of him. Right. So I just, I know when we have this hedgehog conversation, when we did it right at the end, we feel like having a hug or a kiss, or we just like, we feel hot for each other, right? There is that closeness happens. If that doesn’t happen, if we’re done with our conversation and we feel distance. Yeah, there’s still another Gissele: little hedge, baby hedgehog, but I agree with that. I think I agree with that [01:01:00] completely. Yeah. As we are coming up to the end of our episode I have two more questions for you. I ask my guests all of this question what’s your of unconditional love. Lyuba: So for me, that when I can love person without Attaching to them without like claiming them that I’m like, you know what, I love you like really love you and I’m not attached to them loving me back. It’s they, they, they don’t have to love me back and I’m not attached to like having like, Oh, you’re mine and now I own you and you don’t go anywhere. And so I love this analogy of like, I just heard about it. Like they hold your hands. Like for those who are listening just like you both of your like palms up and you hold your hands together and imagine there [01:02:00] is a bird. So you hold them together because there is a baby bird and you don’t want to drop it. So you hold this baby bird. But then you don’t close it like this, that like, Oh, I’m like, you’re not going anywhere, right? So you still like, you don’t drop it, but you have your hands open, palms up. And like the bird, you know, might fly away or by just sit there in this openness. And so this is the healthy attachment. That’s how I see unconditional love. Gissele: I love that you said that, because I think often we think that. Attachment is love, that possessiveness is love when it is not love. And I have, I totally understand that. I have felt that for the people in my life and I’m like, you know what? Be happy. Even if it’s not with me, I just want you to be there. The happiest version of yourself, like that you’re living your dreams. And so when you truly love people and love them from that [01:03:00] place, they don’t even have to, like, they don’t have to love you back. You can just love them. Just, just because, just because they’re just because of their beingness, just because you choose to love them. And I think that’s really, really key. So I just want you to share where can people find you? What discounts are you going to offer people? Like, what, what, What work are you, do you want to share with our audience? Yeah, yeah. Lyuba: I am, I’m just, I’m very excited for my program that I have for men. It’s called Authentic Lover and how it was, how it was inspired that I used to do pleasure retreats for women. Those who sign up are getting a 10% discount. Authentic Lover for Men monthly membership – https://lyuba-venable.mykajabi.com/offers/Eys7pWQx?coupon_code=LOVEANDCOMPASSION10 Authentic Lover for Men yearly membership – https://lyuba-venable.mykajabi.com/offers/4AsXQd4m?coupon_code=LOVEANDCOMPASSION10 And so many women would say like, Oh my God, I learned all of the things about myself. I know what I want in relationship in bedroom. I don’t feel like telling my partner. I just like how we talked, right? That like, it’s so important to share. And yet being a human, it’s hard. And so many people don’t do it. Right. And they say, if only [01:04:00] my partner could be a fly on the wall and like watch all of this and like learn all of this. Yeah. And that’s what like, I’m, you know what, let me do that. And so now I have, I have, I work with men and I’m being. Female coach that I know from myself being a woman right as well. I’ve worked with a lot of women. So in a very vulnerable way I share. in depth what women want, you know, and that’s just like, that’s so like, that’s so eye opening for a lot of men. And, and we, like, I have pre recorded videos. So it’s a program where like they go their own pace and there is like communication section, which is lubrication, then intimacy section, and then sex section. So we cover all of it. And then every week we have coaching calls where we we talk and we practice and oh my god So so we have links Giselle has links and they offer 10 10 percent [01:05:00] discount for the first month of subscription. So for those of you who Feel like joining. I would love to have you. Nice. That’s Gissele: wonderful. And those links are going to be available in the transcript as well as the links to your programs and your website. We usually have a transcript. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Thank you Lyuba. I could talk to you literally all day. Oh my God. So much fun. And I, I think you were definitely, this is your destiny. This is your call. This is what you were meant to do. Cause you know, that the, the, The openness and authenticity that exudes from you is just amazing. And, you know, and it’s, I think, such an important topic for men to, to be able to have the space to be able to practice that, especially like vulnerability and intimacy. I think it’s such a beautiful work. Lyuba: so much for joining us. I love your presence. I love your questions. I love how you feel into it and you are with me, you know, [01:06:00] so much fun. I can’t wait to share with my people. Yeah, for sure. I’m excited. Yeah, Gissele: for sure. For sure. And thank you for joining us for another episode of the loving compassion podcast with Giselle. See you soon. Lyuba: Bye.

Gissele: Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. . We believe that loving compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Today, we’ll be talking about dealing with grief. With compassion. Today’s guest is Dr. Jan Schwartz. Who is the president of forensic fraud research Inc. She is a fellow of the American psychological association. Fellow of the American academy of forensic sciences. And this is a certified Homeland protection professional. With the national Sheriff’s association. Her book last summer with Oscar. He came an international bestseller on amazon.com. Her new book. Authentic intelligence. How do you use your emotional, mental, and spiritual gifts to create the life and world you want is bound to gain the same recognition and accolades. Please join me in welcoming Jan. Hi, Jan. Jan: Good morning, Gissele. A warm hello to you and to all of your listeners. Gissele: Thank you. Thank you so much. I just want to start by sharing a little bit about how I sort of ended up finding your story. In particular, I was going through my own journey of my own dog having seizures. And there was a couple of times where my dog, we thought we’re going to lose him. Just because the seizures were really, really bad. And I kind of resigned myself to his, you know, eventual passing. Just because of how bad the seizures had gotten. But then I set the intention for something that would help me not only ease his passing, but actually restore him to the level of wellness that I knew he could get to. But I didn’t know how. And so very interestingly, I didn’t even know how you and I kind of connected, but we started chatting about your book, authentic intelligence. Um, and through conversation, it came out that you had written this other book called last summer with Oscar. And when you look at your credentials, it’s amazing that somebody who is so involved in fraud would end up sort of in this kind of journey that is more spiritual. So wanted to start the podcast by letting the audience know. A little bit about, um, what actually led you to write last summer with Oscar and how did perhaps your perspective shift from focusing on forensic fraud to maybe opening up to there being something else? Jan: My husband and I returned home from a vacation a holiday. And when we went to pick up the dogs from this wonderful kennel, they said to me, Jan, we’re so sorry, but Oscar didn’t eat. And I was very concerned, wondering why they hadn’t contacted us and these kinds of things. But rather than focusing on that, I immediately drew my attention to Oscar and his eyes flashed at me with fear when he leaped out [00:03:00] of the kennel and I put them into the car. Needless to say, the next day my husband and I were at the vet and the vet was disturbed by the dramatic weight loss because Oscar was not able to eat. And my husband is a retired surgeon so he was there examining the x rays and saw that cancer was, had taken over Oscar’s body and came out to tell me with the vet that things Didn’t look good. Well, this was I was devastated. I was just overwhelmed with sorrow and grief. And the immediate thought is. What can we do to help him? And the vet said, well, he will die because he won’t be able to eat the kind of cancer he has. This is the challenge. They don’t feel like eating and there is great depression with it. So he said there’s chemotherapy, but we [00:04:00] had heard many times from others that had faced a similar diagnosis. And in this case, it, it the likelihood of it being hemangiosarcoma, which is the worst kind of cancer. One that. A dog can be perfectly healthy one minute and then it just, it’s such a fast spreading cancer, it just becomes a pervasive illness. So we were in that boat and the vet said, well, you can do chemotherapy. And we knew that there were severe stories of, of pain with that. And, and to, to, to put our dog with such a gentle loving spirit through that, my husband and I immediately said, no. No, we, we’re going to celebrate, we’re going to every day with this dog, we are going to treasure it. We’re going to find the wherewithal and the strength to endure the grief, the sorrow, the frustration of not him eating and all this. And we just pledged from that moment on together that we were going to [00:05:00] somehow find a way to keep Oscar eating and being very, Much strong individual people. We each found our path doing that. And I stepped into this since I’m, my work is an intelligence gathering person to keep our country and our allies that I’m working with for the betterment of the world. And I began to view it from an intelligence gathering effort, except This time, I was the student, and here this dog had, had, I, with the role of attentiveness was, the attention was on him, always. And he taught me that, because his eyes, just as his eyes had flashed to me, of fear and vulnerability, and he was scared. He was then teaching me focus. attentiveness, and I had [00:06:00] dreams that supported all of the stages of adapting to this world. And also I want to say that Winston, Oscar’s litter mate and his faithful companion, they were two devoted brothers Winston knew something was seriously wrong too. So Winston was hypersensitive about being mindful about Oscar. So, We were all focusing on this dog, and he felt the love and the progression of being his student and he was the teacher, was one where I felt so many times I was in the presence of divine wisdom and that my job, I was being trained to notice things that I could immediately see. would change the path of the day, the week, and so on. And it is through all of that, that Oscar would suddenly, you know, here he was, just unable to do anything. And on one particular night, may I share with you how, how he, he really got upset when I, Yeah. So we had been in the habit of taking a three mile walk in our incorporated village. And the work that I do keeps me writing or working at all hours of the day. So to walk late at night is, it was not an uncommon thing for me to do. And this was one of those nights and Oscar came to me and he was excited and he, he, you know, was wagging his tail. Well, of course I was going to stop everything. Okay. You, you know, I would. And, and Winston was, oh my goodness. So Oscar wanted to take a walk. So up, up to then, you know, we had been holding into our hearts what the vet had said, like there, there wasn’t much of a chance for [00:08:00] Oscar to be around with us for maybe even a short two weeks. So, so for this to happen was what, what is this? And so it was an electrifying moment and I’m so glad I followed it. Because it changed the course of everything. And it was on this walk that Oscar pulled me. He was always walking on my right and Winston was on my left. You know, they were protecting me from all angles. And Oscar pulled me into this very, very unmaintained stretch of bushes. You know how it is. And Winston, of course, followed because it could be something very exciting there, some good smells. And so, to my great surprise, Oscar came out and his face was covered with tiny green leaves. And it was beautiful. He went back in, and I heard him inhaling these leaves, and the best [00:09:00] way for me to explain is when we, when we go to the zoo, we see anteaters, and we see how those anteaters, this was what Oscar was doing with, as I found out with these little seedlings, and I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but, but, but that’s what started and he was very excited, had energy for the rest of the walk, and here we were doing a three mile walk from a dog that And What was not eating to this. This was such a dramatic change that I felt there. This was, I was entering into a project an adventure. And these are how I discuss my investigations and cases. Okay, their adventures and projects. Okay. I said, this is unlike anything. This is. Electrifying for good. This is there is something I have to really, really be focused on paying attention to this dog because this dog has information that I need to pay attention to for others and for us. So I then in seeing that happen was two nights later. Oscar wanted to go again. And I said to my husband, Richard, you know, something’s going on here. It was the same response coming back. And I said, he said, you know, well, you know, just don’t get your hopes up. You know, how he’s trying to protect me, you know, how, how it is we’re watching like that. And I said, no, I’m, I’m, I’m going to call in some tree experts. I want to study this. I’m going to take, so I did. I brought in people and I said, here’s where he goes and we parted the bushes and lo and behold, here we saw these, the leaves are missing from these branches and they said, well, it’s some sort of an elm. And there are 400 varieties, so no one, no one would pin it down and I said, all right, well, let me, let me see about this. So, I’m on the third walk or so with Oscar. One of the subsequent walks, I, I we were going into a different direction and the wind came and the branch of a tree swept down near us and here were these leaves and I tell you, Giselle, all of a sudden, Oscar’s head perked up like, there it is. There it is, and he wanted, he was following the branch as it then lifted up, and so I thought, okay, I’m going to get one of these leaves. I’m going to look around, and on our way back home from the walk, I saw that there was a big tree in the front of our house. that had these [00:12:00] leaves. There was another tree in our front yard and I said what is going on? And as I walked the dogs around our front yard, here were little shoots of this. And I began to research and Came to find out that the Slippery Elm tree was the source of this this joy, this healing, this miraculous response of our dog coming to life, renewing himself, and then began my research into Slippery Elm and Giselle this, this, this tree we have, This is the largest, the oldest tree in in our neighborhood, and it is perhaps 175 years old, and the trunk of the slip realm in itself is spellbinding it, it wraps and it has this beauty in that. But what I learned was that. This tree, the Slippery Elm tree, has been over harvested by the drug companies for years, and how they do it is underneath this bark is this white strip, and it’s a sap, it’s a white strip of sap, and historically this is so significant for Americans because There were two weeks as we learned in sixth grade in American history that George Washington and the troops did not have any food. And how did they stay alive? Well, I learned that a Native American soldier taught them that the, the, the bark, how to remove the bark from the Slippery M. Gissele: Right. Jan: And they stripped the sap off, cut it, and chopped it into gruel, added it, and it made, put water on it, hot water on [00:14:00] it, and it became like a porridge, like an oatmeal, and the nutritional quality of this oatmeal, we call it oatmeal of this Slippery porridge was what sustained them and now what we know the drug companies found out about that and Native Americans have relied on, on herbal and all sorts of natural resources for their, their healing anyway. So I found out that it historically was this and, and that a tea had been made and maybe you have heard about. Nurse Case up in Canada and she had this S A I T. So your country too had she had she had met with a Native American medicine man because she had an illness and he provided her with this, this tea and taught her how to make it. And so here Nurse, Nurse Case, C A I S S E. Began working with medical doctors who were treating cancer patients that had no hope that they were at the end of the line of their health and they were willing to try something that would give them a chance to keep living. And these doctors were very courageous because this was a. Stepping away from the way the pharmaceutical industry was doing things, so you see how progress was made. Some people were stepping out because they wanted to try something that had been helping the Native Americans for years to live. And so her tea, Yasiak tea, and here. What is so amazing in the spirit of sharing good knowledge that benefits all this tea, I learned that the remedy that this tea that the formula for it was even available online for no charge. That’s how this research went, where the goodness of others that had brought about this, and here it was being given to me because Oscar had led me to this, this this discovery. And so I wrote this book wanting to share this information and, and so much more. Gissele: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think you said so many great things. The first thing I want to say is that. It has also been my experience that the earth will give you what you need. Like we’re so interconnected with the land that people don’t realize that. Around our house. There were times when our kids would suffer from tummy aches. And what was naturally growing outside was Chamomile. We didn’t know what it was. And so there’s lots of times where what we’ve needed was actually in the land around us. But we just didn’t have that awareness. It was when we started gardening that we were like, oh my gosh, this is chamomile  one of the things that surprised me the most about your journey as per your book was that you didn’t intend to heal Oscar. Like your intention really was to spend. As many days as possible with the most joy. And the most presence. And give your dog the happiest time possible. But it ended up that. He ended up being healed from his cancer. Um, that probably was like a shocking experience or was that something you expected from the journey? Jan: No, I, I, I value your question and it’s a mighty one because you see there were, this was a very active adventure. There were no days off. Okay, there the nights were, you know, we were up and down when someone has cancer and when a pet has cancer, and especially the way we were going about doing it, we were attentive to his needs, and one of the moments, and I certainly was not thinking healing at all, I just wanted to remain together with him in a connectedness, in a closeness, and to, and to surround him with What I call warmest love. I’m a deeply spiritual person. And so I know that warmest love was shining upon me, giving me the strength for this journey. And, and, and Giselle, I, I was doing my other projects. I, I was doing, I, I, I would be doing this and I would have to give a keynote speech. I would have to take a test for certification of this that or whatever because I, I was trained to be a family psychologist and I had to the more evidence that I was discovering in white color organized crime. I, I had to keep growing with that. So I was, boy, I was overextended to say the least, but I was fueled and I was being surrounded with warmest love and I put a capsule around Oscar Winston and Richard, we were all in that capsule of warmest love. But there were moments that, what do we do now? This was not something that you could control. Okay, so many of us feel like the best way we can stay safe in life is where we have to control things more. Well, this adventure there, there was no control. You were in a state of trusting that you were going to be led by an animal. To the next thing. And one thing I want to tell you that that I, as the seasons, Oscar became ill in summer, and the book is broken up into four [00:20:00] main chapters of seasonal chapters summer, and then fall and then winter and spring and so when we transition to fall. I was noticing, as we all do in what season we’re in right now, you know, the leaves are falling off. And I thought, what is this going to be like when there are no more leaves for Oscar to take in? And for Winston what are we going to experience? how I decided to handle that was to stay focused on the patient. On the subject and that was Oscar and he was fine until one night and he and Winston were in a state of such confusion because where they always found slip round was here and then they had backup places and patches in our backyard that miraculously started to come. But every when we came back from the walk, there was nothing there. And so I came down to my office right where I am now and sat at my computer to start checking things that I needed to do. And interestingly, Oscar came down, sat beside me, did not lie down. He didn’t lay down. He didn’t lie down. He, he was looking at me with these eyes like, I know you’re going to find out what to do next. And. He was the patient. I stopped everything. Began to look miraculously. I found information about an extraordinary tree called the Graviola tree from the Amazon rainforest and the history of the usefulness of the, of the Graviola tree extract for the world. And the information of the scientific studies that the National Cancer Institute for some reason did not decide to further or follow the, the path of continued research so that it would be get the information would be utilized in a way for humanity. It was just abruptly. stopped. I read about that and I said, What is this? What has happened? And then I look further. And what had happened were the drug companies try to replicate this The genetic components of the Graviola tree extract, because the Amazon rainforest has protection over, over the rainforest and products and so interestingly, they were unable to replicate the properties. so, I knew that the important thing was getting a hold of this product immediately. So I overnighted the product. To our door, you would do the same thing for yours, and I bet many listeners would do the same, and what I’m about to tell you is that it was there. FedEx was perfect, right there in time, and Oscar was waiting with me at the door. He was that in tune. If what I’m about to tell you is we went through we followed the recommended administration of these capsules and it was called Gravizone. That’s what the product was called. And if we had begun the journey with Gravizone and used Slippery Elm, we would have had an even stronger result. It, the adventure was meant to be this way and it was meant so that I could say to others that Gravis on is even stronger in kicking off a recovery or a healing process. And what, how he was restored from this, and how he felt about himself was extraordinary. But then. The journey wasn’t just to have two remedies, we ended up discovering six remedies because hemangiosarcoma is a very multifaceted has a multifaceted treatment process and red clover proved to be, thanks to a friend’s suggestion, proved to provide a miraculous result in just days where a [00:25:00] tumor in Oscar’s mouth reduced to I would say maybe reduced by 80 percent so that he was able to swallow and eat past it. So the book is filled with. Discoveries for those people who enjoy mysteries and adventures. And the vets, you can imagine, we had two vets that were involved in this. They were so, so supportive and they had a sensitivity about, let’s just, Let Oscar be our teacher, not giving advice, just  learning from Oscar. Gissele: And one of the things you mentioned just now, which I think is really important for our listeners to understand is that. This is a journey. This was a journey that had a lot of ups and downs. Like sometimes things would work and sometimes they didn’t. Like sometimes he would eat the [00:26:00] tuna and sometimes he wouldn’t. One of the things that struck me the most was how compassionate you were with yourself. And with your dog throughout the journey. Because that was a challenging journey. There were so many ups and downs and you were so committed to ensuring that both dogs had the best experience, especially Oscar. Was it a conscious choice? What was it just naturally something to do with how you manage those difficult moments? That. You kind of use an inner kindness for yourself as well as for your loved ones. Jan: Well, it’s, that’s a tough subject I have been born with, excuse me, a capacity to love. That may be may be viewed by others who don’t yet know me as something is how, how is this, how did this happen when her life has not been easy. The love comes from the light that I draw in and that light, no matter what, is always, always. Refueling me. I had the best examples of this creative way of loving, and maybe we now can think of this as an implementation of what I call authentic intelligence, but I had the most extraordinary elementary teachers. who fueled me with creativity and who nurtured my inquiring thoughts with balancing out the mental pursuit with supporting me As I was understanding the subject and also giving me the role model of the love that was mine for the taking because, like all of us, I’m one of God’s children. But in my case, this was personal. Because of them, my teachers, I viewed God really as God. As my parent, as my father. And so that puts me in a completely different position as I take on any project where my ability to persevere the depth of my commitment is one where the standard that I bring to it is one that has been imprinted on me. It’s imprinted on all of us. It’s just that I personally drew it in saying that. God is my father. I’m a child of God. So, this is, this is how it happens. This is how, I need to do it. This is how I will know how to do it. So, offering to Oscar and yes, if I may apply some, some, a little bit of the underpinning of authentic intelligence, how to use your mental, emotional, and spiritual gifts to create the life and world you want. What? I was doing throughout this journey was, if we were to think of three interrelated circles, the top circle on the left is mental intelligence. The circle beside it is emotional intelligence or EQ. Okay. Mental intelligence is IQ. Emotional intelligence is EQ. And then there’s a third intelligence. That’s the third interrelated circle. And that’s spiritual intelligence. Some people haven’t heard of this. I’ve been finding out about that lately, and there’s a lot of interest in learning more about it, but the, we call that SQ. So, there is an area common to all three circles, and that is my sense of knowing, has been my sense of knowing, and that’s what was fueling me and has fueled me. On a life that sometimes I refer to myself as a real life Cinderella so, so it is, maybe that’s understood maybe it isn’t, but maybe some would say she just perseveres, or she’s someone who just never, ever lets anyone write the ending. to her story. Okay. There are different ways of perhaps describing me, but above all, I’m someone who taps into that knowing. I tap into that authentic intelligence. And in my new book, this is what my message is, is that this is our way. To find our answers, to step out of our brokenness to step away from our anguish and just say, okay, wait a minute. Within me are three interrelated circles. So what am I doing with my mental intelligence? You see, my, my ideas are that we need to feed these intelligences. There is a desperate need. We have this treasure of three intelligences that has to be fed. We can’t just let it go stagnant. They are, they’re yearning for stimulation, so if we feed mental intelligence with tasks like reading books or listening to books perhaps or pondering pertinent quotes or there’s a whole assortment and we’re probably pretty familiar with Mental intelligence. I don’t want to get away too far from, from your question, but emotional intelligence has very, very specific ways. It’s about reading others and ourselves. And the emotional intelligence is, involves self regulation. That answers to you, it was my job to regulate myself and my sorrow with Oscar and Winston. It’s about self awareness. It’s about motivating yourself. It’s about developing empathy and about increasing one’s social experiences so that we have a higher level, a higher ability to handle things. And then spiritual intelligence is the soul’s intelligence. It’s our source of creativity. And that we could talk about all of those things more, but this was, I was going between the circles. And that has been how I lived my life and authentic intelligence in action happens when we see people being able to persevere. And carry on being genuine about the difficulty, but not letting ourselves be stuck there in getting support it from one of the other circles, and you notice how I was constantly going back to mental intelligence where I was researching. Okay. And then I was being honest with Oscar and Winston and I remember writing, excuse me, and I was. Up under this, the top of the hill in, in the backyard. And I sat beside Oscar and just cried and sobbed and said, I want you to know I am feeling so helpless. And so I’m, I’m open about, about I’m, I’m real about this and I am a private person too, but in this book, I, I’m really am a very private person. And. As I’ve shared with you pers in a separate occasion doing these podcasts and coming out like this, I’m stepping out of the shadows because when you’re in the intelligence gathering world, you know, you don’t look, you don’t want to be discovered. There’s too many security incidents that happen. But, but this, this is a time. This is a time there is an urgency in our broken world for us to learn a new way to connect to focus on competing with ourselves, ourselves and connecting with others are, are focused on the three circles so that we can tap into our knowing and draw upon that because goodness. Every family, every person that’s listening has something going on that they want to feel supported on. And I care. I, I, I understand that the burden can feel enormous, but as human beings, we can. offer something more than just coldness and a separateness and we can share authentically because we’re wired to be authentic human beings. I hope I answered your question to some degree. Gissele: Of course. I mean, I think speaking of the three circles you had mentioned, it was really that spiritual aspect of yourself that led you to listen to Oscar, to begin with. Because it’s so easy to ignore, like, you know, your dog constantly asking you to go and do things. But I think you. It was you tapping into that, knowing in the intuition. That you’re supposed to be the student in this particular way. And considering all the accolades in your role, put yourself in a position of a student to a dog it’s really quite astonishing. Especially, you know, Since it’s your dog. Right. Jan: it was, but it was, it also truly felt like an honor. It was my honor to be beside him and the goodness of this journey and the changes and the courage of this dog. We would be going for a walk and the police would be coming by and they’d go, Go Oscar! And other people were saying, Hey, you know, here’s this for Oscar. And Gissele, I have to tell you, my husband has his own creative way of, of showing love to dogs. And, and in this case Oh, everyone has heard about Chick fil A. You have Chick fil A’s perhaps up there, right? Okay, are they perhaps an international wonderful sandwich? Anyway our local Chick fil A got to know Oscar because my husband would go through the drive thru just to keep Oscar eating. And he would say, I need two plain Chick fil A sandwiches for Oscar my, for my dog, Oscar or our dog, Oscar is something like this. And they would say, excuse me. And he would say, our, my, our dog, Oscar is, is, is very sick with cancer. We’re trying to keep him eating. So I need to come home with. Two sandwiches. We’re hoping that he will eat it. So, Oscar got, this became a game. And so, he got to know, dogs are very smart, you know. They know when we come home. They know when we leave. They, they know the sound of the different cars and this sort of a thing. So, Richard was There was midday, he was, he was leaving, Oscar knew what this was, so Oscar would move into this one room, we call our son room, and it had this doggy door, so Oscar would then hear Richard come home going through the garage and with the car, and Oscar would be out the doggy door, waiting to meet Richard at the side door for his, piece of Chick fil A sandwich because he needed to gain weight and Winston, our precious Mr. Winston was on the chubby side. So he couldn’t participate in these, these things. So this is a silliness that people with two dogs, three dogs, they understand that it’s a juggling when one is sick and I’m, you know, with families, it’s, it’s the same. It’s just, Part of the so the journey was definitely up and down and these moments refueled us with the joy. Gissele: And so we were never stuck on sorrow because right after that came another discovery. Yeah. And one of the things I also saw is that. Um, Oscar’s legacy was. One of community too. Like, um, You were talking about all the different people that came together and rally together. Even if it was just for support. And I think that goes to show you how community can come together with each other. Um, And what’s really happening in our societies that we’ve lost that sense of community. We’ve lost that sense of togetherness. There seems to be this separation between ourselves and other people. Even a separation from ourselves, I would say. Um, And you were talking about that we lack connection to community with each other. And in your journey with Oscar. It was such a beautiful reminder to me about the importance of community and coming together and helping each other through our experiences. Um, and all that work really did extend Oscar’s life. Right. And the magic was so, you know, Oscar did eventually end up passing. And I think that’s where still holding onto the grief with compassion and love. and joy is what you talk about throughout the book. Which is very, very important. Um, enabling you to still enjoy. The time you had but he didn’t die of cancer. Right. Um, can you talk a little bit about, uh, the kind of miracle that you experienced? Yes Jan: my husband Richard and I had always said that as, as time went by and we saw how unique this adventure was, we began to think that there may be an outcome to it that might be something that would be significant for some entity. And there came a time when Oscar looked at me. And he was extremely feeble. He was no longer able to walk. He was very thin. And he looked at me and the eyes conveyed, I can’t do this anymore. And I immediately cradled him. in my arms and said, it’s okay, sweetheart, you don’t have to anymore. And our vets were poised for this moment. And they were in two different locations so that they could be however we could put Oscar in a peaceful place after all that he had courageously gone through. And here we had found these six remedies and we had just Had two weeks, I believe it was two weeks, where he was living, eating, he was eating all three meals. It was clear that he was he had, it was all, had come together. That was our knowing that the remedies were helping him because he wanted to eat, he had an appetite. So when the moment came, it ended up that this one that Dr. Pearson was available and we had privately spoken to him that would he, would he consider testing Oscar’s tissues for malignancy? Would, did he believe enough in us? And he was such an open minded veteran that, I mean, he, he just said, absolutely, I have been on this journey with you. I am just as curious as you are what happened and the other Dr. Heller wasn’t available and he was with us in, in his spirit at the time, but when Oscars when Oscar passed away. In our arms in, in Dr. Pearson’s office, his tissues were then tested and when the results came in, Dr. Pearson wanted to meet with us in person. I love that. Yeah. That, that was such a respectful gesture and he looked at us and said, there’s no malignancy. Anywhere. And then, because this was, this was back in 2011, 2012, I’m trying to think of when I wrote this story, but, you know, so it’s now 12 years later, so life is a little bit different and people are much more open to these situations. But at the time, this was a rather dramatic result. Yeah. It was, and when I put the book together, and fortunately a the American anyway, the ACFE, American College of Forensic Examiners Institute published the book for me quickly to get the information out so that was a gift. And why it was a gift is there was a veterinary conference coming up, and Dr. Heller stood up. held the book just like this. He said, this book is something that you need to read because I lived through this journey with this dog and he had many things to say about it and so did Dr. Heller, but it’s because of the interest from veterinary science that it started selling books and for me it was one and interesting connections came, you know, when the book launched in 2013, it was a little bit about a year later when we finally made a formal book launch of it, but then people on Facebook and began to read it and passed it on to to their boss or their friend or, or and there is a story that is quite unbelievable when one person who is in the intelligence field in the United Kingdom passed the book on to his book, to his boss who passed it on to his boss who passed it on. To his boss and she was a revered queen. So I will just phrase it that way. And Gissele: hmm, Jan: there were outreaches to me and linked in to verify my authenticity. So I guess what I’m saying, and, and importantly, this is what I would like the takeaway to be, or one of the takeaways to be Giselle is. How are we to know when we’re tackling some experience, what the outcome is going to be, or its significance for someone else. So, if we keep feeding our intelligences, our treasured intelligences, we’re going to create we’re going to be drawn to adventures that are going to yield outcomes that That can help someone else. Versus a life of simply feeding our own ego. It’s very easy to do that today. There’s so many ways. It’s a distinctly different path. And it’s always our choice. And I’m not saying that we can’t do that. I love movies. Yes, I use my phone. I’m on Facebook. I love LinkedIn and I’m not so good on Twitter. I haven’t figured that out yet. Not enough time to do that. I’m just a regular person about all of this. It’s just that what I have found is that tapping into our knowing in creating these adventures once you start it. You want to return there, it’s, it’s a better situation. It’s a much more rewarding outcome than simply taking care of our basic ego needs. So we’re all on this journey. I wish the best for you, for your listeners, for every living being on this earth. And we have the choice of how we can do it because this is how we were wired to be. We don’t have to remain broken. We can work on healing by focusing on the three circles and getting ourselves into our sense of knowing and we’ll be quite surprised at the change in our life. Gissele: Fully agree. One thing I was thinking about was that. This journey you’re talking about. And the journey you went through with Oscar. And all of the other journeys you continued to go on. Take a level of faith. A level of faith and trust. And I think if you’re. Willing to do that. You’re willing to show up for whatever showed up. And there’s a level of courage to that as well. What is one thing that people can do to help them kind of embark on that journey? Of really stepping up into their knowing. Yes, I fully understand. Jan: What I can tell you is that such a moment when people are overcome with fear may be a time of profound experiencing profound rejection or profound worries about financial loss or something. I would not be talking about this had I not walked those through those moments where I have experienced. profound rejection. And what fueled me, first of all, you know, we have to, when, when we suffer at the hands of an event or what someone’s choice or what, what has happened or, or something not working out, just putting it that way. We, we work to come to grips with it and to take ownership of what. Our role is in that, and understanding the facts and the details that came together to make that happen. But, once we get to that point, For me, what fueled me like that was I just said to myself, and I wrote these things down, I wrote down these phrases and put them on the bathroom mirror, and I put them in my drawers when I’d be pulling out my sweatshirt or, or, or my jeans or something, and I would come across it and these things, and I put them all over the place where I would see them, but one that works to this day. Constantly is never, ever let anyone or anything write the ending to your story. Life is hard. Life is brutal. This is a, this is a, this is a, a, a living experience today of such fear. Competitiveness. We have such a fight between light and darkness. And for those of us who work to expose wrongdoing, whether it’s profound Corruption, profound patterns of money laundering through the most respectable places and so on and so forth, or exposing sexual abuse and taking and having people see the entity that was supposed to be protecting children. So, okay. And then knowing the years of healing that every one of the people who have suffered. So they are so. Deserving and entitled to be brought into that capsule of warmest love. And I, I, I tell you this, the world is not doing enough for the victims of the sexual abuse. But, but my, my point is that. We, we have so much that we can, we can do by just immediately stepping out of just going after power or becoming number one by focusing on, okay, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, focusing there. Getting into the knowing, getting to the source of the help and the healing for me. Never, ever let anyone write the ending to your story. Another phrase that activated me like that was, if it is to be, it is up to me. And I put together a whole list of things that I would come across and I would see. For example, since I’m. An authentic person here being interviewed. I will say to guess what I said when I was coming down to my office today. Here is here is a statement for today. What came to me and I think you’re just a wonderful hostess and I can be so real and share these things with you. But I said, I was coming down. I can do this. I can do this well. And that put me, it centered me. Okay. And that was not putting me into fueling my ego. It was centering me. I was reading myself. I was in my EQ zone. I was Centering myself, saying, now, I am, I’m in a place now where I can work out of all three circles, and those are some of the ways that I hope will be able to help other people as they step forward on their, on their healing, because we are always changing lives. Thank you. on our way to wholeness. We’re always moving there. No matter what has happened, no matter what we’ve been through, someone, some entity can surround you and draw you into a capsule of the [00:55:00] warmest love and you can heal. And that is my sincere promise. Gissele: Beautiful. Thank you so much for that. It made me think it’s, it’s interesting because in all my interviews are usually set an intention as well. Um, that I might ask the right questions. And I may, I honor the person that is showing up. Um, and then, you know, may I usually get led to probably the best questions I can ask. Hopefully that gets me a good interviews.  We’re wrapping it up. I wanted to ask a couple of more questions. The first one is, what is your definition of unconditional love? Jan:  It, it would be Jan: an energy, an effervescent, electrifying, always, never on empty love. Always, always being fueled, never on empty. Gissele: Well, that’s beautiful. My last question is where can people work with you? Where can they find you? Where can they find the new book or the old book as well? It’s really, really great. Tell people about yourself. Jan: Oh, you’re so nice. I have a website, http://www.JanSchwartz.us, and it is a website that pulls together my writing, my speaking, and my work as a forensic behavioral scientist. And there are links to last summer with Oscar. The book, Authentic Intelligence, we are, I’m in the process of completing. My book proposal, there is a whole journey that an author goes through, as you know, and I’m at the final point of building my author’s platform. And I’m so excited to share with you that there are 108 requests for a pre publication copy of the book, Media authors, pod show hosts business owners large, small people from all over the world, Australia, New Zealand United Kingdom, Canada Toronto Montreal, so and so forth, and in America, all different groups a 12 step group a group that focuses on revenue production. I, I, I’m amazed that there are so many there’s so many groups. And at the end of one discussion, the the person leading the organization said to me, well, Jan Schwartz, love to you from all directions. Gissele: That’s beautiful. Jan: So janschwartz.Us and perhaps this year we will be able to have a publication of the book. I’m looking forward to being paired with the right book agent and the right publisher that will want to invest in global distribution so that we can reach every person, every family. Every county, every state, every nation. So we can, there is an urgency for this. We have so many great problems that we can work on together and the joy will be ours to do so. Gissele: Sounds fantastic. And what a perfect way to end. Thank you so much, Jan, for being on the podcast and for sharing your wisdom with us in your lovely discussion about your journey with Oscar. And thank you everyone to tune in for another episode of the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. See you soon.

Transcript [00:00:00] Jessica Campbell: Hello and welcome to the love and compassion with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like, and subscribe for more amazing content today. I have my most beloved sister, Jessica Campbell, talking about weight loss and compassion. Gissele Taraba: Jessica Campbell started her journey when she was 45 weighing 270 pounds. She’s lost over a hundred pounds and decided to create a YouTube channel, where she could engage in dialogue about weight loss. Weight related disease education and how to achieve weight loss in an affordable way that honors a person’s way of living. And I would also say compassionately too. And this was really about her journey and figuring out how to live a balanced life. So today we’re going to be talking about weight loss, compassion, maybe Bridgerton and relationships. Please join me in welcoming Jessica Campbell. Hi [00:01:00] Jessica. Jessica Campbell: Hello Giselle. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate this. Gissele Taraba: Oh, no worries. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I mean, we’ve been talking a little bit about working together. And I knew that you were the person that I wanted to have a conversation, especially about weight loss and compassion, having gone through your own weight loss journey. And also, you know, some of my listeners might not know. That you are one of the first people that really taught me about compassion. We were both very young and you would talk to me about how to look at people beyond the good or bad. And how to look at my relationships with, you know, our parents and other people in a very, very kind way. And so I am forever grateful and thought you would be the perfect. Person for this conversation. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about how your weight loss journey kind of began? You know, like the path to get there? And then maybe some of the most important things you’ve learned from that journey. Jessica Campbell: Absolutely. So the first thing [00:02:00] was that I was going through a lot of existential maybe questions at the time where I had already had the kids. I was trying to find a place in terms of What, what I could do after because my whole world where my kids my husband at the time but I didn’t feel that I had purpose, but there was an addendum to that. The addendum was that every day I would get up. I would feel weighted back. In weighted by the weight, weighted by the fact that I couldn’t breathe. And the fact that the, the weight was weighing so heavily upon me that I couldn’t even I couldn’t work. I became, less and less active and engaged in my life. Now, the precipice to that is the fact that you go into your doctor’s appointment and your doctor says, well, you’re [00:03:00] pre-diabetic, you also have high blood pressure. Mm-Hmm, . And and they weigh you obviously. And that’s, you know that the observable weight was 270 pounds. Now that I did not act. Right away, so I think I was actually a little bit heavier, but I mean, it’s neither here nor there the weight is wasn’t what was the issue was the fact that all my,health was going. Going on a downhill spiral, so I decided to take care of my health and this is actually pre. My separation, my divorce, It was, I think that the, the problem with any journey is that, you know, everyone has to, there’s the old you, or there’s the you that’s existing at that time and the, and the vision you [00:04:00] are not necessarily aligned at that time. They’re just 2 different ideas. And because there are two different ideas that you have to buy into it and then other people have to buy into it. So that is very complicated because that is such a complicated feature. If you are not completely sold on it, you’re still figuring out how do you imagine your family being able to buy into it. So that long division was basically the inherent problem that took over my whole life. Because. If I’m going to add to it, in order for me to be able to find correlate the old me and the vision, everything, every aspect in my life had to fail. And it wasn’t because it had to it because it did. It got to the point where I was failing at everything that I said, this bottom. [00:05:00] It’s going to forever and continue. Gissele Taraba: How do I decide to surrender to it and say, It doesn’t matter which bottom I go because the bottoms continue. How do I find myself out of it without hurting myself any further? Yeah, sorry, I just wanted to point out you just said something very, very powerful, which is, you know, and I think this is why so many weight loss programs fail because they’re focusing at the reason of behavior. I’m just going to eat less calories what you’re talking about, which is kind of a bang to start the conversation. Really is about shifting identity. It’s you have to see yourself and act in a different way. And that, like you said, can cause a real ripple in your relationships because they see the old you, they’re comfortable with the old you and what you, what you said, what you needed to do is to destroy that old identity and not in a harsh, harmful way, but in a [00:06:00] way that you needed to see yourself in a different way as a person who was. Quote unquote, thinner or thin. Right. Sorry. Continue. Jessica Campbell: Yeah. And it’s not even the thin part, it’s the part where you are able to do things. Gissele Taraba: Oh, yes. Thank you for that clarification, Jessica Campbell: because I, I do want to clarify that.  because I have been overweight since I was a child, there’s a huge difference between being overweight when you’re young. And that’s all, you know, because there’s inherent problematic things here. Then when you’re older in your 40s and 50s, you start gaining weight and now both. situations, you do have to manage them with your lifestyle because absolutely it, that is all about it.  how do we honor our lives and the way we want to live and start seeing visible things like weight loss. [00:07:00] We can talk about that a little aspect, maybe later on the conversation, but what I’m trying to say here is the fact that specifically me, I had to find a new adult identity when there was no adult identity to be related, I had to imagine somewhere else. And this is where I would say, how would energetic. Woman of 50 or, or a 45 look like, what would she look like? What would she do? How would she behave in a meeting And those are so, so many intangibles. I would have little things like, for example, you know, the actress Selma Hayek and, JLo and, how do they become the women that they become? Not necessarily even just specifically to them, but how do they get up in the morning? How do they, how do they deal with their lives? And specifically I wanted to live no longer [00:08:00] angry and with grace. So every morning I would get up and despite what was going on in the world at that time. A lot of things were, very painful to live and but I would get up and I would say, how do I live with grace? and forgiveness. And how do I live with compassion? Because as insignificant as, I thought my person was, I always woke up. You’re absolutely beautiful. I would get up and I said, no, but even if nobody believes it, you’re absolutely beautiful. You’re a gentle, female, graceful being. And then I started to morph into that. It’s not about image. It’s about impersonating[00:09:00] a beautiful side of the human race. Gissele Taraba: I think it’s about becoming more of yourself. Jessica Campbell: Yeah. Becoming Gissele Taraba: more authentically you. Jessica Campbell: That’s a secondary. But what I was trying to say is that when I was 250, 240, that’s all I would focus. I would focus and I would say, everything is failing in my life. How do I bring grace into the day? How do I bring compassion into the day? How do I look beyond me? Yeah. Because I mean, I’m not dealing as a nurse. I’m not dealing with with my cause. I’m being present because my life is like I’m, it’s raining cats and dogs. I cannot just look at the cats and the dogs.  you know what I mean. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah, it’s what you’re talking about is embodiment, embodying the identity that you want. And I remember early in your, not [00:10:00] so early, but in your weight loss journey in terms of, you know, on your journey to losing a hundred pounds is you, I remember you telling me I’m an athlete. And then you would actually wear outfits and you would tell me, like, people would randomly come up and you’re like, Hey, are you an athlete? Like, they would ask you that. And I found it so incredible. And it was so inspiring. You mentioned, like your weight loss journey as a child and you know, you and I are sisters. So I’ve sort of seen your journey throughout. And one of the things I observed was just how, how much like our parents in that sort of, like how that that navigated the conversation of childhood weight in, in the kind of the traumatizing impact that sometimes the comments that parents make to their children about their weight. Rather than focusing on healthy eating what have you learned about your [00:11:00] journey that you wish maybe parents would know about like engaging in conversations with kids around weight? Jessica Campbell: I fall back to the health in every size, just because at the time when I was a kid, I was also fairly active. I used to dance and play outside and, and, you know, I was taller than most people. I am, Gissele Taraba: you were told for South American, Jesus, you’re still tall. Yeah. Jessica Campbell: Yeah. Five, nine. But you know, by an average woman in. In Peru, it would be 5 and maybe under. So I was quite tall. But most importantly, I think that there is something to be said about focusing on solutions instead of labels. Because Gissele Taraba: when I Jessica Campbell: was 10, I was 11, I was 12, I [00:12:00] was 13 you know, every doctor’s appointment, my weight was a problem. You know, my stretch marks were a problem. My, you know, my shape was a problem. And there was never, aside from you really need to look at your weight, there was never anything else. And, and if I’m going to shift hats here, I’m going to say health care is not very good at giving you tools aside from, you know, less carbs, more, protein and, and your keto is keto esque type of sheet, very impersonal.there’s noSitting there with the patient and actually let’s talk about this. Now, having said that, I don’t think I, I should go into in depth of what our health care problems are, but I just want to align that the fact that children [00:13:00] is specifically and maybe this has changed, but certainly in the 70s it was more focused on. You need to lose weight. You’re not, you know, you are late, you’re labeled obese and this is your problem. And at 13 years old, how can this possibly be your problem alone? You’re, you’re a child. So that’s why in my humble opinion, when it comes to children, I think there has to be a lot of tact and a lot of compassion when it comes to size. And in the end of the day. It isn’t about the weight. It’s about a person feeling okay with the body that they inhabit. Gissele Taraba: Since you mentioned the healthcare, I I’m going to go there. Because healthcare solution to weight loss is Ozempic and I remember fen fen and I [00:14:00] remember all the other weight loss things that they just push on you and now it’s Ozempic and now people are getting like Ozempic face. I don’t know. So really the solution. My friend, Jessica Campbell: I just. Give me a second. So one of the things I do want to add and maybe engage in for this conversation is that I did take fen phen when I was maybe in my early 18, 19, 20s maybe. It wasn’t fun for me. I remember I’m going from, like, taking and going from Ryerson to Union Station in, like, 5 minutes or less. I ran the whole time because my heart. My heart had increased the palpitations agreed so much that I felt like I was so anxious. And so I had to get off it because it cost me anxiety, anxiety and and not depression. It was completely my heart would go from [00:15:00] a regular 70 to 100 and something, and I had to catch up with it. And that’s how it felt. Gissele Taraba: I remember one of the things I noticed as your sister and having known you all my life was that you actually became a little bit paranoid. Jessica Campbell: Yes, I was. Gissele Taraba: You, you thought that I hated you and that I didn’t want you to be successful or all these other things. And I’m like, this is. Jessica Campbell: I agree, I agree. I had to get off it. So, but, but let’s go back to Ozempic and let’s go back to the reasoning behind why. Obesity is now considered a chronic disease. First, that is very important to actually acknowledge that this is a very important move to have it. Because it is a chronic disease, I will, I don’t know. I am trying my best to, to learn how to listen to my body in terms of satiation. So we have to, because it’s a process [00:16:00] that, that the obesity has to be treated as a process that will, that might never go away. So, it does qualify as chronic disease. the reasoning behind why Osempec is so now successful is the fact that it, it gets rid of the food noise that is your feelings around food. It, it gives you more of a perspective of yes, you are full and therefore do, you really need to eat more, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, now, the proviso here is that I don’t know enough, enough about ozempic. Yeah. But it is, it is a very helpful medication when you really try to get. Into that sphere of getting rid of the food noise. Now, the reason [00:17:00] why some people should not take it versus some people should take it because we do. I believe that is given to people that are severely obese. And I, I endorse that up because you got to get, you got to start somewhere. And, and, and I’ve been in that sphere where you don’t know where to begin.  there’s no way to know you, you have to start somewhere and Ozempic is an excellent way to begin where the problem lies is the fact that the weight loss is not this. Indiscriminately, you lose weight. You just lose weight. And it is particularly dangerous in our subset, 50 year old women that we’re in danger of osteoporosis of continual muscle loss and things like that because of, the fact that we’re growing older, that’s the thing that we lose. Gissele Taraba: Now, weightlifting and exercise, those are how we preserve [00:18:00] what we have. And if we are going to use ozempic, we need to have the lifestyle to support that weight loss. Yeah. And so, and I think that’s what goes to what you were talking about in terms of identity. Right, the shifting of behaviors and understanding why you have those behaviors to begin with. I think my concern around ozempic is really is that here’s a pill. make it go away, but you’re not addressing the issue. I think one of the things that I’ve noticed, and I’ve spoken to a number of people on this, but this may not fit for everyone. And so I don’t want to make a blanket statement is some of the people that have shared with me information about their weight loss journeys. What they had said was really, as they started to shed the weight, Emotional stuff started to come up. And so they noticed that the weight was sort of like a protection, if you may, like, like a bubble, like a bubble wrap. And it’s very similar to what people do in hoarding. [00:19:00] Hoarding is also a bubble wrap, except it’s a physical bubble wrap. And so for those people that are Using weight as a protection, then something like Ozempic is not really going to help them address those, the emotions that come up with, with, as you release. Or maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know. What are your thoughts? Jessica Campbell: So I am going to have to agree in that, in that sphere. And, and if I may, like all my journeys since I was small have always been. about application of a diet into my life and how do I put it in when that was never ever ever how how sorry let me backtrack by saying the last time I started my weight loss which I was successful that’s not how I approached it how I the first 20 off pounds was [00:20:00] just through therapy was just having someone to talk to and to actually engage them in conversation about how I deal with the world. So I would say the first 20, 30 pounds, it was really nothing about, changing my life, but changing my mind. Gissele Taraba: I think that’s very important. So Jessica Campbell: where Ozempic comes in is that it’s, again, one of the a tool. Mm-Hmm. That’s sometimes is not used appropriately. we all hope we all hope that the tool will be useful. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, and I thank you for that reminder because it doesn’t have to be this or that it could be this and that and I think that it’s important to use it as one of like, you know, as part of your toolkit. I want to go back to you know, something you had said earlier, which is talking about, you know, like, Healthy weight and loving your body and listening to your body. [00:21:00] And I, I don’t know if you’ve heard this. There’s been lots of things on TikTok about Bridgerton. The actress, Nicola. I don’t watch Bridgerton. But I know people that do. Oh, yes. So, so there’s this gorgeous, beautiful actress. And you know, she would be what people consider on the plus size and she is very popular and has this starring role and people are ruthless. And there was an article in the spectacular or whatever that article was. And they were just so harshwhy are people so harsh about weight? I have a theory, but I’m interested in what your thoughts on are in terms of like, It’s just like what gives people the right she’s doing her job. She’s doing her best. She’s doing fantastic because she’s got a leading role in this Bridgerton. So, and she’s gorgeous. So like, what’s the beef? I don’t get it. Jessica Campbell: So in my theory would be that it’s not about Nicola at all. It’s about [00:22:00] us as a society. and I do want to bring back a little bit of a humble pie here in terms of me. I used to be able to, you know, things like that would trigger me to why? Because if they’re mirrors, they’re mirrors of what we are and what imperfections we find in ourselves, we, we tend to be very critical of. So. So, yes, so you don’t want to see a heavy set woman get a completely handsome, rich guy. It’s a fallacy, right? You know, the first perception you get is, well, that’s ridiculous. people attract similar attractive people, which is completely. And absolutely ridiculous to say and to believe, but yet we believe it as a society. And and why? Because we do see [00:23:00] our imperfections acutely. We just hope that the rest of us don’t see it as, as much and we like to pretend that it does. But interestingly enough, other people have more insight into ourselves than some of us do. So therefore I would. I have to say it’s never about the actress. It’s about us and how we handle things that do not make sense in our brain. Gissele Taraba: I completely agree with you. It’s a rejection of ourselves because it’s like, no, it has to be the perfect girl with the perfect nose, with the perfect outfit, with the perfect body that gets the perfect guy. It’s because we reject ourselves. Jessica Campbell: I have to tell you, I have to tell you as a person that has been dating, looks will only get you. Maybe four or five dates Gissele Taraba: At the end of the day, connection has to be two like minds you know, understanding that there’s compatibility. Jessica Campbell: Ability and [00:24:00] understanding, and the other,person has to match you in interest.Going back to weight loss and how we deal with each other is the fact that we really undervalue connection, Gissele Taraba: which is why we’re in the state we’re in as a society. And I think that’s the issue too, is that we are so worried about our physicality. We don’t have healthy examples of aging. Jessica Campbell: Yes. But can I, can I? Absolutely. But I do have to tell you one thing about about, about that is that physicality, our calling card, you can say what you will and I agree with you Yeah. Is that it’s a lot of misguided interpretations on how a person should look at every age. Gissele Taraba: Mm. Jessica Campbell: But we need to. We need to come to an understanding that our presentation is our calling card, [00:25:00] evil or not evil. So understanding that that is our calling card is very, very important. Not to say that we must. Aligned to it, but we must be understanding of it because it because it’s because it’s not because you want to look a certain way is because you want to understand that it’s because everyone will bring. Hate into whatever someone can say, you could be saying something very important and someone would say, Oh, you have crooked, crooked, like I wouldn’t be talking So, because you know that that’s your calling card, and that that’s what they’re seeing you could say, Thank you very much for your thoughts. And concerns my teeth are are what I like about me. Too bad. So sad. I’ll see you. I’ll [00:26:00] see you. But, but, you know, did you hear the message? No, now you can feel that and not answer, but being in that frame of mind that you understand that your image is your calling card, regardless of how you feel about it. It’s the beginnings of an understanding that you will receive hate, you will be at the bottom of the barrel, and you will still be okay. Gissele Taraba: And I think that goes to what you were saying about life being a mirror, right? Like, You know, I think there are times when I feel most insecure about things that that life that mirrors back that I would get comments, right. But to be honest, I’ve never gotten comments, but I’ve gotten comments about my nose because I was very insecure about my nose. And so people would call it the witch nose and all of that stuff. But as soon as I started actually really loving my nose and saying, you know what, my nose is unique. My teeth are unique. That’s just what it is. I don’t get those comments anymore. And even if I did, I would laugh my ass off because [00:27:00] it’s hilarious. But, but it really doesn’t. And so it has no power over me. I don’t need to give it power. I don’t need to feed that. And so it does give us an opportunity, like you say, to really step up into our own power, but it is interesting how much. We, how we have a specific perspective on, like you said earlier, how people, these particular people should follow these particular people, because the truth of the matter is, when you look at human beings, we come in all different shapes and sizes and colors. And it’s like a beautiful garden, right? It’s like, imagine if the gardens were just always roses and they’re all look the same, that would be so boring, but there’s so much diversity. And instead of celebrating that we’re trying to make everything the same and assimilate and people have the same noses and people have the same looks. And so. And to me, that’s the weight thing has to do with that as well. One of the people I follow regardless of what people think about celebrity, I’m not a big [00:28:00] celebrity follower, but I do like Lizzo and I think she’s gorgeous and I love that she is providing Outfits that are like different size. Cause that was always an issue in terms of like, and the clothing is beautiful. And so, yeah, you are providing for a market, you know, just because you’re a plus size person doesn’t mean you have to wear a mumu and so to be able to see beauty and all these different sizes and also people that are very small and, and like, very, very thin And so being able to to express your own creativity and beauty and honor it in different ways without having to sort of fit into a mold, I think, is really important. Jessica Campbell: Oh, I quite agree. NowThere’s two, things that I think about when I think about the subject, she is also going through a weight loss journey is that a lot of people underestimate the transition you and the transition you, it’s actually a lot more than the present you. Because [00:29:00] we all transition. I do want to voice something about. the BMI, which is the basal mass index. I think that’s what it is. It’s, it’s a unit that it’s been vilified a lot. Why? Because it’s not discriminative between bone muscle or fat. The reason why I bring this up is because of this. It’s a useful tool, another tool to assess the risk of, of chronic disease. While you said You know everybody, no matter what their body is beautiful, what I hope to accomplish with my YouTube channel is to bring insight into saying, while we are, we, we have that our bodies are so wonderful that it can absorb an amount of [00:30:00] Of weight. The problem is, is that we don’t know what five pounds will set you to towards chronic disease. So, for example, if we have a beautiful 20 year old girl that has 2030 pounds, and she’s still active living her best life and her and her blood work is pristine. We don’t have to worry about her. Really? I mean, you know, there might be a. Point in her 50s when we might have to if she if she continues to gain, but what we what we are looking there is how do we keep it in in the align to where we are keeping chronic disease at bay, which is what I’m a huge advocate about In the end game in my YouTube channel is to make people understand that these chronic diseases are fixable, they’re reversible, but it takes [00:31:00] you to do it to help us. Care health care providers in order for us to be able to move as a society towards better health, because our health care inherently is not going very, very well. The latest paper that came out out of the Ford government you know, it’s that we’re going to be losing a lot of nurses PSW. So, in order for us to contribute individually is that we need to observe our own health. We need to self care. Gissele Taraba: And I, and I think that’s so important because I think something from my perspective about health care is the lack of holistic perspectives, right? Like, other than physicality and symptom management, the whole being. Including spiritual, including like all of the other parts is not just kind of serially and separately. Jessica Campbell: Yeah, absolutely. And I have to add that, you know I think that [00:32:00] the observable. It’s always very easy to capture and monetize. What is not, what is not so easy is the subjective. How do we capture mental health? If it’s not quantifiable. If we’re not, if we cannot put it in paper, we’re not going to fund it. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, that’s why it’s up to us to take care of our own health. Yeah. I wanted to go back to the issue of BMI because I think one of the things that I have observed with this younger generation and through TikTok and all of those is the, The focus on weight you have very thin people really like, like people that are putting potentially themselves at risk, having food restrictions, eating disorders. And so the prevalence of that among young people as a way to maybe some could have control over their lives, maybe address whatever issues. Or whatever might be happening for them. I think [00:33:00] there is that definite worry about things such as BMI on young people and whether or not that’s an appropriate measure for them as they grow and mature and need calories to menstruate, especially for women, What are your thoughts on that? Jessica Campbell: Yes, I actually agree in terms of how it should be approached with young people. I don’t feel that I should, for example, say to my boys well, your BMI is this. What I would say is as a healthcare provider, I would, I would have it as a useful tool because in the hierarchy, I have more education about the matter. I’m not, not that I’m more intelligent. I’m 50. I’m also a nurse. This child is a child. They should observe. serve things that they understand in the world that they’re with. Being a little delulu in every aspect of our lives is always good as well. So what I’m trying to say is that while as a healthcare provider, [00:34:00] I would observe that and I would suggest diets and tools to ensure that I am observing some quantitative movement towards weight loss. I wouldn’t share the BMI with younger people. Why? Because it’s not you. Useful, you will, you will need to have extra education. You will need to know where the flaws are. one of the things that I’ve learned from my weight loss is that when you, first of all, I have an ED, it’s binge, it’s, it’s binging restricting. That was, that was me. And, and that I found out when I was on my journey with, with therapy. And hence why I lost the original 2030 pounds without applying anything of any, any changes in my life. Why? So dealing with therapy, what I was doing with food,  and [00:35:00] how I engaged into weight loss fully. Or rather in in increments, because for me, it wasn’t a one situation. It was let’s deal with this. Let’s have these handicaps. Let’s deal with this. Let’s have this handicaps, meaning that I would have 1 day where I would eat whatever I enjoyed. That has become less and less and less dependent on it. Because while I still have my diagnosis. Or what my problems are. Those don’t necessarily go away sometimes I deal with that, but they become less and less, I would, you know, what, once I used to have it every 2 days, 5 years later, I have it every 6 months, maybe once a year. Does that make sense? Yeah. So, one of the things that I do want to point out is. I did not want to buy another eating disorder and that was my non [00:36:00] negotiable my non negotiable with this weight loss and why it’s taken me five years to lose 100 pounds is because I, I had two provisos. The proviso one was, I did not, I, if I’m going to do this, I am going to not buy another ed. I am going to be okay going to a restaurant, engaging in conversation and not worry about what I’m eating. And then not fret for the next five days. And I’m not going to restrict or do anything that will cause me harm. If I’m healing I’m healing. warts and all. The second proviso was, I was going to completely be open eyed about what was going on in my life. And that actually began with me [00:37:00] sitting for three days. And honestly recording everything I was having to eat again, warts and all. Because I gave me insight into how much nutrition I actually intake. And I think that it’s important to note because a lot of. People start with the calculator online. They say there’s 2000 calories you need to. I, in my humble opinion, that’s not where you should be starting. You should be starting on how much your body takes realistically and reduced gently from that observation. Because what that will do is will give you insight into how much intake you really do, and it doesn’t restrict you as much as you think you do. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, and I think those strategies make it more doable as you change your identity, right? And, you know, throughout this conversation, you’ve been saying some key things. And in particular talking about observing and being very [00:38:00] curious. And for me, that’s really kind of the beginning or the essence of compassion. How has compassion helped you in your weight loss journey? Jessica Campbell: Compassion has had a lot to do with it. Self compassion is more important than anything else. I began to say, to say to myself, I forgive you. not only that, not looking at things in a victim hood way, meaning that I would be gone to look at people as the limited humans that they are, and that they’re doing the best they can. And the default, whether it was true or not, is that because they’re doing the best they can, they’re not doing it maliciously. Because when I began my mornings saying you are absolutely beautiful. People don’t have as much [00:39:00] malice as you think they do. They’re not doing this to hurt you. They’re doing it for their own, their own situation, which you’re not privy and it’s none of your business. I would date a guy. He, if, if he was cheating, not cheating, seeing other girls, I wasn’t concerned. Why? That’s their journey. Not mine. Do I like them? Not really. Well, not second date. it’s not a long division. I started compassion to myself, compassion to others, treating them, giving them the benefit of the doubt in terms of, I’m not going to try to control what I have no Control over not insight into it. I have no insight into aside from what they tell me, or what other people tell you, or how they behave. You have no other insight into the intricacy. So, it’s a whole new world. I have My own [00:40:00] problems to deal with, right? So having compassion towards myself was mostly a non negotiable having compassion to others was the second thing in terms of accepting them as they were bringing their stuff to the table. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, yeah, and what you said is so powerful. Jessica Campbell: was going to say that you know, you mentioned sort of radical honesty and I think for me compassion helped me do that and really take a look at my life and really understand where I needed to change. Gissele Taraba: And that actually helped me realize I did have a eating disorder, except mine was to control food. Like, I just, I would eat very little just because when I was at the time, it was the only thing that I could control. And so Going back and realizing and say, Yeah, but we’re from a place of non judgment, right? And going, Oh, yeah, that was that. Oh, that’s weird. No, I guess I was doing the best I could in that moment. and you start to really become radically honest with [00:41:00] yourself and really take a look at that. bag of stuff. I had actually put on TikTok. I was doing when I, when I, in this process of becoming really radically honest with myself, I started to, whenever I had pain in my body, really just sitting with it and saying, I’m here for you. I’m not afraid. like diving deep in it and then things would come out like vocalizations or like silent screaming like it’s weird but afterwards you feel like you’ve released that pent up energy and so but that only came from really being honest with myself about where I was and I think that’s where compassion plays a really really big role. Jessica Campbell: Yes and I would actually add that That that’s where exercise comes in and meditation and self reflection what I started to say to do in terms of exercise, it was just exercise. But then as I continued my journey, it was [00:42:00] more of a negotiation of how to approach a painful situation and how to live through it. You know, when youLifting weights when you are actually running and you meet that threshold of I can no longer do anything. I cannot continue. And then you move past that and say, you actually do, you can continue. It’s actually a small example of how you can deal with stress. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, Jessica Campbell: and even when, for example, my arm right now is it’s it’s hurt and I get up every morning and I, I don’t do much. I just observed that that I’m supposed to be working out and I move gently and try to increase my range of motion because I am now going back to 3 years ago when I couldn’t move this arm. But that’s okay. Because you go through this, phases of going backwards, coming back, [00:43:00] going backwards, coming back, and you have to be there has to be surrender to the fact that that will continue. And I think that as humans, we are so used to the comfortable. We’re so used to the, the, the. Observing you know, how do I deal with in crisis? 1 of the things that I will always remember is that I heard someone says. said to me you’re doing the best you can with, you know, you’re doing the best you can in crisis and whatnot. And you’re dealing with it. The fact that you’re over drinking, that’s okay because you’re going through a lot. One of the things that I had to do in order to, when I was doing through therapy, I had to get rid of that mantra. I had to get rid of that mantra and say, and say to myself, I am thriving. Despite what is happening, I am [00:44:00] going to engage in meditation, even though my master’s is going up burning in hell in a shit show doing right. You know, work is not so good. My marriage is falling and things like that. I had to say. Okay. I need to, I need to be okay. I need to show up. How do you turn is you don’t turn things around by just dealing and managing with food and with drinking and with numbing yourself. You manage showing yourself up because when I was at work and I wasn’t doing so well and my boss helped me through it. I have to tell you my company is absolutely amazing in terms of that compassionate piece is that, you know, it’s, It’s because they showed up for me, I show up for it. And so I’m here. How do I turn things around. You have to look at it. You have to look at the ugly you cannot push away the [00:45:00] ugly, and then say to yourself, I am going to survive and actually thrive through this. Now, interestingly enough. I think that is a very important to note. That’s how I observed my labs and my numbers is that I had all these numbers, you know, my blood pressure, my pulse, my I was pre diabetic, cholesterol was extremely high, all these numbers that I had in my blood work. I had, I said to my doctor, and it wasn’t my doctor. He’s like, well, let’s do this in six months. I was like, no, well, I’ll be here three months. How do we fix this situation? And approaching each and every month, every number, like it was a situation. So not, not being blind by it. But facing it to, to. Facing it in front and say here. Hello elephant. You and I are going to [00:46:00] have to be very well acquainted because you’re going away Gissele Taraba: and I think that’s where the the importance of making and you mentioned this before making your vision a non negotiable. And as well in, in holding onto your vision and being, like you said, a little delulu, right, which is kind of this tick tock trend of like, okay, I, and it’s not about ignoring your circumstances. People think that it’s, Oh, you’re being in denial. If you’re trying to manifest health or trying to manifest abundance or trying to manifest, no, no, it’s actually facing it and realizing it has no power over you that you choose your health. You choose your abundance. You choose to succeed. You choose. As a non negotiable, and you’re willing to look at your life and say, okay, I’m going to take ownership of this. Yes. These are my numbers. Just because this is this in this moment doesn’t mean it’s going to be in the next moment or tomorrow or whatever. And I think that’s what you’re talking about is being able to sit with that and say, okay, I’m not losing vision. My vision is non [00:47:00] negotiable. But how do I work with what I’m where I am right now? So meeting yourself where you’re at. And I think that’s the ultimate essence of compassion, is it not? Yeah. Jessica Campbell: I agree, I agree, because you can absorb health despite diagnosis, what it can do, it can just give you perspective into the things that you can, you can change you like your diet, you can start gently exercise, you can observe a different life to preserve your function, because function and diagnosis are 2 different animals, which we actually always. Equal them Gissele Taraba: on found. Yeah. Yeah. Jessica Campbell: And then all of a sudden we’re, we’re, you know, terrible. We, we really we need to, we need to, we’re all we’re living with is to elongate life when we really should be focus is how do we best, how do we live our best, best life, despite our diagnosis. Gissele Taraba: one of the things I noticed is that you mentioned movement several times. And I just want to point out how important that is. I take qigong. [00:48:00] And one of the things my qigong teacher says is like movement enables you to flow the qi and that’s what creates longevity. But I’ve been really reflecting on the school system because, as you know, I’m writing my second book and and I realized just how much we teach children to sit down to stay stagnant and they have like little pockets of times when they go out and play, but sit down and then we expect adults to be. moving around. But when you look at very young children, they’re constantly moving. It’s like they got bugs in their bodies, right? But when you look at adults, like they’re constantly just sitting. And so, but we’ve been conditioned to that. We’re not conditioned as young kids to allow our movement. Jessica Campbell: And so there’s two issues with our obesity crisis and the ownership of the self. Right. We, Why is it so hard for all of us to observe observe, you know being an owner is, is a, because we have like a lot of convenience [00:49:00] and everything’s triggered towards us moving less and less and less from our jobs to the fact that the grocery store is not, it’s not an achievable way to, to walk and come back. We always look for convenience. And the more remote the places, like, for example, Cusco, when I was in Cusco, 70, 80 year olds used to climb up. Mountain supply mountains, they have no choice. Right? That’s that’s their life. They don’t have a car. There’s a car. It’s not useful there. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, Jessica Campbell: it’s a, you, you got to get out and walk is more convenient because humans are are always, always going to buy convenience and the places like the US and Canada are more driven into being more convenient using cars. Gissele Taraba: Because geographically, they’re so far away, right? The geography in Canada is like. Jessica Campbell: Exactly. So how do we, change that mentality or [00:50:00] how do we engage into movement?Anything from health to even the practical of getting up from a chair requires muscles, requires your, your bones being supported, but the assisting muscles. So from your Or core to your arms. It all require an amount of muscle that we do lose by tendency as we grow older. Therefore, that’s why we have 60, 70 year olds using walkers and things like that. And some actually, some 70 year olds do not need any of that. Why? Because they have more muscle and that’s they made Gissele Taraba: they made muscle loss. They’re non negotiable. They’re like, I’m not going to lose muscle. Jessica Campbell: Well, that is my non negotiable. But having said that. That is the inherent thing that I do stress is that movement and that we shouldn’t be at 50 year old moving the way we are moving. We should be requiring you [00:51:00] know, in this, I say, in the most compassionate way, I think that is important to note that. A lot of, you know, friends and family say, Oh, you look a lot younger than what you are because of the way I move and things like that. But I have to say that I think. That I want to invite everyone to consider that maybe this is what a 50 year old look should look like, or looks like inherently. And then maybe we should all strive to be able to in our 60s, in our 70s, in our 80s to engage in our life, however, they look like is, is it unreasonable for our in our 70s to go on a bike ride with a loved one to, to, to actually have that idealized retired. Instead of being hospital to hospital to hospital appointment. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, you know, Jessica Campbell: how do I, and I think that maybe that’s [00:52:00] an invitation to everyone. How do you help me sell the idea of us, senior people coming into seniors, how do we sell each other into the idea of idealized retirement. Gissele Taraba: I had a guest on my show and she she was in her sixties when she started, she does something called aerial Zen. She does pole dancing and she’s a 15 time. She is now in her seventies, 15 time world winner. Pole dancer. She started in her sixties. And so that was the same conversation we had together, which is like, we need to redefine what it means to age like you and I have heard our parents and our uncles and loved ones say, Oh, you know, never get old. It sucks. It’s bad. You know, like everything hurts. And this is all just incantations. These are things we’re agreeing to. [00:53:00] Like you said, these have to be non negotiable. Perfect health is my non negotiable. Aging well is my non negotiable. Abundance is my non negotiable. So it’s all of those things and you get to dictate regardless of where you are in that moment. And I think that’s the point you’re trying to make which is like regardless of where you are. I have two more questions. The first one being what is your definition of unconditional love? I’m asking all of my guests. Jessica Campbell: My definition of unconditional love for me is to be present. With the person that I am interacting with and actually listening, not not for the, not for the point of me answering, but for the point of me. Engaging and being present for that person and. For me to bring insight in order to collaborate. [00:54:00] And to engage. In interaction that is very, very much a collaboration. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, Jessica Campbell: so I don’t have to give people anything. I only have to give them my time and my attention and my presence. And I find that that is my definition of unconditional loving someone. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, beautifully said, like bearing witness. And you know, like we’ll probably leave this for another episode, but in terms of compassionate nursing, I know that I feel that you’re a very, very compassionate nurse who is able to do that for people Jessica Campbell: Yeah. So where can people find you? Where, what is your YouTube link? What’s your Tik TOK page? Where do you have a website? Like where can people come and check you out or work with you or whatever? I do have a Tik TOK. It’s called Jesse with a Y. Jesse I think it’s 1970. Three, but my tick tock by my tick tock [00:55:00] secondary. I like to do that as as a thing. I think that by the biggest thing that I do do is my YouTube channel, which is JessicaRN I am on Facebook under the same name and Instagram as well. Just to give. People snippets of what the videos that I’m going to be doing that week. Because if they find it interesting I like to engage in those types of conversations where we can front find a better way to engage in free, very accessible weight loss. Examples, because one of the things that I do, I do see is how expensive. Weight loss. Can be, and I, and I feel that weight loss movement. Should be accessible for everyone. I think that’s like the nursing me in fact that, you know, you want to have everyone have access to [00:56:00] some sort of health journey or health increase or, or, or, you know, within their own comfortable positions because weight loss is unique. You will not lose weight the same way I do just just because I do not eat the same. I don’t have the same values and beliefs you do, and I also don’t prize the same foods you do. For example, for me you know Pollo a la Brasa wouldn’t mean nothing to you, but for me, it gives me joy, comfort, so much so that I would make it in order for me to, it’s not just about me eating that. It’s soothing, it’s reminding Gissele Taraba: you. Jessica Campbell: Remembering. Yes, exactly. So, so therefore. Examples of how I eat should not be your way of eating. Gissele Taraba: You just reminded me of a story you know, [00:57:00] David likes to cook. And I had asked him to make a particular Peruvian dish. I can’t remember what it is. And he likes to make it fusion, you know, adds different things. And I got, I got a little bit upset and I was like, well, this doesn’t taste exactly like my. Okay. And he’s like, well, but you know what? We’re just making it a little different. That’s okay. And I got really frustrated. And then I didn’t really think with myself and I’m like, okay, what’s really going on? Just like, first of all, be grateful. Somebody made your dinner. Number two. Like, why are you holding on so tightly to it being done a specific way? And what I really discovered was that, that desire to feel that sense of home, that desire to feel that sense of connectedness to my childhood and to Peru and to the food we used to eat. And so that it’s that history and that remembering and once I was able to realize that that there, and I realized that there are other ways to connect, not necessarily just through that. Particular food. [00:58:00] I was able to release it. And the next time I made it, I actually made the food that time. I made it a little fusion. It was so good. Yeah. So thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been definitely an enlightening conversation. I’d love to have you back to talk maybe about compassion and nursing. And thank you for everyone who tuned in to the love and compassion podcast, which is now in 44 countries. Thank you so, so much and please join us for another episode soon. Have a wonderful day. Bye. All right.

Transcript Gissele: [00:00:00]  Hello and welcome to the love and compassion podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Don’t forget to like subscribe for more amazing content today. We’ll be talking about how mindfulness can actually positively impact a culture. I’ll be speaking to Ashley Williams voted top 40 under 40 by styled weekly enrichments, magazines, daring women of 2018. Ashley is a certified yoga specialist. A creator of mindfulness plus movement, RVA implementing therapeutic interventions, programs and professional development training that combines social emotional learning, mindfulness and movement. She’s also founder of bare soul yoga and wellness in Richmond, Virginia, intentionally created to make yoga and wellness accessible to the black community, but welcomes all communities. Please join me in welcoming [00:01:00] Ashley. Hi, Ashley. Hi Ashley: Giselle. How are you? I am well. it’s, it’s, So beautiful outside. I’ve been like bird watching as I like move from one place to the next and like all the different environments So I’m excited to like sit down in this moment and just take in taking this conversation and the house that I’m sitting in. Gissele: Beautiful, beautiful. And I think that goes to show like about the embodiment. So you not only teach the stuff you live it, right? Can you tell the audience a little bit about how it is that you got started in this work? Ashley: Yeah. So my mindfulness journey, or I would dare to say, my, my love for being present in the moment and all the ways that one may maybe lead to it started for me in 2000 and 12, when I. Really just kind of within a big transition of my life from, you know, collegiate life [00:02:00] to work, professional work life to moving new locations and really experiencing a lot of the transitions and the feelings and the sensations that came with transition. So moving in the ebbs and flows of daily life, moving in and out of feelings of like anxiousness, but then also moving in and out of feelings of connection and disconnection. And I ended up having. A loss that of one of my aunts that was really dear to me. And on top of all of the sensations that were coming from the transitions that was another transition that really that created a lot of disconnection and a lot of heavy emotion. And so I found myself first at a yoga studio and in a class and moving my body. And I just remember feeling that. Moment of connection with all of the sensations that I was experiencing. So all of the. The, the pain that I was experiencing, the sorrow, [00:03:00] a lot of the loss and the grief that I was experiencing I had a moment to actually feel it because for a moment I had withdrawn from it. And that was also not a good feeling. And there was something about being present in the moment with my body. With my mind with the emotions of my heart that kept me coming back and from then it went from, you know, that, that yoga asana, that movement based practice to really diving deep into the study and the science of mindfulness. And understanding, you know, MBSR, so Mindful Based Stress Reduction, and literally practicing it every day in my world. From the brushing of my teeth to the sipping of my coffee to mindful communication when I was around others. And then from there, honestly, it’s just really snowballed into. Wanting to know more and getting curious about myself through the practices, wanting to dive deep and study the practices, wanting to then [00:04:00] share the practices and also not just, you know, the formal practices, but then also the benefits of, of being in relationship with these, like with the science, but then with this also way of living in a way that had been benefiting me so much. Gissele: Yes. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I think being present with our difficult emotions is so important for healing, right? But often we don’t do it because it feels so uncomfortable. What helped you get through some of those uncomfortable feelings? Ashley: Yeah, the practice itself, you know, so the definition that I, when people are like, what’s mindfulness or, you know how do you practice it? And, you know, the simple definition that I always land on is, you know, it’s simply paying attention to the moment that’s at hand. It’s the paying attention up to the presence and with an attitude of compassion, with an attitude. Of non judgment with an [00:05:00] attitude of acceptance and acknowledgment. And so that active practice of really checking in with myself, like, what’s going on with my body right now? You know, how. How’s it feeling in this moment? How’s it responding to my environment? What’s happening in my environment, my environment right now? Like who’s, who’s around me? What do I see? You know how does what I see affect me? What do I hear? How is my body responding to that? And you know, there’s those moments of check in to just like pay attention that have really allowed me to move through uncomfortable moments. Specifically, when you bring in like the non judgment and like the acceptance of them. I always like to say that, you know, stress, which can be synonymous with tension or pressure or disconnection disease, like that’s the gray matter between like what one may think should [00:06:00] be happening versus like reality. So like what is actually happening. And so I have found that my most uncomfortable. Moments are moments in which my mind has conceived or thought something completely different should be happening than what’s actually happening in reality. that point of awareness for me has been a game changer to how I get through them because then I can ask myself the question, like, okay, what am I trying to change about this moment? Or like, what part of this moment don’t I want to feel right now? Because I feel like I should feel completely different. And that can even be with like pleasant emotions, you know, like in moments of celebration, it’s like, Oh my gosh, like, It’s sometimes uncomfortable if, you know, a lot of tensions on you and you’re celebrating and you’re like, oh, I just want to go sit in the background, right? That’s very much uncomfortable. And so being in the practice of acceptance without any judgment has been a game [00:07:00] changer and, and returning back and back to it over and over again. And in the moments when I feel uncomfortable, Gissele: I love that and I completely resonated with your answer. We call it allowance. Like can we just allow anything that is experiencing in the moment? And it occurred to me as you were talking that I felt having that presence with yourself, like that having showing up for yourself in a way that honors every aspect of yourself, I think leads to extraordinary things because you’re, you’re being there for yourself. It’s a, it’s a form of love. It’s a form of being fully present with the being that you are in everything that you’re experiencing. And so I really felt that as you were talking. So I thank you for that. Ashley: Yeah, of course. One of my values has been like maintain constant love. It’s it’s It’s an ode to my aunt’s life. And you know, what, what started me on the journey. And so I always have to ask, like, how can I show myself the most love? How can I be constant in love? How can I allow what’s [00:08:00] happening and still be in in a space of love, whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant, and then also extending that to those. Both people and places and people around me. So love is definitely at the root and at the core of even why I continue to stay in this practice of being present. Gissele: Yeah. I, I completely agree. You know, I, I remember at one point in my journey, I remember asking myself, can I love everything in everyone? Can I, can I love everything that I’m experiencing? Can I find love for it? And can I find love in that, that source or that, that God in other people? And sometimes it’s a struggle, but there’s, there’s a willingness and that really is what keeps me moving forward and trying to understand the whole concept of love. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about your involvement with the mindfulness movement in the school system? Can you talk a little bit about how you got started in some of the, maybe some of the outcomes [00:09:00] you might’ve seen in terms of mindfulness in the schools? . Ashley: Yeah. I think one thing’s important is to as I start out really going back to that definition of, you know, mindfulness being present in the moment, right? And, and bringing in compassion, right? Mm-Hmm. and bringing in non-judgment and acceptance and have you mentioned allowance. And so that’s really been the premise of a lot of my work when it comes into the schools. And so I began. And at the very early of my career, when I was working on a lot of mental health and behavioral health settings with youth and young adults, and at the time when I was finding the practice, I was also working with other individuals that. We’re experiencing varying situations in their environments might have also experienced a lot of of the symptoms that come from having some type of mental health diagnoses or behavioral health change. And so when we think about being present right with those that can be a challenge depending on what it is and the supports [00:10:00] in which one have. And so when I was going through my own transition and found the practice. I got really curious about what it looks like to then teach and educate and create space to be in some of the practices that I was learning within the environments that I was working in. So it kind of happened very much at the same time of my own self discovery and my own journey. And so I was really curious about more specific how to use these practices and environments that we know that there have been experiences that have led to trauma. And so went in, did a lot of studying just around, like diving deep into trauma, the effects of what trauma looks like in the body, the effects of what trauma might look like in environments, the responses that someone that might have experienced in the past. Certain types of trauma from from grief and loss from neglect or abuse from even like poverty and low socioeconomic statuses and the facts that, [00:11:00] you know, our social determinants really have in our health. And so as I studied those, I, you know, the one thing that really that really lit me up and ignited me to really want to advocate for these practices within institutions like schools and hospitals or youth and adult programs were the simple fact that a lot of the solutions were met with pharmaceuticals. And you know, one thing that I think our practice, if we dive really deep into it, being mindful is all about knowing who we are. And there are certain things that I think can also be barriers to that. There’s some things that can be supplemented, that can supplement our identity and our experience. And there’s some things that can actually be barriers and not allow us to really even connect. And so I got really curious of. Two things what it looks like to teach these skills that in which we hold that we can learn as humans as an individuals and we can strengthen them and they come from within with practice. And it invites us to return back to ourselves, right? And [00:12:00] so versus you know, what does it look like to, to rely or to be in usage of a substance, whether it’s a pharmaceutical, or maybe even another another substance or drug. And so. Got really curious about that and wanted to figure out ways to really introduce it. And so I started practicing in the environments that I worked with and using group classes and, you know, small, like small tutorials teaching people about like their senses. But I think the one thing that really kind of ignited me was the way that there was also a curiosity from other people, right, like more specifically for my experiences, you know, as a black woman working in predominantly black environments are predominantly like environments initially starting out at the very beginning, you might care about 10 years ago, but working in environments in which. Proximity to education around holistic practices or contemplative practices. We’re not ones that were at the forefront, right? So creating space to reduce that disparity of education [00:13:00] around mindfulness or contemplative practices really lit me up. And so, started teaching it within the institutions that I was working within. And really at that time, really trying to advocate for it, right? So in 2012 and 2013 I guess it’s like 12 or 13 years ago, you know, there wasn’t much high level. Mindfulness practices specifically within our school systems, within our juvenile correctional centers, you might see you know, you might see more yogic philosophy practices and of course we pull our mindful practices, you know, in relationship to those, but we didn’t see kind of like a holistic model of, you know, You know, all the different ways in which mindfulness could be shared or all the different ways in which healing practices could be offered and utilized to address some of the mental behavioral health challenges that both our youth and our adults, whether they were being provided direct care or they were individuals offering the direct care.[00:14:00] So like employees or maybe even the leaders or the administrators that were than creating the spaces. For direct care to happen by caregivers and or learn professionals. And so at that time, I did a lot of power points. And I did a lot of requesting presentations. I also did a lot of like work and saying, Hey, like, just let me show you that this works. And so doing it at no cost and really meaning to make sure that it was accessible. And then over the years. I think what the practice does to is it works, it shows up. Right. So there’s so much power in the practice and people see some of the outcomes as an increased focus or a balanced A balance and emotion or regulated opportunity or improvement in self regulation within environments. Clearer communication is one that I think comes up because, you know, once [00:15:00] again, the more that you know how to express what’s happening and your bodily sensations are with your mood. There’s an increase in improved relationships and healthy relationships because there’s deeper connection and ability to, to express whether it’s creatively, verbally, non verbally. And so these are some of the things that we really started to see. And I can’t because my practice did start a lot with like yoga asana. I think one thing that’s important is that was an inlet for. Getting present with the body, Gissele: you know, Ashley: and so letting people really kind of share how they found more ease and their body. They found more mobility and spaciousness and, you know, their shoulders. They found a deeper breath and a longer exhale, which helps regulate the parasympathetic nervous system and decreased cortisol level. So There’s so many holistic factors that I think that we need to bring high level to whether we are, [00:16:00] regardless of what method we might be using to create more presence in our moment. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you. You said so many important things. The 1st, I’m going to focus on is the, it’s the over medication of children I was working in the child protection system and I was in quality assurance. So I used to actually talk to the young people. And say, how can we improve services? And they would tell me about the medications and they would tell me about how it made them feel and how they didn’t find it helpful. And there was quite a high percentage of kids that were medicated, especially for ADHD. And I was like, what’s happening? And in the end it ended up being that, People with trauma, like, it can look like ADHD because there’s so many triggers. And so I don’t know if that’s an effective way to manage people that have experienced trauma. And one of the things I loved about what you said is like once we become aware of what people’s histories are, their experiences are, will [00:17:00] become kinder, more loving, more accepting and allowing of their behavior and get more curious about it than saying, well, there’s something wrong with you. Here you go. The other thing that I felt that was really important and maybe we could dive a little bit deeper on is the. The need for acceptance of a specific program at all levels, right? So if you’re going to the school, it’s not just the kids that need the support. It’s the teachers and the principals. how does that help sort of a program become more embedded within a system? Ashley: Yeah, I think that’s key. Specifically in the school environment that I work in, but I see it replicated in a lot of the school systems is that a lot of the teachers also attended the same school district, the same school. And so you, you have. I have very shared lived experiences. I think on the opposite end of that is that, you know, you have some teachers that are within a school or leadership that’s within a school that actually have very different [00:18:00] experience than the students in which they, they have. And so I think the purpose in mentioning that is because lived experiences can be very different. Right. But the human experience is very similar. And that’s where the curiosity is meant to take place because sometimes those environments in which, you know, there’s similarity and lived experience but there’s a difference in like the age you might see our kids behavior different because it might’ve been something that you experienced or might’ve been something that you actually. Actually can resonate with or can’t resonate with and if, and if it’s your lived experience, that might not have been a very pleasant one or have been unpleasant, then. That can actually also breed heavy emotional sensation or thought. And so I think 1 thing that has been really important in working in this environment is really understanding the human experiences [00:19:00] of Both youth and adults and the structure of the school systems when we are introducing these practices that are inviting us into our present moment, meaning they’re inviting us into our emotions. They’re inviting us to our bias. They’re inviting us into the way that certain like the way that certain sensations feel in our body. And so there’s a, there’s a holistic model that I think needs to be. Kind of address and how we either deliver implement or even review what it looks like to create like a mindful school environment when we’re centering the well being because when we work with the school and this is one thing that I found in my experience is that we would work with our youth and we would have after school programming programming within the classroom. Sure. I’m teaching various skills that enhanced creative expression that, you know invited in more self regulation invited in certain certain methods that helped communicate both verbally and non verbally in a mindful [00:20:00] way. And. We would teach them, we would have this classroom, we would have this setting, and then they would go into another setting, or they might go home where these practices not, were not necessarily taught. So rather than creating a culture, right in which it could be practiced or taught, and you’re surrounded by individuals that, you know, have the same characteristics or value systems, we were just building character. And There was nowhere in the culture to then practice the character. And so for me, it felt like while we were seeing benefits in the moment, which was like kind of like instant gratification, we weren’t creating a system that really invited us to then be in practice, which we know, you know, mindfulness is a practice. Being a compassionate human as a practice, returning back to ourselves as a practice. It’s not something that you’re going to go into a 30 minute to 45 minute class. It’s taught to you. You get an opportunity to experience it and then you go back out and then you don’t necessarily see it [00:21:00] around you. And so. We felt that it was kind of sometimes doing a disservice in the long run, both for the time in which some of the professionals like the mindful instructors were going in to then offer, but then also a disservice to those that we were then sharing and building relationship with, like our students, because they didn’t, we didn’t offer that long sustainability or long term sustainability there. And so there’s that. And I think when we think about with the teachers, It kind of goes the same in the same route where if we’re then working specifically with the teachers and then they are then wanting to utilize these within their classrooms, then in the kids don’t know them that quite yet, or they don’t have the capacities and learn in all of their classrooms. You know, there’s sometimes a disconnect. And so. That is one thing that has been a priority when working within school systems is creating a whole school model where the same information that is shared with the youth is then shared with the [00:22:00] teachers, is shared with administration, and is also shared and goes home to the parents. Because. It requires practice and community to then really reap the benefits of the, the characteristics that might come from those that are in relationship within a mindfulness practice. Gissele: Yeah really well said. I completely agree with your perspective because what you’re trying to create is, is that culture is that culture of mindfulness, the culture of compassion is the, is the current program that you are involved in terms of the schools embedded within the schools, or is it something that is like project based Ashley: Yeah, there’s a couple of different ways that I think that I could really answer that question because one of the biggest challenge and when you talk about funding has been the funding of sustainable work. I think that from an institutional side, the benefits of that the practices offer could be hugely impactful. Once again, for our whole [00:23:00] school up from the students all the way up to there, our leadership administration. Dive deep into the community because there’s such a, there’s such a. Direct. Relationship between what happens in the school and what happens in the community. And so we know on paper, if there was consistent practice than that. An engagement and a focus that there could be huge benefits and huge impact on not just the lives of our students, but then the relationships that then create these ecosystems. So there’s that. And when it comes to, I think the funding for it, you know funding a lot of times comes from research funding. A lot of times comes from data that has occurred. And so historically, Mindfulness is really just, I mean, like I said, when I first started there were on my hand, like you could count on your hand how many people were really studying mindfulness and, and specifically in schools and with institutions and tying it to education. It’s just recently over, I think over the [00:24:00] past five years where we’re really seeing a lot of like research funding kind of going into. These programs to, to, to get the results. And so there’s been a lack of funding to really support sustainable programs. And, or you have to do a program that’s going to reap a certain outcome, right? So there’s some constraints there. And so for the work that I’ve. Done, I initially started 1st and foremost, like I said, just really going in and being accessible. So a lot of the programming that I offered was not at cost. And so we either did it on a donation base. Schedule in which schools could invite us in and, you know, I think one thing that I will dare say is that a lot of trust was built and moving into schools in that way. A lot of deep relationship specifically with something that people were curious about and didn’t have a lot of information about. And so that then led to, you know, some school funding that came and more specifically, I’ll dare to say it came during the COVID. The beginnings of the COVID pandemic when.[00:25:00] You know, the behavioral mental health and the social health of individuals was really a highlighted, really wanting to be addressed. And so we my organization bear soul also in the well, collective also partnered with other organizations. Maybe familiar like whole school mindfulness, which is, you know, a global organization and then other local organizations that really wanted to emphasize behavioral mental health. And so really doing a lot of partnership with them and together to create these programs within school settings. And so that has been something that has really ignited the work. I have served as a program coordinator. And a trainer of mindful based restorative practices is what we really kind of like to call them. And the work that I do a trainer for other educators and people that were volunteers. So they could then help support and build capacity for the need. And then I’ve also served as a mindfulness director, specifically under that direction of, but I mentioned whole school mindfulness. Gissele: I love how, you know, this has been like [00:26:00] community initiative, you know, like you put forth your desire to provide assistance and be of service. And then you came together as a community to, to help and to actually impact humanity positively. This is why I think that these sort of initiatives can’t be A one off or funded by governments, they have to be embedded within the schools. The school system has to be incorporating these as a core practice as a core value. It’s it’s the same with compassion. I think I think the whole system is shifting. I don’t think it’s sustainable. I don’t know about schools in the US, but I know the schools in Canada the things that they’re teaching are very outdated. the history is one sided. there’s this great dissatisfaction around the way that this school system is managed. These old systems in general seem to be collapsing. And so now I think it’s a perfect opportunity for us to really determine going back to your original comment.  Who are you? Who do you [00:27:00] want to be? Like really understanding ourselves and really understanding then what do we want to create as a collective and as a system. And I think the foundation of that is the mindfulness and the compassion. I’ve been involved in, in many ministry, government funded things, and sometimes it’s just the flavor of the day. Like, so now mindfulness is big and then they’ll put it, they’ll dump a whole bunch of money into it and then, and then they’ll move on to the next flavor. And it’s like, no, no, this is, this is important and this is something that I think should be embedded. I also think that the way that you guys are doing it, it is incorporated into the culture by teaching on all those different levels. Have you found any sort of resistance among any group in particular, or has this always been like just generalized acceptance of the program? I Ashley: Yeah, I mean the resistance definitely right and you know, you just really named it is that you know, I think or I know that the systems that we’ve had in place, they’re, they’re being outdated. They are falling. And [00:28:00] the ways that we know that is because, you know, the increase in mental health, the, the increase and like even school shootings, the increase and dissatisfaction of teachers, and Also, just kind of like the increase in lack of funding to then support the things or, you know, and I think that there’s so many things that, you know, the more that, you know, I know that I practice being present and the more that the people that are knee deep embedded in this work. I do think that. When you have more mindful individuals that are paying attention, we can see all of the things, the things that are really going well and the things that are not. And so I think that’s where the resistant comes is that right now, you know, I’ve found my resistance. And in spaces in which, you know, the systems are not working right. You know, there’s a lot of angst and within the spaces or the environment and that can be school systems that can be the government agencies that we might work with, or the ones that, you know, might have provided the [00:29:00] funding for for certain initiatives. And, you know, there’s. When we are able to highlight and or be able to name that something’s not working and state that, you know, resistance is going to come because that makes people uncomfortable. And I think that’s kind of really where we’re landing right now. And so there’s a lot that many of us are really ready for. And then also there’s a lot that our hearts just want to feel and do better. Because we are we are experiencing So much disconnection that’s been amplifying all of these things. And so at some point. it’s like, when do we actually call change? And so for me, the resistance has really come when I have had the capacity to say, like, Hey, this actually isn’t working right. Our kids grades aren’t getting better. We’re seeing an increase in fights, like and this is in the school system, but then even when we think about working with leadership, like the [00:30:00] teachers aren’t happy, right? The teachers are, their wellbeing’s not at the forefront right now, or, you know, or our parents are. You know, complaining about this or our parents actually don’t have the capacity to support the youth in this way. And, you know, and then to come in and to say, Hey, do you, can we practice this? Like, is there a way that we can come in and have some communication? Because healthy communication requires presence and it requires honesty and openness. And In those moments, you know, you there’s a lot that can be that can be brought up. And and so the resistance that I’ve really, I think, face is being able to clearly communicate what is present. Right. And then offering up a solution. Right. That is different than the way that, you know, it might have happened before, you know, it might not be a program. It might be really relationship centered. And this is how we’re going to center relationship. And, you know, that requires work and skill [00:31:00] and practice. And, and at the end of the day, it requires time. You know, and, and so finding time within a school schedule, finding time within a work schedule that one is familiar with to even come and be in practice outside of an institution is, I think, a challenge. And, you know, also one’s own self one owns self awareness. Right. And can be a huge challenge, whether it’s, you know, when I’m working in within a school environment and a student is being introduced to something, but doesn’t actually know what they need. And then you offer them a practice and they’re like, why am I doing this? Right. And, you know, over time they’re like, Oh my gosh, like, this is what I needed. And you hear the same thing with an adult, right? It’s like, you know, I just want more calm. I want more ease. I want more like compassion for myself. I want to be in better relationship. And, you know, It might take 10 times to show up [00:32:00] to be in a practice that has the opportunity to lead into that because it’s different, you know, and so there’s a lot of different reasons why resistance. can show up both institutionally, culturally, personally, and individually. And so one of my main intentions is to continue to trust the process and to continue to be present way. If, you know, my own experience and then also being curious and open and also responsible for creating space where another person might be ignited to get curious and present about their own experience. Gissele: Mm. Yeah. And I think this is how we change the world. It’s being standing within our own emotions, being mindful, being an allowance, getting curious because when we can hold space for our own difficult feelings, then we can be open. I can be open and [00:33:00] curious about you. I can be open and receptive to things as you hold space for your difficult feelings. And then we can engage in that difficult dialogue where people say things that are, you know, Triggering or hurtful or whatever, and then we can still hold space for conversation versus what we do now as a society, which is cancel one another and shut down conversation. Because, like, you said, we’re not in awareness of how we’re feeling. We’re not in awareness of what we need in that moment. And so I do believe that changing a culture is each 1 of us doing that work that work that you are helping people understand to do, which is, I think, what is important. Hopefully going to lead to the change. I wanted to circle back to what you had said, offering different, perspectives or different options in terms of what we have done before you’d mentioned how you had mindfulness in in youth justice, or is that did I hear that correctly? Or can you talk a little bit about that? Because [00:34:00] historically with these sorts of systems, they’re based on  on isolation and separation. They’re based on punishment. We want to punish. And so to come to these systems and say, why don’t we do something a little differently? Why don’t we include yoga or mindfulness or compassion based training? I think it would lead to that resistance. What sort of reception did you find when you were incorporating such practices within the youth justice system and what perhaps were some of the outcomes? Ashley: Yeah. So it’s like, so I’ll, I’ll start with the resistance that might, that came from kind of, you know, adults, like my counterparts, right. You know, I think I laugh and I can laugh and I can say this with with grace and openness is that, you know, I was the happy one, right? Like I was air quotes, the happy one or the calm one. Or the sunshine, right. But I was also working within an environment of individuals that had long hours that were working in an environment in which there were many individuals that had varying experiences of trauma, [00:35:00] right. And, and burnout and compassion fatigue, and people had big hearts. And that’s why they showed up in these environments because they cared about other people. And. There’s also fatigue and there’s exhaustion. And so I think that that’s something that’s important to name of why I completely and fully understand why resistance was there. Because if you are whether you were a guard or I call them behavioral like specialists now and you worked on varying units and you not just witnessed, but we’re in relationship and in conversation with. You know, use that, you know, basically have your rights taken away, regardless of what experience or what had led them there. You know, that’s a, that’s a limitation, right? That’s a sensation of, of grief of loss that you’re surrounded by. So I want to first and foremost name that I think the environments breed a culture, right? Simply [00:36:00] by what is present in the human experience and those moments of one that is that, that, that is heavy. Right. And I and sensational and, and, and 1 must be aware of that. And so 1 of the main resistance was, you know, just it’s not going to work. Right? Like. a little bit of sunshine and what might seem like a dark place is just not gonna work. And so, like, you’re wasting your time, like, you know, or even the judgment of of the youth that were incarcerated’s, like, experience of being there. Right. And so not finding that value that, you know, they even deserve to have improved focus or balance or ease or a calmed nervous system. So I think that was the thing you really have to see the human experience and kind of move beyond the The the judgment of the experience that might be different from yours. So I think that’s something that’s important to name. So [00:37:00] that whole perception of it’s not going to work. You know, they don’t deserve this. Or then so we don’t have enough time or they’re not going to be interested was a very heavy one. And so how I got beyond that was that I kept showing up. And, you know, of course, as young adults or teens would do anyways, you have to build relationship with them. I couldn’t come in and then teach them something completely different. I had to educate. I had to, Be in participation. I had to model being in clear communication and modeled an easeful nervous system and a tone of voice that was welcoming. I had to create a space of belonging and safety and support. I like using all of the tenants of trauma responsive practices. Right. Of empowering voice and choice and being open to, to communication and, and understanding all of the identities and creating a space of belonging for all the identities that showed up, like you have, like, those are key. And so that’s one way that I did that. But then when it came to also just, you [00:38:00] know, even the departments. And at hand are the departments that kind of really supervised the programs really needing to advocate for funding. So I think, you know, a lot of the roles in which when specifically when I worked with that. And I worked within juvenile correctional centers, you know, funding, there’s a lot of volunteer based work, which I think is helpful. And, you know, I still say to this day that I would still be there. You know, if COVID had not occurred when it did, and, you know, kind of shifted some of my availability, I would still probably be there every week offering it in that way. And then also just thinking about the sustainability of what it looks like to, to do that. And so I think funding is one way that. You know a lot of the organizations or that the department really named that they might not have had the funding to support it. Right. Or, you know, we, we don’t see the benefits of it. Right. Or, you know, or the benefits that are right now, because a lot of times the way that we, that we measure impact is, you [00:39:00] know. Job security or I, well, which is right, but we, we measure these like very tangible things like capacity to have a job or they got released and, you know, they stayed out this amount of time or even with us, right. You know, it’s that you were judged up about our capacity to be an attendant at something, right? Like, there’s markers, but a thing that it’s usually measured on something that is produced. Not necessarily something that which is then witnessed or built from a characteristic standpoint. And so I think it’s just hard to put money behind or to advocate. It’s not hard to advocate, but it’s hard to see if you’re not a part of or in practice of it or in study of it to really acknowledge the impact that it has. Gissele: Yeah, and the whole issue of, like, trying to quantify, you know, how do you quantify impact? It has to be something observable, which is why often governments will find based on outputs, not [00:40:00] outcomes. At least that has been my experience. It’s like how many people attended or, you know, like, what, what can I, what’s the low hanging fruit and what’s something that I could easily quantify rather than what is a real long term impact on this individual’s lives and sometimes it’s not as easily observable. And I think, you know, when you were talking about deservability earlier in our conversation, you were talking about, we don’t think that people deserve but, you know, as you were talking, I was reminded, I had a conversation with a friend of mine and she was mentioning how, you know, when people are in corrections, right, you’re asking them, like, you put them in that environment. Right. You put them with other people that have the same level of consciousness, energy, awareness, thoughts, and then you’re asking them to do this Herculean thing about asking them to become better people, but they’re in that same environment with those same people and treated harshly. And so. How is it that you expect them then to become loving, compassionate, like [00:41:00] law abiding citizens. So what you’re inviting them to do is to do something different to help them regulate their bodies to understand themselves so that they can understand their behavior. And that’s really what gets us to change. but again, there’s always that fear of like, they were hurtful people and therefore we’re not punishing them and therefore they’re going to be hurtful. But it’s in fact, I found it’s the other way. It’s initiative like yours that enable people to really get in touch with that humanity, get to know themselves and and. Get to focus on their own deservedness. So, yeah, so I think that’s, I think people underestimate the power of that, but sometimes our need to punish is so high. Ashley: But it comes from a place of fear, right? Like if we punish them, then maybe they won’t do it again, but looking at the recidivism literature,That doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. So like you said, if it doesn’t work, then we need to do something different. If you want a different outcome, as Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and then expecting something to [00:42:00] change. And I think that’s where we are, are right now, you know, like just, you know, as mentioning that our systems are not working. And if we think about also like the punitive systems that we have, or, you know, they’re really built, you know from places of oppression. Right. I mean, so specifically in America, right. If we just look at, you know. About like how our, how our country was founded and, you know, who is valued, who wasn’t, when did punishment come and, you know, and who received it. And so I think that’s something that’s really key to acknowledge as we, you know, observe and witness many of the systems that were, that were created here, but then also brought from other countries and or established in other countries. So I don’t think. You know, as much as I want to really focus on America, and many times if you’re in conversation with me, I focus on the conversation of the foundation of Richmond, like in, in Richmond’s high to not just the American history, but then [00:43:00] also the history. Three of our country and its involvement with the transatlantic slave trade and you know, they’re so we can really really look at a micro level or a macro level wherever our proximity is to see kind of like how we have chosen to move away from valuing and under valuing and understanding. Our humanity as a whole, but then also how we value and understand individual identity and the connection to humanity. And so I think we’re really struggling with that as a people. And so these practices. That are very ancient indigenous to us. Right. So being present, being present with ourselves as a clear direction to being in relationship. Right. And so, you know, as we think about how these systems were built, it was to keep people out of relationships with themselves. It’s to, uphold power and privilege in a way that, you know, You know, I think what right now we’re seeing the, the fall of that because we’re so far away from [00:44:00] our humanity and the way that we’re actually meant to live as humans. And so that would need to change and that’s really what that keeps me in my own practice, but then also keeps me advocating for. Creating space for all individuals in our collective to be a part of because I think the more that we find ourselves and the earlier that we start, then the better our world is going to be well. Gissele: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s one of the things that when we talk about, when we try to have those conversations about colonization, we try to have conversations about, look at what we’ve done as a humanity. And I say everyone, because we’ve all contributed through acts of omission or commission, right? Like, and if we’re experiencing it, we’ve contributed to it. And so being able to hold space for those difficult conversations without Ejecting out so managing our own shame in our own guilt with love and compassion with, with understanding and curiosity and non [00:45:00] judgment will help us then understand, okay, this is who we’ve been. Now, is this what we want to continue to be? if not this, then what? How can we then change ourselves to change humanity, to be more loving, to be more compassionate, to be more but that takes, like you said, awareness, awareness of who we’ve been. And I think, especially in Canada, there’s still, like, a huge amount of work that needs to be done about acknowledgement. There’s been that acknowledgement of what was done to Indigenous people. But not a real, a real understanding, not a real acknowledgement of like, this is who we were, and this is what we did, and this is how we’re going to move forward to not do that or be that anymore. And this is the sort of reparations and acknowledgement and things that we need to do for our indigenous brothers and sisters in order to move towards being that. And I think there’s still sort of like, yeah, yeah, it happened, but can we move on already? [00:46:00] No, we can’t move on because we haven’t changed. We have not changed. So until we are different, until we are more loving and compassionate and inclusive and don’t need to oppress our brother to lift ourselves up, we can’t stop looking at it. Right. I wanted to talk just a little bit about, you mentioned creating spaces for black individuals around making it accessible to the black community yoga. Can you talk a little bit about that? Ashley: Yeah. So as I mentioned, like I came to, you know, my yoga practice and journey in 2012, 2013, really at a time of my life of transition. And so when I was seeking you know, health, right, I was seeking myself, I was seeking ways to take care of myself. You know, I was accessing and when I found like the practice to really compliment my faith practice, right? So by trade I am christian and you know over the past [00:47:00] 12 years, you know, like really landing in that spirituality space but At that moment, when I first began, I looked around me. And when I was really trying to dive deep into the yoga practice, I didn’t see many people that looked like me, right. I would go to the gyms and I would be always only the, I would be like one, if not one of two people of color or black women and also black women. Right. So I think that’s a thing too, such as both gender and as well as racial identity. And the more that I practice and the more that I felt better, I was like, Oh my gosh, like, I want to Ensure that people that look like me also know about this practice, because, you know, between my mom and my dad and, you know, my uncles and my uncles and my, my uncles and my aunts and my cousins and my friends, you know, we were, there was stress that was present and varying way the stress does. And I was like, this could be an answer or at least a method in which, you know, we learn more about and a philosophy that we learn about. And so. That, to me, was my [00:48:00] first that was really my first desire is to really want to increase representation of that, that, you know, people of color are welcome to use this. Like, it’s an ancient indigenous practice, right? Like, and I think our society and our media has done a really good way of defining and making You know, such an ancient indigenous practice, one that, you know, comes from a lot of different places with a lot of different cultural backgrounds and relevancies and philosophies that You know, I think in America, we really, we kind of shifted what that looked like specifically during that time. I think we’ve done better. So increasing representation was key for me. Increasing opportunity to education, but then also decreasing health disparity through this practice was something That was really important to me. And so really wanting to dive deep into that. I think one thing that we learned though, and so I’m 12 years post really engaging in this [00:49:00] practice and sharing it is that when you create a space of belonging and inclusivity and welcoming a representation for really what is historically marginalized community or underrepresented, you actually create space for so many diverse identities because It comes back to that human experience, right? It’s like when you can see, you didn’t really see everything. And so the people and our students that were attracted to either practice with myself Or within the space and that was recreated, you know, then also could take that out and then create a more belonging space for the identities that showed up and then bring in even their identity. And so we are a very diverse community now. And so one thing is, my journey began with, the physical. Practices pranayama and breathing and asana and movement and stuff. And today I really am an advocate for the embodiment of the philosophies that the yoga practice teaches, but a lot of that, a lot of [00:50:00] like Yoruba practices and other cultural ancient indigenous practices offer because. You know, it, they emphasize restoration. They emphasize creativity. They emphasize freedom and liberation. They emphasize clarity and connection. They emphasize of interconnection, of self study, of presence Right now, for me, it’s really creating spaces for people to embody many of the things that we might learn to enhance our self awareness, to enhance our relationship with community, and to enhance our action, our collective action to create a better world. And so that’s what’s really landed me at the evolution of Bare Soul, which is the well collective. And really being a movement to kind of really understand that our wellbeing is foundational and we really need to call in presence and practice and community to get back to, to our humanity and in very healing ways. Gissele: Hmm. Oh, beautifully said. [00:51:00] Perfect. Perfect segue. Two more questions. The first one is what is your definition of unconditional love? Ashley: Hmm. It goes back to what I named the maintain constant loveOur human experience is. Is founded in love. Like our foundation is love. And, you know, if we can truly understand that love is an action, love comes through our speech, love comes through the way that we look or that we are it’s really an invitation to maintain constant love beyond what experience or environment or yeah, experience or environment that’s in front of us. And so, you know. Sometimes we say, like, it’s beyond condition, but even that sometimes can be a biased statement. So for me, it’s like, it’s going back to just maintaining constant love through action. And then through presence, Gissele: I love that choosing love basically, you know, like constantly choosing, [00:52:00] just choose. Oh, I love it. So tell us a little bit about your website. Where can people find you? Where can people work with you or can they find out more about you? Ashley: Yeah. So I invite you to, to be in relationship with me. You can find me at www.iamashleywilliams. com that will lead you to all of the what’s that are centered on my wise of community and connection of love and of liberation. And so I’m all things, the well collective everywhere on Instagram, on Facebook And also on the website, thewellcollective.Space you can find me in Richmond, Virginia. So whenever you are here, please come and say hello. I am creating this very beautiful and much needed center for healing and humanity through restorative practice. And when I say the well collective, anyone that believes that we all deserve to be well is invited to show up and care for themselves and then also [00:53:00] care for their neighbors. Gissele: Ooh. Love it. Love it. Check out the well center and check out Ashley’s website. Thank you Ashley so much for being on the podcast and for reminding me about just love for myself. And thank you everyone for joining us for another episode of the love and compassion podcast with Giselle. Yeah. See you soon. Bye.

Transcript Gissele Taraba: [00:00:00] So hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Don’t forget to like, and subscribe for more amazing content. Today, we’ll be chatting about the importance of mindfulness in the school system. My guest today is Ben Painter, co founder and partner at Whole School Mindfulness, which is at the forefront of integrating mindfulness into education to promote wellbeing, community, and justice. Celebrated by mindful. org as the rising voice in the field, Ben is an accomplished facilitator with over 80 days in dedicated mindfulness meditation retreats, notably at Drupadrong Monastery in Northern Nepal. Ben excels in creating engaging and safe environments that inspire growth and learning, and he is recognized for his ability to connect deeply with individuals. His [00:01:00] workshops are designed to enhance self awareness, emotional intelligence, and resiliency, equipping attendees with the skills to incorporate mindfulness into their lives and positively impact their communities. Please join me in welcoming Ben to the show. Hi, Ben. Ben Painter: Hey, how you doing? I’m Gissele Taraba: good. How are you? Thank you so much for being on the show. I’m so excited to have this chat. I was wondering if you could start by telling the audience how you got into this work. How does, how did this sort of come about? Ben Painter: Yeah, let’s see. It goes back to when I was a kid, actually. I had a couple of close family members who kind of went through it with fairly severe mental health challenges and mindfulness and meditation of different types was a part of their healing journey. It wasn’t, you know, the silver bullet that made them all better, but it was a core part of it. And so I think it was kind of in my subconscious that these things could be helpful. And [00:02:00] then I went to High school in Concord, Massachusetts called Middlesex, and they had a really amazing, innovative way of introducing mindfulness to their students where there was somebody whose job it was to do that. His title was the mindfulness director. His name is Doug Worthen. And he’s still the mindfulness director there full time. And I really just. liked him as a person and as a mentor. And so at first it was, it was kind of just like, Oh yeah, I’d heard about this mindfulness thing, knew it could be helpful. This guy, Doug seems really awesome. I want to do whatever he’s doing. So I started to get into mindfulness then and took all the classes with him. I could, and then started going on retreats as a fairly young person. And just fell in love with the practice, what it can do to your mind. And also the communities built around the practice and yeah, it’s been a core part of my life ever since. And the story of [00:03:00] how I got into this work with whole school mindfulness. And what we do is essentially we’re trying to launch other mindfulness teaching positions in schools across the U S. Was the model that was pioneered at Middlesex was successfully scaled once a few different puzzle pieces came together. There was a funder that helped kind of grease the wheels of bureaucracy at the school to get it going. There was a school who’s willing and interested in integrating mindfulness. And then there was a person who was a right fit for that community had a deep practice and the puzzle pieces kind of came together. And. The program in a school in Texas was launched and I was just graduating college. I had a first job working at this amazing organization called New Profit. And yeah, long story short, we decided to start an organization to, to try to scale this thing. Gissele Taraba: Wow, that is so, so amazing. [00:04:00] I want to start by focusing on the part that you said that you had taken it as a student. What was the impact for you when you, when you are a student going through that program? Ben Painter: Yeah, it was a very deep impact for me. I think for one, it was a. It was just a cool signal from my school that, hey, this is part of what it means to be educated here. It’s, it’s, it’s just a part of what this school wants me to know. Is these tools to help investigate your mind and relate to your own experience, process emotions, kind of get in touch with your needs so you can more effectively communicate it. So it was, it was a cool reorientation of what I thought was part of kind of a core educational experience. So that was on one hand on another hand, you know, high school I faced the normal stressors of high school experience. I was an athlete. I, you know, wanted to get into a good college and the academics were really tough [00:05:00] at my school. So just having tools to work through all that. Was just really helpful for me. And then, I would also say it really started to impact my relationships. For one, my best friend and I both were really into it. So it was kind of a medium of connection for us. And then I really think it did help me. Yeah, just, you know, I think, I think in order to be In relationship, well, friendship or romantic, you need to be in touch with your own experience. And so it helped me there. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. when I read this information about like what the goal of your organization is, I thought this was so, so pivotal. And so that’s why I reached out about having you in the show. I want to talk about the state of schools in the U S is, is it anything like in Canada? Because it’s not good. It’s not good. Yeah. Ben Painter: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely, young [00:06:00] people are having a hard time in general. Gissele Taraba: Yeah like, I don’t know about the experience in the U. S. in particular, but I know in Canada, this has kind of been a long time coming. I do think that this, this rise in frustration with the school system in terms of sometimes the punitive approaches that are used with young people. And in the way that intelligence is assessed through all these standardized tests and how people that are potentially aberrant don’t really fit into that mold. I think we’re starting to realize that a lot of the systems we created, including the education system. They just don’t, they just don’t work. And so I love that your program in the schools are focusing on mindfulness, because I don’t think we focus enough on the self. So what, can you share some of the outcomes that some of you guys have seen in implementing mindfulness into the school system? Ben Painter: Yeah, first I’ll just share, I really resonate with your, you’re just saying, and I think a core kind of reason the, you [00:07:00] know, one of the whys for me and for my team is that we do believe. An ingredient of systemic change is the change of individual hearts and minds that, you know, the, the people in the system really matter when you’re trying to change the system. And yeah, that’s the hope for us is that, you know, mindfulness works its way into schools to districts, and it’s not only the students that are benefiting, but it’s also the adults. The faculty staff, the administration, hopefully it changes the culture of the place and potentially the kind of more policy based structure of the place in time. Or, you know, is one of the factors that leads to positive change. That’s the hope. It’s not only about individuals. It’s about the collective and the, and the system. Yeah. And then in terms of how, what, what the path has been for whole school, [00:08:00] we got going five years ago. And so the timing of that was a bit hectic. We really got going right when COVID was hitting. Gissele Taraba: Made Ben Painter: it. So on one hand, COVID totally exacerbated that. And sped up the mental health crisis young people were isolated there on screens even more than they were before not getting a lot of the, their needs met when it comes to social connection and otherwise. Sorry, a bug. It’s coming. Gissele Taraba: That’s the beauty of having an outdoor interview, although it’s very beautiful there. Ben Painter: Yeah, we’ll see. If he keeps on buzzing after me, I’m going to move inside. Okay, I’m moving. So, what happened was there was, we saw increased flexibility and willingness to change. Schools and school leaders who the idea of really launching a [00:09:00] Integrated robust mindfulness program. That wouldn’t have been an option, but COVID kind of made that an option. There was a collective change to be more willing to adapt to try to meet the needs of students. We saw that happening. But on the other hand, the need increased. And innovating in schools in a time where I’m sorry for your audience. I don’t know if swearing is okay on this. Yeah, you can Gissele Taraba: go ahead. Ben Painter: You know, she was hitting the fan in schools, you know, administrators and teachers were up against so much just like the students. And so getting new programs off the ground in that time and budgets were in flux, you know, every, it was just a time of relative chaos. So in that made it harder to integrate. But that’s all this, you know, that’s all kind of background context. What we do is we launch cohorts of what we call mindfulness directors. So folks apply to us with their partner schools. So [00:10:00] typically it’s people who are already connected to a school in some way. So it’s an English teacher. It’s a math teacher. It’s a guidance counselor, a very involved parent who has a mindfulness practice. They’re into it. They know about it. And maybe there already is some momentum happening. Where they are already introducing mindfulness to their students or to their school in some way, and they hear about us and they say, Oh, my gosh, this is my dream job that I didn’t know could exist. And they apply to us with support from their school administration to become a mindfulness director and we put both the person and the partner school through a fairly robust vetting process. And if they. Kind of past that, then the school we give funding to, because, you know, it’s hard to start a new thing at a school, particularly when there’s a cost associated with it. So we, we try to act in true partnership and help get, get it going. [00:11:00] And then, and with the mindfulness director, we just try to support them a lot. In getting it going, so we bring all the mindfulness to directors together every other week to form a learning community and in that learning community, we are offering professional development on things that we think mindfulness directors got to know about. So that’s one thing we do, but I would say the more powerful thing is just getting people together and so they can talk shop so they can support each other. And so that. There can be a mental shift and dedicated time to, Hey, I’m this person who likes mindfulness, want to get some mindfulness momentum going to, Oh my gosh, I’m a mindfulness director. It’s my role to figure out how to strategically figure out how to deepen this in my school community and make the deepest impact. And so I think that’s something we do really well. And so yeah, since we’ve launched. [00:12:00] We’ve got 18 mindfulness directors out there in the country that we’ve been supporting. In general, the schools like it. They want more of it. They’re seeing the impact on the well being of their students and the community culture and the mindfulness directors really value being in the cohort as part of the experience. And we’ve had some drop off mostly due to budget cuts. But In general, the programs have sustained and look like they’re on track to be sustaining in the future. Gissele Taraba: Oh, that’s amazing. Is it only open to people in the States or is it open internationally Ben Painter: Yeah, right now we’re only working in the United States, but I hope that other organizations pop up doing a similar thing in Canada and and elsewhere. And maybe one day we’ll be in more places. We’ve. Thought about narrowing our geographic scope, even to a certain region of the United States. Right now we’re across the whole country, but [00:13:00] there’s something to be said about starting small. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Cause you like, once you expand out, sometimes you can sort of lose the original quality this is why it’s, as you mentioned, it’s so important to train people in your particular Perspectives in, in the way that you want it to carry out to ensure that the quality is maintained. Cause I think once it gets bigger, sometimes you kind of lose the vision. Why is it so important to have directors of mindfulness within the school system? Why not just have people just come in and drop and do, which is what I’ve seen. Some schools do is they come in and they have the one off where they drop off like the one person. And for this one session, why is it so important to have a director within Ben Painter: Yeah. And there are a lot of ways to get mindfulness into, into schools and each way it has its own set of pros and cons. We have a particular perspective that we think this one’s the best one, but that’s not to knock the other one too much because, you know yeah, there, there are different valid ways. There are the apps. So [00:14:00] there’s, there’s ones that I would say had the benefit of being like all tech products, very scalable relatively quickly where maybe a recording is played over the loud speaker or a teacher at the beginning of their class can kind of press play and, and settle their class a little bit with a meditation. There are the curricula based models where with some or no training, you kind of. Get teachers of other subjects to kind of teach a mini mindfulness lesson at the beginning of their class. They’re the train, the trainer models where folks will, teachers will go through a mindfulness training program to deepen their own practice, start or, and, or deepen their own practice and then introduce it to their students. And then there are the models that you’re mentioning where an outside organization will come in, lead a mindfulness workshop or a series of workshops, and then leave. And I think the benefit of having a dedicated person or the [00:15:00] benefits of having a dedicated person, Include one, they’re a member of the community. And I think that’s important. Gissele Taraba: It is. Yeah. Ben Painter: First of all, they, they, they know, and they might have a better sense of what’s going to work and what’s not going to work. And that’s one of the drawbacks of the curriculum based models is sometimes a curriculum, you know, drawn up in a boardroom in Massachusetts, just doesn’t work in Florida, or it doesn’t work. In Kentucky or California. It’s just it’s just the cultural references don’t land. It doesn’t meet the folks where they’re at. And a person who has the skills and background can figure out how to custom tailor programming while still kind of holding on to mindfulness teaching best practice, but with some tailoring to their community way that’s going to work. Second is in related to this idea of them being a member of the [00:16:00] community we’ve been doing as we’ve seen different mindfulness directors go through their work and we’ve seen what’s been more successful and less successful. One of the competencies that we believe a good mindfulness director have is, is really related to leadership and relationship building just as much as it is. You know, really clearly defining mindfulness and leading a good mindfulness session, it’s about figuring out. As almost an entrepreneur of mindfulness in a fairly complicated system, you know, who should I grab lunch with and try to make them an ally to help build and establish my program? What teachers might be game to have me drop into one of their classes? What students have social capital? And I might recruit as a mindfulness ambassador to really help grow the culture within the students. So it being a member of the community is essential for those kinds of things. Second is the [00:17:00] more time this person has. the more that they can find opportunities to offer practices to more people. So we have some mindfulness directors who are full time with a full class load because they’re figuring out, okay, this student has this drop block. At this time, I can offer a class. Then this student has this little in between time after school before sports, I’m going to offer something. Then this group of faculty right after faculty meeting has this block. I’m going to do this then. And they’re just finding the nooks and crannies where they can get as many mindfulness groups going as possible. And so there’s a real thing to just more time equals more successful mindfulness integration. And then lastly, if it’s somebody’s job and they are really working on developing themselves as a mindfulness teacher, They’re deepening their own practice, they’re attending professional development, kind of learning communities around [00:18:00] deepening their, their journey, and they have their own practice. That’s really different than putting someone through a mindfulness one on one workshop and then asking them to teach mindfulness. Like we wouldn’t do that with other things. If someone didn’t know how to swim, we wouldn’t throw them in a pool for an hour and a half and then say, okay, now go teach students how to swim. It’s just, we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t do it. For sure. Yeah, Gissele Taraba: definitely. Definitely. Yeah. I’ve Ben Painter: been yapping, so I’ll stop. Gissele Taraba: No, no, no. This has been perfect. I am in full agreement with what you said. I’ve had personal experiences in trying to implement mindfulness in an organization. This was a child welfare agency because I saw the amount of stress that. The workers were in and I had had very similar experience to what you were talking about. Number one, having that role emphasizes the priority that the organization sees it as a pivotal role within the system, rather than, oh, here’s a little class on the side that you can take or not take. And I think this is why, I mean, you had mentioned leadership, why [00:19:00] having the leadership on. On role is so important as well as understanding the culture and how to navigate, you know, like opportunities, like you said, in, in being able to promote that. What has been the feedback from leadership at all these different organizations is it a challenge to engage? Is it easier to engage or has it been sort of a mixed bag? Ben Painter: With the leadership of the schools? Gissele Taraba: Yeah, the leadership in the schools. Yeah. Ben Painter: Yeah. It’s, it’s been a mixed bag. I mean, it, one thing we’ve seen is you know, the systemic inequities that are playing out impact the ability for school leaders to have the headspace to really focus on a new initiative, even if they think it’s great. So for, for example, You know a wealthier, whiter community in general we’ve seen has more spaciousness than a more low [00:20:00] income, Gissele Taraba: predominantly Ben Painter: BIPOC community facing a lot of systemic stuff, Including gun violence and, and, and, and so getting an hour on the principal’s calendar to talk about the strategy of mindfulness integration sometimes isn’t possible in communities. Communities that are facing more systemic oppression. So yeah, it’s, it’s been a mixed bag. It’s correlated to other broader systemic themes, I’d say. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. So thank you for sharing that. That’s very important. Sorry, go ahead. Ben Painter: But I was just going to say in general you know, school leadership really cares about the wellbeing of their students and you know, they’re facing their own set of challenges that they’re trying to work through in their own set of metrics that they’re trying to improve. And yeah, the best case scenario is when we find folks who are really aligned and hold those metrics in balance with just, Hey, what What do we want to offer here as a core [00:21:00] educational component? And not just thinking about something like, you know, reducing X or improving Y score. Yeah. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Yeah. And, and so thank you for mentioning that because sometimes schools are so focused on those metrics that they kind of miss the larger picture. As you were talking, I thought it’s so interesting that what are the outcomes that I have seen from the whole mindfulness implementation is that the decrease in that punitive approach of the schools towards the students, improvement in behavior,  Including improvement in violence. And so, isn’t it’s funny how sometimes that circle, you know, you’re caught in that violence, which means you don’t have a lot of time to implement something that could potentially help with the violence. And so it’s sort of like we’re caught in that  circle struggle, if you may. And how do we support then those communities so that they can create that space to implement something that could potentially really help them get out of that. And what, where’s our responsibility in that, right? Ben Painter: I was just going to say that that’s totally a rich topic.  the [00:22:00] pitfall that I think is Good to have on a mindfulness teachers radar or a school administrators radar is, you know, the motivation for the person teaching mindfulness impacts the way they teach it and impacts the way that it will be received by the students. And one way that I think mindfulness in schools shows up in a less effective way. Or a weaponized way is when it’s a tool for classroom management. When your reason for introducing mindfulness is not, you know, to give young people these amazing tools to help them understand their minds, but rather it’s to get them to sit down and shut up and focus on the thing, you know, and, and when, when it has that energy, It’s going to feel like a control mechanism masked in the charade of well being. Gissele Taraba: Oh, I love that you said that because the energy [00:23:00] behind anything that you do is so important and the students are so perceptive. I’ve had many conversations with students and I have my own children in their ability to perceive. Intention is so, so amazing. And so they’d be able to see right through that anyways. But I think you were talking about mentioning motivation and that’s, I think, where having your own practice. Is important so that you can be really, really aware of why am I really doing this? Is this from a place of ego? Is this from a place of love? Is this from a place of openness and sharing? Or is it to be able to, I’m just having a different tool now that I’m trying to use to control behavior. One of the things that I know that I have observed within the Canadian school systems is that the punitive attempt at like the punishing, especially if there are behavior issues. And I can only imagine that things like in the States, especially, it’s probably a little bit worse there in terms of gun violence and in terms of [00:24:00] like mass shootings and so on. Have you had any experiences in terms of where mindfulness has helped? Individual sort of address some of those more difficult challenges, but from a place of compassion and from a place of love. Ben Painter: Yeah, we have, one mindfulness director is coming to mind in particular, and she is. She’s truly amazing. Maybe I’ll, I’ll see if you might want to have her as a next guest. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, that’d be great. Ben Painter: And she’s working in a community that is experiencing gun violence. And what we’ve seen is that she has really taken on a role in her community as a leader. People come to for healing and community healing in the context of a lot of hard stuff. And it’s a powerful thing to see and, and to hear about [00:25:00] a community coming together using mindfulness and other healing practices as a, as a vehicle for connection, as a vehicle for building community, as a vehicle for healing in the context of really immense struggle. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. How did the students react to the mindfulness? is there any resistance in the beginning and then sort of like an embrace or is there just kind of like, let’s go. Ben Painter: I just spent the day With one of our mindfulness directors, just following him around. And he has done a cool thing where he he’s actually a mindfulness director at the district level rather than individual school level. So he works across a few different schools and there’s one of only one of him. So he decided to start a mindfulness ambassador program where he would work with young people to support them in leading mindfulness for each other. And for younger students. And [00:26:00] so it was such a cool day. We spent a day walking around and you go from class to class, you’d come in, everyone was so excited, hand shot up in the air saying, I want to lead a mindfulness strategy. I want to lead a mindfulness strategy. And then it was really the young people steering and him acting as kind of like one, somebody who’s creating the space for that to happen and sustaining the culture where that was a cool thing to do. And students wanted to do and then coaching. The young people on leading and it was just so cool. So I think the mindfulness directors, that’s one strategy. And one thing that we’re seeing is when young people are really into it it really latches hold. And when they are seen as experts and leaders that’s a great way of building momentum. I want to see, I don’t know if I show a video, will that translate or not really. Gissele Taraba: Potentially. Yeah. Yeah. Try it out. It’s so important for young people [00:27:00] to take on those leadership roles and also I find that young people are more likely to do what other young people are saying than some adults. Like, you know, like, it’s so funny as a mom, before in the beginning, I was like, literally like their whole world. And over time, you just kind of play the back role in their friends. So it’s become really important, their peers, what’s important to them and so on. And so that’s the perfect venue for them to kind of, for you to embed a system or a process that will live beyond that director will leave beyond that person. Cause like you said, you’re changing a culture, right? So I think that’s pretty cool. I think that’s pretty cool. Ben Painter: I’ll try to share. Yeah. It’s, it’s letting me share my screen. I’ll just pull up some quotes from some of our one of our recent visits. This will be 30 seconds. Gissele Taraba: Sorry, I don’t really know how to like say this. It’s like, it’s weird being happy in my life again. [00:28:00] My favorite part about mindfulness is that the is the freedom that it gives you, you can do like anything you want. Other: But if we were to do more mindfulness in different schools, We will act more kinder, we will be more peaceful, less stressful, be more productive, and probably spend some more time with family and nature. Ben Painter: Yeah. So just a couple little quotes, Gissele Taraba: beautiful, beautiful, and you know, from the mouth of babes. Right. It’s so true. Like being able to tap into that happiness that the young girl was talking about. Because in a way, and I’m going to be totally honest in a way, I feel like school The structure conditions kids out of that joy and happiness, like it, you know, like sit down in a structured classroom, you go through all these classes, you’re not learning necessarily, at least in the public system, you’re not really learning how to focus on your joys and passions. You have like a specific structured. And so for the students to say, Oh, I can be happy again. I can tap into that joy that was always within me. I think it’s [00:29:00] pretty powerful. Ben Painter: And another, another thing is just, you know, this, this generation is up against unique conditions that no other generation has been up against before when it comes to COVID, but also when it comes to tech. Yeah. No other generation has had. Anywhere near this level of sophistication when it comes to companies and phones, really effectively using sophisticated algorithms to try to distract and nab attention and keep young people distracted and on their devices. And so I think there’s also something to be said about now more than ever having it be part of the educational experience to cultivate autonomy over your own attention. As a way to just resist the forces that are really harming young people, [00:30:00] the data is is clear and becoming more and more clear that social media in particular is just destroying young people’s mental health. And so, you know, we can. We can bank on social media being regulated, but I think also at the same time, there has to be a cultural pushback led by young people. And our system should be supporting young people in figuring out a more healthy way to relate, to relate to tech. Gissele Taraba: I’d love that. You just said that is the thing that popped into my mind is, you know, when you look at tech, tech is moving so quickly. Information moves so quickly. I don’t know if you’re on TikTok, but the information that just comes at people constantly all the time and you’re open to millions of people in all of their information and people don’t listen to the news anymore.  so the subjects that they’re teaching in school. Are pretty outdated considering it takes so long to change a curriculum, you know, it takes months, like as a university prof, like contract. [00:31:00] And for that, for you to do a curriculum, it takes about eight months. Think about AI in eight months. Like, I don’t think so. It’s like, it’s already outdated. So the fundamental thing that kids will lead to learn is about managing themselves. Managing their minds, managing their hearts, emotional regulation to, like you said, choosing where they put their energy and attention. That’s what school needs to be rather than it be here. Some subjects that you can Google probably tell you about in like 2 seconds. It could literally search the entire internet and tell you what the answer is. If we don’t need that anymore. So what is school supposed to be? And I think that’s, this is the conversation, which is, is about managing ourselves and managing our minds and hearts. And I think that’s how we’re going to really create changes in culture. And I think [00:32:00] this is where young people in, in, I do honestly believe that things happen for a reason. I think things are by design, so I think the whole covid situation is as a world. We needed to shake up. The systems were outdated. It doesn’t work. And so I think, you know, and when you were talking about implementing your initiative, as as difficult as it might have been, you also said that people wouldn’t have been probably as receptive had it not been so urgent. Right and so, but it, it allowed something that is so, so critical and important to be implemented for students that needed it at the time. Time that needed it the most and now obviously gaining momentum. And so I think that is so, so important, especially the, the, the leadership of young people. What’s your dream? Like, how big do you want to go? Ben Painter: My, my dream is that mindfulness would be considered an integral part of what it means to be educated at scale. And and that, yeah. And that going back to kind of how we [00:33:00] started the conversation, just the notion of school and the systems of school would be. redesigned to really center the needs of young people and the world that they’re inheriting and a rethinking of, Hey, what, what do we think young people should know? Yeah, yeah. That’s, that’s the dream. Gissele Taraba: young Ben Painter: people would, would, would leave school equipped to face these and work through these. Global challenges that are increasingly global, not just local with clarity and compassion and effective communication and Yeah, that they can keep going, keep advancing, but you know, evolution of human consciousness is the dream. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. [00:34:00] it’s a wonderful dream. And, and not like a dream dream as in like, Oh, this is a dream. Maybe someday I do think that beyond any other time in human awareness, we are at the precipice of being able to, because things are shifting so much and so fast. And so. like you said, this is really a time for us to really ask ourselves, what do we want kids to know? Like, what sort of humans are we creating? What kind of human consciousness are we creating? Because everything that we have done up till now, when you think about the school systems, and I don’t know your experiences in the school system. Mine were varied and I’m I have numerous degrees. And so, I mean, I was the perpetual student, but there was lots of downsides. And I see it now in my kids. And I’m kind of at a point where I’m like, I don’t know what to tell my kids, to be honest, because they don’t have, like, In your beautiful schools, a mindfulness director, that would be amazing. They don’t, we talk to them about [00:35:00] mindfulness. We talk to them about compassion. We talk to them about loving themselves and therefore being the vehicle to love other people. But sometimes I don’t listen to us cause they’re like, Oh, what do you know? You’re just old. Whereas like. If it’s a, I have a 17 year old and a 14 year old, so they’re like, you know, like you kind of dropped off the coolness chart and you know, now they’re like, oh, because to be honest, it’s a natural evolution for children to want to do things completely opposite to their parents because they need to figure it out for themselves. So I think it’s wonderful. I think it’s great that my kids are doing that. The only thing we can do is just offer things on the table and say, okay, this is what we believe is what our perception, but in my ideal bubble world, in terms of school system, I want them to be taught by the best. What I mean is I want them to be. Exposed to the most compassionate, the most loving, the most mindful, the most peaceful, the most [00:36:00] abundant, the most successful. Right. And so for that to be open to any child. So the, your program is really only to elementary schools or are you planning on expanding beyond the other educational systems? Ben Painter: No, we have a pre k to university. Gissele Taraba: Oh, okay. That’s good to know. That’s good to know. Cause I only assumed for some reason that it was elementary. I don’t know why I thought Ben Painter: that. We have the whole gamut. Gissele Taraba: Oh, that’s good. So my Americans listeners who partner up with your school, especially if you’ve got mindfulness experience and then go out and apply. Ben Painter: Yeah. Check us out. And before. Before I forget, just thinking about your kids I don’t know if they’d be into this at all. But when I was their age ish, I went on these, there are the, there’s this organization called Inward Bound Mindfulness. Have you heard of that? Gissele Taraba: No. Ben Painter: They basically run meditation retreats for young people. Meditation retreat slash camp. It’s kind of like [00:37:00] you’re meditating or doing meditation esque things, mindful movement and things like that for about five hours a day, but then you’re also playing. Kickball and oh, Gissele Taraba: okay. That’s cool. Yeah. . Ben Painter: Yeah, it’s, and those. Retreats are truly amazing. They haven’t made like some of the, you know, most esteemed teachers out there crawl out of the woodworks because they want to work with young people. Gissele Taraba: And that’s beautiful. Ben Painter: Yeah. Just couldn’t recommend it enough. I’ll check it Gissele Taraba: I would say that my kids would give me the face, right? Especially my son. My son is so into electronics. We were just having a conversation about it this week. Because it’s a form of socialization, right? All of his friends go on it and they go on it for hours. Like me, we tell them you have to live a balanced life. So you have to go outside, you have to do this. You have to join sportsBut for parents that are busy, for parents that are just trying to make it themselves, like it’s very easy for them to go into that kind of community. But there is a form of [00:38:00] socialization like these sorts of kids. So how can we potentially incorporate. moments of mindfulness and not make that wrong. Right. Do you know what I’m saying? Like how, how do we enable kids to find the balance so that then as they start to see the difference in how they feel, cause they get an immediate hit from these electronics. Ben Painter: We all do. I do. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. And in the beginning, when I started meditating, I was practicing mindfulness. It felt really gritty and terrible, but over time, it’s just one of the most beautiful things you can do is like meditate and be in the present moment. It just feels like, Oh, amazing. Ben Painter: I was just going to say, but it doesn’t always feel like that right away. That’s, that’s the tricky part. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Ben Painter: On retreats, sometimes I find the first couple days really difficult. It’s like going through withdrawal or something from the attention, having so much juicy stuff to land on and bounce around in. It’s [00:39:00] like, and just like, okay, I’m going to be a spaciousness. And then you settle in after a few days and then it’s like, oh yeah, I remember, I remember why I do this. But. Yeah. So it makes that’s a challenge in introducing this stuff to young people. Gissele Taraba: And so thank you for mentioning, because I think that’s very important. It’s not just for young people, though, because I remember experiencing that myself. I went to this it’s sort of, it was sort of like a silent retreat at a, a monastery. And I was, for some reason, separated from my husband and my friend, like, I was put at a separate. Building, I guess I was supposed to be paired with someone else, but I just ended up being me So I wasn’t sleeping very well. I don’t know. That brought up a whole bunch of things for me. And so the first 2 days, like you said, I, first of all, I was on no sleep and they would wake us up like at 6 or 5 o’clock in the morning to meditate and listen to the monks chant. And I literally by the 2nd day wanted to throw the book at somebody, but I kind of started to breathe through it. And then, like you [00:40:00] said, it was. Amazing. I didn’t even want to leave. Then you start to be so present with yourself how did the mindfulness directors help people get over that hump? Like what’s, what’s usually the conversation with young people or maybe even some of the adults about how to, to navigate those difficult moments? Ben Painter: It’s a cool question. mindfulness directors have varying strategies. Gissele Taraba: How do you manage it? Ben Painter: Yeah, I’ll riff on like what I’m, how I would think about that. I think one of the primary ones is to make it optional. If you’re mandating that people meditate and it’s like you have to, then that’s just not the best way to introduce it to people. So some of our mindfulness directors will have a thing where it’s like, Hey, we’re going to be meditating. It’s mandated that you are respectful and don’t interfere with other people. [00:41:00] Love it. But if you don’t want to meditate, no problem. Yeah. I think that’s one there’s not like a force or coercion. It’s an offering that people can take or not. Gissele Taraba: I love that. Ben Painter: Then I think there’s like. Myth busting, you know, there’s so many conceptions and misconceptions of mindfulness floating around out there. One is that you have to be in a very certain posture in a beautiful idyllic place and your mind has to be blank and thoughts are the enemy. So there’s like a good amount of myth busting and re re myth busting that has to happen again and again. Because one of the most common things you’ll hear is that, Oh, I’m not good at mindfulness. It’s not for me. Gissele Taraba: I’m not good at meditating. Yeah. Ben Painter: Yeah. And then there’s like offering a variety of different practices [00:42:00] that can help people establish their relationship with their present moment experience. And for everyone, it’s not going to be eyes closed, sitting down meditation. It might be like, especially with younger folks, younger students, our mindfulness directors. will take other activities and make them a mindfulness exercise. So we have this one mindfulness director, that’s a hybrid gym teacher and mindfulness director and leading gym games and people are moving, having a fun time. And then there’s moments of pausing. It’s like, all right, check in. How are you relating to your experience? What energy is flowing through you right now? How does your body feel? Okay, back to the game. And, you know, so getting creative and figuring out what’s going to work for the specific culture. And then I think there’s also ways where tapping into the whatever struggles, the young people are facing and offering mindfulness within the context of [00:43:00] Text of helping address those things. So if students are facing a lot of test anxiety, you can kind of point mindfulness at that. If students are wanting to improve their athletic performance, that that’s a door to getting curious about your mind and how it works. And that’s a great door that works for a lot of people. So there’s also those, you know, mixing up the doorways. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, that’s thank you very much. That was great. And as, as you were talking it, it occurred to me how often we don’t teach like young people about themselves. Like we teach about the body as like a 3d here’s your brain. Here’s a, but they don’t really get to know themselves. Like, who are you as a person? I did an assignment with my young people and I said so think about all your identities. Then from that place, who are you? Then try to strip yourself from your identities. Then who are [00:44:00] you? And it was like, some of those, some of their brains exploded. Some of them were like, I can’t compute. I’m a robot. I don’t exist. I’m like, okay, cool. Like, there was just some interesting answers, but there’s so little self awareness, like understanding. Who are you as a being? Like, who is this person? How does my body work? Like all of those things. And how does my mind work and how do they work together? And I think that’s the gift that mindfulness brings to it’s becoming aware in that for me, mindfulness just kind of opens the door to compassion and love, which is if you don’t mind what I’d like to talk about next, because it’s present moment awareness on how you’re feeling. Ben Painter: And so how has mindfulness potentially helped the students become more in touch with their self compassion, self love possibly? That’s a cool question.  I think the takeaway is that you can [00:45:00] cultivate what you want to cultivate. In your mind, and, You know, depending on who you talk to and what tradition mindfulness can have a very, very specific definition or it’s an umbrella term for a large swath of contemplative practices. But here in the United States, at least like something like a loving kindness practice or a self compassion practice would fall under the general term of mindfulness. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. And Ben Painter: so yeah, doing practices that help one rest in the present moment and then cultivate compassion, love, empathy for herself and others, I think are, are great. Gissele Taraba: in my experience. The way that mindfulness really helped me cultivate compassion was I wasn’t aware of how much I was suffering. I wasn’t aware of how I was treating myself with my thoughts. I wasn’t aware of what I was creating, [00:46:00] but it wasn’t until I got fully present with myself and accepted full responsibility for what I have, what I continue to create. Like I’m not responsible for the people that have hurt me, but I was responsible for continuing to hurt myself. But without the present moment awareness, I wouldn’t have been aware of what I was choosing and then could therefore choose something different, potentially. And I think that’s where mindfulness, at least for me has been really instrumental. And even checking in with my body, as you were saying, checking in with, you know, where am I holding the tension? Where am I, you know, what’s happening for me in this moment and what do I need? In order for me to then be able to listen with an open heart to Ben or to someone else, or to be able to forgive or have a difficult conversation. And so that’s why from, from my perspective, what you’re doing is so, so instrumental. And I really, really do hope that it expands as big as bold as you are desiring. It Ben Painter: makes me think of [00:47:00] one metaphor that I really love, which is and hopefully it’ll resonate as a Canadian. Which is like this metaphor. It’s like a sledding metaphor. Gissele Taraba: A what? A sledding. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Ben Painter: Sledding metaphor. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, you know, like when you go sledding and you go in the same track again and again, and each time you go in it, the grooves get a little deeper and it gets more automatic. Like you don’t have to steer the sled anymore. It just, and you know, our minds kind of work like that. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Ben Painter: Or, you know, every time you look in the mirror, a thought stream comes up about, Oh, I wish I looked a little different or you’re to this or you’re to that. Or every time you see that person, the, these unconscious stories we have about them because of the way they look, dress, talk, act, whatever play out and we don’t even know we’re in the track. It’s just happening. What mindfulness. And help us do, and this also relates to like, [00:48:00] love, compassion, and proving school cultures. It can give us a bit more of a bird’s eye view so we can see what’s happening. And maybe we’ll make the choice to stay right in the track. Or maybe we’ll make the choice to find a new one, but without the choice, the track will just keep, the trenches will just keep getting deeper and Gissele Taraba: deeper. Yeah. And I love that you said that because from my perspective, curiosity is the stepping stone to compassion, like without judgment, just like you say, okay, I can continue to choose to go on the same track or I can make a different choice. And it’s a place of non judgment that I think is really opens us up to that. I’ve got a couple more questions before we wrap up. The first one is I’m asking all my guests what’s your definition of unconditional love? Ben Painter: Oh, cool. The word like unconditional, what it brings to mind to me is that you love them regardless of what they do which to me maybe gets to, [00:49:00] you love something about them that is deeper. Or then even like the more surface level things it’s, it’s like an unchanging love of, who they are underneath all the stuff, All the changing stuff and all the ways that we might mess up or lose our way. Gissele Taraba: Thank you for that. I was wondering if you could tell the audience where they can find you, where they could potentially apply, like, you know, what are you working on? What do you want to share with the audience? Ben Painter: I would say, yeah, we can check us out at wholeschoolmindfulness. org. And we also have not super active social media, but they exist on all the, you know, normal ones and yeah, a few different ways of entry for partnering with us. If you’re a person in a school who [00:50:00] this sounds like your dream job, check us out and navigate to the, become a mindfulness director tab and fill out the form. So you get that email blast when the applications open up, if you’re a school leader or a district leader, and you’re hearing. This, and you think that this might be a strategy that you want to try out also on our website or reach out to us on the contact page for partnership. And then lastly, if you’re hearing this and it sounds like something that you might want to support philanthropically we are largely dependent on philanthropy to, to make this work happen, which I think is normal. Like private philanthropy oftentimes catalyzes. Change that then is taken over by public funds, but philanthropy is the tip of the spear for getting this stuff going. So, if you want to partner with us, we’re always happy to, yeah, make good use of [00:51:00] funds. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, for sure. And are you available to support anyone who you know, anyone in Canada who might be interested or maybe internationally who might want to reach out and say, hey, how do we do this? Can we partner with you guys? So that we can find out and make this more of a global initiative. Ben Painter: Yeah, right now, we would have to go through some legal hurdles and in order to be a 501c3 working internationally. It’s just a different thing. We haven’t done that yet, but always game to hop on a call. To partner. Yeah. Gissele Taraba: You heard it. You can at least get a phone call. Yeah. Thank you so, so much, Ben, for all the amazing work that you’re doing. And for taking the time out to chat with us about this very, very important conversation about the need for mindfulness in the school, especially the role of a mindfulness director. And please join us again for another episode of the loving compassion podcast with Giselle. See you [00:52:00] soon. Ben Painter: Yeah. Thanks, Gissele. That was such a cool conversation. Gissele Taraba: Oh, thank you so much.

TRANSCRIPT Gissele overdub: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. On today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about forgiving one’s enemy. CARSA, Christian Action for Reconciliation and Social Assistance Organization, is doing some incredible work. They’re bringing together victims and oppressors for conversation. Carsa Ministries serves communities in supporting their journey towards healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, and sustainable holistic development. Please join me in welcoming Carsa Ministries Executive Director, Christophe Mbonyingabo did I say it right? Christophe: It Gissele overdub: was. Welcome, Christophe. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Christophe: Thank you very much. I’m glad to be with you today. Gissele overdub: Yes, I am so excited to speak with you [00:01:00] because I believe that the work that you’re doing is so, so important. Right now the world, It just seems so divided whether it be a, a long political divisions or among like this, even people, people canceling one another. So I think right now organizations that are working to bring people together, I think matter so greatly. Can you tell us a little bit about how this organization got started? Christophe: Thank you very much. CARSA itself is a Rwandan based organization that started just 10 years after the genocide against the Tutsi means 2000 and close to 2004. That’s when we got registered by the government of Rwanda and CARSA started as a local grassroots initiative to try to restore the brokenness. That has resulted from the genocide but alsopeople have to remember that the genocide did not start [00:02:00] in 1994 and the genocide did not end in 1994 because prior to 1994, there had been a long. era of division, you know, hatred and ideology that’s led to the 1994 genocide, It was so huge consequences as a result of the genocide that’s needed to be addressed from various aspects. To try to contribute to see if forgiveness, reconciliation, restoration was possible. So that’s how CARSA gets started. And since then, about 20 years now, we’ve been, you know, trying to do that mission, which is very difficult, but exciting. Gissele overdub: What you said is so critical because it didn’t start straight into genocide. It started with division and separation and the division between these two groups and seeing each other as enemies and not as brothers and sisters. And then that contributed too. So I think this is an important lesson for people to understand that it’s not [00:03:00] just about minor conflict. It’s about this othering that results in then greater separation and greater conflict. And then you kind of have this division and genocide between these groups, right? Christophe: Sure. You know, you know sometimes when people learn about the genocide that took place in Rwanda and they learned how within a hundred days, a million people were killed and killed by their neighbors, their friends, the people they knew. If you do numbers, it was not what was happening, but if you tried to do numbers, it’s as if every second. Yeah. Six people were being killed. So people don’t have their mind around us. It’s very difficult to even understand how that can be possible. And remember it was a brutal killings because it was done using traditional weapons. So people ask questions, how can this happen? Explain, but they tend to [00:04:00] forget that’s actually what happened as the killing of the genocide was a result of decades of brainwashing, hatred, division, and all of that. That’s why when you go through and try to understand the 10 stages of the genocide, then you understand better. It doesn’t come just one day, one year. It’s, it’s a long journey. And, and that, that’s, that’s the same issue happening today in different parts of the world. Gissele overdub: Yeah. And this is why it’s so important to learn from Rwanda and to learn from the work that you’re doing so that people understand that it’s not just about this division. It’s not just about like this, like what they consider minor conflict is that it starts to separate us from each other. And then we see each other as enemies. And like you said, people turn like neighbors, friends. So the work that you’re doing is, is. Bringing together individuals, especially like what they call victim and what they call perpetrators together. And, and that’s incredible to be able to [00:05:00] do that, especially after the genocide. What steps do you take individuals towards this sort of extraordinary journey? Christophe: Yes you know, generally, when we talk about forgiveness, it is a very difficult concept to apply. And that’s generally you think of when, you know, I always give this example for married couples. When wife and husband are well together, they love each other, called each other beautiful names, you know, but when there is something happening between them, then you understand how forgiving it’s very difficult to apply. Why? First of all, because it doesn’t come easily from the human nature. When we have experienced any sort of harm, abuse, whatever we tend, our, the first tendency is to wish to revenge ourselves. But also you think from the, you know, [00:06:00] offender, the quick answer is to deny is to justify. And so now we are talking not just a minor issue. We are talking about the context where genocide survivors had lost their family members. And their children, spouses, siblings, parents, and now these people have been killed, not by strangers, but by neighbors, by friend, by in laws, by people they hoped that they would support them. It means there’s not only the killings that has took place, but also there’s a sort of like it’s sort of like. Feeling that you’ve been disappointed in a sense, but also betrayed because these were the friends , you hope they’ve gone to support. So now when we talk about post genocide forgiveness, people need first to understand that concept and background. So the steps that we [00:07:00] take people through at CARSA. We always start with a conversation, which is structured into what we call trauma healing workshop, and we start by explaining the participant genocide survivors for them to understand the need to move towards their individual their personal their inner healing, first of all, so we don’t quickly talk about forgiveness. Also, then we get to the level where we start talking about forgiveness as one of the steps to what complete individual healing. And so when we talk about forgiveness, first of all, we, we make the participant, the survivors to understand what is forgiveness and what forgiveness is not. Gissele overdub: Can you share what, what, what it is not ? Yes. What is, what is forgiveness? Not Christophe: forgiveness is not forgetting. That’s first of all, [00:08:00] forgiveness. Does it not necessarily means reconciliation? Because when you talk about forgiveness, people say, do you want me to meet the other person? Do you want me to talk to the other person? No. But thirdly, forgiveness doesn’t mean necessarily you ignore justice if it needs to happen. So when they understand those, those three definition of what forgiveness is not, it’s not forgetting. It doesn’t take away justice, but also it’s not necessarily reconciliation. Then people can listen. The second step it’s when we start explaining to them the benefit of forgiveness towards themselves. Forgiveness benefits the victim before it benefits the offender or the perpetrator. And the third step is when we explain the burden of unforgiveness, you know, forgiveness is a very difficult concept. As I said earlier, [00:09:00] it’s very costly to forgive, but unforgiveness cost more at the end. So when these people have understood the benefit, when they have understood the cost of unforgiveness to themselves, it’s like, you know, unforgiveness, it’s like you are locked in the room and you’ve got the key to make yourself get out. No one can do that. And then you choose to lock yourself in the room, thinking that’s the one who have locked you in the room is going to suffer. Gissele overdub: That’s true. Yeah. I can ask a question. How do you know if you’ve truly forgiven? there may be times when you think, oh, I’ve forgiven, but then maybe something comes up. I don’t know if you can answer that, but just curious. Christophe: You know, we have a program where we take genocide survivors and genocide perpetrators who are on the journey of reconciliation to speak to young people in schools. And [00:10:00] then, in one conference, we call them peace conferences, a young student asked to a genocide victim who had shared the story, how he had forgiven the perpetrator, had killed the mother, they were all together and asked, ask it. What will happen to you today if this man, the perpetrator, whom you say were forgiven after killing your mother, if he does something today to you, what are you going to do again? He said, the answer was, I have forgiven him the difficult crime. Why can’t I forgive him, you know, from the minor crime or whatever you do to me today. So, when, how do you know that you are forgiven? First of all, it’s when you remember with less bitterness. Then you know you are on the journey of forgiveness. Secondly, it’s when you remember, but you don’t wish bad to the offender. [00:11:00] You don’t wish to revenge. You don’t wish to see the same thing happening to you to have to happen to the, to the, to the offender. Then you know, you’re in the journey of forgiveness. It’s, it’s when, when you remember your experience or your experiences, but you are able to share that As an experience, but with, with less body, with less, you know, width emotionally and psychologically, then, you know, you’re in the journey of forgiveness, but finally it’s when you think about the offender, the perpetrator, and it doesn’t come with the mess and the combination of the crime. It’s when anyone, in other words, it’s when you are able to separate the crime and the perpetrator. Gissele overdub: Oof. That is so, so powerful. Yeah. I think, yeah. [00:12:00] I really resonate with what you said. Yeah. Your organization, you mentioned the peacekeeping piece has four major pillars. It has trauma and recovery and reconciliation, peace building, economic development, And Youth Leadership, when you take it all together, that’s really well thought out because it’s not just about reconciliation. You’re really thinking about why oppression happens. Like why do genocides happen? Why do people, why are they more apt to hurt each other? Why are each of those pillars important? Christophe: Yeah, thank you. You’ve, you’ve well described that it’s the four pillars are very interconnected, because again, we have to put them in the context of the Genocide in Rwanda, , the one that and look at them as, as a very holistic journey. So each, each of the four pillars. You know, it’s a step [00:13:00] or it’s a pillar that’s, that’s really without it, the journey we’re not, would be incomplete. The trauma recovery and reconciliation focuses more on the past, where we want to deal with the past. means we’re inviting genocide survivors, genocide perpetrators to actually sit at the table and think about their past and how that past have harmed them and affected them, but also how they can now deal with it and, and move into the future. Then moving towards peace building. We think of the young generation, 20, 30 years after the genocide, we have the whole generation of people actually now, statistically, 65 percent of the whole population of Rwanda are people under the age of 30 years old. Gissele overdub: Basically, this whole generation Christophe: of people did not witness the genocide, could not explain the genocide, but the second generation.[00:14:00] They learn about the history, either from, you know, government, from schools, but also from their parents. They have different narratives. But secondly, if, as a country, we have made a step toward peace and reconciliation, how do we ensure that that process will be sustainable? It’s when we invite the young people at the table. For instance, under the Peace Building, we have a program we call Peace Conversation Cycles. It’s a project. And this one It’s when we invite adults, means genocide survivors and perpetrators, young people, and those that we call the rescuers. Rescuers are people whom during the genocide were courageous enough to to hide the Tuts who were being hunted and be killed, even though they were coming from the so called the Hutu by then, and they were courageous to hide them. So they are recognized by the government, they are recognized in the communities, we call them the rescuers. So [00:15:00] those three categories, we bring them in the table, in the room from the same community, and they start talking. And here, young people now are learning the history, not as, as a countrywide, but From their community. They ask questions. How was your relationship before the genocide? What happened during the genocide? And how are you resolving or restoring relations after the genocide? How do we dream together for the future, a shared future? Why? Because we want to make sure that this young generation grasps the importance of reconciliation, peace building, but also so that they understand their role to play to sustain the peace that we are enjoying today as a nation. very much. Then we go to the economic development, economic empowerment. Rwanda as a nation, after the genocide, the government has been taking, you know, the population into what we call the socio economic transformation. [00:16:00] But also remember, poverty has played an important role during the genocide. Some years back, we did a study, was very quantitative study. We wanted to understand What actually made the normal human, you know, the genocidias to become killers. And throughout the interviews, we discovered that some people were involved in genocide because they were told if you kill Tutsi, you will get their properties, you will get their cows, you will get all of that. So means poverty has a role somehow, you know, contributing in the cause of the genocide. But then look at the poor genocide process. We have genocides victims who had not only lost their beloved one and their properties. cows and houses, but they had lost hope because of the trauma. So when they recover from the trauma, they regain also their hope for the future.[00:17:00] So they need to work because now they have a sense and the meaning of they understand the sense of the meaning of life. But on the other side, we have genocidal perpetrators who have been in the prison for 10, 15 years. They are restored back in the society. They are integration, but they need to work hard Maybe to try to catch up on the 10, 15 years lost in the prisons. So that’s why economic empowerment, economic development is a very important pillar if we want to move toward sustainable peace and reconciliation. And finally, youth leadership or youth empowerment. You know, Leadership matters in anything when you talk about the vision, when we talk about the political I mean, ideologies and or sort of like what we see in the world today, just one single leader.  A speech of [00:18:00] one leader changes the history of U. S.  That’s why it’s very critical to educate our young people. That’s when you become leaders, you need to understand what leadership means and the influence of leaders to society and communities and be leaders, not for your own sake, your own benefit, but be a unifying leader, a united leader, a leader who sees. It’s a vision of, of bringing people together, not a leader who’s divide people. So that’s why all the four pillars are very critical, very important to us. Gissele overdub: Yeah. And that is so, so powerful. And as I said, very well thought out because you’re hitting some of the major things. Number one is like you’re teaching the young people to critically think. So you can say to people that you’re a democracy, but if you don’t behave like a democracy. And maybe you’re not a democracy you’re talking about the power of conversation. People aren’t talking anymore. They’re just [00:19:00] cancelling each other. They’re just like, well, I’m done with you. I don’t need to talk. But having those difficult conversations is really pivotal. And the last thing is really like, One of the things I’ve learned in my experiences and talking to people on my podcast is that when people are in survival whether it be their physical body or whether it be economically, they can’t think about love and compassion and reconciliation and seeing somebody else as the, as a brother and sister. They see people as others because they’re too busy surviving. So what you are doing is you’re helping them shift out of that survival mode by helping them with their economic development so that they then can be open. to talking about how to create a world that is more united, and I think that’s so powerful.  I do have a question though. How do you get the people that have acted as perpetrators to address their shame so that they can have those conversations? because [00:20:00] In my experiences, I’ve seen people really get very defensive or deny. How do you help them get to the other side of that so that they can be able to engage in the dialogue and listen with an open heart? Christophe: That’s, that’s a good question. And as I agree with you how to when we all think about post violence, post genocide in the context of Rwanda, post conflict there’s a tendency which comes from the human nature to wish to focus more on the survivors, which, which makes sense because, you know, there’s, that’s, you know, empathy, that’s, you know, easily comes in. . The journey of perpetrators, it’s, it’s, it’s really a very difficult journey because when you have committed a crime such as the genocide, when you have been involved in murdering people that you knew and innocent people, Like psychologically, to even recover and understand [00:21:00] and come back to the normal sense of humanity, it takes time. So, but in the context of Rwanda, we’ve got people after their sentences, they thought we’ve done our sentence, we’ve paid the price for our crime. Why do you want us to come in the conversation? So it has, it has been a long journey with different stages and steps. Because first of all, After the genocide, the government of Rwanda taught how to deal with justice, but a very destructive justice system. That’s, we enable, first of all, the truth to be revealed and to be told, but secondly, maybe to create an opportunity from which perpetrators can relate with survivors after they would have known the truth. So that’s when there was the, what called the Gachacha (Restorative Justice) Courts, which basically it’s called the, you know, the court from the grass. It’s where you invite [00:22:00] community members all coming together and you invite the perpetrator and the victim to stand there and you listen, you hear their case. But also every committee member has a say, you know, can say, raise their hands and contribute to that. So when that happens, first of all, genocide suspected people in the prisons were encouraged to come forward, speak the truth, accept their involvement in their crimes, so that their sentence would be reduced. Initially, they did not believe so. They did not believe that was true. But through the government, you know, encouragement and Teachings, they, they start coming forward, accepting, acknowledging their crime and asking for forgiveness, like confessing, not asking, but confessing. And then they came out to go through the Gachacha court in the community. So then whoever was [00:23:00] truthful and in the community by the committee member, they will say this person has been truthful in what they said and has been remorseful. So the sentence got reduced, then these people came back in the society live side by side with the victims. Now, yes, you’ve come out of the prison. But the question is, are you truly free or you still deal with the inner prisons? Because you can be out of the four walls, like the physical prisons, but still psychologically live in the prison. And so when we approach them and we invite them, so as cursor they now they know, maybe there’s an opportunity to deal with the psychological prison that we’ve been dealing with after we were out of the physical prison. So that’s how we start with these people. However, [00:24:00] remember that. One of the reasons why these people committed genocide, it was propaganda. It was all the many years prior to the genocide. They did what they believed was the right thing to be done. Gissele overdub: So when we did, Christophe: yes, when we thought we are killing the enemy, we are taking, we are whipping out the enemy and you can live well without that. So now when they come and meet the survivor and hear and learn how they are, crime have created huge consequences to the victims. We have experienced that through research. We did release a survey, their self forgiveness decreases. Because now they understand. Initially they thought, yes, we’ve done evil, but You know, we had no choice in a sense, but now when they learn, when they approach and they see it and they understand, they listen from the survivor, they hear the huge [00:25:00] devastation, the huge effect they have caused to the victim, then the self forgiveness decreases. So that’s why we have what we call like the workshop, but also have what we call the concession cell groups. Why? Because that’s where the conversation continue in the, at the community level, at the village level. And then the perpetrators. Now, they are able to then ask for forgiveness, truly confess. And sometime they say, I don’t deserve forgiveness because what I’ve done to use it. It’s unimaginable. It’s unhuman, but please. Forgive me. So that’s when they hear and they see the responses from the survive from the survivor from the victims, then that’s when they get it from their shame and their guilt. So what we have learned here is this. You know, sort of like, you know, punitive justice, [00:26:00] you know, we have today, the criminal justice systems, we see today, where a perpetrator is put behind the bar sentence for 1020 years, the victim or the survivor stays in the community, some type of no help over limited help, and these people never come together. The question always ask people who benefit from that justice. Who’s benefiting from that? Gissele overdub: I spoke to a friend of mine. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Christophe: Yes. No, no, go ahead. Gissele overdub: I was going to share the fact that I have a friend who does compassion in the prison system work. And that’s what she had said to me. She said, you know, we’re doing, we’re asking these. prisoners to do a Herculean effort of trying to be more loving and compassionate and understand the impact of their behavior when you, we put them in prison, separate them from everyone and put and surround them with people that have the same mentality. So how is it that they’re going to get there? It really is through that what you were [00:27:00] talking about, the reconciliation, the, the, the community going back and facing the impact of those, the behavior from the place of compassion of like, Hey, this is the impact. I think that’s really what gets people to change. And so I agree with you it that those, these systems don’t benefit anyone. In fact, it’s sort of a cycle of you go back and then you, you loop back and commit another crime. So it’s not helping anyone. Christophe: There’s no, there’s no better way I can say it. Than what have what you’ve said. It’s exactly that. Yeah. And, and I’m talking from very practical point of view, like the only way to take away the, the, the guilt and the shame from any perpetrator. It’s actually to allow the perpetrator to see, to meet and to hear from the survivor, the victim. Even if the anger, expressing, the anger, expressing the bitterness toward the, the perpetrator. People want to know. And to hear from their victims of how [00:28:00] they are feeling from their crime. At least that’s, if that’s not Gissele overdub: there, Christophe: people die with their, they are guilty. Gissele overdub: I completely agree, completely. Can you talk about Cows for Peace and how this idea came about? Because just based on your documentary, so, so significant. And so I want you to share it a little bit with my audience. Christophe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the Cow for Peace program is a CARSA sort of like creative initiative that we started. Now it’s actually becoming, people have done a few research around that and we are working on making that sort of like, for instance, once I was in Chicago and people asked me in their context, like, what is the cow in our context? I say, I don’t know, you need to figure out what that is. Anyway, how did it start? You know, when we started bringing together Genocide Survivors and Perpetrators and using a [00:29:00] seven day workshop program that we have, at the end, we thought, this is just A beginning of long, a long process. We cannot expect or assume that seven days of conversation is enough to deal with this deep issue. So then that’s when the second stage came, what we callresilience or reconciliation cell groups where these people at the village level, they meet on a regular basis. It’s locally led. They elect their own leader and, you know, we only support the continue. So when that’s happened initially. Yes, they started meeting, but it was not sustainable. Then we started thinking, how do we make this really in a great collaborative journey? That’s people we want to commit for a long time. So that’s when we thought maybe if we find a common interest, a shared interest, that’s we bound these people together. You know, [00:30:00] that’s, we probably help them to, to stay in the journey and do the process. That’s how the cow came in mind. And then when the cow came into mind, I remember we started with one cow. Just one cow. Because we had these people, two people. One was called John and Chantal. John was the perpetrator, Chantal the survivor. And they took a long journey for Chantal to forgive John. And then when Chantal was able to forgive John, welcoming John to his family, to her family, her house. You know, really express forgiveness. Then we thought, how do we make this sustainable? The cow idea came in mind, and we gave the cow to share. So when we start observing them, and then we start even remembering what the cow mean in our context, in our culture. First of all, historically, cows have been used by the Germans to divide the Rwandans. That’s historically, historically, because when the Belgian [00:31:00] divided the Rwandans, what they call the ethnicity Hutu and Tutsi, initially they said, whoever had 10, 000 above is Tutsi and whoever had less than 10, Hutu. So people could shift from one group to the other. That’s historical. It’s ridiculous. You have to remember that. Yeah, you can read it’s, it’s out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then this cow had been used initially to divide the Rwanda. That’s one. But secondly, cow has a different meaning in our culture. It has a very cultural meaning whereby when we, we are married, when someone want to marry, we pay Dowry. And the Dowry, it’s a cow. Even in the city where people no longer have the cows, they pay money, but they still call the cow. So it’s, it’s there, but thirdly, culturally. Cow, it’s, it’s a sign used to be a sign of wealthy and dignity in the community. Whoever had a cow will no longer be considered as a [00:32:00] poor. Why? Because of the significance and the value and that’s cows bring the family at the family level. But fourthly, cows, it’s the animal that’s produced milk in our context and milk is very nutritional drink, but also it’s, it’s a source of income. So it becomes at one side, it’s, it’s very. Social, cultural, and, you know, animal that has a unique meaning. That’s when they, this cow is given to these two people to raise it together, collaboratively raise the cow together. It’s the number one, helps the people to meet on a regular basis. because they raise the cow. Secondly, involve their families because the children will be involved in that. And the spouses. And thirdly, when they start sharing the milk and how the neighbors seeing these former enemies now visiting each other to raise the cow. People believe [00:33:00] because now the forgiveness is no longer theoretical. It’s practical. You cannot share with your enemy a drink such as the milk. You cannot invite an enemy to come and milk the cow at your house and share the milk. You cannot give a cow to your enemy. So the forgiveness becomes tangible and real. And that’s why it becomes extreme forgiveness because they are sharing the cow but also remember, raising the cow up to the point when it has a calf, and the calf is grown up enough to be given to the, by the survivor to the perpetrator, it’s, it’s not less than a year, 12 months or 16 months. And as a collaborative, they raise the cow together. There’s some conflict that arises around raising the cow together. So when they are able to solve these problems around the responsibilities of sharing the code, raising the cow together, you are actually storing their, their resilience capacity. Now, I Gissele overdub: was [00:34:00] Christophe: It’s not just the conflict around the genocide, but now normal conflict that we all deal in our daily lives. So that’s resilience capacity growing around dealing with the conflict around raising the shared cow. Then it makes these people to be even prepared citizen to be peaceful community members. So the cow has become a very unique tool that have been playing in magic. extraordinary role in bringing, I mean, forgiveness and reconciliation between genocidal survivors and Gissele overdub: perpetrators. Oh, amazing. You know, as you were talking, Christophe, I was thinking, you know, like through your cow project, you’re actually living, Martin Luther King’s vision of love has the power to transform an enemy into a friend. Right. and what I, what I loved about your documentary is that you were talking about how the cow actually brings out issues. It brings out whether or not people have truly forgiven and whether or not [00:35:00] truly they can come together because you were so honest in your documentary, because there was a struggle between you know, a former victim and a former perpetrator that there were, there were, there were still issues that were coming up in terms of managing the cow, right? Like lack of trust and so on. And so I love how the cow is such a deep symbol, and it’s such a way to keep the conversation going and keep people and for people to. work together and see a unifying force because I think that’s the struggle. And that’s why the division is people don’t see what the, what the common humanity is. But in your case, you are, you are creating that. Speaking of your documentary you talked in the documentary about how You know, many friends and families turn into enemies because of the genocide. And I wanted to ask you, this is more of a philosophical question, but what do you believe causes someone to lose their humanity? Christophe: Yeah. You know, when we talk about losing humanity let me first say that losing [00:36:00] humanity is not just the Rwandan. Issue just based on the genocide of what happened in genocide, losing humanity, not just an African issue, where sometimes Western tend to believe that Africans are always violent and brutal. Losing humanity is actually a global issue. And it’s, it’s across the board. It’s, it’s, you know, across race and, and religion and, and all of that. And why? I think we need first to understand why do people lose humanity? We see now, as we speak today, we see in many part of the world, innocent children, innocent women and elder people being brutally killed by guns and all sort of, you know, weapons. And you tend to ask yourself a question, what’s going on in the mind of these people when they just shoot blindly [00:37:00] in a particular community or city or town, not thinking that people are there deserve the same life as their own people. But then you think of the division we’ve been talking about. We live in a very diversity, diversity society, and we have so many differences. But at the same time, we have many in common, but the human nature tend to focus on the diversity and the differences than to the common. We all bleed the same blood, you know, we tell people that it’s very interesting. I wish I would ask God why he did so like we all share the same type of blood, A, B, O, and AB. There’s no type of blood of Chinese or [00:38:00] African, black, white women. We all share that. But why do we tend to more focus on the differences? First of all, it’s the fear of the other. And the fear of the other is either created by political narratives, or ethnic or racial narratives, where we think the others are the causes of our pain, the causes of our troubles, they want to take away our benefits, and our comfort zones. And so then we, we, we tend to create sort of like bubbles where we feel we are comfortable when we are only us versus others. That’s, that’s first. But secondly, when you look at the stage of the genocide, It’s what we call, or they call dehumanization. Dehumanization, it’s when you take away [00:39:00] humanity out of the others, and you no longer see them as human. You see them as enemies, as in the context of Rwanda, they saw Tutsi as snakes, cockroaches, and all other names. So that what we see today. So all the differences we have racial, religion, gender nowadays, and all of that, then we see they are no longer human because the human cannot behave that way. So when you take humanity out of the human being, of course, you kill a snake. In your mind, you’re not killing a human beings as you, you are even excited to kill a snake. You are, you’re excited to kill this animal and why? Because you’ve taken away humanity from the other person. But secondly, when you do that, you’re also taking humanity from yourself. And so We lose humanity when we take away humanity from others, just for our [00:40:00] own benefits, you know, or the fear of the others, or, or political propaganda that’s at all. That’s if you know, educated and all of that, then also take humanity from us because we don’t see that anymore but start gradual. It’s division as you know, like, you know, I can’t eat with these people, I can’t talk with these people. I can’t, you know, go or my neighbors annoying. They do this. Mm-Hmm. exactly. So when we start creating division as versus them, that’s the first stage, then you go to the other stages as, as you know, it’s safe from classification, symbolization, discrimination, you know, dehumanization, then all of those, then it goes gradually. It’s not just how something happens. In the day, you know, when we see the political differences, I mean, the political ideologies and the political lines that are more, you know, growing today. [00:41:00] Hey, we should be now more intellectual and we should have learned from the history. That’s why don’t we? Because the human nature of selfishness. Of wanting more and as only in as only. And we forget about that so it’s, it’s really something complex. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Christophe: But at the same time, it’s more we lose humanity to was that we take away you might from others and we lose our humanity, then whatever we do. When we bomb somewhere, we don’t believe we are bombing, bombing to people. We think we are only bombing to whatever you, we call them. It’s you know, all those names you put on them and they deserve that because they are evil and we forgot our own evil. And, and therefore we have lost. And that’s why we see what we saw today, why it’s just, you know, but mainly deep down, it’s the fear of the others. Gissele overdub: Yeah. You know, in fear is [00:42:00] so like this fear and perspective of lack is really what, what we continue to choose. And I think is what’s causing all this havoc in our world. And even when you look at those people that are quote unquote. Powerful and that are dividing the world meaning that, you know, the people that show extraordinary greed and whose political agenda is to divide, they’re coming at it from a place of fear and lack. You could be a billionaire and still be in a lot of lack because that’s what you need more and more and more and more and more. And, and the thing is, I do believe that comes from a lack of self love and a lack of, of like that. connection because you’re so separated from yourself that you do these things. You see somebody as the other. You need to stand in and divide people so that you can get power, but that’s not true power. That’s just force. That’s not true power. In the truly powerful, stand in their own mastery. In the truly not powerful, need to do that, need to divide people, need to [00:43:00] accumulate as much as possible. And so we have misunderstood power for a very long time, but it goes back to the fear. You were saying that we become so fearful and we have to choose to love. We have to choose to not see that rather than choosing to dehumanize. You were going to say, Christophe: yeah, I want just to add something on what say, thanks for that. I think many people live with psychological emptiness and the vacuums. That they think, wealth and power, we, we complete that, we cover that, and unfortunately, It will not. And then they continue. They think, actually, if I can get more, then it would be satisfied. If I get more power and have more control, I’ll be satisfied. Why? Because individual people have the vacuum, psychological [00:44:00] vacuum and psychological brokenness and emptiness that cannot be filled or covered with all what they think, rather than acknowledging that. And accept and accepting to get support. So then they give names and they justify and they round people around them. Maybe we’ve shared interest. And then they think if you have more power going to control and then we are more safe and so it’s as I said it’s more complicated. It’s, you know, very complex. But what I think is that. Awareness and acknowledging that’s actually this not the solution has never been the solution. So therefore, let’s let’s, you know, accept and come at the table. That’s that’s the [00:45:00] answer, because I always tell people that we always live with whatever we live with it. The differences, as I’ve mentioned, or psychological. And wellness that comes from many things we need to face to accept that it’s a reality and the fact, you know, we need to accepting acknowledging, you know, but also embracing and dealing with that in a positive way than using that as another weapon to harm society and harm ourselves. So, that’s the way. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Yeah. This goes to my next question, which is like what do you think is the starting point for people? Because I mean, I mean, you see people that have like, like a chasm in terms of division, right? Like you’re talking victim perpetrator, but there are people that are still, they’re reinforcing that division and causing further, further division out. What do you think would be the first step that people can take towards coming together? Maybe who might [00:46:00] have conflict with their neighbors, with their brothers or sisters or whatever. What, what’s the first step they could take in terms of coming even one step closer towards conversation or towards just eradicating that division? Christophe: Yeah, you know, that’s a, that’s a very difficult question and good one. Why? Because when we see, like, we tend to look at all those divisions from above. When we look at societies, countries, you know, all, you know, political level where, you know, but we tend to first start from the individual level. Today, we have so many siblings who cannot talk to each other. So many, we have former friends who have become enemies. [00:47:00] Gissele overdub: Yeah. Christophe: That’s at the individual level. And I think that’s where we need to start the conversation from before we start thinking about how do we bring these two politicians, the same table in the same room? Gissele overdub: It’s Christophe: how do we bring siblings one who comes after the other? How do we make talk to each other? How do we make true that talk to family, to parents in the other way around? How do we make spouses to talk to each other for me, when that happens, then I can think about that’s higher. That’s why at CARSA, we identify ourselves as a very grassroots community organization, because we see individuals. We see communities before we think about the nation. Why? Because that’s where everything Gissele overdub: starts. Christophe: So I think this question for me, it’s how do we make that happen? And I think for that to happen, there are some steps that need to take place. [00:48:00] In some cases, first of all, maybe the process won’t look the same because of various reasons. One, the context, the context, but also the culture. You know, there are cultures where people don’t talk to their neighbors generally and they think that’s normal. Sorry to say, but in the places where, when you enter it, you know, in a bus or a train, you make sure you, you know, you are room and you don’t move around so that you don’t touch your neighbor. Like you create your own world in the bus, like, you know, your privacy where you, you know, that’s, that’s, you know, my, my place. So I think culture also plays an important role or need to be, you know, yeah. But. In some contexts, you need people who we facilitate the conversation, who, who first of all, we go [00:49:00] with the intention to understand each side. It’s part that you listen. Why are you not talking to a sister? Why are you not into a brother? Then people will express themselves with the anger, with the bitterness, with the accusation, with, you know, the victimization. I mean, the victim, which would, you know, everything. Then you listen, but then you ask questions. When you ask questions to unlock. The people to move from their emotional side to the logical side of their brain. Then people start thinking, and then you go to the other side. But if that’s not there, people play victimization or victimhood from both side. That’s one. But secondly, human nature. We are, as I said earlier, we are very selfish and we tend to think. Why do you want me? Why not him or her come first? You know, me to accusation, me to blame, [00:50:00] then that will never happen. The conversion will never take place. That’s why we need to first, it’s like, it’s like cleaning the space and the space of it has to be cleaned from both sides, where mutual accusation, mutual blame goes aside. And the people start thinking themselves, Then to understand the pain and the suffering that’s the experiencing from the fact of not being able to talk to the whatever enemy. Let’s suppose that’s the enemy’s there and enjoying seeing you suffering. So what are benefiting? So when people understand actually by not talking, by not coming at the same table, you are actually digging yourself. You are putting more deep and deep in the hole yourself. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Christophe: Then people understand, okay, I’m barring myself here at the end of come to the level I can’t even breathe anymore. [00:51:00] And that’s why it causes so many physical sicknesses, diseases that experience coming from no psychological, emotional issue that people cannot deal with. So I, again, as I said, that’s not a conversation we can have, you know, it’s something that’s need to have the more time. You know, it’s it’s a great starting point to see that. For me, when I think of that individual level of people not coming to it, that’s what makes me more even feel bad because, and at the end, let me tell you who is perfect, who is innocent, who human beings will raise their hands and say, you know, I’ve been always victim in the innocent, Gissele overdub: who in Christophe: this world we live Gissele overdub: in. Yeah. As Jesus would say, cast the first stone if you’re. Christophe: So it might be a [00:52:00] minor role, but still, you know, let’s, let’s call people, let’s be bridge builders. And not bridge destroyers. Why? Because at the end of the day, we all need to cross the river to either go to the other side for various reasons. So when you understand that, then you are not doing that’s actually for, for actually, it’s not a gift we are giving to others. It’s a gift to even we give to ourselves when we accept to come together and talk about a nation. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Yeah. And I do believe that what we do for others, we do for ourselves and what we do for ourselves, we do for others in terms of our healing. So I just, a couple more questions. What does unconditional love mean to you? I ask all my guests that question. Christophe: Unconditional love it’s, it means vulnerability. Gissele overdub: Good answer. Oh, so last question. Where can people [00:53:00] find your organization? Where can they volunteer? Where can they donate? Maybe talk about the documentary. Anything that you want to say in terms of where people can come and find out more about CARSA and maybe work with CARSA. Christophe: Yes CARSA is a, is a, an organization that’s based in Rwanda, as I said, and we have a different nowadays with technology, we have website, we have social media. Like if you go, you know, www.carsaministry.org, then you find most of the information there. You can either have, you know, look at our different videos and, and documentaries that are there, some publications, you know, and can also get access to Facebook. Check out CARSA’s documentary “Blood and Milk”: here And read about “Unforgiven”: here You know, Twitters now called x. You know, you can go to, you know YouTube. We have also some videos and YouTube. If you cast a ministry, then you get some YouTube. So there are, you know, different channels and platform from which you can get, you know, to know organization. But second, we invite people always to come and visit our work [00:54:00] and first hands. Why? Because We know world is full of people doing great jobs in many different areas. And there are so many generous people also out there who want to be part of something bigger than themselves. And we appreciate anyone who has contributed to the work of CARSA in the past and even currently, but we encourage and invite people to come because the work that CARSA is doing, it’s not just for Rwandans, it’s not just for CARSA. Come and experience, come and see, come and, and touch the ground because what God is doing through CARSA in Rwanda is something that’s need to be experienced and be adapted and hope and create hope. So, and also people invite CARSA sometimes people have invited me to speak like you did virtually or physically. I go in and speak to conferences, you know, [00:55:00] churches, gatherings, workshops, and I’m always open when people invite me to go and, and, and share what we’ve been learning. Because I believe that’s what we’ve been seeing, because let me say this. Working in the area of reconciliation, peace building in the current world. If you look at what is happening in the world, it tends to be very discouraging. You wonder if even what you’re doing is making any, any, any contribution, is making any small change. There’s so many violence happening, conflict around the world. But personally, as the director of CARSA, as the founder of this organization, Why I wear every day woke up with believing that they should continue really passionately work into reconsent. It’s what I’ve been seeing in Rwanda. And I tell people [00:56:00] if forgiveness is possible between the genocide survivors and perpetrators in Rwanda, forgiveness is possible anywhere. In any context, if a genocide survivor can welcome a person have murdered the entire family in his home, and the share me and Johnny together. There’s a hope that that can happen. That’s constant. And we invite people to come to volunteering. We host student for internships. We invite people for doing research with us. So the different ways that we Host in partner with people and collaborate with people from all over the world who wants to come and, and, and support and be part of what God is doing through CARSA. So please welcome whoever listened to this podcast. You know, go on the website, you find CARSA and his email, his phones, you know, contacts would be happy to respond and welcome you and collaborate in any way [00:57:00] possible. So thank you very much. Gissele overdub: Thank you so, so much. And please check out CARSA, check out their documentary, blood and milk, and stay tuned for another episode of the love and compassion podcast with Giselle. Christophe: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Gissele overdub: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our worlds. Don’t forget to like, and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’ll be talking about bringing compassion into the school system, and we’ll be talking to Kara Cosby, who is the Compassionate School Project Teacher at Englehart Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky she has delivered the Flourish curriculum in grades K to five for six years and is a Compassionate Schools Project Flourish teacher trainer. She’s also a certified mindfulness director with Whole School Mindfulness. She has completed a master’s degree in elementary education and teaching from the University of Louisville, and has a master’s in education and educational leadership and administration from [00:01:00] Asbury University. Please join me in welcoming Kara. Hi, Kara. Hello. Hello. Hello. I’m so excited to talk to you because I think compassion in the school system is so, so needed, especially at this time. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you started in this work. How is it that you became this compassionate schools. Project teacher. Kara: Okay, so I was a fourth and fifth grade teacher in JCPS. I moved away to Denver, Colorado. I taught for two years there. And then when I decided to come back to Louisville, I kept seeing these positions called the Compassionate schools project. I had no idea what it was but I saw there was several. So I applied for them. And then I, of course, after applying, started investigating to see, okay, what is this compassionate schools project? What do they do? And then when [00:02:00] I dove a little deeper and found out like what it really involves, I thought, wow, because. I am totally into vision boards, and I had had on my vision board for about a year that I was going to teach yoga. And so when I found out that this position actually incorporated mindful movement I was so excited. And so that’s how the whole journey began. Gissele overdub: I love vision boards, and I love being able to kind of align with your manifestation. So that’s, that’s pretty exciting. Kara: That’s what it felt like, that full circle moment. Gissele overdub: Yeah, for sure. I love it when life happens like that. Tell us a little bit about what sort of, curriculum you delivered to the young people and maybe perhaps how you define compassion. Kara: Okay, so the curriculum is broken into 7 units. It starts from the beginning where it’s all about self and, and just learning how to be your [00:03:00] best self and just what is compassion. And so we dive into that first. It’s a very short unit, but then it travels after you introduce compassion into emotions. Unit three is like all about being your best self. self. So we talk about like what we need to be our best selves. I love the emotions unit because it gives me the chance to show inside out, which is literally one of my favorite cartoons. And so Oh, as it goes from self, it moves into friendships and relationships. So we moved from self to friendships, relationships, just how we interact with others. Then the last two units are like community based. So it moves out of. I mean, it’s still about relationship building, but much more on a wider scale. And so we finish out with unit seven, which is a community service project. You come up with the project for your school and it’s something that you guys do for the community. And that’s how it all ends every [00:04:00] year. So for me, In terms of like what compassion is in my definition probably has changed so many times, but ultimately, you know, when I ask the kids, what is compassion, you know, they’re like being nice and they think it’s about being nice to others, but I really teach them that compassion is about kindness and it’s not just about being kind to other people, but learning how to be kind to yourself first. Because you are first. Then once we take care of ourselves, then we can go out and be our best self for everyone else. So that’s really, I love the way it flows. Now there have been times where I have gone out of order just because of like, what’s happening in school. So like, if I see. One year, I think the kids were just having a really hard time. It was the very beginning of school year, but they were having a hard time getting along. So I really dove into unit five first, which was like all about friendships and cooperative learning and just how to work with people. So we, we kind of jumped around that year. Gissele overdub: [00:05:00] I think that’s such a great idea because we are meeting the kids where they’re at, right? Kara: habit. Okay. You know, they’ve been having it for years, so you can kind of do that, but not with your kindergarten. It’s because it’s like their first time. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And is this program embedded within this school? Like, is it something that happens every year or is it just a, it’s a limited time project? Kara: So the Compassionate Schools Project is actually like a study, you know, it started off at As a study with the University of Virginia they were like doing a lot of data keeping in the beginning and, you know, it was all like trying to gauge how this program would impact schools. And I guess over time, you know, the, the survey part wrapped up and they got the research and then. It kept going. it has happened every year and it is like, a class. So in every school probably does it different, but my school utilizes it as like a special area or itinerant class, like along with PE and art and things like [00:06:00] that. Gissele overdub: Beautiful, beautiful. And can you share a little bit about some of the outcomes that you’ve seen, like sort of the impact on the children who have taken this course in particular? Kara: I feel like you know, the great thing is we start in kindergarten. So the real the real proof is in watching a child who came in at kindergarten and is now graduating fifth grade, you know, so they’ve had it for six years. And so over that time, I really get to see the change in behavior. Now, I will say, like, if I think about there’s this one particular student that I always meet. Use as my example when he came in, he was a first grader, very angry, would storm out of class over the smallest things and would curse at teachers. I mean, he, he was just a very emotional child, but over the years I noticed that he could learn [00:07:00] to regulate and he. Like if he got upset in class, he would like go off to a corner. So now instead of storming out of the room, we’re learning how to go find us a space by ourselves. And so over time, I just watched how his reactions they changed, you know, and I don’t ever, you know, try to take credit, like, Oh, CSP did that, you know? But I think maturity and. You know, they’re learning these skills every year. And the one thing I do love is like the lessons are by like K and one have the same lessons. So if you came in and kindergarten, you’re going to see the same deck lessons again in first grade. And then when you go to second grade, a whole new set of activities and things, and then the same thing for fourth and fifth, so you really get to kind of see kids move through the different grade levels and just how the activities change. But I think the core. You know, the core is like the calming and focusing, And we’re [00:08:00] breathing, we’re stretching, and those things are consistent. And so I feel like over time, it really teaches the kids how to regulate, you know, when they face different adversities in life. Gissele overdub: And this is so important because I think the school system doesn’t really teach Children, how to regulate if they expect them to know to come in knowing that but some kids don’t always have that or get that example at home. And so the school does give them the opportunity to, with your program, it’s giving them the opportunity to practice a very, very important skill, especially in leadership. You sort of need empathetic people who are able to regulate their own emotions before they manage conflict. That’s very important in leadership. And so I think what you’re doing is phenomenal. What has been the engagement from the teachers and the principals in terms of the, the program? Kara: My principal loves the program. His kids [00:09:00] actually, you know, came through the CSP project. So, you know, he would come back and tell me stories like how they were coming home and teaching their little brother the fresh start sequence. And so, you know, that’s when I’ll begin to hear little stories, you know, and the teachers in that way also will report back like on, you know, things people are doing in class or, you know, he all of a sudden he was getting upset and he found his anchors. And so, you know, over time, I feel like. You know, there’s just been little things that happen and it kind of brings it to the attention. Now I have teachers who love CSP and they will come in, sit on a mat, you know, they’ll join us for coming and focusing and then they’ll leave and go have their planning. I’ve really with whole school. So whole school didn’t really come into the picture until the past two years. But with whole school, it has really opened my eyes in terms of how to expand beyond my classroom and how can I bring in teachers and how can I touch the community? [00:10:00] How can we get to the parents and the families? So with whole school, it has really kind of pushed me to find ways to get the teachers. So we started this calm program and it’s an outside instructor. She comes in, she does mindful movement and breathing with the teachers. And so that was like something that many teachers loved. And so I just try to find ways to, you know, bring the teachers in because the teachers already, they just think of me like, Oh, this is just another class. But then they start to see like what we do. And I’ve made it a point to like pass out the posters that I use. And so everybody has a calm place in their room now. Which is something we just started last year. So I gave every teacher, you know, posters that have breathing strategies, things that kids can do, things that they see already in my classroom, but now let’s transfer it to your class. So they’ve been receptive. I will say they’ve been very receptive. Gissele overdub: And I think that’s so important for engagement, right? Like if they see, if [00:11:00] the children see an alignment in this in the teachers in terms of the practice in like an allowance, almost like you’re allowed to have this space And I think it makes it easier for the kids to, to really practice those skills in the different environments. I’ve been in leadership, so I know how important it is to have that acceptance at all the different levels, because if you don’t have engagement from that leadership it can be really hard to implement. You talked about. The community projects. And I think this is so important. Can you give me a few examples of some of the, the community projects that you, that the students have put together? Kara: Okay, so over the years, we’ve done a lot. I think in the very beginning, we did things like, you know, project cleanup campus cleanup day. And so, you know, the kids got gloves and I feel like Metro United or some local organization might have done that. Like, they donated us gloves and bags and we had the little you know, [00:12:00] those little trash, like Yeah, yeah. Like the little clippy things. Like Yeah. That just, yeah. Kids love that. They’re like, oh, we use that. So, you know, picking up trash, cleaning up our, our playground. I’m cleaning up our campus. We’ve even done small things like we get the sidewalk chalk. We go out on the street. We are located downtown pretty much so like on a corner block. So I would have the kids spread out and we would have already done the messages in class. But I tell them, like, what’s a message that someone needs to see as they walk by? Like, what is something that you could say to someone that would brighten their day? We’re talking complete strangers. So they come up with a few words and then we go outside. We each get a square, we decorate it so that people who are walking by see these positive messages, you know, put a smile on people’s face. Last year we really wanted to show appreciation for our bus drivers. So we made cards for the bus drivers and you know, it was very random and how we delivered them. I mean, we went out, we put. Positive notes on [00:13:00] people’s cars and like stuck them in their windshield. So I was like, people are going to think they’re getting a ticket and they’re going to look at it. It’s going to have this positive message about how great they are and that’s going to make their day. So the kids were super excited to do it. And Yeah, those are just like a few I can think about the top of my head. We really try to do something more like just those positive vibes, sending out positive vibes to the community. I’ve always wanted to do like a drive of some sort or like where they bring in things, but you know, the disadvantage too, is like I serve at a school. Where the socioeconomic status is, is very low. So, it feels, you know, I, I struggle with, like, asking those kids, because these are the kids who would normally need donations. They would need those things that I’m asking for us to bring for the community. Really, they are that community. So I really have never kind of dove into that part because I’m always kind of worried about it. So I really try to just stick to like, how can we make our neighborhood better? How can we put a smile on people’s faces? [00:14:00] And that seems to be the thing we go with here lately. Gissele overdub: Yeah, you don’t, don’t underestimate the power of, of that. Of those positive words and that those positive energies the reason being is because somebody may have never heard that they’re worthy or beautiful or lovable. They might have received something. They might have received like a cookie or, or, you know, like some food. But to hear you’re worthy, you are loved, you’re valuable to some people is the whole world and that’s what you’re doing. And so I think, yeah. And I think that’s, that’s not to be underestimated. Although I, I do totally agree with you in terms of generosity, but I think what you’re doing equally as, as worthwhile in terms of helping people. And it’s sort of like, it’s very easy for us to, to catch the virus of negativity, right? it’s almost like a virus that just needs to spread the negativity, the [00:15:00] anger, the fear. So what you’re doing is you’re doing the opposite because that those people are then going to pass it onto someone else and they’re going to have a good day and therefore just going to spread around. And from that, you are creating a community of love, which I think is so instrumental. Kara: Yeah, sounds like paying it forward. That’s what I tell them. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Yeah. And you’re teaching the kids the value of you know, that, that positivity, which I think is, is important. So what have you learned about student leadership from those sorts of projects does the program enable the students to really kind of step up and, and be leaders and learn about leadership? So like in class, you know, there’s so many opportunities to be the leader and like, I really try to take a student centered approach. And so every day when they come in, you know, I’m always looking for like, who’s sitting down and doing the right thing because you’re going to lead us today. Kara: So there’s always someone. Who leads us in calming and focusing. Someone has a chime, someone has the ball. Then we [00:16:00] have leaders who lead in terms of the mindful movement and they are like so eager to be the one to lead. Now in terms of the project, you just gave me a great idea because I’m like, yeah, we should have a like. CSP ambassadors of some kind, like, and I know there is another CSP school and she does that. She has like fifth graders who are CSP ambassadors and they kind of like take the lead. I think they like go to other classrooms, maybe like kindergarten and first grade classrooms, and they might work with those kids and do some mindful movement. And so I have really thought about How can I implement something like that, too? And I would love to have, like, student leaders do, like, our morning telecast, you know, and then maybe present, like, a mindful minute or something like that. So I’ve definitely thought about it. I feel like the only leadership so far has really been in class. But I, I would love to expand it beyond that. I feel like there’s definitely a need for that, and it would help the kids so much to [00:17:00] just be in charge of something. You know, they feel good when they get to be in charge. Gissele overdub: Yeah, for sure. And I think having run many, many programs when I was in leadership, one of the things that I, we were often in the same position that you were talking about, there’s limited funds, like this world might not be there tomorrow. And so one of the things I always focused on is how could you integrate this into the culture so that I Like whoever they lose, then it’s not lost because that sometimes happens with programs, like the champions come in and they do these things and they do this amazing work and then they eject out for whatever reason and the program dies. But when you have these ambassadors and champions, it lives on. And, but I, you know, That’s more of a formal role. I can already tell you that if you’re seeing different into the kids, they’re already those champions there that are, or that you are basically feeding from the very beginning in kindergarten all the way to, to fifth grade. So I [00:18:00] think, so congratulations on that for sure. Yeah. I wanted to ask one of the, the challenges that I’ve seen here in the Canadian system in particular having gone through it as a child myself and with my own children. I, it’s a sometimes punitive approaches that happen with behavior issues. And so, you know, like the, the approaches in terms of suspensions and, and sort of like the way we manage kids that are having problems. How has the compassionate schools project impacted the way that’s that schools respond to negative behavior? Kara: So we have the here we have these they’re called SRT calls. Okay. So, like, if a child is. exploding or, you know, something has happened. The teacher makes a call and security or someone shows up to remove the child. And we are school that has a lot of those. And so my goal this [00:19:00] past year was how can I help cutting down some of these behavior issues? So I implemented a program called the compassion coupons. Okay. And this was my first year trying them. So I gave teachers coupons like a little booklet and they were in 15, 20 and 25 minute increments on them was like It was like a cute little picture of a kid And it says like this compassion coupon is for, and they would put the student’s name. And I told the teachers instead of calling SRT, let’s try giving them the gift of compassion first. So you, instead of calling SRT, you’re going to, you see something’s about to happen. You can sense it. You give that child a coupon and you say, go deliver this to Ms. Cosby. So the child Is now focused on something else. So they come to my room and they say, I’m supposed to give this to you. And I, and I look at, I say, okay, well, what happened? You know, so they come in, we [00:20:00] talk now, if they come in and I’m in the middle of class, I just have them join in on whatever we’re doing. So I don’t care what grade is in there. Get a mat. Join us. Let’s go. So usually they just kind of fall into whatever is already going on. And then I’ll try to find some time and talk to them one on one to find out like, you know, what happened? How you feeling? And usually, you know, they only need 15 to 20 minutes and they are smiles on faces and we’re ready to go back to class. So that was super popular. And the teachers were very receptive with that. To it. I had some teachers who never wanted to use them and I had to tell them like, I think they like maybe felt bad. Like, I can’t just put them off on you. And I said, No, that’s not what you’re doing. You know, this is just as much for you as it is for them. You know, just giving you a moment so that you can focus and teach the class and it’s giving them a break out of the classroom. So once teachers kind of once I talked to them and told them like, The purpose [00:21:00] behind it. Then they were like, Oh, okay. And I had way more compassion coupons being used. So I feel that in this coming year, the real proof will be to see, like, look at the numbers to see did SRT calls go down as a result of starting this. And I really want to start it from the beginning of the year this year, because this came like midway through the year last year. So, I mean the real, I think we need to look and see, but I really love the idea of just like not getting upset with the child seeing that they have a need and then let’s try to address the need. And I’m going to, I will work with you to do that. Gissele overdub: Yeah. So thank you for sharing that. Such a beautiful story. And what a great initiative, because I think that’s one of the things that I found. We don’t get curious enough in the school system about what’s happening to the kids to cause that, that reaction. Sometimes school is a hard day at the office for some of these kids. I used to work in the child welfare system, child protection system. I don’t know what they call it in the U [00:22:00] S. But many of those kids. Kids came from toxic homes or they were in the foster care system. So mother’s day, father’s day, very triggering. And they weren’t going to say, excuse me, I’m being triggered by the fact that I don’t have family day coming up because of my family. They’re just gonna react. And so rather than getting curious and being loving, we respond in an equally aggressive manner, like calling a cop or suspending them. We don’t get curious enough. So I love those compassion coupons because I think it does give them the opportunity to then say, Hey, I’m having a hard day in school or just to, to use the movement to release some of those pent up feelings. And so I think that’s very, very important. I remember having a an experience with a young person. And, and I truly believe in re imagining people. Like sometimes we pigeonhole people into. Because this is, people say, Hey, Kara is [00:23:00] this particular way. And then everyone kind of sees you this way. Kara: Yeah. Gissele overdub: So, and so I had a little kid who was I was working at a daycare at the time and I was, I don’t know, I was like 17 and they gave me, cause I guess the teacher didn’t show up. I guess she was sick. So they gave me the school age room and they’re like, here’s the school age room. Here’s the stuff. Here’s like. I don’t know, 15, 20 kids. And then they’re like, watch out for so and so. He’s terrible. He’s named a whole bunch of things. And so I go in there and I’m like, wide eyed. I’m like, listen, I’m 17. I don’t know how to manage these kids. Yeah, like, I can’t manage 1 problematic kid. I really can’t. And so I turned to so and so and said, you’re going to be my helper today. You’re going to be the lead. What do you want to do? And the kid, 1st of all, he was shocked. Then 2nd of all, he was my best kid that day. He led the kids make sure everybody listened. And as soon as his parents came in, I was, I was like, [00:24:00] Very sure to tell them he was my best kid today. He was my super helper. We did all of these amazing things. I allowed him to give some control. And that’s me as a 17 because I’m like, I can’t manage this kid today. So he has to be my best helper. And so that was probably my first time re imagining people and thinking, you know what, this is a story or identity that somebody has put on you or you’ve been told, let’s shift that. And so I feel like that’s what your compassion coupons are doing is you’re re imagining what could happen with these kids. And I think that’s, that’s very important. Yeah. Do you find that as you get to grade five, that relationships are more important? Kara: the conversations around that in fourth and fifth grade are so rich. I mean, we really get into like real situations. What happened on the playground? Well, they’re telling me about, oh, you know, someone got mad because, you know, I stepped on his shoe and he said this. And so, you know, we [00:25:00] really get to dive into like the real. Stories because I always tell them, let’s, let’s go over a real life example. And then let’s talk about like how we could have reacted versus how we did react. And so I feel like the conversation around those parts in fourth and fifth grade are just so good. Oh, they’re so rich. And it just, you can see the light bulb go off for them. It’s like, Oh, you know, but with my younger ones, You know, it’s got to be like really simple, but nonetheless, like we had so much conflict this last year in second grade and I don’t know we, you know, I think it’s one of those things you need to get to the bottom. Like you said, like, investigate why is this? Why is this? Why is this particular grade having such a struggle this year because they were constantly fighting. And it was just, I mean, it was constant. So we really, my counselor and I, and I love that my counselor, she like loves to partner with me on so many projects throughout the year. But we have been talking about next year, you know, like how can we target those kids early? Like we know. [00:26:00] What the problems were last year, like they’re going into third grade, we’re going to be proactive and not reactive. And we’re going to set up, you know, some small groups and get those kids into some extra CSP time. And so the great thing is that this year, my schedule is opening up a little bit, way more than in the past. And so I’m super excited to do some SEL groups. And I told them like, you know, those tier two kids who are like on the verge of tier three. We can start pulling them, making small groups, you know, talking about conflict and just how to get along and all the things that they’re struggling with. But that’s really good because then it allows us to kind of hone in on what is the real issue. And I think through conversation in small group, we will get to the real issue of what’s causing all this conflict. Gissele overdub: Yeah, and I think what you said is so spot on. And I love that you recognize that this cohort is different in that you’re planning for it. I think [00:27:00] that is so amazing because there’s some schools that don’t know the kids. Like, there’s some schools that don’t really know who they are. They don’t really know what’s going on for them. And the fact that you’re willing to say, Hey, I want to get to know and how to support this cohort in particular, like, instead of just sticking with my curriculum, yeah, the curriculum is important. What else do they need? And therefore that you’re very curious about that. And I think that’s so important. Kara: Yeah, and I will say at our school, we have a lot of people on our staff who are also working in conjunction with all of this. So, you know, we have a mental health practitioner full time. We have a full time social worker and, you know, we have the counselor. So, you know, it’s really great because they already have small groups, some of these people. And so it will be really nice to just like work together and then see these kids multiple times and it not just be this like sporadic [00:28:00] when we have time, we meet with you. And a lot of times, you know, the mental health and the social worker, they meet one on one. So I’m really excited to start the small group portion of this. Gissele overdub: Yeah. And that’s how you prevent kids from falling through the cracks, right? That’s how you prevent kids from not being seen and acknowledged. And so I think that’s, that’s instrumental and that goes to like, you know, in particular you have this whole bullying and in school shooter fears. How has this compassion based training helped the whole issue of like potentially the bullying and harassment Kara: You know, so everybody thinks the kids think. Everything is bully, you know, me and I’m like, well, what did he do? And then they’ll explain what happened. I’m like, oh, that’s not bullying. So, you know, I feel like bullying in America has been overused, you know, and to the point that kids don’t really [00:29:00] understand. What it is. They think if you say something mean to me, you bully, you’re bullying me. And I’ve had to just really explain like a bully is a person who is picking on you relentlessly. Like they pick on you every day. I said, it’s not different people every day. I said, because kids tease each other. I went through it. I tell them all the names. I got called when I was a kid and they called me poor eyes and they just called me all kinds of things. I’m like, this is normal teasing. Now, do we like it? No, no. And so we talk about like, how do you combat that? Because for some kids that is just like normal behavior. Normal conversation is to pick you apart. Let me talk about your shoes. Let me talk about about your clothes and talk about your hair. You know, anything they can find to talk about, they will talk about. So I go over that. It’s like it’s so good that we get to talk about it because I bring it into the lessons and I’m like, you know, be clear. Like when people are picking on you, It’s because they don’t feel good. [00:30:00] They are not happy. And so we really look at how to like turn that around. Cause I say, you know, if, if somebody’s talking about my shoes, I’m, I’m looking at them going, Oh, I’m so sorry that you feel so bad that you need to talk about my shoes, you know? So really it’s like working with kids on what to say when someone comes at. You negatively, how can you respond? Instead of you being negative back, you could say something else. You could do something else, you know? So, you know, by the end of the year, kids are very clear. Like, Oh, I’m walking away. Like, I’m not listening to him. I’m just going to walk away. And I’m like, good. That’s a strategy. You can walk away. You can ignore them. You can go somewhere else and play with someone else. So they really pick up on through the, through the talking about these real life examples that, you know, not everything that I thought was bullying is bullying.  because to me, someone who’s a bully, there’s a reason. And I always tell them that like, there’s a reason he’s that way. There’s a reason she is saying that. And it’s really not about you. You, you know, they’re making it about you and they’re [00:31:00] making, trying to make you feel bad, but you don’t have to accept that. And so, you know, it really brings up like just some great conversation around what we allow out as human beings, you know, allowing what other people say to really get to us to the point that we are acting out of character, we are exploding. Gissele overdub: So, you know, it just, it’s those teachable moments. I just really try to decipher with kids like, is that really bullying or is that teasing? Yeah. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And I appreciate that because I think we’ve made kids hypervigilant because of the school shootings and drills during my times, I remember that there was this kid in my high school school. Who was bullied relentlessly and nobody said anything. None of us said anything because we didn’t want to be also picked on. I was, I was a nerd too. I’m like, Oh, I don’t want to be the target. And and so then I remember this kid, cause I mean, I think he had had enough. He brought a knife to school. Right. Because he just wanted them to stop. He just wanted them to stop. [00:32:00] And who knows why this other person used to consistently pick on this individual. Cause like you said, I think hurt people, hurt people. I think people that truly love themselves and are compassionate towards themselves and feel worthy don’t need to pick on other people. They just don’t, they don’t bother with you. And the people that are not feeling good about themselves. It’s like, I need to pass this on. And so helping students. understand and address that I think is, is great. It’s great for the, for the kids. Yeah, I’m going to shift gears a little bit. Kara: I remember my kids, they’re always constantly wiggling and moving. Like, how do they manage So, of course, you know, kindergarten is always the challenge because, you know, they’ve never done it. And so they are usually the hardest group. However. I have my class set up in a way that you need to be successful in this. And so I’m, I really stress like we do these things and it’s for you, you know, I’m doing. this to teach you the strategy so that when you [00:33:00] get upset, you know how to regulate and calm yourself down. And so once I have that conversation and the piece about at the end of class, we’re going to play some fun games. So if you don’t give me 100 percent then you won’t be invited to participate in the games. And so it’s like that dangling carrot, like, okay, you want this, but you’re This is what I need. And so, you know, that helps with those reluctant kids too, because there are always some kids who are just, what are we doing? And why are we doing this? And they come in with a bad attitude and they. don’t want to participate in. I’m not doing this. It’s usually new kids who maybe my like fourth or fifth day, there’s a new student who’s never been to our school. So they are very much like, I’m not doing that. but they learn very quickly. My class is fun. Like I make sure that it is a lot of fun. So even our activities, like if there’s always an activity that goes with every lesson, but like the beginning of class is serious. You come in, you sit quietly, you find your anchors. We’re going to do our, you [00:34:00] know, focusing We’re going to breathe. And they know, like after about a week of class, I have no more playing around. There it is all gone. So I do a really good job just of setting up the routines and procedures for how I want things to run. And I’m very clear with the kids. Like today I have I had summer school today and I actually get to teach compassion, which is such a blessing because normally I’m teaching reading or math or something, but they actually said, we need an SEL teacher. So I was like, great. So I had this. Little guy today and he was rolling the mat. They like to roll up like a hot dog in the mat and I’m like I understand you’re playing with the mat, but know that if you play now you won’t play later So you gotta decide I always make it a choice a choice You can choose that choose that if that’s what makes you happy But just know when we get to the end i’m going to ask you to sit I’m not going to ask you to play. Okay, and so that exchange usually goes, oh, oh, okay, and then we’re sitting up and then we’re listening and we’re doing [00:35:00] the things because, oh, I want to play this game. You have at the end. I want to play it. Gissele overdub: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Kara: Yeah. Gissele overdub: Oh, I love kids. They’re so. So wonderful to Kara: get my teachers to understand, like, if you just incorporate fun, I don’t care what you teach, because, you know, people thought like, oh, mindfulness is that’s kind of boring. And how do the kids don’t want to do that? And it’s like, they may not. Some of them may not want to, but, but, but when you incorporate fun with it then they want to, and I mean, even my, some of my worst children have changed so much, they come in, they’re sitting down, they’re looking like leaders cause they want to be the leader. They want to be the person who’s, who’s showing leadership and being picked to lead the class. And so when, like you said, just like. When you speak to the leader in them, that makes them rise, you know, and I feel I’m a huge proponent of high expectations because if I set the expectation here, they will rise to meet it. They will because they love me. So, and you know, when they love [00:36:00] you, they want to do whatever you ask them to. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Thank you so much for mentioning expectations. Because I think sometimes we hold the bar so low for certain kids that we’re not doing them. Any favors and I think the more you hold the bar, high, not in like, you have to do this like with super pressure, but more around, like, I see the best version of you. I see it. I see you in the best version of you whether you choose to attain it or not, that’s entirely your choice, but I see it within you. And I think that helps young people Kara: because maybe like you said, they’ve not heard that, you know, they’ve not had anyone truly believe in them or tell them that they’re great or that they can achieve these things. And it’s like, here’s a space where. Even, you know, little Johnny, who’s known for getting in trouble, who’s known for getting bad [00:37:00] grades, he can excel here. He can really rise up and look like a true leader in this space. And so I really always try to encourage them to like, you know, take that on to class. You know, when you’re feeling some, you know, get your anchors, you can do that at your seat. You don’t have to bother anybody. And so I am always like just preaching to them. Like it’s those little small actions, you know, it goes a long way. Gissele overdub: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, for sure. And I also wanted to mention the importance of play and fun because So one of the things that I was taught was really that the school system isn’t about fun. It’s about responsibility and seriousness. And, and so the fun is gonna get taught out of us, right? We have to be responsible and we have to be like serious and we have to just sit there. And so, I love that you are reintegrating the whole play aspect and fun aspect of it, because I think that’s so important for kids. That really resonates with them [00:38:00] because schools be boring. I don’t know about your schools, but our schools are. tres boring. my kids they’re like, they don’t, they’re not motivated. They’re not inspired to go. And so these systems are not really that inspirational. So I applaud you for that. Kara: So, yeah, you know, school has always been preached, like, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s serious business, you know, and we go to school to learn and we’re not here to play, you know, teachers will say that we’re not here to play. But I’m a firm believer that we are here to play. And the more you incorporate the play, the more they will love what you’re doing. And so you can do that with math. You can do that with reading. You can really do that with any subject. so let me tell you, I have days where I do what’s called stations. Okay. And so they’ll come in and there might be like, Toys and Legos and just different things. Well, I have this dress up station. Okay. And it’s got like costumes, but more like, you know, like doctor [00:39:00] jacket, nurse, you know, football player jerseys and just different like jobs. And I always think that it’s like for my little kids, but one day I left them out all day and I did, and I see every grade every day. So, you know, I’m seeing kindergarten all the way to fifth. So I left it out for my fifth graders. And in my mind, I was like, Oh, they’re going to roll their eyes. They’re going to be like, why does she have this stuff out? They were so excited. And I mean, they were dressing, they were putting on over. I was shocked just. And it, it made me realize like, these are still, they are kids at the end of the day, their children. I don’t care how big they are. They’re still children and they still love to play and they love to have fun and they love to pretend. And in that moment, that’s when I realized like everything I do can be, can go from kindergarten all the way to fifth because those kids love to play too. And they like to dress up and do those fun things that they really don’t ever get to do. Yeah. [00:40:00] So yeah, I totally agree that play needs to be brought back. I am literally working on a brand new first year teacher. She struggled last year. She was a secondary teacher. So of course there was a lot of conflict, but she asked me because I think she was always so surprised when she would come pick her kids up that I wasn’t having behavior problems and she’s like, Oh, this one’s not acting up and I’m like, no, they were fine. And she’s like, well, why are they like that for you? So I told her like, you know, you’ve got to learn how to incorporate fun. but that’s what she’s been taught. You know, she’s a great teacher, but I told her that this year she and I are going to sit down so I can really help her figure out, you know, how can you tie in fun things? Because when you have the fun, they’ll do what you want them to do because they want to have fun. And so you have to learn how to tie it all together and make the learning fun. Don’t make it. Boring. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Kara: I’m preaching that this year. Yeah, Gissele overdub: for sure. That’s, that’s great. And, and it’s so great that you’re willing to help your colleague out so that she can [00:41:00] get the best outcomes and the kids can get the best outcome. So that’s, that’s also very compassionate and community based. I just have a couple of more questions. I’m asking all of my guests what their definition of unconditional love is. Oh, Kara: that’s something I actually think about, you know, because to me, you know, we love people in all different parts of our lives, but that unconditional love is, Like, no matter what you do, or what you say, or how you behave, I love you just the same. So, for me, it’s really about, and this is something that I feel the Compassionate Schools Project has really taught me. Me because let me tell you, my journey as a teacher has definitely changed. I have changed. I mean, just how I approach teaching, how I approach relationships with other people.[00:42:00] It’s all changed because of this program, because the more I got into it and the more I really understood that I needed my own practice, like my own personal practice in order to really be the best mindfulness teacher for my kids. I love to journal. There’s just certain things that I do with my day to kind of set me up for success. It has really allowed me to learn not to take things personal. And I think once I’ve removed myself and there’s no room for like, like whatever anyone says to me, I’m not making it about me. You know, I’m looking at them thinking, Hmm, wonder why she said that, you know, and it never is anything that knocks me off or really gets me upset. But it makes me just realize, like, how many people are out here hurting, you know, and like, I go to work every day and I’m probably one of the very few people that like, I come in with a smile on my face pretty much every day. And I tell my coworkers, like, I love my job. Like, I’m, I’m so glad, I’m glad to be here. I’m grateful to be here. I literally take [00:43:00] gratitude into every class session that I have. I tell the kids, like, I’m grateful for you, you know, and that sense of gratitude. It kind of just like brings the love out of you, you know, so I have just learned over time that in. Really loving someone and loving them unconditionally. It is really about not taking things personal. And then no matter what is happening, I’m still operating with you from a place of love, because that’s who I am. You know, I embody love. I embody the joy. I bring that so that I can share that with you. I like try to just be a beacon of sunshine. And that’s what I tell them. I’m here to be the sunshine. And so what do you need today? I do this with the adult and the kids, which I also think is why I have really good relationships with the teachers. So like when I need something, or if I’m asking teachers to join in on something, they are much more likely to do so [00:44:00] because they already have a relationship with me. And so like that what’s happening with that second grade teacher, that’s literally my natural inclination is to like, Oh, let me help her, you know, I want to show her because. Nobody else is doing it. And so we can’t expect a brand new teacher to come into an environment like ours, where it’s, it is a struggle. I mean, the kids are, it is rough. And if you’re not prepared, you will drown. I mean, you just will. And I’ve seen it happen. So I really am a person who believes in just operating from that place of joy. And, oh, let me help you. Oh, you need that. I’m here. Let me help you with that. And it’s good. I can do that because I am an itinerant teacher. So I don’t have the same. pressures the same responsibilities that the classroom teachers do. So I really feel, and sometimes they’re jealous of that, you know, they’re like, you’re so lucky. And I’m like, you can do this too. There’s plenty of jobs to do this. So, you know, it just gives me an opportunity to just kind of, you know, see what everyone is needing, not just the [00:45:00] kids, but what is it, what is anybody needing? Let me help you Gissele overdub: Yeah. for sharing that. That’s a great definition of love. It’s wonderful. Last question is where can people find you or find more information about the compassionate school project? What do you want to share with the, with the audience? Anything that you want to share, please share now. Kara: Well, you know, clearly you can find me at Ingleheart elementary school in Louisville, Kentucky. CSP found here: link I’m always open to classroom visits. I have had visits from so many people, literally the surgeon general for president Obama came to my classroom to watch me teach. Oh my gosh. Amazing. Like I am always open to people who want to see this program in action. I have an open door policy. Come in, join in, have a seat. See whatever you like, you know, and it’s great. In terms of that, I am, I am being very intentional this year about getting my social media presence going. So be [00:46:00] on the lookout for hopefully a Tik TOK channel with the Engelhardt So that is my goal for this year. Cause I was thinking like, how can I reach families? And unfortunately, JCP has had a lot of transportation issues and the schedule has changed. We don’t start school till 9 40 in the morning and we get out at almost 5 PM in the afternoon. It is terrible! So in terms of engagement, that piece is missing now because we can get out so late. You can’t expect parents and families to come right back, you know, 30 minutes and half the time the kids don’t get home till six, six 30. They’re not coming back to school five o’clock for a program. So my goal is to really make it virtual and share tips online. So as soon as I get that going, I will be sure to contact you. Just say, Oh, yes, Gissele overdub: of course. Yes, we can put it. Cause I transcribed the interviews and so we can add all the links right there. So yes, please. And I also want to tag [00:47:00] you. So, and just because I, I like you, so I would love to follow your journey. That’s a, that’s amazing. Kara: I appreciate that. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Thank you so, so much for being on the show and sharing your wisdom with all of us. We really appreciate it. Please continue to update us on the amazing work that you are doing. And I thank you all for joining us for another episode of the love and compassion podcast with Gissele. Have a Kara: good day. Have a good one.

Gissele Taraba: [00:00:00]  Hello. And welcome to the love and compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like, and subscribe for more amazing content. Today, we’re going to talk about people pleasing and how compassion can help us address those needs.  Today I’m talking with Tina O Hoang, who is a disabled recovering people, pleaser and podcaster. She strives to ensure women have the space to choose themselves and to share their courageous stories. Whether it be changing how They’re perceived within a family dynamic, leaving a comfortable nine to five or advocating for themselves. She believes that women of color are allowed to take the first step and don’t need permission to do so. After someone told her that her passivity was unattractive, she took it and decided to become as assertive and courageous as she could ever be. With a master’s [00:01:00] degree in career counseling, Tina also understands the hardship of career changes She knows that even when we’re scared of making the first step, we need to just say F it and do it anyways. Please join me in welcoming Tina. Hi Tina. Hi Giselle. Yay. Thank you for having me. Oh no, thank you for being on the show. Let’s talk people pleasing. As a person who is the complete opposite, because I didn’t feel loved or accepted, I just went, screw it. I’m just going to do what I can. And I was so confrontational. So if you could share a little bit with me about how the opposite feels, the people pleasing and what got you to be in that state. Tina Juan: Yeah. So I think for the longest time, I think honestly, like, My feeling like how you are, it was deep inside me this whole time. F everything.. I don’t care about it. I just want to do everything. But somehow, I think maybe within my own culture, family is important. [00:02:00] Because in my culture, whatever you do as a child reflects to your parents and people blame. My parents, if I were to act differently, so like if I went to act out and just like screw everything, you know, do all the bad things you could think of, there’s like, Oh, is your mom’s fault? That’s why she can’t raise you. Right. Or is your dad’s fault? They, he didn’t know how to discipline you in the right way. And so everything goes back to my parents and. You know, growing up too is honestly, first few things I remember of making sure my mom was always happy. I think that’s like the main thing for me is like,we grew up in a single household, and she was always, she was working double shift every single day, like seven days a week. She was, she was a business owner, and the fact that, um, the fact that she [00:03:00] would leave work for like, for lunch. Come over, come to school, hang out with me and my brother, and then go back to school and then go back to work. Yeah, and so, you know, so there was this, so there was this, um, precedent of mom is making all these sacrifices for us.  as a single mom, I need to make sure that whatever she does is makes her happy. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, Tina Juan: and also need her to accept me as a person because she’s because I think in the ages around, I think the primal age is like zero to seven. That’s where like, Okay. You really need your parents around that time, she was working, you know, and that gravitation of like, I need people to love me, I need people to like me, if they don’t, then if I don’t act a certain way, they’ll leave, they’ll leave me forever. And so that kind of that grew the notion of like, [00:04:00] pleasing people pleasing all this time. Making sure that whoever and whoever, anyone is around me is okay. And then also that comes into like, being responsible for other people all the time. I get so mad sometimes because we’re not responsible for other people’s feelings. Only our own. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Tina Juan: I tend to also like, monitor, emotional monitor other people around me all the time. I saw my brain is working 24 seven. It doesn’t take a break. that’s a lot of energy taking out of me where I could have using the energy to focus on myself. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. As you were talking, it made me really think about how similar we were, even though I originally thought we had a different perspective, uh, because I also felt the same way in terms of wanting to protect my mother in particular for her to be happy. But then I [00:05:00] discovered very early that that didn’t work. And so then I took the opposite approach of like saying, screw you. Like, if you say up, I use, I sit down. If you say white, I say black, like complete opposite, but the needs were the same, the need to be loved, to accept it, to take care of, I still had those. I just didn’t feel I was very successful in, in meeting their needs. And so if I’m playing a losing battle, why bother? Um, but I, as you were talking, I resonated so much with what you were saying, because I remember having those same feelings. Um, and so even though we’re coming at it from a different approach, the feelings are the same. When did you discover you were actually a people pleaser? Like, was it after that comment or was it something that came in layers? Tina Juan: I think it came in layers like I knew I was a people pleaser, but then like, it never came to fruition until that comment, because even after that comment, I then I asked all my friends, [00:06:00] my, some of my closest friends, I was asking them, Hey, am I passive? Am I passive? Am I passive? And all of them said, Yes, you are. And I’m like, oh my goodness. and you know, even the notion you were saying about, Like, getting, feeling accepted and feeling loved by your parents, and I did have a raging component in there too, like, where my mom tells me I’m always stubborn. Gissele Taraba: The Tina Juan: term called, we call it, like, she say, this is literally, like, why are you so stubborn? She would say, that’s how I’m gonna lead, right? That’s how I’m gonna lead. Which is like, why are you so stubborn? Or like, I’m like, that is why, like, that is why I’m stubborn. Cause my inner self, she’s trying to get out and say, this is what I want. This is what I need whenever I ask for something. Because my mom’s in a sense of like, I’m doing. I know what’s [00:07:00] best for you. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. And as you mentioned, you know, culture plays such a big role in it because, you know, as a parent now, you know, thinking about what you said to be blamed for my kids behaviors. I mean, I have no control over, I mean, my husband and I have hopefully taught these kids all of the important values. But at the end of the day, they’re going to choose how they live their life and they have the right to. But for me then to be judged on my kids behavior that must be really difficult. And hence why parents Control, right? Like try to control their kids behavior and it sort of creates this endless cycle. Um, it makes it, it makes parenting really hard, right? At what point did you just decide and say, you know what? Like, I, I really can’t be responsible for my. Parents happiness, Tina Juan: that is still a work in progress. Like, right now. Yeah, Gissele Taraba: yeah, that’s fair. Tina Juan: Yeah. But then it’s still [00:08:00] it, but then at the same time, it’s gotten a lot better since then it’s been about. Five year 2019 that’s when the comment came in of like my passivity was unattractive. the first thing action I did was asking my mom to not ever open my mail. So that was like the first hurdle of like, I would whenever she tried to open else I find make it to make her keep her happy like I don’t like it. But she’s concerned, I don’t want to ruffle, I don’t want to ruffle the feathers. So that was where it start, you know, accumulating since then. Gissele Taraba: What was the response? Tina Juan: Lash out. Really? She didn’t understand it. I mean, I understand where she was coming from, from that moment, just, you know, worry and making sure that we are okay, that if there’s a, if there’s an important mail that we can get, we can get to it right away because I, I don’t live with her. So sometimes just certain mails that comes to her house. I just get it later. [00:09:00] And so, but yeah, it wasn’t a good reaction at all. And still, there’s some moments I just have to pick my battles, you know, like she still does it. Till today, since then, and I’m just like, you know what? It’s like, I don’t want to put more energy than I already did. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. It’s the same with kids, right? Like you, you kind of have to, you do have to pick your battles in terms of like, it’s like a baby step at a time, right? good for you for at least sharing that perspective. I can only imagine as a single parent, it must have been challenging to make sure that your kids were okay. Right. And it must feel scary to, especially if I don’t know if she has a relationship or not, it must feel. feel scary to let go of that need to mother, uh, especially if that was your whole identity. Um, how has this influenced your desire to be a parent or not? Tina Juan: well, I’ve chosen to be a pet mom instead of an actual human. Gissele Taraba: [00:10:00] Nice. Pets are awesome. Yeah. Tina Juan: So that, so that kind of influenced. Well. Cool. In a way that did influence me, but overall there’s more responsibility in taking care of a human versus like a pet. So I prefer to put my energy on that, like I have two cats right now and I love them to death. As regards a human, I’m okay. Me and my partner, we’re both, we’re both okay not having children. And so, and we’re okay with that as well too, but there was some influence, but not as much. Gissele Taraba: I think that’s a very Brave choice. Now, you have the right to change your mind or to keep yourself as a, as a personal lifestyle choice. Um, but it’s so amazing how women in particular are expected to play this mother role. You have to have children. That’s like your be all And so when people decide to not have children, there’s this real power. Backlash that people face. Um, I don’t [00:11:00] know if you experienced it, but I remember as soon as I got married, there was expectations like, okay, when are you going to have children? When are you going to have children? And it’s like, exactly. But you would think with the amount of pressure that women face to be mothers, that mothers would be kept up here, but there is so much. Backlash you never doing it right. so you would think that that would be a role that would be elevated as, as high as, um, I don’t know, athletes, but it’s not, it’s not, it’s. Difficult to have children in this and I’m not talking physically. I’m talking emotionally because like you said, it’s like your heart, you give them all your heart and love and you, and eventually they’ve got to fly the coop and that’s their right. And they got a right to live their life. And so you do feel fear for them. You feel love, you feel all of these things. Um, and so it, it’s as much as, as rewarding as it is. It can also feel really challenging at times, especially when they struggle. Yeah. Oh, Tina Juan: right. I mean, like, because even me [00:12:00] as like a pet mom too, like I recently lost my dog in January. Oh, Gissele Taraba: I’m so sorry. Tina Juan: No, it’s okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Like he, I, I had him for 14 years. So he’s, he’s 14. it’s still kind of fresh here and there, but the, I feel like that’s the same thing. Like you’re losing a part of your heart. Yeah, I’m losing someone and then it’s the same thing as having, I feel like there’s no difference of having a human child versus a dog. Gissele Taraba: I have both. I have a, a 12 year old baby, which I call my 12 year old, uh, Doberman Shepard. Yeah. And he’s my baby and he’s never going to die. That’s it. That’s why people ask me how old he is and they’re people like, Oh, how old is your dog? I’m like, he’s 12 and he’s never going to die. So I like, I don’t even engage in the conversation. I’m like, Nope. Nope. Yes. Never ever. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. Um, I wanted to talk a little bit about [00:13:00] this 4B movement that’s happening. I believe in South Korea, I don’t know if it’s a hundred percent correct. And I had seen this on Tik Tok and I was really interested because, you know, some people say, well, it’s not as big as people are making it out, but it’s really catching fire in terms in the Tik Tok community, because from what I’ve learned is like a group of women that have to say Now Let me back up in South Korea has one of the lowest or the lowest birth rates. So right now, yeah, babies are not being like, they’re just not being born. And so the government is really worried about like, but what’s happening? Like, we’re going to have a whole bunch of old people. I know young people to take care of them. And, one of the reasons that has come out, um, is that there is this, I don’t know if it’s small or large, There’s this group of women who have decided it’s called the four B movement to never to not marry and not have children that just decided this is not [00:14:00] the life I’m going to lead. This is not what I’m going to do. And this is very much against convention. And all of these North American women are like, oh, my God, what a good decision. Take our power back. Because women have historically, we have suffered from gender issues in terms of wages, you know, like facing rape, abuse, all of these things. And I believe that people are seeing this 4 B movement is women taking their power back and making a choice. What are your thoughts? Tina Juan: Oh, no, I agree on that because I’ve always hear people, you know, saying like, are we as women are just a vessel for to produce, you know, and just to only abide to other people. People, and so I really, oh my gosh, Barbie, that’s like kind of my route to because eventually I, my partner even thought about not even getting married like we’re okay not getting married like we’re both agreeing on it. Well, I think I decided like thinking like, yeah, I’m cool with that too. So, it’s kind of like, you know, it’s [00:15:00] kind of. Amazing that there are women, at least in South Korea, they’re standing for themselves and empowering themselves, like putting the foot down, like, no means no. We’re not, we don’t want to do this. We don’t want to have kids. We don’t want to get married. You can’t make us. Because we are our own person. So I love that. I love that so much. Gissele Taraba: And I think, you know, going back to the whole people pleasing, that really goes against convention and it really goes against the expectation of, well, like if you’re not there for that, then what’s your purpose. Right. And it makes me think of the women’s suffrage movement. There was a time before women got the vote where they, they literally stopped society. They, they stopped going to work. They stopped cleaning. They stopped. Cooking, right. And now in our today’s world, it’s much more balanced. Like my dad, my husband has all does all of the cooking. Like my dad used to do all the cooking as well. Like, so we kind of have like, uh, a different relationship in the sense of it’s not traditionally [00:16:00] male, traditionally female.  but many families still have that traditional role. And so it’s interesting to see how women across the globe are really gravitating towards that. And I’m not saying that’s the answer. I mean, you’re in a relationship, as you mentioned, you’re just not making the choices that have historically been made. We are rethinking, I mean, traditional conventions. And I think that’s kind of the, the epitome of non people pleasing. Wouldn’t you say? Tina Juan: Oh, no, it took, actually. Now you’re saying it. Thank you. I didn’t realize that because like, for the longest time, I guess, for me, when I think of like people pleasing, I think of like, not saying no, like verbally, not saying no, always saying yes to people saying yes to that. Everything that people ask of you always say yes. But I didn’t think about that of like, no to having [00:17:00] kids, no to having getting married or just certain things that I don’t abide to. That’s not attained to people pleasing, because Gissele Taraba: It goes against the grain, it goes against the norms and it makes people really uncomfortable because, and I think that’s, that’s where people are really having an emotional reaction to that, you know, and I always say that, you know, I noticed someone else sometimes is a yes to myself, right? So, sometimes when I’m very honest about when I don’t want something, it’s because I’m saying yes to me, yes to me. Putting my boundaries. Yes, to me, not doing something I don’t want to do. Um, but you know, like, I don’t normally struggle with that except my kids. My kids just like, sometimes when they’re like, they like, they keep going and going. I’m like, oh, okay. And so that’s where I’m like, okay, so maybe I’m not as. Clear my boundaries as it comes to when it comes to my kids, you know, I don’t know what [00:18:00] it is about them. It’s just, I think I, I, it’s that element of wanting to make, to see them happy. But that doesn’t always equal their happiness, right? Like you mentioned, Tina Juan: right? Yeah. Cause every time our kids, my pets, they want something different. Like I just want to, all I want to do with my cats is just smother them with love, like hold them. And then you’re like, Oh my God, like, I know their faces, like, get away from me, like cats in particular Gissele Taraba: must be like, Oh, even my dog too. I do the same thing. And my dog’s like, I make my dog uncomfortable and unconditionally loving my dog’s like, Oh, when is this going to be done? Okay. There’s Tina Juan: a dog too. My dog where he would like, uh, he would growl at me cause he knows a certain like, you know, they know what’s going to come after. Cause like, I, I’m a very petite person, but then like, I project strong emotions. So that’s also something to recently too, is me not caring anymore. Cause I have so much energy as a person, like positive, either way, like [00:19:00] positive, negative energy, like very intense energy. Some growing up, I was told to just tame it. Like calm down, relax. And so I would always keep check of like how much energy am I putting out? It’s best to be small. It’s best to shrink as a people pleaser. It’s best to do that. But now I’m. letting myself air out being more playful, being more like energetic and just like play and not caring at all. And yeah, it just feels like, and that’s why I’m able to love my, my babies. My girl is more often because I’m exuding all that energy, you know, they’re like, Oh my gosh, too much. Gissele Taraba: And thank you for mentioning that, because that’s another aspect of people pleasing as well as asking people to extinguish their light so that they can be average so that they don’t trigger other people in showing their light. And so I think that’s allowing ourselves to do that is another aspect of people pleasing.[00:20:00] Um, and one that maybe isn’t probably as common, like you mentioned, it’s like always saying. Yes. And never saying no, but extinguishing our own light for other people to please them is an aspect of people pleasing. No, it Tina Juan: is. And yeah, Gissele Taraba: I wanted to know, so what helped you shift from that to one where you say F-it, I’m doing it anyways, what helped you shift where some of the things that you did that really kind of said, even if it’s like evolving, what are some of the things that really helped you go from that?  people pleasing to one of like, I’m going to step up into my power and doing it anyways, even if I’m afraid. Tina Juan: Yeah, I, um, so after that comment, right, the passivity was unattractive. The first thing I did was, well, first thing I did was cry like a bunch. I cried and cried. And then eventually I kinda just sat with it Cause I had two [00:21:00] decisions, Right, two decisions of like agreeing that I will forever like forever be existence of people pleaser. This is my route. This is my existence to be alive right now is to make other people be more important than me. Right. And the other decision was. Yeah, like you said, fuck it. No, that’s not me. I’m not that person. Um, I know I want to be assertive. I want to do it. And so right after that, too, was I did was a lot of journaling, having a very quick call with a counselor. So as a resource where you talk to a counselor, very quickly, just briefly on what you are feeling. So it’s not like the suicide line, Whereas like, you know, like you’re boiling, like the analogy, the water is boiling, but the water is simmering and you’re just feeling some type of way, but you just want to let it out. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. And what, what did you call it? The warm line? Tina Juan: Yeah. The warm line. They have [00:22:00] each, each state has their own. Gissele Taraba: Oh, I didn’t know that. Wow. That’s fascinating. That’s really supportive. That’s amazing. Go ahead. Sorry. Tina Juan: I recommend all your listeners to, like, use the warm line for anyone to use it, because it really helped me get through that, that, not, it’s not really that dark, but just like that really muddy time for me to figure out where I want to be in life, you know, in regards of the people. Pleasing. And then over time with that to my self awareness came about one with like going through graduate school and journaling and reading my inner child came was more like in my face when there’s a certain something going on and I see her I’m like, Oh, Okay, what do I do now? Because, I call her tiny Tina, even though we’re the same height, we have not, we have not grown at all. That’s hilarious. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Yeah. Tiny [00:23:00] Tina. Yep. Tina Juan: So like tiny Tina, she’s like, she’s at the ripe age of 15 and that’s where my inner child is. So whenever there’s something going on and I don’t want to do something, she starts getting anxious. And so I see her sometimes. Of like bashing herself or like anxiety going back and forth, making sure that we need to please the people around her at all times. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Tina Juan: And so I really had to sit down with her multiple times and telling her like, you’re okay, you’re safe. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Tina Juan: You don’t have to do that. You don’t have to do what other people want. What do you want? And just sitting with her with it. And sometimes she understands at the level that the intellectual level that she is a 15. She’s she understands. And there are other times where she gets the best like she has more energy, where, [00:24:00] where, which means that her stubbornness comes into play. Gissele Taraba: And Tina Juan: then I, so like sitting down and sitting with her and being compassionate with her, sometimes it doesn’t actually work. So I just have to be like, not the mean parent, but like, I see you, honey, I see you, but just sit your ass down. We’re going to do this. We’re going to do it anyways. And just come with me. Like, you’re safe. I think that’s also like, she’s still scared and anxious, but I’m still giving her compassion. And at the top of that, it’s like the firmness of the age I am now. Just sit with me. You’re fine. Just sit down. Yeah. Like it’s not that I’m leaving her behind. She’s still here with me. I’m just like, okay, just sit down with me. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Yeah. And you’re helping her feel that in, in sort of dip her toe in into that safety, right? Um, and I love that you mentioned compassion and I love that you mentioned the inner child healing. Um, just as a strategy I [00:25:00] myself have used, uh, to feel safe for the longest time I didn’t feel safe. And so I have really had to reparent myself around feelings of safety. Um, but sometimes it just feels so strong, those feelings of fear, right? And so to say, you know, you are safe, I got you. You’re okay. I got you. I think it’s really, really powerful, really powerful. Tina Juan: It is. And it is also really fun to, to kind of see the thing that West. It’s like, it’s like real time right now. It’s like seeing how much she trusts me now than when I first started because there was a constant, the battle would be for days in the beginning of like, I really want to do this. I really want to do that. No, no, don’t do that. Mom’s going to get mad. People are going to get mad. Whoever is going to love Gissele Taraba: you. Tina Juan: Yeah, or like you anymore. But now she’s like, okay, I got okay. I’m still scared. But I know you’re you keep me safe. And also like what I’ve [00:26:00] learned recently to go to therapy as well, is I didn’t realize there’s the bot my mental compassion, like mental compassion versus body compassion, in the sense of like, telling her like, you’re safe, you’re, you’re know, it’s gonna hurt you that you’re going to be your own person. All the affirmations, but I forget to, to soothe my body because her body is feeling tense because of all that. And so now that what I do for me is like squeezing my arms, squeezing my legs, just giving that sense of hugging her. Hey, you’re here. You’re safe. Like, and then, then my body starts to relax more and then I’m more straightforward, but yeah, it’s a, it was. It’s still, of course, I don’t think we’ll ever go away where I’ll have my inner child just banging at me at the door. It’s like, get me out of here. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want [00:27:00] to think. It’s like, you can’t do this. Can’t do that. No. You know, but just letting her know like, hey, you’re good. You’re good. I’m here. I’m here with you. Let’s hold hands. And I literally hold my hand, like my right hand. Also, also a quick note too, like I grew up having a disability. So my right hand, um, I have cerebral palsy. So my right hand, it’s. It’s affected. So there is, you know, some limitations to it. So I utilize that as my, my younger self. And then my left hand is like, not affected. So half of my body is affected. My left side is good. My right side affected. So I would hold hands with her, hold my, hold my hands. And she’s like, I got you you’re safe. And then she’s saying, yeah. And so I love that. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, I absolutely love that. Um, and what you said is really so powerful and so important. So I want my listeners to, Don’t take a note of it because that physical component is so important as we [00:28:00] saw in COVID people were so separate, they couldn’t touch one another. There was, there was so much isolation. And like you mentioned in compassion practice, there’s the touching of the chest, you know, like you put your hand on your heart or on your leg, or you can, you know, like rub your shoulder. And what it does is releases oxytocin. And so we can do that for ourselves if we don’t have anyone to do that for us. And it does kind of soothe that it’s, it’s like physical touch is so important. So when you can’t get your mind in order, you can do that physical touch. And that’s like, it’s a great strategy for people to use to be able to bring themselves back. And I love that you are able to offer that to yourself as if you’re two different people, but it’s, it’s, it’s just one you, but the fact that you’re able to hold your own hand and be there for yourself is so powerful and so important because people don’t realize that they can do that. They always think, Oh, it has to be external. Somebody has to love me externally outside of me. Um, [00:29:00] I wonder what your thoughts are about, like, you know, people pleasing and all of those sort of behaviors. Ultimately, it’s about us wanting to be loved, right? Part of about that self love, um, did you feel was really in need when you were people pleasing? Tina Juan: To accept me for who I am, really, that’s where it is. It’s like I said earlier, I have a lot of energy, really big energy, like just I just last week I went to the beach with my partner and he he’s more of the grounded type so he’s walking. For me, I was like bouncing everywhere going in the water, out the water, outside the water, jumping into the sand. Throwing up sand, throwing up water, like, just like being a kid again, you know, being really playful and just enjoying myself with the energy that I can encapsulate. I have so much energy, like, I have a [00:30:00] very small, I’m only five foot, five feet. And so I just, you know, You know, just accepting me as me that’s like the big component for me. It’s like, can you hold my energy if I let it out? Like, can you hold that space for me to give my energy out, you know? And then, right. Thankfully. And I love it that my partner can hold that whenever I exude it, like he can’t, he can’t go to that level of course, but he’s okay. But he puts his glasses Gissele Taraba: on for the wattage, right? He puts his glasses on. He’s like, lets you shine bright. Right. Tina Juan: Yes, and just like yes, yes, and so yeah, yeah, so it’s just like that is accepting me as me and not trying to mold me into taming, dimming, diminishing my energy of what I can take because I can run like a freaking mouse going on a wheel. Gissele Taraba: And [00:31:00] then that’s awesome to have that much energy. It’s, it’s amazing. It’s amazing. one of the things you mentioned, um, is that, you know, sometimes you have fear in stepping forward and shining your light fully. How did you deal with that fear? That’s those fears that sometimes come up. Tina Juan: I only when I’m exhausted, like I’m tired of going through that motion all the time, the fear going, and I literally, I literally just say, like, just fuck it, I’m just gonna do it. I’m just gonna do it. I’m like, I’m tired. I’m tired. Like, that’s where the when the I’m so tired of fear running through my mind Gissele Taraba: So Tina Juan: yeah, so I think for me, I just put myself into like exhaustion and then I’m like, okay, well, I’m doing it. And then here I am. And I was like, I just did it. Awesome. Why didn’t I, why did it take so long? Gissele Taraba: Is it terrifying in the moment, in the moment when you’re doing it? Is there, what helps you get through [00:32:00] that fear in the moment? Tina Juan: In the moment? No, I don’t. I just like, oh. Cool. I just did it. And then the fear comes back. Okay. Gissele Taraba: But then you’re like, but I just did it. So you’re okay. Tina Juan: Yeah. Like the action just is done. The action is done. But then now the fear comes back of like perfectionism and that’s where it’s like, Oh dang, did I just, did it look good? I don’t know. And so that, then the fear comes in and I have to do the whole cycle again. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Yeah. Perfectionism. People pleaser’s ugly cousin. Yes. So Tina Juan: ugly. Gissele Taraba: So, so terrible. I don’t even know where we got this concept that we had to be perfect. That you know, like it’s just, it’s such a disservice. We’re all perfectly imperfect and that’s what makes us all beautiful and different. Um, what role did perfectionism have in your life in terms of the, how it influenced the people pleasing? Oh, Tina Juan: it stopped me [00:33:00] from doing things that really made me happy. For example, so dancing is like one of the things I loved. It makes me so happy when I dance. It doesn’t matter how it is. It’s, if you get my body moving, I feel my body feeling lighter. Like it’s one of those things where I’m not thinking of anything, but. Myself in that moment of freedom, happiness, joy, and the perfection came into it was when I was younger, we were like in a church group, and they had like a auditions for dancing like being like dancing for Lunar New Year. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, Tina Juan: because of my disability, I decided I can’t do that I can’t perfect the dances because of my disability like it’s going to be wonky it’s going to look a certain way. Okay. And so I just been simmering on it. Like I have to be perfect. I have to be perfect in this dances. And if I don’t do it, then I can’t do it. And so I ended [00:34:00] up not doing it. And I regret doing that because of my perfectionism coming in. It was like, it has to be perfect if I do it and I can’t do it because of my disability, then it’s best for me to just step away and not do it. And so it’s just like, Yeah, it’s one of those things where it’s just annoying for me looking back, but then also reminding myself that I can start today. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Tina Juan: Just dance again. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Tina Juan: Yeah. Just have fun. Just enjoy myself. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Did you, uh, ever experience the need to have to forgive yourself for some of the choices you made or didn’t make? Tina Juan: Hell yeah. All the time. Can you talk a little bit about Gissele Taraba: that? Oh Tina Juan: as I was saying earlier, my inner child is 15 years old, right? Yeah. So there’s already that huge concept of when you’re in high school, your first impression is first key, the first thing, like, yeah, for sure. [00:35:00] Yeah. Right. And so she still has that concept. She still has that mindset of it. And so there are times when there are easier things that are not the core, like my onion thing of an onion, like anything that’s like really close, like to the core, I still haven’t forgiven myself yet. Like, things that really are my core values, my core beliefs, I still haven’t forgiven myself for the decisions I made for those, like, for example, the dancing, like, dancing is one of my core beliefs of what brings me joy and happiness, like, I can still dance today, but I regret not doing that when I was, I think I was 12 or 13 years old, I regret not doing that because I could have been a dancer today, you know, like short showcasing what is like to be a dancer and also have a disability at a young age, because when you’re dancing, you’re younger and you’re dancing like you have more flexibility, [00:36:00] more room to like really try out different moves. I’m in my 30s, I still can do it, but then it’s just different if you were younger and trying it. But then, like, if it were to be closer to the outer layers of my onion, like outside my core values, it’s easier, it’s easier to forgive. Like, eventually, I, like, for example, I didn’t, actually, like, well, today, too, actually, today, I feel guilty because I asked, a woman to price match an item that I saw online that was different from the in the store and I didn’t tell her like, thank you for going through this trouble to doing this. I was like, thank you for the receipt and then walked away. I was like 10, 10 steps away. I was like, I didn’t turn around. I could have turned around, should have turned around, but then I ended up just kept walking in that I called the worm just before our session about it, [00:37:00] feeling, I don’t know if I can let this go. Like, it’s so hard to let this go, because it’s going to eat me. It’s like, I didn’t appreciate what she did for me, going through the hard work to price match. And sometimes I’m trying to tell myself that it’s okay, you’re safe. Gissele Taraba: You Tina Juan: can learn from it. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, Tina Juan: I think also tying with the people pleasing is we tend to take a lot of things personally. Gissele Taraba: Hmm. Yeah, Tina Juan: because Yeah. Oh, go ahead. I think you have to say something. Gissele Taraba: Oh, no, no. I, I, yeah. Like the personalizing part of it. I was just going to ask in terms of like, um, have you ever, have you considered, um, maybe saying that what you wanted to say from an energy perspective, like not physically, but emotionally, like, you know, like the same way [00:38:00] that you hold your hand of your 15 year old. Um, would you consider like thinking about that same circumstance and just saying it and experiencing it as you would have wanted to experience and getting that opportunity to say it from an energy perspective? Tina Juan: Um, what do you mean by that? Just like, Gissele Taraba: what I mean is, so, you know, when you speak to your younger self, right? Like, technically you’re interacting and you’re soothing some of the old wounds. Yes. One of the things I like to do is that when I experience something that I struggle with, um, for example, or, or I struggle with someone, um, and I can’t speak to them physically, I will speak to them energetically, like spiritually. So I will actually go into meditative state and then relive that experience in the way that I wanted to experience it. So in your case, it would be like me reliving that and actually. Saying thank you, thank you and sending them that love from [00:39:00] the state of where of that meditated state. Um, so, so that we, um, number 1, it helps me to release it. Um, because then I’m not stuck in that loop of like, oh, I wish I had. And secondly, it actually surprisingly has. Worked like, it’s very strange. I don’t know exactly how it works, but it’s, it’s worked with me with challenging students. Like, when I’ve had, I’m a prof in contract faculty and when I had a struggle with a student. Uh, long story short, like they were sending me some angry emails and I was like, you know what? I kind of took a pause and just said, you know, cause I was starting to stress. I was like, starting like, oh my God, do I have to redo this marking? Do I have to talk to the dean? I’m contract faculty. Is this going to impact? And I was like, you know what? I’m going to stop. What do I want to experience? And I said to myself, I want to experience this working out for me and for the student. It’s working out with ease and grace. First, I’m going to address my own difficult feelings with love, [00:40:00] send myself love and send the student love. And then I emailed them back and say, why don’t we chat? Like I had previously sent an email explaining it. That wasn’t good enough. I said, why don’t we just do I’m happy to chat with you because you’re important to me. Hoping to make the time to explain and go through absolutely step by step how I came up with this mark. And I sent that email, went to bed, but went to bed imagining that everything had been sorted out. I don’t hear for a few days and then I get an email saying everything is resolved. No problem. No need to meet. You’re a wonderful teacher, have a wonderful life. And so I’ve had instances where I’ve actually been able to resolve conflict, if you may, this way, like it just from an energy perspective. Um, so just let me know if you would be interested in trying it. All you’d have to do is just put yourself in a meditative state and relive the event and just basically say, thank you. And in circumstance, let’s see how it goes. Maybe it doesn’t work for you. Maybe it works for you, but if it helps, um, [00:41:00] I know it’s helped me, um, sometimes let go of things because I will get caught in a loop and I’ve had like in the past, I really had bad anxiety and obsessing and panic attacks and so on. And so I find that doing that helps me let it go and kind of go, Oh, okay. I’ve looked at your thoughts. Yeah, I’m down for it.We’ll try it out. If it helps, it helps. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I, I’m a big believer that, you know, we pick up things from many different people and if it works for us, it works for us or it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Tina Juan: I think also, I think I’m coming from what you’re saying too. Like, it makes sense. Cause the same time, like you’re really being back. Say, thank you. for, I think that also, like, as you’re talking, I was like, just thank you for doing your best. You know, doing your best of what you could do in that moment. Yeah, Gissele Taraba: I love that. Yeah, saying that to yourself. Oh, that’s so beautiful. I wanted to talk about, you’ve been mentioning it a little bit. Um, and you mentioned it, uh, I think in your intro, which is [00:42:00] really about the importance of play. What role has play played really, uh, had in your life and how it has helped you sort of transform. Tina Juan: Give me a minute because I like, it’s like, it’s just resonating really deep within me because I realized how important play is, how important it is, it is in my life because I just feel like my most authentic self as an adult, you know, it’s, I mean, there’s a difference between as when you’re playing as a kid versus playing as an adult, because, you know, we know when is the right time to play and when is not the right time to play. And it’s so important. It’s so important for me because it exudes my energy. Gissele Taraba: It’s Tina Juan: hand in hand with how much energy I could play. [00:43:00] How, like, you really, like, you see me bouncing off the walls for a good 10 minutes playing and just being goofy. And also one of the things too is that I love making people laugh. Making people feel at ease. Just like, hey, you’re allowed as an adult, you’re allowed to play. I’ll play with you if you want to, like, I’m cheering you on, I’m supporting you, let’s play, because that’s also the thing what I’ve noticed too as an adult, we forget to play, we forget to be one. But we always love doing. I love bouncing off the walls all the time and exuding so much energy and just like, and then you know, knowing that I will come down off that ladder and just like, okay, I’m chilled out. It’s like, it’s like, one to 100 for me. But um, That’s kind of where it is for me in regards to play because I want to play as much as I can. Like one of the things I love going to [00:44:00] is one of those, um, you know, industrial buildings. Sometimes they have like the water spouting out from the ground, like a bunch of them just, you know, for like, Art and whatever. I run, I will want to run through that and then get myself wet. Like, I don’t force put back electronics away so that it doesn’t get wet, but just go into the water and then not caring and just enjoy life. And then, you know, because we are meant to live fully and wholeheartedly and not be very joyfully. Yeah. Yeah. And it feels I just all I want to do is just the people around me. Just, you know, Especially as adults, like, play as often as you can. Not, don’t tell anyone to tame your light, to break down your light, because It is different, like, my energy is really high, so not everyone can reach my, to my level, but like, reach to your own level of what brings you joy, [00:45:00] and play with that, play as much as you want, like, if you used to play Like you love playing in the dirt. Go play in the dirt. Who cares? Your feet, your hands are dirty. You can wash it with soap and you’re fine. Do things or like jumping into a pool, even with your clothes on, like you saw something cool. I’m going to go jump into it. Like the pool, for example. And then, or like, like, just like letting, let yourself be free and not be so scared that, Oh, I’m an adult. I can’t do that. Oh, what do people think of me when I do this? Just do it because. You deserve it. And you want to be happy as an adult and not like specifying like adult because we forget. Gissele Taraba: Thank you for sharing that. Um, I really resonated with that. I, uh, I know this girl, um, she was in business class with me, so she started a play based business for adults. Right. So she does that. Yeah. I Tina Juan: love that. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Um, and so I, [00:46:00] I had booked my husband and I kind of like a play section because I wanted to do something for a date. Um, and as I was doing, as we were playing and all that stuff, I realized that I had a lot of those perfectionism in terms of like, so she, at one point she’s like, color outside the line and I’m like, , but it’s gotta look beautiful. And then like all of those restrictions that we put on play, that it has to look perfect and it has to look right and it ha we have to color inside the line and, and all of those things that limit creativity and limit joy. And so. So thank you for reminding me of that because I see it in my kids. My kids just want to play and they’re fun and they’re not thinking this has to be perfect or this has to be a specific way. And it’s so, so important to remind each other just to play a little more. Um, and just to let go of all those old stories about like, you were just being silly or immature. Um, and just how important it is. Enjoy. [00:47:00] Yeah. Tina Juan: Oh, and also like, I want to emphasize, like, I really want to play with women. Yeah. Especially women, because growing up, you know, where men are allowed to be roughhousing, give no shits, running around not caring, because they’re like, oh, they’re just boys will be boys. That’s like the old saying. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Tina Juan: Yeah. Boys will be boys, but then girls are like, oh, no, you have to be Gissele Taraba: mature, like, Tina Juan: We’re told to grow faster. We can’t play. We can’t play in the dirt with the boys. We can’t roughhouse and be all dirty or whatever. I mean, I think nowadays, the generation now, I think it’s gotten, I’m assuming gotten better with like allowing girls to be like, do whatever they want to be. But I think I think culture also plays a part in this too, because at least in my, in my culture, a lot of Vietnamese, I’m Vietnamese, a lot of Vietnamese women, we don’t play a lot. Like it’s frowned upon to [00:48:00] play Tina, you’re weird. Or like, Tina, you’re annoying because I’m exuding my energy in the way that I know makes me best. And I just want to emphasize that for women’s they play as much as you want. Really don’t, don’t tame your light I don’t like, don’t play because the guys, your husband, your partners, whoever, like, they’re willing, they’re more allowed to play, like, if you want to play, go play. And I think the biggest part is that, don’t worry about what people think of you. I think that’s, that’s, I think like, perfectionism is like, there, but I think the part of like, caring what other people think of us is so important. Why we don’t play a lot as adults. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Yeah. And as you were talking, I, I remembered what you had said about the sense of responsibility. Yes. Like women sometimes have such a huge sense of responsibility. It’s not responsible to play, it’s not responsible to do that. So, yeah. So thank you for that. Yeah. That’s really powerful. [00:49:00] Right. Tina Juan: Thank you. Gissele Taraba: I wanted to ask you a couple more questions. Yeah. The first one is I’m asking everyone on my show, how do you define unconditional love? Tina Juan: I think I think of a conditional loves like, this is going to make a lot of people uncomfortable because I’m just refraining from my personal experience. My unconditional love is just smothering your loved ones no matter how they don’t like it. In a way, like mother, Gissele Taraba: mother. Yeah. Tina Juan: Yeah. I’m a smother mother. It is like, and I think I got it from my mom too. She tends to smother us to the most like unconditional love she could give us to. So I think I learned it from her. And so it’s just like. You know, but putting that to like on top of smothering is also like give them so much so much like affirmations, give them compassion, empathy, and holding space for any [00:50:00] everyone around you. Like, I think that’s the also the biggest part is like holding space. Yes, you can smother but then like there’s a boundary, of course, you should not. Cross all the time when they’re like, get off of me. I don’t want this anymore. Yeah, Gissele Taraba: exactly. No, you love. Tina Juan: Yeah. It’s like, but they’re like, you know, just holding space and just. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. And just, yeah. And just encouraging them to play as adults, as they’re growing up and your friends and family to say, play and play Yeah. Beautiful. So my last question is, where can people find you? Where can they, where’s your website? Where can people work with you? What are you doing? What do you want to share with the audience? Tina Juan: Yes. So honestly, right now I have my podcast. So the Courageous Inner Beast is a place where. Women are able to share their courageous stories. Beautiful. Can Gissele Taraba: you tell us just a little bit more about Um, both. Tina Juan: [00:51:00] Yes. So, like, for the Courageous Inner Beast is just a place for women to share their courageous stories, like, unfiltered and uncensored. Really just becoming your powerful self and then me holding space for you. Because as we were talking in this whole conversation, we don’t want you to shrink. We don’t want you to like, be small, like, you know, like, If the way you share your story is close to your heart, it’s authentic and honest, and I can feel that from you. It’s like you’re being your true self and I want to hear more of it. And my personal, my personal curiosity will come out of it and my own reactions come out of it. And so that’s all stories. If you want to feel inspired, feeling that you want to resonate. We just go all for it, you know, cause we’re all, we’re found in like Spotify Apple full and all the little ones that you could find like iHeart, Amazon music. You have find us all that you want to listen to stories. It’s mainly just stories as the platform, but yeah, please check it out as like, we want you to listen to it and just hear more of it. Yeah. Oh, [00:52:00] that’s lovely. Yeah. Thank you so much, Tina, for being with us. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Um, such a great conversation and, uh, please people go check it out and join us again for another episode of the love and compassion podcast with Giselle. Gissele Taraba: Thank you. Bye bye. Bye, everyone. Thank you.

Gissele Taraba: [00:00:00] on today’s podcast. We’ll be talking about the power of mindfulness to help young children flourish and become their best selves. I’m speaking to Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez. They have been teaching a social emotional curriculum for over 20 years in Baltimore and now across America. And they have helped over 200, 000 children with their work, their work with their holistic life foundation. Has been been featured on making a difference on the NBC nightly news, CNN and CBS, as well as, Oh, the Oprah magazine, the Washington post up worthy, mindful magazine, yoga journal, Shambhala sun, and many, many more places. Their book, let your light shine. mindfulness can empower children and rebuild communities has also been featured on. Good morning, America. Please join me in welcoming them to the show. [00:01:00] Hello. Ali Atman: Hey, how are you? Gissele Taraba: I’m good. Thank you so much for being on the show. for Andres Gonzales: having us. Oh, Gissele Taraba: so much. I think that the work that you’re doing is so impactful, especially for the future of education. And can you tell the audience a little bit about how you actually got started on this work? Ali Atman: I guess the start came from My brother and I got introduced to meditation as young kids from our dad. He was into transcendental meditation. So he would get us up in the morning and we would meditate before morning cartoons. And you know, it was meditation. Woody Woodpecker, Scooby Doo.  Well, actually Scooby Doo, then Woody Woodpecker. Woodpecker. Off the school. Gissele Taraba: And, Ali Atman: And self realization fellowship church based on Kria yoga. My dad, our dad got into the practice from our godfather. He was one of those people that got into yoga in the 60s and never ever got out of it. As we got older, I guess, around the time I was in [00:02:00] 4th grade, Atman was in 2nd grade. Our parents got divorced. And we lost our meditation practice, but as we got older and, you know, like, life happened, we were finishing up college. We were looking for something to do, we met Andy at the University of Maryland, college park, the 3 of us, like, pondering how we’re going to spend the rest of our lives. And I’d say 2 important things happen 1, our dad sat us down and told us not to go get jobs in the start of business. He was all about entrepreneurship. And not, you know, I mean, it’s like 3 people of color getting caught up in the the world of the corporate world where you hit that glass ceiling when you look a certain way, and you can’t advance beyond that. Then he also had a lot of friends that were getting fired and losing their pensions and getting downsized after decades of, like faithful work to certain companies that they were working for. So that happened, and then we got back into to yoga talk. Godfather, he was always trying to get us back into it, but we kind of dove deeply into the practice. And the combination of of that yoga practice from uncle [00:03:00] will, our godfather, the entrepreneurship push. Of of our dad, and then the 3 of our desire to help humanity and the planet to seem like there was a lot of suffering going on and a lot of pain. And a lot of people taking advantage of other people in the environment. It’s like, it was like that perfect storm. And then like the stars aligned and the holistic life foundation was born. Gissele Taraba: Oh, amazing. Sounds like your dad was a visionary because when you look at the world of work right now, there’s so much going on. I think that from a larger perspective, larger consciousness, we really are shifting how we do work. But I think what’s, what an amazing vision. go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead. Ali Atman: When you were talking about entrepreneurship and I did like. All of his friends thought he was crazy for telling us not to go get jobs because it was like, you know, it’s like, they were like, he paid for private school. The boys are in college, they both have degrees. You told them not to go get jobs. Like, he’s like, no, no, he didn’t, you know, he was like. He was like, no, I see down the line, like, this is going to be what’s going to serve them and then. Probably like, 15 years into it, like, all of his [00:04:00] friends were like, yeah, we probably should have told our kids not to go get jobs either. I mean, because it was a struggle at 1st and they were like. You know, like, see, we told you they should go get jobs because he was supporting us financially. Like, our bills and the organization early on, but then once we figured it out and things started to grow, like, all of his friends wish they had done that with their kids as well. Atman Smith: And and his friends not only didn’t become went from doubters to supporters, but they actually started supporting us financially. As well, too, and now. Whenever we have a fundraiser, they come and support and tell us how proud they are. So it was a huge shift, but it took a really long time. And honestly, you know, our dad, he was a stubborn dude. So, you know, he didn’t once ever fail at anything. And I think we were 1 of the things that he didn’t want to fail it. And, you know, he supported us, like, I always say for, like, 8 years. And then, you know, that’s when, you know, we finally got, you know, national recognition with the yoga study, the 1st yoga mindfulness study on the effectiveness. Of it on urban youth through Johns [00:05:00] Hopkins and Penn State. And then after that, it was like a snowball effect of support financially from foundations and from media outlets you know, and then after the media outlets and the, and the study, all his friends were like, Oh, yeah, man, he was on to something, you know what I mean? So, yeah, we definitely humbled and appreciate, you know the support that you know three pillars gave us, it was him our godfather and, you know, our mom, she made sure we ate like she would drop off packages of food because like, we didn’t have two pennies to rub together for the first eight years. So, you know you know, through the combination of that tripod, it helped support our tripod. Gissele Taraba: That’s, that’s so powerful because I was, as you both were talking, I was thinking 20 years ago, mindfulness and yoga, especially within the school systems and so on. It wasn’t as popular as it is now. It wasn’t so you know, embedded within, you know, you had Jon Kabat Zatt and all these other people that kind of made it [00:06:00] more popular.  How was it in the beginning received when you were when you were talking about mindfulness and yoga, especially as a form of really addressing some of America’s biggest issues like poverty and, and, and violence. Andres Gonzales: I mean, like you said, it wasn’t very common, at least not, not as much as it is now, you know, you hear mindfulness everywhere. You’d see yoga and media and all over TV shows and movies. I remember when we were first working with the kids and we would even say the word yoga, they’d look at us like, Yogurt, Yoda, you know, like they didn’t, yeah, Yoda, right. The word wasn’t familiar to them. It wasn’t like it was now. So I think initially it was received with skepticism from a lot of the kids and a lot of the programs that we did because it wasn’t as popular as it was today, but I think that all saw the transformation that occurred within us with our practice and we embodied the practice [00:07:00] of something that our teacher really, really emphasized. You know, you had to be authentic, you had to actually be a scientist, do the techniques, do the practices on yourself, see what the results were, and we saw what they were, we saw, you know, what it, what good it could do, not only for us, but our community and for mankind in general. And I think that Us going into these communities and these programs that we had and just being the practice, you know, when we say, Oh, isn’t something do it something you are. I think that was something that was evident in the three of us in our practice so that we’ve resonated that energy so you know the kids may not have been down to do it or been skeptical but I thought it’s lame whatever I don’t want to do this. But we were pretty cool guys, and they saw that we were like, man, we need to try to do this. And usually you know, for all the listeners, I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there that once you try it, you know, once you do this, the experiment on yourself, once you take some breaths and you start incorporating some movement or some meditation into your life, it can almost be [00:08:00] instantaneous that you see and feel those benefits. And, you know, you become more present in the moment instead of being in the past or the future, you start to learn to love your real self more, which in turn allows you to love others. And that love and that compassion that Ali was talking about that we saw that was missing in the world, it grows. And I think it’s something that we saw when we were working with our first group of kids and throughout all these 27 years now is, you know, you just really were just kind of planting the seed and reminding people. These. Techniques and practices and this ability within themselves, you know, to let their light shine, like that book says. And I think that we just wanted to be the conduit, right. To keep passing on these practices and these techniques to help out. As many people help themselves, you know, people oftentimes say that we save people’s lives or we help, you know, we don’t do any of that stuff. We’re just reminding people and they’re the ones that are taking control of their own lives and learning how to self [00:09:00] regulate and how to be more present. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. First. I just want to say thank you for planting seeds because I think all of the people who planted those seeds way, way back. We’re helping humanity. We’re helping us get to this point. So it must’ve been difficult to go eight years without seeing the fruits of your labor. But so thank you for holding on to that stubbornness and the vision. You mentioned some of the outcomes that you yourself experienced. You, you mentioned a few, can you share a little bit? bit more in terms of how it changed your life by implementing this mindfulness in yoga, especially since it seemed, and I could be wrong, that you grew up in a neighborhood that was more like violent and more poverty stricken. Is that accurate? Atman Smith: It is. I mean, honestly, when we graduated from school, we moved back to the neighborhood that Ali and I grew up in and you know, it was, you know, I remember one weekend three people got murdered within our two two block radius. You know, the open air drug [00:10:00] market, dilapidated housing, they call our neighborhood like the blue light district because there’s like surveillance cameras like on every other corner with like blue lights, like the police siren or police lights. You know, yeah, it’s very depressing neighborhood and a very scary for some folks but. You know, in the midst of all that stuff we were blissing out and it was because of the practice. You know, a lot of our friends used to come to our neighborhood and ask us like, yo, like, y’all are broke, y’all don’t have no car, y’all live in one of the worst, most dangerous neighborhoods in America, and like, y’all happy, why the hell are y’all happy? And we would return the question and be like, well, you know, y’all have great jobs. Y’all married, y’all live in great neighborhoods. Y’all have nice cars and you’re miserable. You know what I mean? So it must be something to what we’re doing. And honestly, we realized from that point on that we needed to share this with other people, along with the fact that, you know, [00:11:00] when Ali, Andy, and I like big Star Wars and like Marvel comic book, you know heads and, you know, we were always trying to figure out, you know, like, man, we want to be super packed superheroes so we can, you know, save the world. You know, during that time, that was like, you know, when we were in our last year of school, we were also searching for, like, what is the point of life? Why are we here? It has to be more like Ali usually says, like, it has to be more than just graduating, getting a job, getting married, having some kids. Retiring and dying. There has to be more to it. So we have read a lot of books and, you know, whether it’s, you know, philosophy creational theories ancient history astronomy, astrology, and, you know, we were, we’re looking for what the purpose of, of our existence. And, you know, the more we read, the more questions we had. And they would always say the answers are within the answers that within, we looked at each other like, man, how the hell do you go within? And during that [00:12:00] time, our teacher, who’s me and Ali’s godfather you know, he had been trying to get us into yoga for the longest time. And, you know, we just thought he was crazy. Like we would be sitting around his Island in his kitchen and we would, you know, be drinking a Heineken or something and, you know, watching basketball. And, you know, in the midst of us watching basketball and enjoying ourselves here, like he he’d like point to the Heineken and be like, you know, you’re putting toxins in your body. You need to learn how to get them out and start doing a yoga breath called Kapila body where, you know, it’s, they call it the breath of fire where you get. exhaling three breaths per second and that like detoxifies your body. And at that time, you know, we would look at each other like, man, this dude is crazy and get up and leave. But, you know, I think that once we saw, once we were looking for a teacher and looking for the answers that are within, you know, we realized how much of a gem he was. And we actually saw like a yoga manual that taught you a lot of like meditations [00:13:00] where you know, you could like, you know, it was esoteric stuff, like maintain your body without eating. What, what, what meditation can you do if there isn’t a hospital and, you know, other stuff like that. And we’re like, yo, yo, can make you become like a superhero? And he was like, well, you know, that’s part of it. That’s a distraction. But honestly, what it is, is to unite your individual self, which your universal self. And, you know, the other stuff are just byproducts and all of us are like, yo, can you teach us? And, you know, what he said is that you know, you got to make me 2 promises. You have to wake up at 4 30 in the morning, an hour, half before a sunrise to practice with me. And the 2nd thing is, you got to promise to be teachers. And honestly, that’s the reason another reason why. Besides, you know, seeing people suffering is we made a promise to our teacher that he, you know, he said he would teach us any and everything if we decided to be teachers. And the 1st population that we taught where the people in our community, because there was so [00:14:00] much suffering so much undiagnosed trauma and, you know, like Andy said, like, we always say is that, you know the best thing to do is, you know. Do not have people dependent on you. Our teacher was like, man, I don’t want no devotees. I want to create teachers. That’s what we did is we wanted to create teachers. So we empower people with the practice of how to be the practice, what the benefits are and how to practically apply it into your life. And, you know, it started off in our hood but then it’s expanded, like you said, around the nation and around the world. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. You said so many amazing things. I just want to highlight a few. Number 1 being that it’s happiness, joy, bliss. It’s an inside job. You guys can show the way and you’re the light keepers. But people have to be willing to be able to do that work. And I think that’s what people sometimes struggle with. Like sometimes we want to be saved, but the truth of matter is we’re only going to save ourselves. And so you demonstrate that beautifully in saying you can be in a quote unquote terrible environment and still be blissing [00:15:00] out. Or you can be in a yacht you know, in Capri and have all the money in the world and still be. Miserable, because wherever you go, there you are, right? So I think that’s really important. I wanted to mention, I am so into esoteric and as far as our mind and our thoughts can, can take us. So if you’re interested in more supernatural stuff, Lee Holden, who is my Qigong teacher, has done a little documentary on like, Like being able to, to, you know, to see beyond it’s really quite a cool, it’s it’s called supernatural or something. And Dr. Joe Dispenza also does that stuff, I just thought it would be interesting in terms of like seeing what. How far we can go in terms of bending reality and so on. But I want to go back to your comment about the impact. Because as I was thinking about your work, I was thinking, you know, have young children I’ve been trying, I like my husband and I’ve been teaching them to love themselves and to into practice. Just, they’re just not into meditation. So how do you engage young people in a way that [00:16:00] gets them to move away from that resistance and that distractibility, especially now with electronics to wanna embrace the kind of work that you do? Ali Atman: So I think it’s, it’s, it’s different teaching your own kids versus teaching other people’s kids. And so I know when my boys were born, when my oldest son was born, we had been teaching kids for probably a little over a decade, no, 2006, we probably teaching kids for about five years. By the time my, my oldest son was born, people were asking me, like, well, how are you going to teach him? Like, when are you going to show him yoga and show him how to meditate and all these things? And it. It wasn’t really that it was just me practicing around him and waiting for him to ask the right questions to decide that he wanted to take that journey with the practice. So I’ll be sitting on my mat doing the breath of fire doing side create. He would just come and sit on my lap and stare at me or he was. Meditating, we kind of sit down next to me on the on the couch or whatever. So it’s just like he was around when he was asking those questions. So I think when you’re dealing with your own kids, you have to make it something where you wait for them to be [00:17:00] ready for it and not use it as a punishment. Make it fun. And mold the practice, not around what your practice is, but molded around what’s going to benefit them and what they’re interested in when we’re in schools. It’s a little, I mean, it’s, it’s a little easier because, you know, we show up in a school. We’re not their teacher. We’re not the parents. Like, we’re the fun guys from the outside that are coming in to show them something new. And it’s a, it’s a lot of the same things make it fun, make it engaging, show them how it’s going to help with their struggles. And meet them where they are. A lot of kids, most, I feel like a lot of people that want to teach mindfulness in schools or yoga for that matter, they’ll go in and they’ll go in with an idea of exactly what they want to teach, or they’re teaching from a curriculum or they have like they walk in with their class structure. If you walk in there, you’re not going to give the kids what they need. If you walk in with that mentality, we always say you got to ready to throw it all out the window and listen to the kids because kids will tell you what they need. Like, if you listen to them with your ear, your heart [00:18:00] and energetically, they’ll tell you exactly what they need. And you can give them that. That’s what when we train our teachers at the holistic life foundation. We don’t use curriculum. We don’t use things along those lines. We give them a toolbox where they can go in and just teach them how to really be present and listen. And a part of that is coming from having your own personal practice. Like when you have your own personal practice and you can feel and experience that stillness and that peace and that inner love and that interconnection, like it starts there, like you said, it vibrates out and then you can start to feel it from the people around you, but you can also feel when those people. And you are suffering. And if you listen to them, you’ll know what you’ll know what to present them with so that they can practice to heal themselves up. So I think it’s, it’s, it’s similar, but it’s just a little, it’s more, it’s definitely more difficult teaching your own kids than it is teaching other people’s kids. Gissele Taraba: Just to add a little something else. You know as far as meditation, a lot of people just try to like jump straight into the meditation when they try to teach people or teach kids. And, you know, sometimes that can be more harm than good, that style of meditation that you teach because, you know, [00:19:00] when kids are just sitting in silence, they get lost in their own thoughts, traumas can pop up and, you know, all that type of stuff. Atman Smith: So, you know, what we do is we kind of have a skeleton. When we teach practices in general, contemplative practices, we always do something physical to kind of get rid of that restless energy and then make their body a safe space. Then we do some breathing practices to kind of still their mind and then they’ll be ready for meditation. But we don’t, you know, we have more of a guided meditation where we’re kind of leading them to a specific path instead of the silence that will let their mind wander. So, you know, until like, Ali was saying, until they actually develop their own practice, it’s really good to kind of have that blueprint of physical practice, breathing. And then meditation guided meditation. And then once. They kind of have that adapted. Then you can kind of let them do their own thing. And, you know, through repetition, even if there is silence, they’ll hear you in their mind, leading them through the practices. So they still have a kind of guided meditation you know, [00:20:00] while there is silence. So, you know, that’s pretty much besides what Ali was saying, that’s kind of how we approach it. Ali Atman: Yeah, and if you think about it, what I most talk about is a very trauma informed way of presenting the work, but. I mean, the 8 limbs are already trauma informed. If you follow him, I mean, like, that’s the way that yoga set up. Like, you talk about the embodiment with the Amazon and he is like, what are you doing in your life to buy the practice? You do the movement to make the body a safe space to do the breath work to slow the mind down, and then you jump into your meditation. So it’s a science for a reason. It’s, it’s, it’s. Sustained for thousands of years for a reason because it works if you teach it the right way. I think people try to like pick pieces out of it or teach it in a way again, back to the curriculum thing. They try to go like, well, this is going to be day one and this is going to be day two and this is going to be day three. And you have to do this type of, you know, I mean, but like, you know, the way it was originally set up, it works. It’s got to be adapted for modern times a little bit in its presentation, but the way [00:21:00] that it’s structured, it works. If you do it that way. Atman Smith: Yeah. Pat and Jolly was on to something. Do Gissele Taraba: Andres, do you have any thoughts? Andres Gonzales: No, they covered it. Okay, Gissele Taraba: cool. Yeah. So I, what you were both talking about is I think what Andres mentioned earlier, which is that embodiment, right? When you’re embodying that, you can get a sense of what people need in the moment and give them what they need rather than what you come with in terms of your framework. And so I think that’s really important. I also wanted to mention Ali, you’re a better parent than I, than me. Because I, I kind of had to learn that later on. I, I learned about self compassion and self love and meditation and Qigong and movement, all that stuff later on. And so I kind of had to learn what you just mentioned, which is allowing the kids to have their own journey and allowing them to be curious. And if that’s not their journey, then that’s not their journey. And so that’s, I think that’s, that’s a beautiful way to put it into be open to [00:22:00] sharing what they’re interested in. I found with my kids in particular, like they kind of want to explore their own things, which I, for me, it means they’re safely secure because they’re like, eh, I don’t want to do that. I want to do something else. And it’s like, awesome. Wonderful. Can you tell me a little bit more about some of the some of how this program is embedded within schools? You mentioned you kind of come in and do kind of like a pop in. And the reason why I asked this question is because I’ve had experiences where you drop in and you do something and then you leave, but how can we weave this as part of the natural school system and, or in different environments in a way that would make it? Andres Gonzales: Sustainable 1 of the worries that I always have is sometimes when you have these programs in there, the budgeting, the budgets get cut. Like, these are the first programs that go. So how do you weave it into the system so that even if you are cut, it’s still kind of within the culture so much so that it could continue? We have a wide variety of programming, right? I [00:23:00] would say one of the main ways we weave it in is the way that we lead the practices. Similar to how our teachers at DUST, hey, I’m not teaching students, I’m teaching teachers. We do that we use a reciprocal teaching model. So when we go into the schools and we do these programs, whether it’s the full school wide initiative, whether it’s little pops and pop ins, whether it’s residencies, they were always teaching the kids to be teachers. So I remember when we used to have our after school program, there would be 90 kids in the gym, the three of us. And it wasn’t us leading the practices, it’d be a little kindergartner in the front leading through some salutations or doing the asanas for everybody. It’s to make them embody the practice and empowers them too. So now they are these leaders and they go out in their communities and they make friends and they change stuff. And similar in the schools, you know, you start finding that the kids, once they start seeing the true benefits of these practices, That they’ll raise their hand and say, hey, teacher, we’re [00:24:00] about to take a quiz. Can I do lead everybody to the stress breathe? And they’re the ones leading. So, even if we step away, sorry, the puppy’s the one, Gissele Taraba: even Andres Gonzales: if we step away, then they’re still. Running the programs, they’re the ones that can facilitate the practices because it’s really not that hard once they learn how to do it. It’s like you said, I think you get it right on the nose, the culture or the school or whatever facility starts transforming and changing. And this becomes common to see the kids doing some breath work or meditating to learn how to self regulate and using these practices. So, we’re really, we don’t want people to rely on us. We want to come in. Guide and lead as we can, but when we step back. It’s kind of a a machine self that’s rolling and it just becomes part of daily routine like, Hey, at this school now we breathe or we meditate. And I think that’s what really allows it to stay sustainable and make an impact, not only [00:25:00] inside the school, but in the surrounding community as well. Cause then the kids go home and they’ll see mom and be like, mom, you look stressed out. Sit down. I’m gonna give you some breaths. And then it just transforms the entire area. Ali Atman: I love that. One thing that we look at his train the trainer programs, like, there are those people who are in school buildings who are who are adults. That are that connect to the kids very, very well, they’re good at. Diffusing situations, they’re good at connecting with the kids and get them to kind of feel safe enough to share. We’re good at going into the building and adding mindfulness and yoga and breath work and meditation to their skill set so they can make a bigger impact in the school. So, even if the budget does get cut. Like, they’re already in the building, so they might, you might find those mindfulness champions that are that that will actually be training to become mindfulness champions in the building. So that, like. You know, they can they can still do all they’re doing, but they’re also empowering the kids with practices to help them with mental health issues to help them heal from trauma to deal with anxiety to deal with [00:26:00] that lack of connection. All those things that kids are suffering from these days, and it’s become 1 of our major ways of helping people around the country because, you know, it’s kind of unfair for us to go into a school and we go there for a week. And like, you know, we make the practices really fun. We’ve been teaching them for a long time and everyone’s all excited about mindfulness. And then we go away and they’re like. What the hell do we do now? Like, this is like, what are we supposed to do? So I think we want to make it sustainable. We want to make it stick. We want to make it effective when we’re when we’re gone. So I feel like our train the trainer is probably the most impactful thing that we can do. To help people outside of direct service, but, outside of Baltimore, and when we’re going in other places, it’s that train a trainer where we can. Find those people and train them up to just enhance what they’re already bringing to the school community. Gissele Taraba: Wow, that that is so important because what you’re talking about is that kind of bottom up approach and sort of middle up approach as well. Does the leaders ever take any of your programs? Because I [00:27:00] definitely as a leader, I would see that as something that I would want to take to because I mean, I know people that are vice principals and so on and they get very stressed out. So, to be able to breathe before you’re managing something difficult would be great. Ali Atman: So, we made the mistake for you for over a decade of going into a school and only working with the students there and that doesn’t work because the teachers are more stressed out than the students in a lot of cases, because they’re dealing with their own life stress. And they’re dealing with the secondary trauma and the burnout they’re dealing from working with the kids. So we started working with teachers for a while, and it wasn’t until we started our Mindful Moment program that we started working with the principals. And we realized that that’s where we had to start every single time. You got to start with leadership. Because it all trickles down, whether it’s that stress domino of, like, starting with the principals and going to the teachers, the students. Students bring it home to the parents. So like it’s coming from everywhere. So we know that we won’t walk into a building if we can’t work for it with everyone in the building. And you know, we, we do, we’ve done leadership outside of schools as well. [00:28:00] City Council President Zeke Cohen here in Baltimore started this Healing Cities Act, where he’s trying to make Baltimore, well he’s kind of made Baltimore a trauma informed city. Gissele Taraba: Nice. Ali Atman: Oh, it was, we did trainings for around, like, trauma informed yoga mindfulness for the mayor for the city council for the heads of all the city agencies. We’ve done deep dives with parks and recs with the libraries. With the state’s attorney’s office with the housing authority. And next we’re going to work with all the firefighters in the city. So, like, you know, like, there’s there’s a space for it in the community outside of schools because adults are suffering to not just the kids, but it’s got to start with that leadership every single time. And if you can get a leader that’s brought in, and then, like, totally sold on the program, the program’s not going to go anywhere. It’s always going to be there and it’s always going to sustain and keep growing. Gissele Taraba: And I love that you’re also creating leaders within the school as well. So even if that leader changes, you’ve got kids that can really step up into the leadership. And so you are shaping the future, which is [00:29:00] amazing. I wanted to ask about, you know, in the information that was shared with me, you talk about that your program has, I mean, so many amazing outcomes in terms of, you know, like anxiety and stress and self esteem. One of the things that stuck out to me in particular was about. Self care and self love. Can you tell me a little bit about how they differ and about how you’re working with that? Andres Gonzales: Yeah, I can chime in. So I think one thing we noticed a lot, you know, when we were working with the kids, Initially, you can see how we’re giving them these practices. Like you said, everyone’s really focusing on how the kids can, you know, how it’s going to impact them in school. So can they focus better concentrating more removing ruminating thoughts to be present this, you know, dealing with conflict in a more peaceful manner. So these conflict resolution skills and You know, that’s like the focus on everyone. Like, how can we get the kids to do better with these programs in [00:30:00] terms of school, education academics. And, and it was funny, we would see the main thing that was really happening was they learned to love themselves. And that is what the real transformation where the real transformation occurred. Cause they learned to love themselves. And now they’re looking at themselves differently, they don’t see themselves separate from everyone else, they start to feel more interconnected with all their peers, and they’re not just part of the west side of Baltimore, or the city of Baltimore, or the state of Maryland, or the United States, but they’re part of everyone and everything. And I think that when they started learning to love themselves, it allowed them to see other people. And being more empathetic and compassionate to others, and they learn to love others more, and they start seeing, oh, well, you know, someone, Johnny’s going through something today and empathize with it more, because they’re like, I know sometimes I go through that too. And I think that self love is really, really important for everyone in the world, but [00:31:00] in particular, youth, when they learn to love themselves and they start seeing themselves in everyone, every other thing. And it’s like, well, why would I treat anyone or anything negatively or, you know, with hatred when they’re just another version of me and they start loving everyone and everything. And that’s why I think everything starts to gel. I think you need to learn to love yourself first, right? That self love before you can take care of yourself, right? Because if you don’t know who you really are and you’re not loving yourself, then you can’t really take care of yourself. I think then we, you With the practices they start and some of the concepts that we discussed when they start learning about, you know, taking care of themselves, you know, that’s not selfish. Right. You know, one phrase that we use a lot is that, you know, people oftentimes are giving from their well right but they give from their well until it’s empty. And that’s not what we should be doing as human beings. We need to take care of [00:32:00] ourselves, do those things to make. I’m always like makes our hearts of soul smile, you know, the things that we really love to do and take care of ourselves. First, our cup is overflowing and that’s what you give from is the overflow. So then you’re always functioning at 100 percent if not more than 100%, right, but most of the time people want to just give and give and give and they you know they’ll set themselves on fire to keep other people warm. And that’s not a way to live or to function. And I think with these practices, as they start to learn how to love themselves, part of that is the understanding, Hey, I need to take care of myself as well. And if not, then I’m just giving from a half empty cup and no one wants to do that. You’re not really giving fully. So I think, I hope that answered your question a little in terms of the absolutely did. Yeah. Gissele Taraba: And it, it reminds me about the whole you know, airplane thing. You’ve got to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can help others. Otherwise you’re no good to anyone. And I’m also very appreciative because I saw the whole concept of self love [00:33:00] on the outcomes that you list. And I think that is so important, especially for men, especially young men, because I think. And this is just my perspective. I could be wrong. I think we really do a disservice for young men in particular. I think that we as a society, we’ve kind of done, like, don’t ask for nurturance. diminish you’re crying and your vulnerability and focus only on anger and focus only on like connection through sex. And so I think that by allowing young people to be okay with their vulnerability, to love themselves and to accept themselves. And especially for our boys, I think it’s so important. So I am very grateful to have seen that on your information. Any thoughts about kind of in particular self love for boys? So Ali Atman: it’s funny as you were saying that I started smiling because it was like, if you look at the way that our generation was raised, like just the movies and the TV shows and like, you can’t cry and you, you know, you got to push down all your [00:34:00] emotions. Like we were set up for failure. You know what I mean? Like we were set up for like emotional failure. Just because of the way that, that, you know, our parents were doing the best they could with the information they had, but it was. You know, I feel I like the fact that this generation. You know, they’re under the right circumstances, they’re learning to be tough. But they’re also learning to be in touch with their emotions as well. Like, I feel like at some points, they can get carried a little too far and then, like. The toughness is taken out of, like, life in general, but I mean, like, you do need resilience. You do need to be mentally tough. You do need that strength. You can’t crumble at everything that happens to you, you know what I mean? Like, so I think there has to be that balance of the toughness and being in touch with your emotions to be able to express that. And I think the kids that are, that are coming up now do have an opportunity to do that. Again, under the right circumstances. But again, there has to be that balance because there, there are a lot of kids that do that. I’m not gonna say they’re too in touch with, I [00:35:00] think they’re just, they’re, they’re not in touch with their, their tough side and or they’re the resilience that, that you need to get through life. ’cause life is gonna be difficult. Life is going to knock you down and you can’t just focus on being sad and being knocked down part of life is focusing on that getting back up and not only getting back up, but getting back up stronger every time life does knock you down because it’s going to happen over and over and over again throughout your life. So, I think it’s, I think it’s that balance. And again, I’m just happy to kids are there and we do talk about self love with the boys, I mean, because there’s a reason. Isn’t it like boys are so angry. There’s a reason that boys are so disconnected. There’s a reason that the murder rates are high in some cities because a lot of these young boys don’t have any regard for human life. And you can’t ask them to care about someone else’s life to be nice to someone else to care about the environment to care about their city if they don’t even care about themselves so like. Why am I going to care about them? And I don’t give a damn about myself. So [00:36:00] like once we can take the time for them to, and that’s one of the most beautiful things about what we bring to the kids is that it’s the, we give them the ability to connect with themselves. Because like most of the kids we noticed were only connected to their physical environment, which can be very bleak, can feel very helpless and very hopeless most of the time. So like, if that’s all you’re connected to, I’d be mad too. I would be pissed off at everything too. I would be like, you know, I would just be angry all the time. But once with the practice, you connect to your true self, they connect to that. Let your light shine. You connect to that. You connect to that higher purpose. Like you connect to that what all the things that are like stirring inside of us that most people ignore. Uncle will used to always say that we’re ignorant of the light. Not that we’re not that we aren’t aware of it, but just that we ignore it. We’re so focused on The outside world, and like, you know, once you can turn them inward and they can start to feel that that peace and that stillness, they connect to something greater and like, oh, I’m not just this, [00:37:00] this in this neighborhood. I’m connected to the entire planet, and you see them start to change you see them start to interact with themselves differently. And then once they start to interact with themselves differently, you start to see them become more compassionate, more loving and more empathetic to the people around them. And it’s beautiful to see because we’ve seen it with so many kids that have started off as angry little kids in our program that are now helping out their community that some of them have worked for us. Some of them still work for us, and they want to give to the world and they want to go explore outside of their neighborhood and outside of their city and they’re going all over the place. They’re doing. These amazing things because the gift that was given to us by Uncle Will, we gave to them and they’re giving that gift to other people, that gift of like connection to your true self. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Thank you so much. That, that was so powerful. Kind of forgot what I was going to say. Oh, actually I do remember. You know, one of the things you mentioned is resiliency. And I think that’s what you’re teaching. You’re teaching mastery [00:38:00] because if you can take your focus away from the environment, all the challenges and everything and focus inward and from that place, find peace, find happiness. And then focus on your thoughts to create your dream life. Ali Atman: Then you have mastered this experience. And I think, like you said, we teach children to focus just on the physical, look at your environment. This is reality. This is real. This is all that stuff. And so they focus so much outwardly that to bring them back to themselves is such a gift, such a gift. As you were saying, one thing Uncle used to always say to us that still echoes in my head daily, constantly, several times a day, it’s like, it’s easier to go from the inside out than it is from the outside in. You would always say you start your In the light every single day, because then you can you have you have your frame of reference in truth and in your real self and then you can go out into the world. Do it that way. But it’s harder. Like you were saying, you’re going outward. You’re going out where you’re going outward. And then to remind yourself to come back inward, but start your [00:39:00] day in the light and your day in the light. And because it’s a lot easier to go from the inside out. That it is from the outside in. Oh, he would always tell us that. Gissele Taraba: Oh, you need, you need to make some uncle Willie stickers and give them to the kids so that they get uncle Willie says, like, I think that would be amazing. Cause then they can put them on their backpacks and so on. Anyways, I, yeah, I wanted to read this quote because I think is super, super important. It’s actually what drew me to want to have this conversation. And that is a school replaced detention with meditation and the results are stunning. Having worked in child welfare. I have observed children who dysregulate because, you know, school is a hard day at the office and Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, all that stuff is very triggering. kids having the cops called on them. I’ve seen teachers that weren’t able to manage behavior and that their only response is a punitive response that then kind of trickles down. Atman Smith: Can you share a little bit about how your program has helped the school [00:40:00] shift from punitive to supportive outcomes? I can start off, guys. The program that you’re talking about is our Mindful Moment program. And the premise of the program is you know, for 1 we have a alternative to suspension room. I guess that’s what everybody was talking about changing detention to meditation and that wasn’t our aim. That’s just what happened. We created space and the oasis in the school. Where it’s like, you know, oil diffusers, Himalayan salt crystals, fountains, everything to make, like. A serene place in the school, natural lighting plants, you know, all that type of stuff when kids. Are in crisis instead of them getting punished, like you were saying punitive action. They come to our room. They can either refer themselves. Or teachers or administrators can refer them to come down. To our room where we have it staffed by staff. And, you know, when the kids come in there, you know, we actively listen and mirrored and empower them as people always talking at kids and never listening. So that kind of, you [00:41:00] know, tips off a little bit of the anxiety and the stress. When as soon as they come into the room then we talk to the kids about stress stresses and how the stress plays out in their body. Is your teacher stressing you? Is it a peer that’s stressing you. It’s something that you’re thinking about that happened earlier in that day. And when you do get stressed. How does it play out in your body? Do you clench your fist? Do you clench your jaw? Do you fold your arms? Do you shift your weight? Do you play with your hair? And then, you know, we explain that to them and then we go through a breathing practice or a meditation and, you know, that kind of helps them achieve homeostasis. And then we ask the kids, the students, the young people are like, so the next time you see that stressor or you feel that stress playing out in their body, do you think that you can do this practice, which you can see can kind of calm you down? And, you know, the kids, like, yeah, I’ll try it and it may, they may not try it right away, but eventually they do try it. And they learn how to self regulate and I think 1 of the beautiful things about that part of the program is the numbers start off really, really high at the beginning of the year. [00:42:00] But as a year progresses, they dwindle the frequency of kids coming to the room. Doing those down next to nothing, because the kids do learn how to self regulate. And then, you know, we have like a school wide practice too. So it’s like a tier 1 tier 2. Tier three intervention you know, where if you know, at the beginning of the school day in elementary schools, it’s at the beginning of first period in high schools, it’s at the end of first period to give the kids a grace period to get to school. And, you know, we’ll do a series of movement in the elementary schools breath work and meditations in the high schools. You know, they don’t wanna look they don’t wanna stand out. So it’s just like breathing and meditation. And then we also go into, like, do push ins into classrooms where, you know, we pay attention to when kids are bouncing off the walls, like, after lunch or during transition periods. And we, our staff go to the room and, you know, work with, you know, the small cohorts in the classes. And then we also have that mindful ambassadors program where we train a certain percentage of the student population to help [00:43:00] infuse these practices into the school day. So, like, during testing time. They can lead their peers to certain breathing practices that can help with test anxiety and, you know, basically, it just infuses these practices into the entire school. I think 1 of the most beautiful anecdotal evidence that we have of the effectiveness of this program is, you know, at the high school that we started the program at Patterson high school in Baltimore. They were known for, like, fights and riots, honestly, they won like that crazy world star hip hop site a lot for the amount of fights that they had at that school. But, you know, as we infuse this program into the school, the principal had no idea the impact that it was making on the school climate until he went to another school and saw how hectic the school was, how frictional it was, and, you know, how unempathetic the students were with each other. And when he got back to his back to the school he was going to go to a mindful moment room and, you know, staff, like I said, they do push ins into [00:44:00] classroom. So the door was locked and, you know you know, no kids to get into the room yet. There was a student sitting out in outside of the room doing breathing and meditating and, you know, he Called us up. He was like, Yo, this is program is amazing. Not only was it amazing that the kid was doing breathing and meditation outside of the classroom and you know, our classroom was right outside of the most frequented hall space in the entire school. He said it was amazing that you know, he’s like last year if a kid was sitting with his eyes closed, meditating in front of a room, a kid might have punched him or kicked him in the face. But now it’s just a common occurrence. It’s just become part of what the school is. And, you know, that, in turn, has that shift in the school climate is the reason why the detention numbers went down, the suspension numbers went down, attendance went up, test scores go up, and everywhere this program is run with high fidelity, the same thing happens. And, you know, I think that’s why, you know, people always refer [00:45:00] to it as a program to change detention to meditation. You know, all we did was just kind of bring these contemplative practices into the school and help empower these. Kids with self Ali Atman: regulation. And I think just adding to what Atman was saying, I think above and beyond changing the attention to meditation, most of what we were doing was changing the students because like, like the kids that are, the kids have vibrated in a different way than than people, than most other people on the planet. And the schools are set up in such a way that it’s not serving them. Like you feel that you forget there’s no real creativity. Like most schools don’t have art or music. The kids are supposed to sit in a classroom the entire day. They’re not doing any movement. A lot of schools don’t have gym. They don’t have recess. Everything’s punitive. So you do this, you go to the office, you do this, you go get sent home, you do this, you go get sent to detention. And, you know, the kids need. Something different. So I think what we were doing was we were giving them the skills and the tools to be able to deal with the way that the schools were set up that weren’t serving [00:46:00] them. So, like, we were giving them practices to you know, that inner peace that’s within every single one of us, we showed them how to find it and then we showed what it felt like to drift away from it, but then we’re showing them how to bring himself back to it. So, like, they always had a skill. They always had a place to go. Whether it was outside of them, whether it was their thoughts, whatever was just kind of destroying their peace, we were giving them tools to get back to that peace and that stillness. So. I think that’s what the main thing was, like, we, what we’ve been talking about empowerment and reciprocal teaching the whole time, but we’re all about. Empowering people with the practice so that they can heal and save themselves. So I think that’s what a big part of this mindful moment program is changing. Like, it changed attention to meditation because the kids were changing. They were different people. They weren’t. So they weren’t so impulsive, they weren’t stuck in sympathetic dominance. You know what I mean? There was the things that were going on on. Where they were healing from the trauma they’ve been through and they were learning to deal with the anger and anxiety and the stress and the depression, the things that are making them act out and it just shifted their, [00:47:00] their, their worldview and the way they viewed themselves and treated themselves. And how they treated everybody around them Atman Smith: and as Ali said earlier you know, we don’t just work with the kids. We work with the teachers as well. So, you know, another aspect of the program is, you know, working during their teachers, professional development days, teaching them practices not to bring into the classroom. But for self care, there’s so much turnover and burnout and secondary trauma. That they face that, you know, not only, you know, do the teachers have like a Herculean task. To teach the students stay on on course with the curriculum and, you know, help the kids with their issues and, you know, all this other stuff, but they’re dealing with a lot of secondary trauma. They don’t know how to release. And, you know, what our staff do is, you know, during the professional development. And then when they have their planning periods, we go in there and work with the teachers and administrators to kind of help them de stress release that secondary trauma and be more present. And, you know, that, [00:48:00] them coming from, A lens where they’re not as aggressive to the students also helps with that, you know, changing the classroom in the school environment. And I think that that’s why this program is so impactful because not only does it work with the staff. But, you know, it helps empower the teachers and administrators as well. Gissele Taraba: I just want to acknowledge because having worked in leadership for many, many years in a not for several not for profits. I know how difficult it is to change a culture. I know how easy it is to make it negative, but how much work and attention and intention it takes to make a culture that is positive and loving. How much time do you guys often spend within like, let’s say, give me just an example of how much time would you spend in a school in order to be able to have some of these outcomes? Andres Gonzales: I think it varies. You know, a lot of times it depends on where the school’s at. Some schools you’ll [00:49:00] go into there and they have instructors who are already leading mindfulness practices or doing some breath work. Administration’s really down with it. You go to another school and they’ve never done any of that type of stuff. There might be some pushback from the adults, like, oh, you’re taking away my academic time. I need all the time I can just to, to teach and I don’t have time to do this mindfulness type stuff. So I think it really does varies on a case to case basis when we do something like the mindful moment program. It’s a school wide initiative. So you’re going to see the results quicker because the entire school is Being involved in this and you have stuff on a loudspeaker where you have the kids or the teachers saying, Hey, ignore that. It’s still being heard being part of the day. It’s present throughout the entire school year. Sometimes when we go into schools and school residency, it’s just us in there for a week. You know, the idea is to teach your training, get them to start implementing the programs during transition times or whenever they can. It just may take longer for it really to impact the culture. [00:50:00] So I wish I had more of like a, it’ll take four or four doses of this and three of this and this many weeks and you’re good to program. But it really just varies, you know, where we’re going to where their level of mindfulness or being present practices are. And us just trying to be there to support and be a resource for them to start incorporating all these practices into the school. So it does become, like we’ve been saying, just commonplace and the culture of the school shifts. And it’s like, when we’re going through adversity, we do breathe it. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Andres Gonzales: And language, everyone’s reinforcing the practices, that’s when you really see that transformation occur. Gissele Taraba: And I think what you said is very important because you’re meeting people where they’re at instead of what Ali was saying, you’re not coming in with your, here’s my box, fit into my box. It’s like, okay, Oh, what do you need? All right. So maybe we’ll do this and we’ll implement this. And I think that comes from all the years of wisdom that you’ve been doing it. I’m going to give you your flower. Some of the most amazing outcomes you’ve had are obviously emotional wellbeing, [00:51:00] resiliency, decrease in stress and anxiety, a decrease in school suspensions, healing trauma, increasing compassion and empathy, especially for people at risk. Are there any outcomes that you found surprising? Ali Atman: I, are you, do you mean for just in general or for instance, schools? Gissele Taraba: Anything Ali Atman: I’d say how much I’d say some of the most surprising work for me has been in the drug treatment centers with adults that we’ve worked in. Just how much, you know, like. People who people use drugs for me to reasons, and they use them for a myriad of reasons, but, they’re looking for something, you know what I mean? They’re looking for something to take away a certain amount of pain or bring some joy, whatever they’re doing. But I think just seeing them realize that there’s something inside of them that they can they can find stillness, they can find peace, they can find happiness, they can find joy. And then how much they take to the practice and want to share it with other people and how much you see them brighten [00:52:00] up almost instantly from like. Learning about the breath, learning about some movement, learning about like deep spiritual forms of meditation to connect them to that light within themselves. And then just seeing how it shifts and transforms. And I think that’s always is one of the places I enjoy teaching most is adult treatments drug treatment centers for adults because of like the almost instant shifted, like even after the first class, like you see them, they’re like, damn, like, okay. So I’ve been looking, whatever I’ve been looking for, I’ve been looking in the wrong places and for the wrong things. Like it’s, it’s inside of me and I’m going to keep coming back to learn how to tap into it. And it’s just, and it’s amazing to see because they do go home and they do teach other people. I remember there was one drug treatment center that we were working at that the clients loved us so much and we’re getting so much out of the practice that the last day, no one showed up, like we had a contract for, I think it was like a few, several months in the last, they were expecting like a big, like, Hey, and then we were like, where is everybody? It was like, they couldn’t say goodbye to you all. Like they loved. What you all were teaching so much that they were just like, they had to [00:53:00] just they stepped away and that was the end of it. We didn’t see him again, but like, you know, bumping into people out on the streets of Baltimore. Cause Baltimore is not a huge city and they might, and they’ll stop us and like, Hey, well, I’m still using this practice. I’m still using that practice, but that’s I wasn’t, I wasn’t expecting that much of a shift with that population. But, I mean, it made total sense once once we saw it, but I don’t think I was expecting that when we first went into the drug treatment centers for adults. Gissele Taraba: Thank you so much because I think you mentioned something that is really crucial for people to understand. I think this war on drugs and everything we’re looking. We think that that’s the outcome. Then we got to decrease drug use when really that’s the coping. You gotta address the real problem, which is the reason why people are using drugs, you know, like people wanting to escape their own reality or wanting to tap into something else that’s beyond what they’re experiencing. And what you’re doing this is you’re giving them different options, which is, I think, so important. A few more questions if that’s [00:54:00] okay. I wanted to ask what you thought unconditional love means to you. What does unconditional love mean? Andres Gonzales: I can start off. I would say you know, unconditional love for me is that you’re loving and you’re not doing it for a purpose. You’re not looking for results or something to come back to you. You’re just loving because that’s kind of what we’re supposed to do as human beings anyways, right? There’s a form of yoga that our teacher you’d always talk about. We always talk about bhakti yoga and respect. We would say, you know, it’s the easiest form of yoga and it’s the hardest because it’s the easiest because you have to love everybody. That doesn’t seem that hard, but it’s the hardest because you have to love everyone because that means you have to love those people that Are the murderers and, you know, the douchebags, right? And the people that are, you know, so it’s hard Gissele Taraba: to love Andres Gonzales: everyone, but it’s easy because it’s love, right? Love is great. And so he would take the word respect and he’d say real way to look and respect is to break it into two [00:55:00] words re like again, inspect, like spectacle. So they, to look again, and he would say, when we look at people, we see them for the physical bodies. And then when we respect them, we look again and we see the light within them, which is the light within us. And we love them ’cause they are just another version of us. And I think that’s, for me, what real unconditional love is, is just loving because I’m supposed to love, there’s no, there’s no, I’m not doing it for a purpose. I’m not doing it to receive anything. I’m not doing it to get anything. It’s just loving. ’cause that’s what we should be doing as human beings. ’cause really we’re just reflections of each other. So. My mom is one that’s really, really embodied that practice, I think. And she just gives and gives and gives and loves so much. She could be stranger than anyone. She just loves it. She does it. She’s not trying to get somebody to love her back. She just is like, this is what Gissele Taraba: I Andres Gonzales: think is right. And this is what feels right to me. Just loving [00:56:00] because we all love anyways. I Gissele Taraba: love that. Just to add Ali Atman: little bit to that as you were saying it, I was thinking about definitely think about Vata yoga and what Andy was saying, because Uncle Will would always talk about that. But just, I feel like unconditional love is, has to start with loving yourself unconditionally. A lot of people get, I mean, like the outside world tears you down, but like that negative self talk and that inner critic can tear you down more than anyone. Outside of you you have to deal with those low vibrational thoughts and all that’s bringing you down. But I think when you can love yourself through all of that unconditionally. And not just the good parts, people only want to love the good parts of themselves, but you got to love. Those, those, the kind of quote, unquote, dark or bad parts of yourself, those low vibrational parts of yourself. The parts that you might not like that much. But those parts of you have taken you on your life journey as well. Like you wouldn’t be where you were without those, you know, the yin and the yang. Like you need the light parts, you need the dark parts, you need all of that to make [00:57:00] the whole. So I think you got to really, really love yourself in that way. And then you can start to see that love. In the people around you, but I think another part of that unconditional love is part of it has to be loving with boundaries. You know what I mean? Like, you can’t love so much because people will see people who are loving and they’ll take advantage of them. And they’ll get over on them, but I think you have to have enough self unconditional love for yourself. You can love with those boundaries when, you know, like, all right, this person’s getting over on me. I’m not going to stop loving them, but I’m just going to love them at a distance. I mean, I can not have them in my energy and in my personal space. They can be gone, but I can still send them love. So I think that. All that ties into that unconditional Gissele Taraba: love. Wonderful. I could listen to you guys like literally all day.I was wondering if as the last question is, can you share about yourself? Where can people find you? Where can people work with you? I know you have done a little bit of work in Canada, I think with some of our indigenous communities. So I know you can come to Canada. So those schools that are looking, bring these guys or other [00:58:00] places. So please. Let people know where they can find you. Atman Smith: I mean, you can find us on our website. H. L. F. I. N. C. dot. O. R. G, hlfinc.org.. subscribe to our newsletter. It’ll let, you know, where we are around the nation. We actually are expanding our mindful moment program into 3 new cities, 4 new schools. 2 in Milwaukee, 1 in Chicago and 1 in Denver. So that that’s really exciting. Like you said, we have our satellite program in the Akwesasne territory in a Mohawk reservation where, you know, we’re working in upstate New York and in Canada and the surrounding counties. Also you know, we take a deeper dive in the esoteric practices in our for profit organization called the involution group. So you can check us out there involution dot love, involution.love.. We have this really great 30 day course called spiritual strategic playing the 8 paths to happiness. And, you know, check our book out let your light shine [00:59:00] and, you know, just, just follow us. We’re on Insight Timer also as the involution group, if you want to get some audio practices from us. And yeah, that’s about it. And, you know. Just, if you want to get us out to your city, just reach out to us and, you know, we can figure out what that looks like. Gissele Taraba: Wow. Thank you so much for taking the time out to have such an amazing conversation with me. I’m so, so grateful that you’re able to come on cause I am appreciative of your time. Thank you for joining us. So another episode of the love and compassion podcast, with Gissele, and join us soon. Atman Smith: Bye.

[00:00:00] Gissele Taraba: Don’t forget to like, and subscribe for more amazing content. Today, I’ll be speaking to Savio P. Clemente, a TEDx speaker and stage three cancer survivor who embodies the journey from stumbling to soaring. His experience battling cancer a fire within him, shaping not only his character, but also his mission. Empowering aspiring leaders who have overcome medical adversity to unleash their full potential as a media journalist. Savio covers inspiring stories of resiliency and wellness trends collaborating with notable celebrity and TB personalities through his bestselling book and impactful work. He encourages individuals to love their inner stranger, rewrite their narrative and become. Unstoppable [00:01:00] leaders through his transformative Aloha reboot, Savio, a board certified wellness coach guides individuals towards living a truly healthy, wealthy, and wise lifestyle at the core of his message echoes the profound truth to know thyself is to heal thyself. Please join me in welcoming Savio. Savio Clemente: Hi Savio. Hi Gissele. Thank you so much for that lovely intro. So excited to be here. I’m so excited to talk about all the things that you described. So thank you. Gissele Taraba: Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much for being on the show. I was wondering if you could start by sharing with them what got you started on this journey? Unfortunately, Savio Clemente: it was cancer. It showed up in my life in July of 2014. And from that experience, I decided I had two options. One, I could be defined by the diagnosis, even though I’m a. I’m in remission, or I could actually use it as a source of healing and [00:02:00] empowerment for not only myself, but for other people. I can delve a little deeper into that story, but that’s the impetus of the work that I do and why I feel so passionate and grateful being able to do the stuff that I’m doing. Gissele Taraba: That’s beautiful. And I saw from your TEDx talk that your cancer journey was about four months. About 4 months long, which seems pretty amazing considering the people that I have known who have had that journey usually say it’s, it’s quite, it could be quite a lengthy journey. What do you think helped you really turn the corner after such a short time? I’m sure it was a difficult time. I don’t want to diminish that the 4 months, but I’m just wondering if you could share with the audience what helped you really get to the path to healing. Savio Clemente: You know, mentioning that particular time frame, I often am very cautious because It looks to others like I’m bragging or that I’m saying that I discovered a [00:03:00] secret that they didn’t discover, but for me, I think what helped me was a few things. So, before cancer came into my life, I’ve always been on an exploration of just learning and growing as a person. I grew up Catholic. I was an altar boy. I went to Catholic elementary school. And somewhere along time in college, I discovered that there was other secrets or other things that I wanted to learn, other things that I wanted to do. get my hands on or experience for myself. And so for me I discovered or researched things like Buddhism to spiritualism. And I wanted to understand that. And when cancer came at that time, I was a longtime meditator. I was meditating, started out with like a minute or two a day, and then it was about 20 minutes a day. So I think that helped me to a large part. my care team. So the way cancer showed up into my life was that I went on a trip with a friend to Amsterdam, Paris, and London. I had deep night sweats. I thought that was really odd. It came back to the States, night sweats. Then my [00:04:00] stomach started getting stented. At that point, I ended up seeing a naturopath who I saw for a good eight years in a row. He would analyze my blood, tell me what vitamins to take, what, what, what structure, what food structures to eat and whatnot. And he said, this is really odd. It could be a whole bunch of things here. Savio, I suggest you get a sonogram. And I’m like, a sonogram? He’s like, yeah. I’m like, okay. So I get a sonogram. They wouldn’t let me leave the office. And they told me to have a relative come pick me up. And I was like, that’s odd because I have my own car, but my dad came, took me to the hospital and within an hour and a half, they, they admitted me to the fifth floor. And then within the next day, I heard nurses talking that it would transmit to the seventh floor, which they call the cancer floor. So that’s when I found out I had cancer. And so I made a decision in that moment. A flash of insight came to me from a movie back in the day. And I tell the story all the time. I think it’s very important is that there was a movie with Keanu Reeves called little Buddha back in the early nineties. He played Siddhartha. He played the little Buddha who gave up all his worldly possessions. [00:05:00] He was meditating with three with two other aesthetics, and he overheard two individuals on a fishing boat, one older, one younger, the older person had a instrument in his hand and told the younger person, if you hold the string too tight, it will snap. And if you leave it to slack, it won’t play the path is the middle way. And that was like, wow. And so the medical director said to me, if you don’t do your first round of chemo, I don’t know where you’ll be. Even though a friend of mine said to me, are you sure you want to go down this path? Because chemo ravages the body, the good and the bad. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Savio Clemente: And so I said, well, the middle way is the path for me. And so I tell this story because I think that helped me as well. So I did six rounds of chemo. Every three weeks in between that I did a whole bunch of integrated modalities from ozone therapy to energy medicine to the black seed oil to putting a Google alert on my phone so I can learn about the cancer in general. So I think that was it and I think also was the belief somewhere along the way that. And I echo this in my TEDx [00:06:00] talk is to know thyself is to heal thyself. So I found that my physical body was dying, but I found that the other parts of me was still alive. My emotional sectors where I was like, really like alive and caring and, and understanding and empathetic, even with other people who’d come in and out at four roommates, two of them had brain cancer. I was empathetic to their needs. My relationships with my family and friends were still heightened. My mental body was still there. I was still. You know, Googling and researching my dreams were very vivid. And so I think allowing myself to grasp or grab onto that person who was dying allowed me profound depth insight into realizing that this is the reality and I can’t shake this reality. What I can do is make a choice on how I want to deal with the reality. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And I think it makes You make an important point that I think people should choose what feels right for them in terms of [00:07:00] what their journey is going to look like. And so I think that’s great. What decision did you make at that time, like, in terms of how you were going to live your life and how did that lead to the work you’re doing now? Savio Clemente: Yeah, so I, this is a tough one because I. My family and friends were all, you’re going to handle this fine. If someone can handle it, you can, even though it’s stage three, they’re like, we got no problem. We were totally confident in you. And although I appreciated their trust in me or their expectancy and how I’m going to handle this in me, there was a lot of pressure. And so I decided to just focus like a laser beam on the healing and I let everything else in my life go. Fortunately for me doing those integrated modalities, I think helps stave off any of the negative side effects. I was still working out six days a week. I was eating well. I was still meditating. I was doing, you know, work as much as I could only had a little bit of lethargy. And I think with all that, the decision that I make was to, it’s [00:08:00] not over until it’s over. And even though I felt healthier as every infusion proceeded, my oncologist was very clear. He’s like, we need to go through the whole protocol and then see what happens. And so for me, the story goes that in four and a half months of six rounds of chemo plus integrated modalities, I ended up getting my remission status five days before Christmas that same year. And this past December of 2023, it’s been nine years of remission. Gissele Taraba: Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. And so how is it that that journey helped you get to the point where you are helping leaders overcome their medical adversity and then kind of really step up into their own power? Savio Clemente: Sure. So after five years of being in remission, I said, okay, I want to do something with this. I didn’t know what it was, what it looked like. A little background information about me. I studied I. T. I did a lot of project [00:09:00] management and I. T. and software dot coms and all the good stuff. But I never really loved it. Then I teamed up with a group of people. We did some TV production as well. That was interesting to me. But after five years, I said I need to do something with what just happened to me. And so I decided to get my board certification in wellness coaching. It’s the same certification that it’s, it’s given by the NBME, which is the National Board of Medical Examiners. It’s a serious test. And I remember taking it at four and a half hours of like really focused and concentrated. Cause I wanted to make sure that I, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this right. And I’m going to be going to be there and create the container and be able to give what I need to give. My writings were still there. So I pitched a topic to my editor on my community, Cancer Survivor Community, and he thought of a great title. So we launched an interview series called I Survived Cancer, Here’s How I Did It. And at this point I’ve interviewed 200 cancer survivors. It then became a subsequent book, I took 35 of the stories told my [00:10:00] own and one day before my birthday became a bestseller in four categories. Gissele Taraba: So the Savio Clemente: work that I do is really about individuals with medical adversity, whether it’s cancer or not, allowing them to just own them, own their story because no one can take away their story. And in order for someone to follow you, if you’re a leader, you need to walk the walk and talk the talk. And so I made it a mission and a point of mind to do that. Gissele Taraba: Wonderful. Can you tell me a little bit about some of the stories that people share in the book in terms of maybe stories of resiliency or compassion or even, even some miracles and magic maybe? Savio Clemente: Yeah, so a few stories. So, A story of resilience is this one individual in the book. He was a finance guy, and he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer. It’s not a good diagnosis to have but he was told he has 2 to 4 percent chance of, of, of living or, or, you know, surviving. And he’s like, wait, I’m a finance guy. [00:11:00] Why do I have to be the 98 to 96 percent who don’t make it? Why can’t I be the one who makes it? So it was growing, but he made it. So that’s number 1. Another story of An individual named Rob Paulson, he’s a voice actor Hollywood, he’s done Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, and he had, he had throat cancer, which was a double edged sword because it affected, it was cancer, but it affected his livelihood, what he loved to do, which is voices. They told him, Rob, we’re going to have to kill you before we can cure you. And so he used what he knows best, which is humor in order to get through it. And he’s still working in Hollywood now. He says he food is no longer something that’s luxurious to him. He only eats to maintain a certain level of health. But he’s still alive and he’s able to do what he needs to do and spread the word. And then probably the third one would, would probably be A model, a former model who took her pain and turned it into purpose. And her story’s really amazing to me because she said before cancer came into her life, everything was about [00:12:00] the visual and when she no longer had the visual, she no longer, she had, she had breast cancer. Gissele Taraba: Then Savio Clemente: she realized how her , how her identity had to shift in some way. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. How does this all fit with the profound truth you share about to know thyself is to heal thyself? How has knowing yourself really led to you towards your path of healing? Savio Clemente: So in my TEDx talk, which is called seven minutes to wellness, how to love your inner stranger. I actually did the talk this past October in Raleigh, North Carolina. And I use an acronym in the talk and it’s called the Aloha Reboot. And basically it’s, it stems from a healing in Hawaii called Huna Healing. And from that, there’s an offshoot called Ho’oponopono. And that basically just means self forgiveness and self compassion. And so, A stands for acknowledgement. Acknowledge where you are in the present moment. Don’t pretend. L stands for listen. So [00:13:00] listen to that inner voice. So in HUNA healing, they talk about talking to different parts of your body. It sounds odd, and I don’t expect people to do this in public, but in the privacy of your own home, speak to those areas. There’s a concept that I use called the three brains, the head, heart, and gut. And so speak to those areas because they hold a lot of wisdom and understanding there’s consciousness between those areas of the body stands for opening. So open yourself up to that self compassion and self forgiveness, a very major point because after 200 cancer survivors, that was the thread line that I kept seeing over and over again that they had to forgive and have compassion for not only. others, but for themselves as well. H stands for harnessing, so harness that wisdom from within. And A is very simple, act on that purpose with intention. And so for me, the whole combination of that is that ancient saying that I heard a long, long time ago, which is to know thyself is to heal thyself. It’s always an inside job. I mean, the doctors do what they do, but you can’t control a [00:14:00] test. A test is a test. is a test. But what you can control is your, how you feel about it. You can control how you think about it. You can control how you react to it. You can control how you, and I’m not saying it’s easy to do that. We need tools. We need resources, breathing, meditation, yoga, exercising, going out in nature. Journaling, singing, humming, chanting, whatever works for you is whatever you need to do. But that’s the main thing that I always tell people. So it follows some of the teachings of Yogananda, which is self realization said to know what’s going on in your internal universe is to know what’s going on in your external world. Gissele Taraba: Hmm. Thank you so much. Beautifully said. Let’s talk about forgiveness. And talk about the I always pronounce this wrong. Hoponopono. Like it’s a practice I’ve used myself. And it’s amazing how powerful it is. Do you know the history of it? The history Savio Clemente: of Ho’oponopono, no, I don’t know the full [00:15:00] history of Ho’oponopono, the way that I had to be very careful in how I described Ho’oponopono in the TEDx talk, because when it comes to health and wellness, they’re very keen on not Presenting a lot, because it has to be science backed. And so I wanted people to just touch their dip their toe into that practice. So I didn’t even talk about the, the repetitive affirmations that people say, because you have to be sort of very careful and how you disseminate information to the public, because they speak, they speak to a larger audience. But I don’t if you could enlighten me, that’d be great. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, apparently if I’m, if I’m correct, if I’m correct, and please any of my audience, if I am wrong, please clarifySo my understanding was that this was a medical practitioner who decided to treat people that were criminally insane, but he actually never physically treated anyone. He treated their files. And so this was a, it’s like, I guess, a psychiatric ward that [00:16:00] was really not working well. It was very toxic. There was a lot of danger, a lot of violence, and this individual actually. Use that Ho’oponopono and actually did it through the files and one by one people started healing. They started getting better. The violence decreased, the ward became more calm. And so it’s amazing how powerful intention is, how, how powerful forgiveness, how powerful it is to, to do these practices. And so how did you come across that Hawaiian practice? Savio Clemente: Yeah, so I, the Ho’oponopono was actually, I stumbled it by accident. I think algorithms with social media are wonderful because they, I mean, okay, wonderful in a, in a sense, not completely horrible. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Because they can be a little, a little too, you know. Icky sometimes. But I know about HUNA healing from just my studies in general of, of, of different healing modalities, because I [00:17:00] often tell people all the time, even though I’m a board certified wellness coach, and I believe in the medical profession and medicine is wonderful and great. Healing doesn’t always occur in those dimensions. It doesn’t occur always in a doctor’s office or a chemo bed. It occurs in mysterious ways that we have to search and find and know and unearth and release and catch and let go of. And I was just on a search of just healing in general. I just, I made it my mission. It was like a laser beam of focus. I was, I didn’t let anything deter me from that focus. And so I just feel like in order to help another, you have to help yourself. And so I’m like, if I get through this, then maybe I can help other people. And so I’m, I’m doing the work. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, for sure. How did forgiveness actually help you in your healing journey? Savio Clemente: Brene Brown would have a field day with this. So cancer for me showed up in many different ways. And it’s a little bit of what I talk about in the title of my TEDx talk, which is to love your inner stranger. [00:18:00] So the stranger was Savio dying. physically dying, stage three, and I had to come to terms with shame and vulnerability, which is two areas of my life that I try to keep locked away or hidden because I, I was that guy who was very independently minded. I come from two other siblings, they’re both female. We’re all three years apart. And I just was just one of those people that just did, did my own thing. And so I had to rely on other people to help me. Dad to pick me up from a six hour chemo session. Mom, I lost 12 pounds. I was in the hospital for 15 days. I was bedridden for a week. I lost 12 pounds. She’s like, no, no, no. We got to fix this problem. And so she fed me really, really well. And I just had to rely on other people to believe in me. Not to. Not to overly assume things, but to believe in my ability to see and to understand that this is happening. I don’t know what the reason, I don’t know what the cause of the effect is, but I do know how I’m going to [00:19:00] respond to it. And the response was a way for me to unearth some of the garbage that I was holding onto or some of the baggage that I was not letting go of. And so that’s how that aspect showed, showed up in my Gissele Taraba: life. Thank you. Thank you for that. Let’s talk about self compassion and how, how much self compassion is needed doing a healing journey. Savio Clemente: I think it’s extremely needed because I can cop to it. I am, I think being a coach and being a journalist, you have to meet people where they are. And I’m very good at that. Like, I’m extremely kind to other people. But To myself, I’m very hard on myself. And even through cancer, I was very hard on myself. I wasn’t blaming myself, but a part of me just felt like shame, like I brought this upon me, or this is something that I created through icky thinking. And so self compassion in my life shows up in ways where. I just allow myself to [00:20:00] appreciate where I’m at. I don’t have to be there tomorrow. I don’t have to be there in six weeks. It’d be great if I’m there and I’m doing the work to get there. But I can allow myself to just be truly focused. And people use the word presence all the time. And and I think that’s an easy word to throw out into the world, but it’s very difficult to be present when you’re someone like myself, who always tries to see the bigger vision and coaching. We call the vision, not the goal, but the vision is how you want to be, how you want to feel when you see yourself fully being yourself. And so. I use things like putting my feet on the ground and feeling where that is, being in nature, breathing. Things of that nature. Gissele Taraba: Why do you think that having that inner critic is so predominant, and especially in today’s society? I think we’re people historically have been taught to be critical of one another. And there is that misconception about compassion sort [00:21:00] of being weak. What about for men in particular? What sort of messages did you receive about compassion? And what do you think sort of really reinforced your belief about the inner critic? Savio Clemente: I love that you bought The inner critic out because people often say, Oh, when you talk about industry, do you mean the inner critic? No, I don’t mean the one that’s pounding on you. The inner stranger could be anything for me. It showed up as the, the vulnerable, shameful person. For other people, the stranger to them is someone that they haven’t fully seen their eyes for people who believe in Buddhism. The inner stranger is a past life. that they haven’t fully unearthed or tried to work through the karma that’s there. And so when it comes to my understanding and what I try to sort of see as the inner stranger, the inner critic, especially when it comes to men’s work, and I’ve attended a men’s retreat, it actually It was right before COVID. I was invited to the Catskills and it’s my first time with a group of men, 18 of [00:22:00] them. And it was so refreshingly amazing. I’m not even kidding you. We did something called like eye gazing with another man staring at their eyes. Gissele Taraba: Wow. That’s amazing. Savio Clemente: Not as like, who’s going to flinch, but as just from love in a compassionate way, and it was transformative. I couldn’t even believe that happening. Then to add to that, we put our hands on each other’s hearts and did the gazing at the same time. And then to be in an environment where men were just not performing or thinking that it had to be masculine, but just be and exist as souls, having the experience in the moment was amazing. And so I think historically, I can just speak for the culture that I’m, I’m, I’m Indian. So I can speak a little bit about that culture as well. It’s getting better, but growing up, my dad used to use the word, you know, got to be a man, and men. In Indian culture are extremely revered in most Asian cultures. They are. [00:23:00] And so there was a lot of pressure put upon me when I was really, really young. And so now, moving forward in America and seeing it, I think it’s gotten better. I think men are able to speak about it. Mental health is the big topic that’s now happening. Covid brought that out in positive and negative ways. I think just generally, I think. We need to look at each other as people having an experience in the human form. And I think once we do that, we’re allowed to just let the other stuff that’s binding us or holding us back. It’s just, it’s just fruitless energy and wasteful energy. Gissele Taraba: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. I love that you shared that experience. I definitely think that experience should be expanded and everyone really kind of participate in that, especially men. Because I think that we’ve done our young men a disservice, I think by forcing them to subdue their emotions and by only allowing really anger to be the only acceptable emotion. We [00:24:00] really have harmed our boys. And I was thinking about this too, in terms of even Even the whole kind of sexual relationship, you know, we wonder why we’re kind of in the state that we are but really the only closeness we’ve allowed men to have is sexually, right? We wonder why there’s so much rape and there’s so much all of these assaults and stuff, but really, we haven’t really encouraged men to seek. Comforting connection in any other way. And so I think it’s great that now we are moving away from that and shifting towards removing those and really allowing men to focus on loving themselves, being compassionate towards themselves. Really tapping into those needs, right? Tapping into the need for affection and hugs and, and, and being vulnerable. And so I think that’s great and it’s important. Savio Clemente: Yeah. And thank you for even mentioning that because I think just in what you’re saying, it seems like [00:25:00] historically, it’s also about what can you do in the physical. Like what can men do in the, can you play a game in the physical? Can you watch a game in the physical? Can we rough house in the rough house in the physical? Can we play football in the physical? What about expressing our needs and our desires emotionally? What about expressing what we are sensing and feeling? What about expressing those things? And I think that dialogue needs to be. Expanded. I know when I went to the men’s retreat, it was marketed as because of the Me Too movement, men has have to like rise up, they have to get better. And I just really went out of more curiosity than not. But it was revelatory because they had these sessions where men were crying. Literally write a a story, write a story to your dad. Write, write the story that you would love to tell if you could actually have the courage to tell it. Mm-Hmm. And there was just wonderful insights that came out of that experience. Breath work, where guys were like going full on trauma. And [00:26:00] so of course these have to be facilitated by individuals that know what they’re doing. Fortunately, course it was facilitated by someone who knew, who knew what he was doing, but. To me, just witnessing that was just an amazing opening. Gissele Taraba: And can you share again, like, who is it that held this workshop? Savio Clemente: Sure. It’s called his name is Andrew Horn. He has something called Junto, and it’s we Junto. Oh, Gissele Taraba: okay. Yeah. That sounds, I think that sounds fantastic because, and I also have, I think has to be, By men for men, because I think the messaging has come from other men, whether it be fathers or whether it be like male mentors. And I think it, the messaging around, we have to change and we really have to tap in and to find that inner child within, I think it also has to come from men as well. Historically, I have heard that all of these things like loving yourself and being compassionate are very feminine traits. And, and, you know, and so, but [00:27:00] it’s not true. I think everyone’s got a masculine and feminine perspective, right? Like we’ve all got both of these things. And I think we need to kind of shift away from naming it masculine, feminine, and really just say, it’s a human thing. It’s a human thing to want to belong. It’s a human thing to need to acknowledge our own difficult feelings. It’s a human thing. But I definitely see the merit in having men teach that sort of work. Savio Clemente: Yeah, well, what was also refreshing about that group was, and it was all about the inner work, this is my world, was also about individuals saying, I didn’t want to express that side of me because I didn’t want people to think I was gay. Right. , Gissele Taraba: which was, it’s a very honest, it’s a very honest thing to say. It’s a A very honest thing. Yeah. Yeah. It’s extremely honest. Savio Clemente: But why? Is painting your nails or thinking that you’re gay, why is that something to not be seen as something positive? Right? Just that’s the larger question there. The larger question is not about you want your nails painted, have your nails painted. The larger question is, [00:28:00] how do you see yourself in that context? Right? And why is that triggering for you? Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Yeah. And so thank you for sharing that because I think right now we have, I feel a culture. I, though, I do think this is changing that it’s like people are very eager to cancel one another without hearing each other out. And I think that’s a genuine That’s a genuine fear that people have, whether we perceive it right or wrong. And like you said, it doesn’t make sense to me either. It doesn’t make sense. What color nails you, you color, like boys can wear tiaras and have fun with that. The same as girls could wear, different things that we have perceived as men, it really doesn’t matter. But I think these are genuine fears that people have, and that’s really preventing them from connecting with themselves because they think, oh, then people are going to think this or that of me. But by having these conversations, we are beginning to uncover that and say, hey, you know, we’re not alone. These thoughts. Okay. There’s a genuine fear for you. That’s okay. Work through it [00:29:00] so that you can then connect with your inner self so that things can finally change. But without having difficult conversations with ourselves and other people, we’re not going to be able to help each other get there, which is the real challenge.  Navigating this in the world of different cultures, as well as different people’s perspectives. So you mentioned that self compassion in the forgiveness was a theme throughout all those different people. What other themes did you find among the stories? Savio Clemente: I would probably say when it comes to just cancer in general, it’s this idea that it doesn’t have to be a death sentence. It was just over and over again that. You can be one of the ones that are surviving and living and thriving and doing what you can from the experience that happened to you. Another theme that really caught my attention was this idea that you can rely on community to help you through this. Like, so I didn’t, so I’m, I’m the first one to admit it. If you read my book, I didn’t, but other people use their friends and families as scribes in their doctor’s appointments, use them and gave them certain [00:30:00] jobs to do because they just didn’t want them to keep asking them about how you’re doing, how you’re doing. It was more about how can you help me be the best I can be in this moment in time. And I think probably the third thing also was this, and this was a prevailing thing where people saw you as less than because you had cancer. And so there was a feeling it wasn’t said and no one said it, but it was this feeling. And so it was about reframing that idea. So for example, for me, I, instead of seeing the chemo as, as this horrible thing, I reframed it as an elixir. As something that was there for me, that was going to give me the source of life that I was looking for. So, and I, that’s what I chose to do. So every infusion session, six hours long I did that. And I allowed myself to allow that medicine to come into my life and not resist what was, what it was doing. Gissele Taraba: I think you said some really key things. Number one was really the [00:31:00] focus on like envisioning, like meaning that you have to really, and you had mentioned this, the fact that you didn’t waver, you have to see yourself beyond it. And so when I was reading a book about the Holocaust, they were talking about the people that made it out were people that were able to see their life beyond that circumstance. So I think that’s really key. And I love the reframe that you used around around the experiences because so often we resist the things in our lives and cause us most suffering. In your case, you decided to take something that people had said is toxic and do all these things and say, you know what, I’m choosing to experience this in a very positive way. And you said you had very little side effects and then, you know, other than sleeping and so on. If we choose to perceive everything as an opportunity and as a, as a, as a positive, are we then opening up to the potential of experiencing it [00:32:00] in a positive way rather than in a negative way? Savio Clemente: And of course, this is very easy for me to tell you this, Gissele, 10 years later, almost. Gissele Taraba: Yeah. Savio Clemente: At the time, obviously I was just, Doing what I needed to do. I was reacting to the situation because it was fast and furious. I had no choices. The hospital, 7th floor, cancer, bedridden, chemo, like it just went fast and furious. I had no time to deliberate or to think about it. So this is easy. I guess people listening might be like, well, this is easy. 10 years later even at the time, though, I knew. That there was a rhythm happening, that there was a connection. Why, why was I on the seventh floor with all these other people? What’s the connection there? Why is this happening to me in my life? Or not only that, but how can I find a way to get myself out of the situation? What do I need to do? What do I need to see? What do I need to experience? What do I need to let go of? What do I need to embrace? And I asked those hard questions of myself throughout that whole journey. Maybe in hindsight, it could have been a little easier if I asked [00:33:00] added a bit of community to it, but that’s not what I chose to do. I knew it was my challenge. I felt it was a cross, my own cross to bear. And I felt I was the only one who could get myself out of this mess because as a wise friend once said to me, just because you created it means that you can also uncreate it. So the choice is yours. And so that’s what I decided to do. Gissele Taraba: I think that’s very important. Because you know, and I don’t want people to think that it’s their fault. People consciously don’t choose that. However, they do have power. And I think that’s what you’re alluding to that people do have power. Can you talk a little bit about life post? Because I think most of the stories seem to end there, which is like, okay, I I’m in remission whoop dee doo, right? So what has life, what is life for most people in terms of post of the stories you shared? And how can people choose to live a life not to focus on their whole identity being surviving cancer rather than it being [00:34:00] one chapter out of a very, very beautiful book of their life. Savio Clemente: So a lot of people it’s controversial say that cancer, they would never define it even for myself as a blessing, but more of as an opportunity. So a lot of people from the book, The Hollywood voice actor is still doing his craft. The other person had her documentary in on Netflix. Another person just did a movie. Another person just, you know, built a business. So a lot of stuff has happened in their lives. I can speak for my own self. Cancer opened up a whole new world. I became a a board certified wellness coach. I was a journalist. I pitched this, it became at this point I’ve done six different series from cancer survivorship, five things you need to know from a doctor’s perspective, to rising to resilience, through the fear of failure, through longevity healthy to a hundred because I wanted people to go through that journey. I did a best selling book. I did a TEDx talk. So a lot of stuff has happened in my life. And. I have to say if it wasn’t for cancer, none [00:35:00] of it would have happened. Maybe something else would have come into my life that I could be this energized and this passionate and this full hearted about because I really believe for me, if I can empower other people to see beyond the adversity that has happened in their life, then maybe they can find a glimmer of hope to allow others to see that as well and and thus become leaders in their own right. Gissele Taraba: Hmm. Hmm. Beautifully said. Beautifully said. going back to the aloha part the last part is action. Can you talk a little bit about, do you mean just like grinding it out or do you what kind of action are you talking about? I’m talking about inspired action. Savio Clemente: So we can all act, we can all do, so we can write something on our to do list and actually do it. I’m talking about actually pull, put your full self into that particular action. And it’s not easy. It’s not like, Oh, I’m going to, I’m going to say hello to five people today and get out of my, you know, shelf. For some people who are extroverts, that’s probably easy. I’m an [00:36:00] introvert who’s an extrovert when I need to be. Like right now. Fair Gissele Taraba: enough, yeah. Savio Clemente: And so I’m talking about things that move the needle in, in your own way. So things that not only are prudent to do or that make sense intellectually, but things that move you from a soulful perspective or an emotional perspective, or even from long term perspective. So action just really inspired action really, to me, just means this idea. And it was one of my trainings from Dr. Siegelman at University of Pennsylvania, where he talked about gratitude. This idea of gratitude is wonderful, making lists, but what really makes it even more potent is why did the thing that you wrote down happen? So for example, I’m grateful for my car. Well, why are you good for your car? Because I saved really hard and I bought, let’s say, the car of my dreams. It adds a level of savoriness to it. It adds a level of just saying, Oh, I actually accumulated that. I actually made that happen in my life. So that’s what I mean by inspired action, taking those types of [00:37:00] steps. Gissele Taraba: Ooh, I love that you said that. I was just thinking about one of the things I say often is I’m grateful for my children. And as you were saying, I’m like, okay, but why am I grateful for my children? I’m like, oh, they get me. They allow me to be a parent. I learned from them. They get me to remind me of joy of, of the, you know, the funnest sometimes that I forget about. And so, oh, that’s amazing. Thank you for that. That’s wonderful. My daughter and I were talking the other day about how do we know when it’s like, Inspiration from your soul or spirit versus something coming out of your mind and that very fear based. And I’m curious as to what your answer would be, Savio Clemente: I would say both are valid, but I say that if you feel like the tinge or the impetus is to go with things that are more soulful, ask yourself that quick, like, write it down, create that particular document or that particular list and figure out for yourself. Okay. Like move into your head, heart and gut and see which one is pinging to you at the time because it’s a lot of anecdotal research, but says that we make [00:38:00] decisions through emotions first, not intellectually. So we buy through our emotions. We go to the grocery store and buy a brand because we feel a certain type of way about how that brand makes us feel or what that brand has done for us. So I would say inventory list. And ask yourself those deeper questions and just not, it doesn’t and the answer doesn’t have to be right away. It could could take some time. I think the other thing also, which is really interesting is that when it comes to making long lasting decisions, I think all of us would lean more towards things that make us feel a certain way. But sometimes we need to make rational decisions. Like if I get into a car accident, I need to make a rational decision. I can’t just like go on my guttural emotion and be like, why the hell did you just like bump into me? It’s an accident. It happens. Gissele Taraba: You know, what I was thinking about when you were talking was about the difference between when I get inspiration from like spirit, which sometimes doesn’t make sense versus when it comes from my mind, right? So [00:39:00] sometimes I’m guided to do certain things that I don’t always know What the outcome is going to be or what the purpose of that is. But if I follow it, there’s usually something amazing that happens at the end. But sometimes like my mind will talk me out of it. Well, it doesn’t make sense. Why are you doing that? What’s, what’s the point of that? Like, and so that’s where When the two conflict, well, first of all, I don’t do anything. I pause until I have greater clarity. And the second thing is, is I will be more likely to go with my heart and gut than, than what my, my little mind has to say. I find sometimes it can be fear based. Yeah. Savio Clemente: 100%. And it actually reminds me of Star Wars. What did Yoda say? He would end every conversation with, Let me meditate on it or he would say something, something to that effect. So I think the key there is obviously the, you know, the, the word discernment, but also when it comes to messages or pings, people call it download now, there’s all these words for it. I think it’s great to have them because that’s a spark of inspiration, creativity, a [00:40:00] spark of insight, a spark, a stroke of genius as they say. But I think the key there is to filter it down and see if there’s any greater deeper meaning to it. That’s when you know it comes from a more profound or a wisdom centered space is when you can actually find proof and evidence for that particular insight that you Gissele Taraba: got. Going back to what you had mentioned about meditation What do you tell your clients when they say that they have a hard time meditating and that maybe that’s not such a good thing for them? Savio Clemente: I tell them though. I tell ’em, let’s not call it meditation. . Let’s quiet, let’s, let’s call it quiet time some, let’s call it mirror time. Mm-Hmm. Let’s call it Coffee Break . Mm-Hmm. Meditation doesn’t have to be so serious. I know. And, you know, there are certain things that allow meditation to foster and to become stronger. There’s things like positioning, lotus position. There’s things like listening to music, not listening to music, chanting the om, saying the I am, [00:41:00] humming doing all these different things, breathing exercises and those are wonderful and great, but I think when it comes to someone who just feels like they want to get a benefit of tapping into their own inner wisdom or tapping into the sea of energy, whatever you call that energy, God, Jesus, Jesus. Buddha, Krishna, I don’t care. If you want to tap into it, the first thing is to be okay with being with yourself. And most people are just not. And that’s one thing that I feel really privileged as someone who grew up in the Northeast in New York and went to, I went to, I lived in the suburbs, but I went to school in the city. I was comfortable eating by myself and doing things by myself. I love spending time with myself, not a problem at all. But if you can’t even do that first, then you will find meditation very hard because you have to be really baseless in terms of nothing else interfering with you and that other person, that other energy that’s, that’s trying to get your attention in life. And another thing I just really wanted to say about when you asked [00:42:00] that question, what came to me and I’m going to rephrase it because it was very powerful when I heard it was this idea of not rejecting a truth when you found error into it. And I, I know for myself, if I find error in something, I’m going to reject the truth. Right. But. The truth is expanding and growing and there’s errors in every sort of truth. You find new truth, the new truth. And so if you find that happening to you, then you need to just have more compassion and understanding for where that person is. It doesn’t mean that it has to filter to your own knowingness. It just is part of the understanding process. Possibilities and Gissele Taraba: I love that you said that because I think people have a misunderstanding about compassion. Compassion means that we know sometimes right. And then, you know, we’re trying to help other people. And then when they don’t take our help, we’re like, get frustrated. And so I think, you know, one of our definitions of compassion here is allowing things to be. And just, you know, with unconditional love. And so I think that that [00:43:00] fits quite well. And actually going back to my next two questions. The first one is what’s your definition of unconditional love? Savio Clemente: So I grew up in a culture where my parents showed me love in so many other ways than what is considered normalized. So they didn’t say, I love you. You talked about hugs. Rarely did that happen except for like, You know, religious occasions. Yeah. And so when it comes to unconditional love, and it’s a, it’s a work in progress for me, I can be really honest about it, because I tried to, I tried to implement this idea of, of this concept in Buddhism about the empty pot, the empty mind. And I come into conversations and with people with that perspective, it’s hard when it comes to unconditional love. I’m always challenged by my own barriers with it by my own history with it by my own leanings or yearnings for it. So I would really define unconditional love in my lens and my experience as [00:44:00] the ability to allow others to see you. Gissele Taraba: Ooh, love that. Really, really love that. I was wondering if you could share with the audience where they can find you, where they can work with you where they can find your book, share anything that you want to share with the audience now. Savio Clemente: Well, thank you, Gissele. I appreciate that. So you can find me on my website, Savio, S A V I O, P is my middle initial, Clemente, C L E M E N T E. Savioclemente.com On there, I have two more spots left for my 90 day coaching program. I also do a a weekly newsletter. So as a journalist, I’ve interviewed people like Venus Williams and Ice T, but I also covered, recently, the red carpet at the Oscars. And so I wrote a piece about, do I belong in a sea of Hollywood’s elite? Do I actually belong, even though I’m vetted and I was there, you know, to be there, do I belong there? And so I, I write from that head, heart, gut perspective of really being and living in the world. You can also find other podcasts and other information [00:45:00] there. And on social media, you can find me @thehumanresolve. I’m on every social media platform. Gissele Taraba: Wow. Thank you so, so much for sharing your wisdom with us and for being with us today. And please join us for another episode of the loving compassion podcast with Gissele. See you soon. Savio Clemente: Thanks Gissele. Gissele Taraba: Bye.

[00:00:00] Gissele: Hello and welcome everyone to the Love and Compassion podcast with Giselle. Today we have an amazing guest, Alexis Donkin, who is called the Destructix, I’m probably pronouncing that wrong. She offers thoughtful mentorship and psychic insight at crossroads moments for the secretly spiritual women, super accomplished in many things from publishing and music to art and language and steeped in verbal tea. Alexis is the witchy bestie you’ve always wanted. Please join me in welcoming Alexis. Alexis: Hi, Alexis. Hello, thank you for having me. Oh, Gissele: no, thank you for being on the show. Before we begin, can you tell me a little bit about what the Destructix means? Alexis: Yeah, so I was looking for a title that would really sit with me, that really kind of [00:01:00] embodied what I do for my clients and my approach to things, and a lot of people use the word creatrix, and I just didn’t, that’s just not me, you know, that implies It’s It’s only creative energy and, and I’m not that I destroy Gissele: things. Alexis: And, and part of that is just, you know, the destructrix is a, it’s a female destroyer. And that energy is really about. Letting go, destroying the things that no longer serve, removing that in order to transform and be reborn and, embrace for creation. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing this. And also thank you for explaining. Alexis: I know. It’s a little weird. Gissele: Interesting. In my life, I’ve met people who had like that energy where they came sort of [00:02:00] into your life and it was a little bit of a tornado where things kind of got shooken up and then they kind of left. And then you’re like, what happened? But yeah, it’s, it’s that it’s, it’s a really interesting energy and it’s such a helpful energy in the sense of sometimes maybe that’s what we need because we so. Yeah. Not eager to let go of things. Right. And so, can I, can I ask how you got started into this sort of line of work, if Alexis: you may? Well, I was actually, I was born psychic, and I’m the daughter of 2 ordained ministers. So that was tricky for me to kind of embrace who I was. And I didn’t have a lot of. Resources and support to allow me to explore those things the way that I’m Might have benefited from at a younger age. I kind of had to figure it [00:03:00] out on my own. And because I’m a zenial there really wasn’t online communities and things to, to draw on at that time. It was really the wild West in a lot of ways. And in some ways it still is, so I had to kind of figure it out for myself over time. And it wasn’t until I was, in my mid thirties that I really, I was working on, I was writing an interfaith. devotional and world religions curriculum. And it caused me to be in this meditative state for days on end. And I had this powerful vision that was like, you can’t ignore this anymore. You have to do this. Like this is part of who you are and this is how you have to be in the world. And so after that, it was really just a series of, okay, [00:04:00] how do I figure these things out? What? Excuse me, what am I called to do with them? How do I want to work with them? You know, figuring out how do I create spiritual boundaries for myself and then. As I started doing some of my intuitive coaching, I realized that a lot of my clients were people who were going through some of those things that I had been through. They didn’t have the support that they needed. They didn’t have the people in their lives that they felt safe discussing these things with. And so. I was able to kind of shepherd them and guide them through that process. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. It must have been difficult or challenging. I don’t want to use the word difficult but challenging to navigate that as a child, like within the world of the realm of religion.  I know when I was younger. Spirituality was seen in a specific way. Like my, I [00:05:00] had my, I had family members that kind of practice sort of like what people would consider aberrant arts, right? Like somebody that I knew used to have like a little skull in a, in, in a little box that they used to talk to and had all these practices. And so that was really kind of the only side of it that we saw. It was either kind of. evidence-based and research or, you know, like very mind focused or this sort of occult, they’re sort of not in the middle. And so navigating that and trying to find your people must have been a little bit Alexis: challenging or difficult. Definitely. I mean, I, I think if you’re connected with spirit, you will receive the guidance that you need when you need it. In the way that you need it. Yeah. But that doesn’t take the challenging aspect out of it. Yes. Yes. Gissele: Yeah. [00:06:00] And so, and was it, was it easy for you to listen to that guidance? Was it easy? Because I’ve been in situations as well that the guidance I received didn’t make sense in my mind. And so I’m like, really? That’s what we’re doing? Why are we doing that? And so, how easy or difficult was it for you to follow that guidance? Alexis: Well, at first, you really have to figure out what the guidance is even telling you. And especially when you’re young, that’s really difficult because you’re feeling things for the 1st time. And so you don’t understand what the sensations in your body are telling you. And so kind of connecting the intuitive. Information to the physical information is it’s it’s next to impossible. You make huge mistakes, which you would expect of, like, any average 12 year old. As you get more in touch with your body, though and this is something that I talk about with my clients all the time is it’s really important to [00:07:00] remember that the body is. Very essential to the spiritual journey and to life, you really need to connect to your physical being. And so the more in touch you are with the physical sensations that are happening in your body and connecting that with the information that you’re getting the clearer and easier it’s going to be to trust your intuitive, not just to trust any kind of spiritual guidance that you get. So, yeah, that. I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger. But thankfully now even when I get those really off the wall, intuitive nudges that don’t seem to connect to anything, I’m like, you know what? I’m just going to follow it. And then when I do, it’s really fantastic. So, Gissele: yeah, thank you for sharing that. Can you tell the audience a little bit [00:08:00] about how the body, like the role the body plays in spirituality? Because obviously the body plays an important role in health, right? In us staying alive, but people might not always understand how it fits with spirituality. Because I think sometimes people have been taught to bypass. Like, let’s bypass the body, let’s bypass those feelings, like, bypass, we just, like, we want to get above this material 3D world. How do the two Alexis: interplay? Well, I would say that everything that’s physical has a spiritual signature and everything that’s spiritual has a physical signature. You know, our physical bodies are a reflection of our spirit. And that’s clear, right? You know, form follows function. When you use something a certain way, it develops and is shaped a certain way. And the same is true with the body. You know, if a swimmer’s body changes when they practice swimming you know, a cellist’s body changes when they practice cello. [00:09:00] It’s the same thing. And so, as we go through life, and you can see this when you look at someone who’s in their 80th or 90th year, you see how their body has been shaped over time and how it’s been used over time. But. There’s actually been studies that show that the body sends more messages to the brain than the brain sends to the body. So how we interact with the world, you know, the body is, is, is this 1st, line of defense and this 1st, line of inquiry in this 1st, line of experience and how our body looks. You know, how, how people perceive us also shapes our physical experience. And all of these things shape our spiritual experience. You know, what makes sense to you, what feels good to you is going to be different depending on how your body is shaped. Like, for example. I have hypermobile [00:10:00] Ehlers Danlos. Okay, this is a connective tissue issue, right? So I can’t do yoga. Yoga actually will cause me to have injury. So I’m not going to be practicing different asanas as part of my spiritual practice, but for somebody who doesn’t have these connective tissue issues. Yoga could be a really wonderful and powerful ally and practice for them to experience all kinds of spiritual, things. So it really just depends on, you know, how your body is and, and the more in touch you are with it, the more marvelous it can be. I mean, how wonderful is it to experience? On your skin, you know, how wonderful is it to experience the smell of fresh bread baking? These can be spiritual experiences and these can really ground us in the present moment. And you can’t have that if [00:11:00] you don’t have a body. So, so enjoy what the body offers. Yeah. And Gissele: I think that’s what more and more that I’m really becoming aware of just, well, joyful and precious and beautiful. Every single day, each experience can be like, we’re so future focus, or sometimes we’re so past focus. That, you know, we think, you know, once I do this, I’m going to be happy once I do this and we’re constantly trying to reach a goal that seems always to be moving, but there’s joy in the moment. There’s joy in experience and a cup of coffee and just watching kids play and, and all of those moments. You’re right. We can’t do without a body. We can’t do without. So instead of making sometimes the body our enemy, can we make it our, our friend or our best friend and it’s helping us really experience and get the most juice out of life, [00:12:00] if you may. Alexis: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say that that’s one of the, I mean, why else are we here? If we aren’t here to experience this physical life, there, whatever you believe about what happens after you’re after or before the body is unique, you know. Spirit is one thing, but the body is unique, and the body is special, and this experience right now is special. And so, it’s worth taking the time to embrace what is about that. And, and that’s, and I would say, and this might be a little unconventional, but I would say even in the difficult things, you know, to find a kind of joy and beauty in, in even those difficult things. As part of this physical experience. Gissele: Yeah. And you’ve had some challenges, obviously, I think before we had talked about [00:13:00] your experiences with COVID. So 2020, do you want to share a little bit about that? And what sort of helped you through? Alexis: Yeah, so I, I was, I got lung COVID in March of 2020, which was like the first wave of the pandemic. And so nobody knew what was going on. There weren’t tests for it. There was a lot of confusion. I ended up being isolated from my family for 11 weeks because they just didn’t know what to do. And at the time I was still breastfeeding my youngest child. And so they would bring her to me. Just to, like, nurse and then she would have to be kept out and so, you know, it was, it was a really painful, awful thing for all of us because, you know, my husband was like, is my wife going to, like, is she going to be okay? Is she going to, like, is she going to live? Is she going to be [00:14:00] normal ever? And then my kids were traumatized. Like, so both of them ended up having to be in therapy because it was like, you know, What’s going on with mom? You know, this person that’s supposed to be this rock for you is just not there and we can see her but We can’t interact with her. And then even after my isolation, excuse me, it took a long time for me to get back to where I am now, which is like, I mean, it was, it was a hard road and just like with acute COVID, there were cycles of symptoms. And so I would have, like, I would have extreme fatigue, or then I would have like chronic migraines, or then I would have, you know, vision problems or neurological problems or GI [00:15:00] problems. And it would just like, it was just like, what do I do? Which specialist will I go to now who won’t be able to help me? Yeah, it must have been scary. Yeah, it Gissele: must have been really, really scary. What do you think helped you through the process in being able to get through that piece? Like what, what, what were some of the pillars that really helped you get through that time? Cause like you said, there was no answers at that time. Nobody knew anything. I mean, everything was changing moment by moment. What helped you kind of hold on and helped you get through the other side? Alexis: I’ve always been this kind of person. I’ve always been an active person and I have always told myself, well, this is temporary. So, and then I wrote everything is temporary. Everything is temporary. [00:16:00] So I could trust that everything was going to be temporary. I could always find something that some thing that I could do or focus on. So, especially during that isolation, this was the hardest time. What I would do is I would practice grounding where I would like, think of, like, I would look around. Even in my room or out the window, and I’d be like, what’s something that I can appreciate about right now? What’s 1 thing? And I would look out and I’d be like, oh, the sky is blue. It’s beautiful today. Or I would listen to the birds and I would think about the birds or I would, you know, enjoy my blanket and the sensation of my blankets. There were such small things because that’s all I could do. You know, and then yeah. I was having cognitive issues as well, and so I was like, okay, what’s something that I can [00:17:00] do that can keep my brain where I want it to be, you know, and so I started, I got Duolingo on my phone and I was, and I was like, what’s the hardest language that I can think of to like, practice? I was like, Korean, we’ll do that. And so I was like, even if I just did like one lesson a day, I was just like, okay, I’m just going to do one little thing. And, and then I also focused on, you know, what really mattered to me. I noticed that when I was the sickest, my values, like what was most important to me, my priorities shifted. And because I, I really didn’t know what was going to happen to me. And I was like, if I, you know, if I die, how do I feel about how I’ve lived my life? And as far as like a bucket list, I was like, I’ve done everything that I really wanted to do as, you know, like the experiences that [00:18:00] I’ve had. I feel good about. I don’t really have any regrets. The only thing. That was really important to me was time with my family with people that I was really close to. And so when I did have time with them, I was really deeply present with that. And I just made a really big effort to. Just enjoy being with them and telling them the things that they needed that I wanted them to hear from me and to this day that has changed. I whenever I have a moment where either of my kids. I’ll just give them a hug and I’ll whisper in their ear and I’ll say, you know, I love you. I’m proud of you. You bring me joy every day. And, and I’m really mean it like I put a lot of meaning behind those words and I let them just sit with them because [00:19:00] you don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean, even a healthy person could walk outside and get struck by a car and be gone. And so, making the time to do those things. It’s really, it’s really important. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your stories with so many powerful things. Do you think that this experience helped you get to a point you might not have gotten if you hadn’t gotten? Alexis: Absolutely. So sick. Yeah, I would, I had to rebuild my entire life. That’s why you’re the destructix now. I mean, I, I really, I really did. I, I ended up rebuilding my health. Obviously my approach to my body is completely different. I’m much more in [00:20:00] tune with my body and I know. Exactly what it needs, what it needs because I’ve had to pay such close attention for so long. I also, I rebuilt my marriage because I ended up during this time, I ended up being on the brink of divorce because it was just so wearing and there was so much happening. So the way that I communicate with my husband and the way that we treat each other, the kinds of things we do together. Totally changed. I had to rebuild my parenting because my children were traumatized and had these horrible experiences. So I ended up having to, advocate for them in really big ways to find them the supports that they needed. And honestly, the way that we are as a family is just so much better. I, you know, we don’t have the kinds of.[00:21:00] Issues that even some typical families might have because we have structures in place. My kids have coping mechanisms. They’re able to regulate themselves. They help each other regulate. I mean, it’s just, it’s a really beautiful thing. And. In some, it’s, it seems backwards, but in many ways, I’m actually grateful for the experience of this. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Yeah, absolutely not. Yeah, however, because it happened to me, you know, I was able to take it and use it to transform. All these different parts of my life and I’m grateful for where I am now. Gissele: And so well said because I think one of the things that we must acknowledge what is your willingness to optimize a situation that was so, [00:22:00] so difficult. And, you know, like sort of mine for gold from it, right? The fact that you were even willing to do the little things such as, okay, what am I grateful for? I’m breathing. There’s the sky. You know, the soft pillow. Being willing to do that work of Because it’s so much easier sometimes to just really swallowing the pit of despair of our victimization, but to be able to look at things to be grateful for in even the most challenging of circumstances, I think it’s. It’s something to acknowledge. So I think that from that perspective, I think your being able to shift your mindset really helped you get to the point where you can say, I’m grateful for that experience. Like I said, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else, but I’m Alexis: grateful. And I would, I do want to, I want to not be disingenuous in some way, because I want to be [00:23:00] clear. I did have times that were really low, you know, like, there were times where I wasn’t able to do that as well. Or I was having, 1 of the symptoms that I’ve had with my migraines was actually mood, altering stuff and it was difficult and and. So there were times that where the only thing I could do was tell someone I’m having this moment and I’m not, I’m not able to like walk through it. Well, like I need your support. And, and that was all that I, you know, that was the only thing that I could do. And fortunately because of who I am, I had those supports and I did feel comfortable reaching out to people. But, you know, I do like. If someone is listening to this or watching this I [00:24:00] do want you to know that, like, it’s normal to have those really low moments and just to, you know, to be okay with that. That’s a normal part of the experience. Yeah, absolutely. And just, you know, reach out to people when you don’t feel like you can do it on your own, because there are people who will support you. Gissele: And I just want to stress cause I think what you’re saying is so spot on and it really goes to my questions on compassion, which is like be compassionate to yourself. I know in my spiritual journey, I’ve had instances like of like when you feel bliss and you feel grateful and you feel, and then there’s other times when you just can’t find it. You can’t find the compassion. You can’t find the love for yourself. You really can’t find it in like you, you just got to admit, okay, I can’t find it today. I just really can’t. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in the next moment, but right now I don’t have it. That’s okay. [00:25:00] I’ll has compassion or self compassion in particular really helped you when navigating kind of your most difficult moments. I Alexis: mean, I would definitely say that there would be times where it’s like, I can’t do what I used to do before. Like that’s not possible right now. And. I would sit with that, you know, I’d sit with the, the frustration, the, the despair and the discouragement and I’d be like, okay, that’s okay that I had that feeling and, and it’s understandable and now, like, what can I do? What do I need to do for myself? How do I need to be for myself now, who I am now? And one of the most powerful practices that I learned over this time that I think most of us in the [00:26:00] modern world could could use this lesson is to rest and to take breaks and to pace yourself. You know, you don’t always have to be productive and your value is not from being productive. You don’t have to achieve something to be worthy to be here. Just being is enough and at, especially at the beginning of my illness, it was really hard for me because I do things, you know, I am, I am a recovering overachiever. So, like, sitting still and not being able to do things was like. What is happening right now? How can I, like, how can I contribute to the world? What am I, you know, but over time I realized, you know, everything in nature has cycles [00:27:00] and we are creatures of nature and we have cycles too. And one of those is dormancy. One of those is rest and it’s good and safe to rest. Gissele: Yeah, you said so much there. I think, you know, we have such a culture of hustle and grind and, you know, like, that’s one of my things for 2024. Let’s be done with that already. Like, let’s be, because I think if we’re gonna work hard, we gotta rest just as hard. And we just kind of, we, like, especially for me and in my culture and in my family, we always had this, this perspective of push through, push through, just push through, push, push through. But then you get to the point where you just can’t push through anymore, right? Like you, all the stuff you’ve been pushing through, it just comes up at you. And it’s sort of like really focusing on being not the doing, but just the [00:28:00] being. Yeah. But we, we have a hard time identifying with just being right. Like think about how we introduce ourselves, you know, I’m a so and so and I do this and I do that and I do the other. It’s not about, I’m just a human being, trying my best, I’m working on myself, but the resting component is so, so important and I find that if you don’t rest, your body will find ways to find rest for you. But yeah, I can’t believe how much our identity is related to, or connected to, how much we do. One of the hardest, most challenging things I had to say to myself was really, Can I still love and accept myself even if I accomplish nothing in this world? Like, even if I don’t accomplish all the things, quote unquote, that I think I’m supposed to do? And I still just accept myself and just [00:29:00] be, why do you think that being has for so long been regarded as something that is just not the way, but, and is it changing from your perspective? Alexis: Well, I think that it, it stems from internalized capitalism. You know, we’re told, I mean, basically, since the industrial revolution, people have just been work, you know, we’re just working, working, working, and there’s no seasons to it. You know, we removed, once we got out of agriculture, we removed the seasons. If you go to a farming community, people take breaks because you have to. You know, that’s just how the natural world works. But if you’re in a city or you’re in, you know, some kind of industry that is technological, There are no breaks. There’s no [00:30:00] reason to have a break because a machine just goes. But I think, especially with, current generations, there’s a recognition that this is not, we’re not machines. We can’t function that way. And we should not function that way. We deserve to have breaks. We deserve to have You know, our work and at the end of the workday. We deserve to have time with our friends. You know, we deserve to have a life. That’s not work. And I, I mean, you can see it kind of with the, the ways in which, unions have gotten more popular. And more powerful again, which is wonderful. It’s wonderful. I think it’s wonderful that people are recognizing that we don’t have to produce that we can just be and that it’s [00:31:00] enough, you know, so much of so many mental health issues stem from this problem. This idea that you, you’re not worthy if you’re not producing, and you have to be, you know, going going going. And if we could just. Kind of deal with this idea of internalized capitalism and let go of these ideas of like, produce, produce, produce, achieve, achieve, achieve, and rest. I think it would just be so much better, not only for us as human beings, but for our planet in so many Gissele: ways. Agreed. Agreed. I love what you said about the seasons because I think, you know, so much of our life we’ve moved so far away from flow and from connecting to nature and from our own inner nature, that it’s, you know, it’s, it’s artificial, right? It’s this, this, that we can go 24 7 and that we’re machines and we’re not in that. [00:32:00] Beingness. And so what do you think really helps you when you are in those moments where you get caught in the whole, you know, rat race and the whole I should be doing this and should be doing that. What helps you come back to yourself. Alexis: I usually notice. So I do make lists for myself. Okay. I’m a list person. I like to have structure that helps me focus and helps me, you know, make sure I get things done that I do need to get done or want to get done. But I noticed sometimes, I’ll want to do more. And then I’ll be like, no, that’s my, that’s my trick is if I want to do more, I got the things done already. I want to do more. I’ll be like, no, I’m going to stop now. And that keeps me from getting burnt out because it allows me to pace, you [00:33:00] know, spread out my energy and then I can do some fun things as opposed to just doing the work stuff. And obviously there are times where you have to. You have to do a little bit more because of obligations or whatever. But for the most part, if I have the space to do that, I do work really hard at cultivating that space. I, I will take it, you know. I also pay attention to my body a lot. I mean, I really, I really try and, and pay attention like, okay, how does my body feel right now? You know, how do my joints feel? Have I been sitting too long? You know, how do my eyes feel? Am I tired? Do I need to, you know, drink some water? Whatever the case may be, and then I’m just like, you know, I’m just gonna, even if I didn’t get everything done on my list, I’ll be like, Nope, my body says no. Awesome. Gissele: We don’t often listen to our bodies right [00:34:00] again it’s that push through culture that I could just do this and then the body finds a way so I think it’s beautiful that you are listening to your body as. You know, as a way to kind of stay connected to yourself. What are the other things that you do in order to honor your body for yourself? Alexis: I have rituals of self care. I have like, and I say rituals. I mean, like, I don’t, I’m not like, you know, I’m not doing sage or something necessarily, but but like, I have like, there’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s just not me. You know, that’s not what I do. So, like, I have like a skin care routine, you know, in the morning and evening. I give myself a facial massage when I put my lotions into my skin. I try and take a bath at least once a week, and I will either take I will scrub my skin, [00:35:00] or I will like soak in Epsom salts or something like that, and, you know, do a face mask, deep condition my hair, I mean, like the whole thing and it really is like a ritual and I, and then, you know, I’ll, my hair care routine, my face. Skincare. I mean, it’s, it’s involved and I, I recognize that it’s involved. It’s not for everybody, but it’s definitely it’s a grounding practice and it’s, and it’s a ritualizing, practice that communicates very deeply that my body’s important, that, that my body is important than that, how I feel in my body is important. I’ve worked really hard at. Wearing clothing that feels good to me, you know, that that makes me feel sexy. That makes me feel [00:36:00] pretty. That makes me feel comfortable and good in my body. You know, I, I think about what foods I eat, and I don’t mean this in like a, not in like a diet aesthetic way, but in a, like, how does this make my body feel when I eat it? Does this feel good to me? Or does it feel, I mean, yes, like sometimes I want to have cake and I’m going to love some of those cookies. They feel good. Yeah. And also like. If I had cake all day, I would make myself feel sick. So, like, I have, like, you know, if I’m gonna have something like that, I have it once a day because that’s what, like, that’s what feels good to me, you know, and then, like, I’m like, okay, I wake up in the morning and I don’t just automatically have a certain breakfast. I think about it. You know, I stop and I think and I’m like, what would feel good to me this morning to [00:37:00] eat? And then, you know, like I have like a kind of things to choose from and then like, I’m like, okay, this is the thing I want to have for breakfast this morning. You know, it’s, it’s those little things and I’ve just made it a habit. To really honor my physical form and you know, like I, I dance for exercise. I love dancing and I do it because it’s fun for me. It feels good to my body. It feels like a celebration of life and it’s enjoyable when I get the movements, you know, better. Yeah. And so, yeah, there’s, there’s. But, like, there’s a couple of keys there, you know? The key is, like, it needs to feel good, for me. And it needs to work with, like, my overall Life. And so, you know, this stuff that I do isn’t necessarily going to work for everyone and that’s [00:38:00] okay. You know, you don’t, it shouldn’t. They’re not me. Yeah, Gissele: yeah, definitely. Well, it could definitely relate to some of the stuff you were saying. I love skincare. I love, I love the process. I love especially since I discovered for me Korean skincare, like that’s one of my, it’s so much fun. I know, I love it. And like K beauty and there’s so many amazing things on Tik Tok that you, I’m learning about like my skin and how to, and it’s just so fun. Like I think about it just, it’s just fun. It’s just, you know, like I can love and accept myself as I am and choose to change. Like it doesn’t have to be or right. And so I have fun with it. And so but one of the things you said to me just now really made me think, you know what? It’s, You know, it’s funny how you apply things in one part of the life, but not another. I’m such a creature of habit when it comes to breakfast. Like I’m just like, I’m just going to have my own meal. And then I thought, [00:39:00] Oh, you know what, what would it, what would it be like every day? Just decide what do I, what does my body feel like today? What does it feel like? I do that in other areas of my life, including what I’m going to do for the day. Like, you know, what’s my, you know, what’s. The source spirit, my higher self want me to do in terms of how do I serve today, like all of that stuff, but not in terms of like having fun with breakfast and some of this, the more habitual things that I noticed, but then less we are in habits, the more open we are to experiences and the more joy we can get out. So thank you for that. I appreciate that. I’m going to try that tomorrow and see what. I hope don’t hear oatmeal Alexis: again. . I did that today actually. I had I made myself, this was something I did for the first time. I made berry and cream cheese stuffed french toast for breakfast this morning. It wasn’t as hard as it sounds. Just go on Pinterest. But I had been, you know, I was like, I would [00:40:00] really like, you know, and I was not super energetic this morning, but I was like, Nope, I’m gonna do it. And I did it and it was like, Oh, this is delightful. This is right. So yes, I definitely encourage you to explore that. Yeah, for sure. Gissele: Yeah. So thank you for that. one of the other things that I found with COVID was It just got us out of our usual habits, like we couldn’t go to the same workplaces, we couldn’t do the same things, we had to completely shift, and so from my perspective, it was something that needed to happen in terms of like our consciousness. I was wondering is there anything you’re seeing for 2024 how our maybe consciousness may be changing or what people should be considering or doing anything in terms of Alexis: 2024. I mean, I, so I did this practice. This is, this will be a little story and it will explain. Yeah, yeah. I love stories. [00:41:00] So I did this practice called Omen Days, which it’s the, you’re, it’s a Celtic practice, that the 12 days of Christmastide or Yuletide, each day you look for signs and each of the 12 days corresponds to a month of the year. Oh, cool. It is it is it’s it’s kind of fun and it’s kind of I’ve never done it before a few people that I knew were doing and I was like, you know, and I’m just going to do it. See what comes up. And I noticed a couple of things that came up in this, this,  it was a sign to me that I should do that. That I should have, like, a kind of ritual bath and kind of shifting into the next month and the next focus. And I think that having, I think that’s 1 thing that I think. Is a good idea. Now, it doesn’t have to be a bath for you, but but thinking about honoring the [00:42:00] transition and making it sacred to us to some degree. I think bringing sacredness back into our regular life daily life is a really powerful thing because it helps ground you. It helps bring you into the present moment and it helps you recognize the beauty and the divinity in the everyday. Another thing that I noticed, or another sign that kind of came up for me was this urge to embrace your zone of genius and to do the things that you recommend to other people. I think a lot of times we, we don’t. Honor those things for ourselves. We downplay the things that we’re really good at and our own power. And so I was urged to do that in a big way for [00:43:00] myself. And I think that that’s something that’s really powerful for everyone. And I, and I think that, yeah, really honoring your own power and, and stepping into it. Mm-hmm, and embracing it. That would be a beautiful thing. And I think it would be really great if more people did it. So I hope that anyone, that’s watching, listening to this will, will do that. I would love for that to be true. Oh, that’s, Gissele: that’s, it’s so beautiful. Thank you for that. I definitely think that 2024, like, I feel like, I feel like there’s been such a shift in consciousness, like, that I think we’re starting to really understand how much we’ve given away our power to other people and other things. So what you’re saying really resonates with me because I think that’s the sense that I’m getting that it really is about people stepping up into our own power and that’s why you’re seeing all of these. [00:44:00] Systems are being rocked and there’s just don’t working anymore. And so we’re trying to figure out, okay, so if not that, then what? And so for me, it really is about understanding the role. Love and compassion play. Because this is just what resonates with me. Doesn’t have to resonate with others. It’s just that the role, the importance of that as the foundation of what we may be wanting to build moving forward. But I definitely. The changes that I hadn’t seen before, even my kids comment on the fact that they really seen some, they’ve seen some changes over time, in terms of how people are, the things that are coming up and sometimes even in extremes, like streams in behavior and the positive or it seems to behave you in the negative, but everything seems to be coming up to, for the light to be shine, like shown on, right. But sometimes we don’t. Like we’re seeing it’s [00:45:00] an interesting time doesn’t interesting time to be Alexis: alive. Right. Cause you’re like, Gissele: what is times when I think to myself, sometimes the things we worship prioritize like this world is so topsy turvy. Doesn’t it not sometimes feel like this world is a little bit like the upside down. Like the things we prioritize, the things we care about, the things we like when I go deep into myself and spirituality, like in, in terms of like in my heart, like when I really go inward, like the things that I think generate real love in me, I like all in experiences in the present moment and just like little tiny things that are so that made me feel so abundant and make me feel so thankful to be alive. And then I’m like, well, why am I not [00:46:00] taking note of that in my every day? Like, why do I allow all of these other things to take my energy and attention when they’re not as important? Or maybe they are. I mean, they are important because I mean, we’re living this experience, but I guess I think just sometimes the things we value don’t make any sense Alexis: to me anymore. It’s true. I mean, it’s true. And I think that goes back to that internalized capitalism. I mean, it’s just like the values are just totally backwards because, because yeah, we’re, we’re social creatures. We need to do social things. We need to be with, with our people and, and yeah, and relishing those experiences. That we can, that we can make. And I think when we get in touch with ourselves, when we, when we honor our power and we, we bring sacredness into our, into our life, then we start to see that, that shift even more. And I think you’re right. I think more people [00:47:00] are you know, embracing these things. And sometimes it’s, I mean, it starts with the little ones. But it just builds and it compounds and it’s it’s really lovely to see, Gissele: you know, one of the things that you mentioned is that internalized capitalism, and I try to think of systems in terms of like, how I contributed to those systems and how sometimes those systems reflect how I acted when I was hurtful. Do we not buy into the whole capitalist. I think hook, line, and sinker. at least I did. Like, I think when I think back about these systems we have created and how we’ve contributed to them, I’m like, you know, it’s sort of like the terminology that we no longer use, that we used to use. We’re like, remember when we used to say that? That’s so inappropriate and hurtful. What were we thinking? Yeah, it’s, you know, but hindsight is always Alexis: 20 20, right? Yeah, totally. Gissele: Strange times. [00:48:00] I was wondering if you could tell people a little bit about what you’re working on where they can find you. I know you have potentially a special offer for these listeners so I don’t know if you want to share that with people. Alexis: You can you can find me on alexisdonkin.com. I’m also on Instagram and TikTok a lot. https://www.instagram.com/alexis.donkin/ https://www.facebook.com/authoralexisdonkin https://www.tiktok.com/alexis.donkin I love DMs, so feel free to reach out and message me. I’m happy to chat with you about all the things, and you can, I did I, I do think that one of the best ways to work with me is to just. Do an ask a psychic session and the reason is that it’s basically a conversation like we’re having and you just, it’s just like one question. Really? It’s like 20 minutes. It’s only 30 bucks. And, and if you mentioned this podcast, we’ll also get a chat day [00:49:00] later and. That can be helpful because sometimes the things that come up during a conversation, maybe things develop over time. And so then you can chat with me and be like, hey, this thing came up like, what do you think? But regardless, when you leave the conversation, you will definitely have your, a clear next right step, you’ll feel affirmed, you’ll have assurances about your trajectory of where you’re going. And it just feels Good. So I’d love for you to take me up on that. That would be super great. Remember to reference this awesome podcast. Because Giselle is fabulous in this conversation was so fun. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. So, oh, I do have 1 more question, which is what is your definition of unconditional love? I’m asking all my guests, regarding what their, what their perspective of, of love or unconditional love. Some people don’t define it as unconditional, but [00:50:00] Alexis: well, it’s, it’s love. I would say that unconditional love is love. Despite. It doesn’t matter. Right? It’s, it’s love for all of, all of the whole package. Conditioned love you, you, you love because, but the love despite is so much more powerful. Gissele: Yeah, I love that you said that because you’re right. It’s the because versus. Despite. Yeah. Oh, what a beautiful way to end the podcast. And thank you everyone to tune in, who tuned into our podcast today. Don’t forget to like, and subscribe for more amazing content and join us another time for the love and compassion podcast with Gissele. See you soon. ​

[00:00:00] Gissele overdub: Hello and welcome to this podcast entitled, can we truly have unconditional compassion for those who hurt us? Lessons from a sexual assault. My guest today is a new Orleans based writer, teacher and compassion trainer with more than 20 years experience teaching and facilitating workshops and retreats with individuals who have faced challenging circumstances, including homelessness, domestic violence, HIV AIDS, wrongful conviction, incarceration, and torture. She is a certified compassion cultivation trainer through the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. She’s also the founder of the Compassion Program at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, as well as the founder of the Victim Outreach Program through the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole. She is creative writing faculty at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, and her writing includes the documentary play, Never Fight a Shark in Water, The Wrongful [00:01:00] Conviction of Gregory Bright. Which has been performed by Bright himself on stages across the country. And of course her memoir, The Jaguar Man. Welcome, Laura. Lara: Thank you for having me. Gissele overdub: I’d love to talk, to start talking about your book. You touch on so many issues that are facing women and men today and how we have systems that aren’t moving forward in a compassionate way when it comes to sexual assault. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what inspired you to write the book. The Lara: backstory is I went and took a, was meant to be a two week vacation in Belize and on the fourth day of that trip, I was picked up by a man. Pretending to be a cab driver, and I was kidnapped into the jungle at knife point where I was robbed and raped twice. That’s one level of the story, and of course after that kind of a traumatic incident, you know, I was left with the question, what just happened? But there was another what just happened that was [00:02:00] even bigger, that while I was in the jungle with this man, who I refer to as the Jaguar Man throughout the book, it mixed in with the violence was also this very profound experience of compassion, because It was compassion, I believe, that saved my life. It was very obvious that this man was acting out of his own madness, or pain, or trouble. It was not personal to me, that I knew immediately. I never met this man before, so it couldn’t have been about me. So, really my only defense, not being able to to run or to hide or to overpower him, my only defense was to turn toward him and his pain and try to soothe him so that he would stop harming me. And all of that made a lot of sense in the jungle. But the moment I was safe and away from him, it didn’t make sense anymore. And part of that confusion came because I was living in Los Angeles at the [00:03:00] time and I told people what happened. I wasn’t hiding it or ashamed in any way. But the reactions I got were so varied and so angry, and I really started to question my own approach to self defense. And so the book was born out of wanting to have some control over the narrative, to shape it, to make sense of it, and how to think about and talk about compassion. I wanted to have a conversation about compassion in the face of violence. and, and that’s what birthed the Jaguar Man. Gissele overdub: That’s beautiful. And of course, writing has been a tool and probably was a tool for you beforehand. Absolutely. Yeah. That’s kind Lara: of how I orient in the world. Gissele overdub: Yeah. And I loved how you kind of wrote this story because you kind of use facts and myths of storytelling. And I don’t know if you’ve heard of Dr.  Jean Houston, who is the author of Jump Time. And she [00:04:00] actually uses myth as a way to heal trauma. She actually has kind of this neat exercise where you think about a traumatic event and then use myth, use kind of a fairy tale in order to kind of retell your story as a healing tool. And so I was just wondering whether or not you could share why you had used kind of the facts and myth and whether it was kind of a tool for you to assist yourself in your healing. Lara: When I got home from my encounter in Belize, I was really obsessed with wanting to know more about the man, the Jaguar Man. I wanted to understand what was driving him, why violence was the way he was expressing whatever he was going through. So when I sat down to write a memoir, I felt, I felt really blocked because so much of the truth of my story was about my obsession and about him. How could I write a factual story when I didn’t have the facts? So [00:05:00] I named, within the memoir, what I name as fact is what I at least remember. Now, whether or not that’s factual, I don’t know, but it’s, it’s my memory to the best that I can recall. What I use as myth is what I use to fill out the story of who this man is in relation to me. Gissele overdub: You very rarely use the word rape or sexual assault in your book. You actually kind of use the letter X. I was wondering if you could share with the audience why you, you opted to not use the word. Lara: Right. So not using the word rape and using the symbol X instead is I think in many ways related to also your question about myth. You know, when I hear the word rape, I think of the physical act. After my rape, I immediately had a wider perspective on that. It was so much more than the physical act. There was also the knife, and there was the jungle, there was the fear, [00:06:00] and there was the compassion, all mixed up. And I didn’t want to use the word rape because I thought that would automatically come with a, you know, kind of a singular view. of the experience. within the book, I tried to redefine rape or X in lots of different ways to kind of give a 360, view. Of how I experienced that physical harm, but not just physically. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Can you share a little bit as to why you opted for the Jaguar? Lara: Yeah. So again, the Jaguar, I guess it felt true to the emotional experience of him. He was very powerful, very predatory and aggressive and taking what he wanted. And we were in the jungle and it also Jaguars are prevalent in the jungles of Belize and in fact, Very close to where he had kidnapped me is a [00:07:00] jaguar preserve, so it seemed like an appropriate, again, kind of symbol or metaphor to use. Gissele overdub: And it’s interesting because if jaguars are on a reserve, are they trapped? Lara: Well, they have lots of room to roam. Just land that is is a sanctuary so that they wouldn’t be shot. Gissele overdub: Okay, so it’s a protection. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful, because you had used the facts and myths about jaguars, and I know you were trying to introduce aspects of the individual’s history. You had mentioned earlier that and you also mentioned it in the book, that compassion and love saved your life that day. Can you share a little bit more about that? Lara: Yeah, that is my belief. I think my response to this man is what eventually helped him to, to calm down long enough to see me as a person separate from him. I think. You know, my, [00:08:00] my stance was to, to just try to calm him, to listen to him. I gave him my full attention. Gissele overdub: It’s like the power of loving presence. Lara: Love is always going to be the strongest. And it was put to the test in this case. And it worked. Now, who’s to say it would work in every scenario? Of course. I don’t know. In this case where there was, it was a one to one interaction, there was nothing else around us. Seeing him as an individual who needed care eventually helped him see me as an individual who didn’t deserve to be harmed. You know, it took time and he harmed me. And at the same time, he was checking in to see who I was. He became more curious about me. And at the end of our encounter, he actually drove me to All the way back to my cabana where I was staying, as though he were my cab [00:09:00] driver. Because he said he didn’t want me to be in a place that wasn’t safe. Right. So confusing, and yet at the same time it made sense because we had really come through the violence into seeing each other as people who needed care. And it was hard earned. Gissele overdub: I had finished reading your book. There were so many parts where I felt so emotional because lots of stuff was stirring for me.  And then actually encountered this 2017 TED talk by Valerie Kaur. And she talks about revolutionary love. She shares a story about how she’s from the Sikh community and how she had had several experiences of racism. She had a friend who was actually considered an uncle who was killed by a person due to a racist act. She talks about how the brother of this man who was assassinated was able to forgive this murderer. And, you know, they talked to him in the prison. And she talks about [00:10:00] how we require in today’s society something called revolutionary love, which is love for ourselves, love for others, and love for our enemies.  And I found in your book, you talk about love with teeth, and she calls revolutionary love fierce and bloody. It was interesting to me how you attempted to kind of find humanity in the Jaguar man and try to understand his behavior to see him not just as this one dimensional abuser. At one point in the book, you said love mixed with your fear gave you power. Can you explain a little bit about that? Lara: Well, I think it was a self power and I think that having concern and compassion and even this weird, I call it jaguar love for him is an act of self love. You know, there’s that old expression that hurt people hurt people. If I can extend compassion to someone who’s hurting and their hurting [00:11:00] ceases or, or at least dissolves a little bit, they will then be able to be better toward me. So, you know, it’s not just just an offering to somebody else. It’s very much an acknowledgement that we are so connected that I can’t be well, unless you are well, my wellness depends on your wellness and your wellness depends on mine. And so it’s very much a powerful act of, of self love to love another, even perhaps even especially who we might consider an enemy, but that fear. That fear is human. And, you know, and love doesn’t necessarily come without other emotional qualities attached or right next to it. But there’s something very powerful and kind of adrenaline driving about loving through the power of fear. If I hadn’t been through hell, it wouldn’t have been so urgent. [00:12:00] And I might have turned away from that emotion, but it was urgent and there was nothing else I could think to do. So I had to dig in to that love and, and that’s what, in fact, what changed me so fundamentally as a result of this. Like, there was no time to just sit back and theorize about, oh, do, do enemies deserve love? Like, the fear was the propulsion to the love. In my case anyway, in that moment, one probably couldn’t have existed without the other. Gissele overdub: That’s very powerful. You ask the question in your book, if you care for your enemy, is he still your enemy? I feel like in today’s society, we’re just kind of rejecting one another and not really willing to sit in the middle. What we’re trying to do kind of with this work and with these podcasts is try to understand how we can come together. People talk about the issue of rape as being kind of something about power, [00:13:00] but you said, for the Jaguar man, this, you know, To me feels incomplete. And I was wondering if that meant kind of the thought about how really what you mentioned, right? Hurt people, hurt people, and that truly empowered people do not really need to take power from others. I was wondering if that’s what maybe you were referring to, or if there was more to that comment. Lara: Yeah. You know, when I hear about rape, the kind of the quick tagline is rape is about power. The person is trying to exert or express a power over the person they’re violating. While that is, in fact, the experience, in my situation, I felt that it wasn’t just about power, but it was about wanting to have enough power to achieve something else. And in this case, he very clearly told me that he was desperately trying to connect. It was power in order to connect with some, someone he, you know, he [00:14:00] would, he told me about the problems of his life, his problems with the law, the separation from his wife, his he was not allowed to see his son who, who is, you know, the, the love of his life. He thought about killing himself that morning. So I had all this information. And he just kept saying that he, he just wanted to feel. So it wasn’t power for the sake of power. It was power to achieve the thing that he was so desperately missing. And, and that, that second part I think is crucial understanding of maybe what drives people to violence. That there is this hurt that is manifesting in a violent way. But the hurt itself is trying to be soothed, and there are other ways to soothed the hurt, of course. I think it also, it probably behooves us to define compassion as well, because I think a lot of A lot of flack that people [00:15:00] get about this radical kind of love. It’s because there are a lot of myths about compassion. Compassion is recognizing the suffering, wishing for that suffering to be relieved, and being willing to help, or motivated to help. But compassion in no way means letting somebody off the hook. Compassion is not feeling sorry for someone. It’s not condoning bad behavior, and it doesn’t even mean that there’s forgiveness. It simply means that you see their suffering, and you want to help to relieve the suffering. That’s right. You know, there are a lot of people who think that if we if we become a culture or an individual of compassion, that suddenly we’re walked all over or harmed even more. But in fact, compassion can be a very empowering way to kind of live in the world. And I find that the more I’ve studied compassion, the [00:16:00] more I’ve learned about it, and the more I’ve cultivated and practiced it, actually, the stronger and clearer my boundaries get. One of the myths of compassion is that suddenly people will walk all over you and take advantage of you. But in fact, compassion can help give us much clearer boundaries. There is that expression that you can be, that there’s fierce compassion. Compassion doesn’t mean that you are always gentle. It means that your action has the intention behind it to relieve suffering. That action can come and look in lots of different ways. You know, the most compassionate thing might be in one situation to turn around and walk away, to leave. Another compassionate reaction might be to, to get involved you know, to try to actually be of service. And another one might be, in some cases, to use force. To change the course of an action, but always what would be the thing would [00:17:00] be the attention to relieve suffering. And so I think it’s helpful to define that so that there’s not confusion about, oh, we’re not just saying love someone no matter what they do. We’re saying see the suffering that’s at the root cause of this behavior. Hold the person accountable and help them move beyond the limited Thinking and mindset that is driving this behavior. Gissele overdub: You know, I’d like to believe that working from a place of compassion and love is our true nature. People that kind of do these behaviors tend to isolate themselves from others. And they, they kind of really are preventing themselves from tapping into their own love and compassion. There was a key part in the book that really had an emotional impact on me. You kind of had a confrontation, what I would call the confrontation with God. I don’t want to spoil it for people, but I think it was one of the pivotal moments. For me in the book, at least it was but I do want to share kind of your thought about that God should have loved me more [00:18:00] and that, you know, that kind of belief that if there’s a God or there’s this kind of universal love, it’s that love is only given to people that deserve it. Lara: You know, I, the scene that you’re referring to takes place in in a church that a friend took me to when I returned home to Los Angeles. But, you know, I was just feeling like, God, this, what in the world are you trying, what am I supposed to learn from this? And there are a lot better ways to get my attention. You know, and I was just going back and forth in my mind. I was having this dialogue, it felt like with this, with this presence, you know, and I definitely felt as though I was being There was this other voice that was responding to me, but you know, at one point I, I just, you know, I, in my, this kind of rage toward God silently in my head and sitting in this church, I said, well, you know, do you love him more than me? And, and I got this answer [00:19:00] back that I love you both the same. And that just did me in. I thought, no, that’s not okay. I said, God, you’re allowed to love him a little bit. Like I did. But really you should be loving me more. And, you know, and I was really petulant in my mind about this. And and I thought, no, no, no, this is, this is too big. I’m in too deep here. And then, and then I, it really hit me that if I’m going to understand love, if I’m going to understand compassion, I have to be, I have to be willing for him to be loved. And again, not just in the theoretical sense, but, you know, we’re loved on earth through other people. And so if God’s going to love him, it’s going to, it’s going to come through others. And one of those others was me. And would I accept that or wouldn’t I? And, and that’s where I was left. And then of course it took years, you know, to work through [00:20:00] that. Yeah, absolutely. Questions arrive and arise in these kind of momentary flashes. And then it takes years to work with them. Gissele overdub: It’s difficult to get past the hurt. Why should he be free and go around after doing this to people? Like we have a tendency to want to punish. And at one point in the book, you ask a question about when rape became a woman’s issue. you talk about how rape really belonged to his anger and his madness. And then you also got to talk about how the systems really weren’t designed to kind of help him get to the point where he. would really understand the impact of his behavior. I was gathering some stats for my chat with you in Canada, according to the Sexual Assault Center. One in three women experience some sort of sexual assault in their lives. Something’s obviously not working for both men and [00:21:00] women. Lara: It is really an epidemic, and women are the loudest voices speaking against rape. And all the books on the topic are shelved in women’s studies. Sexual assault statistics primarily count the women, and so it’s been made to be this women’s issue. And, you know, and I really resent that rape has become a woman’s issue. And I, and, and I just, part of that resentment is just that I think that we’re, we’re in a loop of, of ineffectivity. Although there are women who rape, ultimately it is a man’s men’s issue. And and I think that when we, when we get to the point where we’re willing to listen to men who have assaulted others and to understand what is driving them and what they need, what they didn’t receive, what sort of messages they’ve received, you know, we’re, [00:22:00] we’re getting better in our culture listening to women. And listening to their experience, listening to the to the, to the victim or the survivor does not change the behavior of the offender. So I really would like to turn this on its head somehow, some way. And that’s one of the things that propelled me to want to go to, into, into a prison and just, you know, figure out what, what is missing, what has been missing in, in the healing of people who end up committing these really horrible. violences and then suffer the consequences of it for the rest of their lives. Like that’s not working for anyone and it’s not healing women. You know, putting someone in jail does not heal a woman. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be in jail. I’m just saying it’s not a direct relationship to someone else’s healing.[00:23:00] Gissele overdub: I’ve been thinking about kind of the whole concept of prison and how historically Like, our solution to our problems has been isolate and segregate, right? Like, this is how we treated children with developmental disabilities. This is how we’ve treated people with mental health problems. But we’re not really kind of addressing the problems. You talk about how prison is really the place where the sickest people go, only to get more pain inflicted on them. One of the questions I wanted to ask is, what you thought we really need to kind of create systems that actually work for both men and women? Lara: From working in the prison system, what I see are competing needs and competing purposes. There’s the purpose of isolation and separation, and in many cases that is appropriate. Some people would need to be removed from that community so they don’t cause harm. That is the first purpose of the criminal justice system. Another is punishment, [00:24:00] and you know, retribution for caused harm. And then the third is rehabilitation. And what I see is that all three of these are functioning simultaneously, but in many cases at odds with one another. So once a person has been separated from their community, is incarcerated, then they’re offered rehabilitation programs, some incredible programs, at least in Angola. And at the same time, there’s a lingering desire within the larger community for eternal punishment. And so we have, in many cases, a person whose mindset and behavior is very rehabilitated. Having served 20, 30 years in prison. And now we’re punishing a person who doesn’t really resemble the violent person of their past. What is it that we intend incarceration to be? Who is it for? Is it for, is it for the individual who caused the harm? Is it for the survivor of the harm? Competition of, of needs and purposes is really causing [00:25:00] enormous confusion and strife and and chaos. Gissele overdub: Very well put. I do find in these systems, there’s all these competing needs. Doesn’t it feel like we’re making progress in terms of helping people understand and really truly rehabilitate? I was wondering if you could kind of share a little bit of the work, the compassion work that you’re doing within the prison system. Lara: Kind of a circuitous path, I guess. They, when I got home, the first thing I did was to write the book. And again, that was, that was just to find some clarity within my own thinking. And then as the book was about to be published, I got really scared. It’s like, oops, you know, am I sure of what I’m saying? And I don’t really have a circle of kind of compassionistas, you know, to make sure that he, that I can, that I can stand behind. What I’m saying, like, am I out here on my own? And so I searched [00:26:00] and I found a program at Stanford University, the Compassion Cultivation Training. It’s an eight week science and mindfulness based Compassion training course. So I went and I got trained to teach that course and really what I was looking for was a community And answers to what is compassion because I knew I was going to be asked to talk about it and I wanted to talk about it beyond just my own experience, but I wanted to have a much more education, you know, the science and the research and the philosophy behind it. So I, so I got trained in that. And then as a result of that certification through a series of kind of. You know, unexpected and remarkable events. I, I ended up being invited to Angola out of the blue to speak. And from that moment on, I’ve been going once a week ever since. And I teach the eight week compassion. I teach that series to to men who [00:27:00] are incarcerated. That’s kind of the main component of the program. We also do shared compassion workshops. We do all day conferences in Louisiana. The idea is to bring people together and talk about the urgent issues within corrections through the lens of compassion. It’s been really life changing for me. And I didn’t even know I would appreciate it. You know, I certainly have been kind of forced to, to face some questions. I didn’t necessarily want, want to face or know I wanted to face, you know, like, what is justice? Gissele overdub: Yeah. Challenging work. Lara: Yeah. You know, honestly. I have not encountered anyone yet at Angola who’s not willing or interested in being part of those questions in conversation. The biggest learning for me has been more an unlearning, unlearning impressions of who people are and who are in prison. Gissele overdub: We tend [00:28:00] to make a lot of judgments about who people are Lara: A lot of judgments and narrative that’s promoted through media and tv and movies. It’s just not at all what I’ve encountered. So it’s been a long process of unlearning before I could even build up new learning. Gissele overdub: Would you be able to share maybe some of the outcomes you’ve seen after implementing the compassion training? Lara: A lot of the outcomes are similar to the outcomes I’ve seen outside of prison. The hardest part of compassion is the self compassion. That is something I have noticed across the board with every group of people that I’ve run the Compassion Workshops with. So one of the outcomes has been maybe greater self care, maybe a softer approach to their own pain. Sadness, loneliness, grief, shame. I think one of the biggest benefits of the class is creating a shared environment where it’s okay to be really honest and vulnerable. We sit face to face, sometimes in pairs, small groups or big groups, and we get [00:29:00] honest and real about how we’re feeling in that moment. And there aren’t a lot of opportunities within prison or frankly outside either for that kind of focused and caring exchange. People crave that. They thrive on that, but we are so skillful at avoiding that. Gissele overdub: So I’m just wondering what kind of support you, you have received from the leadership at the organization? Lara: Oh, it’s, it’s been extraordinary support. Angola is a place that has, has welcomed me, you know, and I think part of. What, what makes me interesting to the, to the participants in my classes is that I do come from a victim experience that, and I, I share that very openly. And so, and there’s such a desire within Angola to have access to the person they harmed, to be able to apologize, but there isn’t a mechanism for that. And so, for me to be a [00:30:00] survivor of a violent crime and show interest and to be willing to understand it is refreshing, new, and important. And so, the prison administration has been very welcoming. Gissele overdub: And I think that’s really instrumental in being able to do this kind of work within the prison system. Lara: Absolutely. Gissele overdub: Can you talk a little bit about what you think are kind of some key areas that are missing within the prison system in creating kind of more compassionate and healing places? Lara: Maybe one of the places to start is outside of prison with our attitudes and assumptions. we’re really asking people who are incarcerated in this country to do a Herculean task of, of overriding and, you know, a harsh, cold environment in order to be a loving person. I don’t know. I, I’m not sure I did any, your question, any justice at all, but I think it’s just such a [00:31:00] huge question. I don’t know where to begin, you know, because it’s at the individual system level, I think Ear Hustle do a great job. That’s, that’s a podcast that comes out of San Quentin in California, where the hosts are talking about the daily life of prison. And, and yet it just, it reminds people outside that, Oh, right. We’re talking about individual people who are living individual lives, very full in many cases, lives with people, with jobs, within prison, with relationships, with families, relationships that they’re, that they’ve managed to maintain over decades. And you know, when we talk about quote unquote offenders, I think that’s problematic because it’s. In many cases, the offense occurred decades ago, and yet we continue to refer to a person as an offender. we hold the very, the very definition of that person according to that act.  [00:32:00] I think, you know, if we are going to start changing a system, we’re also going to need to change your perception of the individuals within that system. Gissele overdub: Absolutely. And I think you did a beautiful job answering the question. I mean, these are great points in terms of looking at the environments we’re creating top to bottom in, you know, whether or not we’re creating kind of these dehumanizing systems.  And looking at our attitudes is our purpose to punish is our purpose to really rehabilitate and can those two really coexist together. I think you’ve got us on the journey to kind of really think about how we can create more compassionate places. So, thank you. What’s next for you? Is there anything that’s coming up that you would like to share with us in terms of some of the work that you’re doing? Lara: you know, I am carrying on This i’m i’m deep in it. I teach my full time job as I teach creative writing, at an arts conservatory high school and then You know, when I spend my time in Angola, I also [00:33:00] work with a victim outreach program. I think that’s really important to mention as well that, that my focus is, is really on you know, we talk about sides, you know, both sides, I, I really don’t see sides. I see lots of people who who are hurting, who want to, who want to heal, And I’m just going to keep on keeping on. Gissele overdub: I’d like to encourage everyone to go buy the Jaguar men available on Amazon. And I’d like to thank you, Laura, for the work that you’re doing. It’s so impactful. Lara: Thank you so much.

Transcript Gissele overdub: [00:00:00] hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Gissele: on today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about treating our mother wounds. And our next guest is Geraldine Crane. She’s a serene spiritual empowerment guide. She works with women who have had toxic or difficult relationships with their mothers, helping them to stop people pleasing, stop putting themselves last, and start loving and honoring themselves. And in doing so, have a happier, healthier relationship with those they love. She uses spiritual hypnotherapy, coaching, and  inner child therapy to help them reconnect with their true selves and the power they have within them. Previously, Geraldine worked as a probation officer, substance [00:01:00] misuse worker, and domestic abuse recovery worker. But after realizing That her own relationship with her mother was toxic. She took that very difficult step of cutting contact with her and going on a healing journey, which led her to this work, which she feels so passionately about. Join me in welcoming Geraldine. Hi, Geraldine. Geraldine: Hi, thank you. I love hearing you say my stuff. It sounds so good. Gissele: Definitely. Can you give us a little bit more about your story in terms of how you shifted from being a probation officer or substance abuse officers to the work that you’re doing now? Geraldine: Yeah, it’s quite a long story to be fair. It’s been quite a little while since I worked as a probation officer. That was my first kind of serious job out of, you know, finishing university and things. But. It was, as I, probation got very difficult the funding went and it was all messed around with by our government. [00:02:00] So, I left the probation service and started working with domestic violence victims. And the reason I got really interested in that is actually, for a short period I worked in a crisis team with substance misuse. And I helped a couple of women flee from violent relationships. One particular woman was very inspiring. She was Bengali, didn’t speak English. Her husband was using substances had been thrown out by his family. We’d got him accommodation, managed to get her into the accommodation with him because it sounded like she was being used as a slave. And when we got them out, I was really concerned about her because she didn’t speak any English. So I got her a peer support, somebody who could speak the language and give her a bit of support. Through them, we found out it was a violent relationship and, and she was amazing, so I would go and visit her. And in front of him, she’d act all timid. The minute he was out of the room, she was like, get me out of here. It was amazing. I just love this woman. And I [00:03:00] ended up having to hide in the back of a taxi and go and get her out and just take her to go and get support. And it was really funny that day when I finished work, I lived over the other side of London at the time, and I got on the tube, got on my train. It takes an hour and a half for me to get home, got off my train and she comes walking down the road in the other direction with somebody from a hostel. She’d obviously been placed near to where I live and she just came running up to me and gave me the biggest hug. And it was, she just went, thank you. She couldn’t speak much English, but she just said, thank you. And I think she was, she was the step that got me, this is what I want to do. This is where I want to be. And I’d done a lot of work in probation, working with domestic violence perpetrators, And, and starting to understand it from that perspective. But when I moved into working with the victims, I just loved it. Loved them. Women are incredible. Any woman who’s a victim of domestic violence and thinks she’s weak, it’s most likely exactly the opposite. The women were incredible, [00:04:00] but one of the exercises we did with these women to help them to understand how bad the abuse was so that they could understand why they felt so awful, even though now they were safe, was to go through what’s called the Duluth Power and Control Wheel, which goes through all the different kinds of abuse there are, not just physical and sexual. So much more, the more subtle ones, psychological intimidation, isolation, those kinds of things. And as I started going through these and the more subtle underlying coercive behaviors, I was suddenly like, Oh, these are really, really familiar. And I was very unlucky at the time that I worked for somebody who just said, no, no, no, no, she’s your mother. She loves you. Which coming from somebody who worked in a domestic violence charity was yeah. But I started after having my own children, which does bring things to the fore, you start thinking I wouldn’t do this to them. [00:05:00] But also I started seeing a counselor. I’d struggled to breastfeed and was starting to get a little bit depressed. So I went and saw a counselor and she just said to me, do you realize that. You talk a lot about your mum. This is about your mum. And she gradually was also getting me to look in that direction. So it was like that perfect storm of having my own children, having the right counselling. And she really was brilliant. And having, the training. And it was through that, that I started to realise things were really wrong. And then. And there was one particular day she just said to me, look, you just keep giving me excuses for her. You just keep, you know, defending her and really you, you should be furious. Like, why are you not furious with her? And that really hit home. And, and I remember coming home and just sitting in the middle of my lounge floor, my sitting room floor, and just the room span and suddenly my world flips upside [00:06:00] down. I realized the reality my mother had put into my mind was not true. That I’ve been brainwashed. And it’s Everything just turned upside down and it really took me a while, but it was, I wasn’t ready to cut contact at that point. It was when I then lost my job working at this charity with these women, that I started to get really severe anxiety again. And it’s, and it. It’s something I’ve been suffering with since I was very young, always assumed it was because I’d become my mother’s carer when I was only 12 for her physical and mental needs. And I’d always assumed that was, it’s just the pressure of being a carer. But through this counseling had started to realize, no, it was actually the enmeshment and the codependency and the heavy weight of that relationship. Being her confidant, she would tell me every time she felt depressed, if she was suicidal, she would tell me about her experiences of sexual abuse in detail when I was only 12. Because I [00:07:00] was her confidant, I was her safe space. You know, when her moods, when her moods really went low, nobody else could look after but me. And that was a lot to carry and I hadn’t realized Gissele: that. For a 12 year old, yeah. Yeah. Even for somebody who’s older, like caregiving can actually be a lot. Geraldine: Yeah, it’s a lot for anyone to carry, yeah. And so by 19, I had my first breakdown and hadn’t, and, but she was constantly saying to me, well, it’s because you’ve, you’ve been my carer and nobody else has been helping. We’re the victim. We’re the victim. And it, it took this counselor to really start turning that around. So when this anxiety then, skyrocketed again, because I’d lost what I thought was my dream job at the time. I went back to see this counselor and again, she was like, come on, we know where this is really coming from. It’s not just this job. You would be able to cope with it if it wasn’t for this. And she just said, but what would, what would life look like without her in it? Nobody had ever given me permission to [00:08:00] even consider that before. And very rarely do people when it’s your mom, but it’s exactly what I needed to hear. And my first response was no, no, no, I can’t do that. I love her. I can’t do that. But she was like, but something needs to change. So we have to get more boundaries in what, what do you need right now? And so we agreed that I would go home and talk to her because Christmas was coming up. She was going to be in my house with my mother in law and they didn’t get on. Partly because my mother in law was so protective of me, actually. Mm, which is Gissele: lovely, yeah. Geraldine: Yeah, and so I just thought, well, out of all the people I can ask not to come, I should be able to ask my own mum. You know, she’d been with us last year, my mother in law hadn’t, you know, I’m going to ask her not to come for Christmas, there was other options. But when I did, oh my lord. Gissele: Oh yeah, I can imagine. Geraldine: Yeah, there was shouting, screaming accusations, you know, you’re just trying to get me to do [00:09:00] this, that and the other, you know, you don’t care about me. There was not one hint of, you’re not coping right now, I’m going to do what you need. There was not. Gissele: Well, you’d always been the caregiver, right? And so if the situation was reversed at that moment, you were expecting her to give you something. And that might’ve been really challenging for you. Geraldine: Yeah. And it was even with other members of the family, if people, you know, if I was the one that came last. I was the caregiver for everybody so I can last and it just, I’m really glad she did respond that way though, because it made me realize I cannot get well with this relationship in my life. Like, I can’t do this. It felt like I was swimming in poison and I had to get out. Yeah. And I’m not saying that she’s poison. It was the relationship was poison for me. For Gissele: sure. For sure. Geraldine: And that’s, I, I sent her a text message afterwards, which sounds really harsh, but I was terrified. And this is what people can’t get. [00:10:00] You don’t cut contact because it’s the first and easy option. You cut contact because it’s the last option. And usually by this point you’re terrified. And you just don’t know what else to do because you’re just going around in circles. So I text her and said, I’m very sorry it’s come to this, but I, I, I can’t get well with this relationship and I need you to stay away from me and my family. I did question whether she should have contact with my kids, but my husband was just like, no. I don’t, and you have to think if she’s not safe to be with you, she’s not safe to be with your children. And especially when you’ve got somebody who’s maybe covert narcissist, emotionally immature, they’re gonna use that relationship. Gissele: So what was their response? Geraldine: I can imagine. Well, I didn’t really give her a chance to have one because I blocked her. I completely deleted because we’d have these arguments over WhatsApp with each other [00:11:00] really long. Like, oh, when I think back about it, it awful, but I just, I thought she’s going to use this against me. I deleted a lot. I blocked her. I deleted a lot. I blocked her from my email. The only way she was going to be able to contact me was to turn up at my door, which she could have done. And I was terrified of for a long time. Or write to me and she never did any of that. She’s never made, the only time I have seen her was at my grandmother’s funeral. And we didn’t talk. We stayed in very different sections. Bless my grandmother, even before she died, was like, you make sure Geraldine doesn’t need to go near her. You look after, she really had my back, bless her. Even in dying in hospital, she’s saying, make sure Geraldine knows when her mom’s coming in because I don’t want to see her. So yeah, so it’s a long story. Sorry. But yeah, so one, once, once I cut contact. Every emotion comes up, [00:12:00] every emotion you can imagine. And it, and I needed time to heal. So I continued seeing the counselor for a while. And when I started feeling strong enough, I then went and trained as a hypnotherapist. And training as a hypnotherapist really reconnected me to my spiritual side. It had never gone away because when I was 19, I joined a spiritual development circle and learned that I had a particular ability to connect with spirit guides. And those spirit guides, my God, they really support me through this whole process. And I’d really started plugging into them through the process. And then through the hypnotherapy, that connection just got stronger because you go to a certain frequency that just makes it easier. And they, they were amazing at just saying, you’ve done the right thing. We’ve got your back. You need to stay away right now. And, but through that, so when I started up my own business, at first I was just, I’ll just help people with toxic relationships, just a clinical hypnotherapy. Then lockdown came [00:13:00] and I let my business go quiet. I wanted to focus on my children, but I knew to keep them well, I had to keep me well. Yeah. So I meditated for two hours or I read, or you know, I did. I did a lot of self-development. I did some self hypnosis in a child, work on myself and. Again, connection with spirit got stronger. So I started sharing messages cause they were giving me loads of messages of reassurance. So I started sharing these online and it was my like coming out. Like I am spiritual. I’m coming at people who knew me personally knew it, but professionally I haven’t. And the response was fantastic. So once I started being able to do my business again, I started meditating before seeing clients and I was channeling scripts for people and get really clear messages. And that’s when my serene spiritual way of using hypnotherapy and coaching kind of developed. It was all guided by spirit, but also bringing in all my skills from hypnotherapy, [00:14:00] probation, substance abuse, all those. Skills that I’ve had professionally all brings it together and I’ve developed a serene way of working with people where I take them through stillness, emotions, reconnection, energy, now, and empowerment. And I don’t always do it in that order. It depends on But we always go through that stuff and I’ve even, you know, developed a program now to help people do this online as well. So yeah. Well, that’s Gissele overdub: wonderful. Thank you for sharing your story with us. It definitely, when I reflect on my life and I reflect on the people that I know, definitely the mother wound seems to be the one that seems to be the most impactful. And it’s interesting how it plays out, right? And when I hear some of the historical things, some of the same themes come up that you were mentioning that the, the, downloading or dumping, like the emotional stress on the children. Yeah, like the rehashing, [00:15:00] the retelling stories, the, and it’s a form of creating trauma, traumatizing the children by just keep repeating it. And so, but it’s, it’s. Difficult for a child to be able to put those kinds of boundaries. So it’s, I think as an adult, you start to realize, Hey, I have more power in this relationship that I’ve given myself. Well, that’s the Geraldine: thing. It’s not up to the child to put those boundaries in place. It’s not the child’s responsibility. A child can’t say, no, no, no, I’m not listening. You know, and it really can cause passive trauma because my mom shared with me details of her sexual abuse. It’s caused problems for me, a deep fear. I have a deep fear of something like that happening. I can’t watch scenes or read bits and books like that. It really shakes me up. It triggers me massively and I’ve never experienced anything directly, but the, but the passive trauma is there. Gissele overdub: Yeah, I remember my sister and I were talking about, she was reading this book and it [00:16:00] was talking about how, you know, when you’re raised by traumatized people, sometimes they use the same strategies that they use to survive, you know, they teach you those same strategies. So even though it might not have happened to you, you’re still carrying that same, those same lessons, which is, is interesting. And you know, you talk about you know, Parents being able to not understand boundaries, right? There is that boundary, violation, if you may, right? And so, but I think when you get, when you become an adult, then you start to realize, Hey, maybe some of the stuff I was raised with, maybe not so okay. Right? Like, when you start to expand your world, you start to realize. And so I think one of the most. Sometimes compassionate things we can do is to give ourselves space from our parents or to whether it be cutting off contact or creating some sort [00:17:00] of distance or even taking minor breaks if you’re caregiving, but sometimes often it’s sometimes the child’s happiness, even as an adult can sometimes be tied to To their parents and how they’re doing, and it’s still interesting how our parents can have that power over us, right? Which we give them still. Right? And so that’s, Geraldine: that’s really interesting. It’s written into your DNA to love and need your parents. It’s there and there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s a wonderful book that’s come out quite recently called Mother Hunger. And I think that really can explain it because, I mean, that’s not about particularly toxic. Mothers, it’s, it’s about anybody who’s lost a mother because they’ve passed, you know, were adopted, but also had a neglectful or, or harmful mother, that you can still have that real panging and need to be mothered and nurtured. She talks about. [00:18:00] Nurturing, protection and guidance being those essential things that you need from a mother. And if you don’t get them, it can cause this mother hunger later on in life. It can cause mother wounds as people talk about and it’s. It’s being really aware of those and what I find really helpful when I’m working with people. I don’t focus too much on mom. I focus more on, on them. Yeah. And there are people who are experts that can really help you to understand why mom behaved that way. And you can, you can deep dive into that stuff. I find it’s good to know a little bit because it allows you to see that it’s not your fault. Because as children, we assume, especially when you’re little, you, you’re. Your brain is designed to make you think everything’s about me. Because the brain is, it’s egoic like that when it’s little. It’s meant to be. It’s part of its development. So if something’s wrong, if something’s wrong with mom. It’s, it’s my fault and that’s [00:19:00] natural, but it’s starting to realize if you can just get some understanding of, of, of why maybe she’s emotionally mature, maybe narcissistic, maybe could be all sorts of reasons. I feel most, most of it’s fear based at the end of the day. Yeah. It’s all fear. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s. But I also don’t think it’s good just to deep dive into that too much. Yeah, agreed. The focus is better to be on yourself because you can’t change her. Yeah. Doesn’t matter how much insight you get and wisdom you get about why she is the way she is, you’re not going to change her because only she can do Gissele: that. Agreed, absolutely. I think one of the biggest things that I learned in my journey is that I could actually be that for myself. I could be that parent. I was seeking. I could give myself the love I was seeking. I could give myself the attention I was seeking. And so that I didn’t need it from the outside. And, you know, there was, there was a lot of forgiveness for myself as well [00:20:00] for some of the things that I thought were my fault that weren’t. , and as I started to forgive myself. I started to be able to forgive my parents more and maybe understand their journey more so I can, I can, because before that I could rationally understand it. I knew both my parents stories. And if you look at their stories, you see a history of like trauma that’s just been passed down. But I think there was always an element of me that was, that felt hurt, that felt unseen, that felt devalued, but as I started to give it to myself, I felt that release of needing them to be anything other than they are. And then I could forgive more. I could, appreciate more. What role has forgiveness, at least for yourself, , played in your life? For me, Geraldine: I always think that you have to start with [00:21:00] acceptance first, and forgiveness comes. I think trying to make yourself forgiveness is not gonna work. Mm-Hmm. , like you said. I think perfect example there is when you start loving and honouring and taking care of you and doing the healing work and being who you need to be for yourself, the it comes and, and it’s Don’t I try and get my clients not to focus on it too much because it will come naturally in time. And what tends to happen is when people, well, I need to forgive, they start punishing themselves all over again. So instead I get them to focus on, we have to accept your mom is who she is and the way she behaves. You have to accept that you can’t change that. So, I try and get them to focus more on acceptance and that’s accepting that their mother is the way she is. She behaves the way she is and that’s not. going to change and if they hold on and wait for that, they’re just going to cause themselves more pain. They have to accept what’s happened. [00:22:00] Sometimes they just want to, you know, try and change, you can’t change the past. That’s not going to happen. But also accept that you’re not responsible for what happened to you, but you are responsible for healing your wounds and that, and not responsible for passing it on. You know, that’s what you are responsible for. But once you start doing that work of really accepting and then accepting that you are worthy of happiness, you are worthy of peace, you are worthy of love, that you have a right to all those things and do whatever you need to do to get that, and it is different for everybody. You have a right to feel the emotions. You feel that they are valid. Then you start going on that healing journey and forgiveness of yourself just come. You start to realize, okay there’s reasons I did some of the stuff I did, or I said the stuff I did, or I actually have good reason to need a break, to need firm boundaries with my mom, or to [00:23:00] need not to have contact. And I agree with you, once you get on that journey of really loving and honoring yourself, the forgiveness will come naturally. And I just would never try and force it. Yeah. It won’t work. And also it comes in layers. I’ve been able to forgive my mum on a certain layer and then as I go healing a little bit deeper, something else comes out and I have to forgive again. But it’s It’s not something I have to force, it just kind of, it just comes as I do the work and I also find the more and more I connect with my, what I call my inner divinity, is that part of you that’s connected to a universal divine loving energy, whatever you want to call it, I’m happy with that, but just the more and more I connect with that peaceful stillness, Inside me that’s connected to that, the more I’m able to get more compassion, more understanding, more, and it just, it makes that journey so much easier. [00:24:00] And that’s why it’s such an important part of the work. When I’m helping people heal mother wounds, there is always a spiritual element because I find it, it helps. It’s what’s brought me the most peace. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I completely agree with what you said. And forgiveness doesn’t mean that you get into contact back with somebody again. It doesn’t have to mean that. It just means that how you feel about the experience is changes and how you feel about yourself. You know, you raised something as you were talking, something kind of popped into my head, which was, you know, Allow yourself to live your dreams. You deserve it. You’re worthy. And one of the things that I used to have in the past before was there was an element of me that felt, well, my parents felt that they never left their dreams. They never felt that they could do it. And neither did their parents and so on. There was almost an element of guilt to living my dream because they [00:25:00] didn’t, and why me and not them, but it’s so strange how we do that, but now I realize that whether they live our dreams or not is their choice. They get to choose to change themselves, they get to choose to live their dreams or not, and I don’t believe this is our only life, so if they don’t get it right this time, they get to come back and do it all over again. And so it’s sort of allowed me to soften up and to be able to really be open and say, yes, I can live my dreams. I deserve it. I’m worth it. Do you often see people that carry that guilt on around living their dreams? Because maybe their predecessors have not been able to or don’t. Geraldine: I mean, and it’s something I definitely recognize funny, actually just, I have hypnotherapy myself. I think every good therapist should have therapy. And, and actually that’s what was coming up for me. Was some resistance to success and some of it was coming from guilt. And I [00:26:00] particularly remembered my, my mom coming to see me when we moved into the house and we’ve got this big, beautiful house we managed to buy because we had a flat in London and if you know anything about London, that the housing’s crazy and we managed to buy these big, beautiful house. I was married to a really, my husband is a gorgeous, gorgeous human being, two beautiful kids, and my mum kind of came over and just, well, well, I had all that and I lost a lot, you know, your husband, you know, your father left me and I lost the house and it was just like, oh, and I, and I did carry this guilt of people coming around to the house and just like, well, how, what right do I have to own such a big, beautiful house, you know, and this real guilt around having stuff. And, and like, I’m very lucky this, this is a garden room that I’m working from and still comes up like, Oh, but my, my husband’s worked really hard for it. And no, Gissele overdub: you have to justify, but you don’t. And that’s the thing is. People put their own limiting beliefs on other people, right? So they said, well, you know, [00:27:00] I didn’t get to keep it for whatever reasons. I, I lined out of it or what didn’t think I was worth it or whatever. And they tend to put that, I’ve seen that with people, like how they come, especially the older generation. Sometimes they’ll come in there sort of envy their children, or they’re sort of like, I haven’t personally experienced that. I find my parents are. Fully in support of all my in my dreams. So I’m grateful for that. But I’ve seen other people in my life where there’s that interaction. And I kind of, you know, observe it kind of with curiosity and say, that’s interesting. I think of my children, I think of I want them to have more than me. I want them to be better than me. IYou know what I mean? Like to see them to really flourish, but that dynamic between people where. They don’t want their children to excel or be it’s, it’s, I think there’s an element of shame and guilt in there, not maybe being able to fulfill their dream, but it’s interesting to watch because then, like you said, our job is not allow that. To impact us, our [00:28:00] jobs, not allowed to give away our power to other people to determine what our capacity is. But, but it is amazing how we do that. And it’s not always just even with parents to with other people to people think, oh, I have to kind of diminish my light because of these. People in whatever, but because that’s what we’re taught, right? We shouldn’t be, you should brag, you should be humble. You should be all of these things. Geraldine: And trust me, you’re British. That’s Gissele overdub: not right. British though. Yes. But yeah, like I’m British is very proper. So yeah. So, so then, so you’re taught these things that, but it’s when, as I was kind of healing those aspects, I realized it’s the other way around. The more you shine your light, the way people go, Hey. I like that. I can do that too. There’s nothing different between me and Geraldine. If she lives her dream, then it’s, it’s a beacon for me to know that I can too. Geraldine: So you’re taking me straight to a tool or a metaphor I use a lot with my clients. Because one thing, one thing my clients tend to [00:29:00] do, most of the women I work with are highly sensitive and have I mean, at some point in their relationship with their mother or in other relationships being put in far too much responsibility. And so feel this responsibility to fix things for everybody else and feel the pain, especially with everything that’s going on in the world right now. It can feel very heavy for the women I work with. They feel this deep responsibility to do something and almost. They will rub salt in their own wounds by watching the news and crying over, you know, seeing what’s happening in various parts of the world. And they’re heartbreaking in too. So I have to say to them, one, you’re not serving anybody else by, by drowning in other people’s souls. You’re not helping them. You’re not serving anybody Gissele overdub: by doing, you’re only contributing more suffering to the issue. You’re only contributing your suffering to that and adding more of Geraldine: that. You’re just bringing down the consciousness, the energy of the world. Yeah. So I always say to them, be the lighthouse. Yeah. Be the [00:30:00] lighthouse. Make sure that you have those firm base, that grounding, knowing who you are, have that really firm grounding in who you’ve got around you as well, that you are, you’ve got people around you who cheer you on, who know who you are, who support you in being. And then make sure that you’ve got really firm boundaries, that the walls of your lighthouse are not cracked. You’re not letting any energies in that you should not be allowing in. And then you make sure that there’s all the energy running through so that your light shines really bright, because what happens then is your light from your lighthouse will guide other people. But what I find a lot of the women I work with and I have done myself is you start trying to get into everybody else’s boats and steer them the way you think they should go. Well, one, your light is going to dim because your energy is too far spread and that’s no longer helping anyone. [00:31:00] But two, you’re likely to steer them in the wrong direction because that’s their boat and they need. To do their learning, they need to find their journey and you cannot, and I made that mistake a lot, thinking I knew what was best for people and I now know, shut up, let them get on with it and focus on me shining my light and getting as bright as I can so other people can find their own way home. You will find that some people, when you start shining, don’t like it. That’s just a clear signal of who you need boundaries with. If they don’t like it, it’s, it’ll be triggering something in them. And that’s, but that’s. Not for you to worry about it just found boundary in that place, you know, Gissele overdub: yeah, like you can, you can do a loving boundary. It’s interesting. So when those situations happen and I’m shining my light and it’s triggering someone else, if it triggers a response in me, their [00:32:00] response, I know there’s something to heal for myself. Like so if I, if I’m being triggered by their trigger, then I’m like, okay, this is me. What’s good, because when it’s not about me, I’m able to observe that behavior and go, oh, that’s interesting. Okay, like that, it doesn’t take anything away from me. This is their response. And when I decide to look at the people, not as a. Person like this person, I’m seeing you right now as a Geraldine, but it’s the divinity that you are. Exactly. You are not less than me. You’re not more than me. You, we were all just kind of the same energy juice essence, right? And so you’re just going through your journey and the level of awareness that you have and whatever. So as I go on my journey and it’s really stepping up into my own power, I have less desire to really try to. fix or help or do other people. [00:33:00] But that’s been a kind of a mind shift for me because, because then I had to get to the point where I was like, if I’m not that, then who am I? Because before I used to derive all my value from helping, right? Like, Oh, look at this helper, I’m saving with people. This is what makes me a good person. Yeah, it’s what makes me valuable. What makes me worthy. So one time I really had to wait because when things weren’t working out for me, there was a time when like things were just not flowing. And I know I have things like, Oh, here I’m bringing loving, compassion to the world. And people are like crickets. And then I, I really had to, I really had to ask myself. If I don’t do anything in the world and don’t contribute anything in the world, nothing. If I just don’t do anything, I could be at home. You imagine you meditated with myself, am I still going to be able to love and accept myself? And I had to really think about that. And I said, yes. Right. Even if I don’t accomplish anything in the world, I’m still worthy. I’m still lovable. I’m still valuable. I don’t have to earn my own love, [00:34:00] but that took a minute because we’re so caught up in Like you said, we want to fix things. We’re taught to do things, to move things forward, to, to be of value, to be of service, especially if you’re used to, if it’s part of your identity, it’s, and it’s, it’s, if you were the responsible one, because that was the thing that kept coming up for me. Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility, when I was going through this journey of leaving my workplace and starting all of these things that I’m doing now And it was like, Oh my God, like I can’t, I’m not being responsible. And so shifting that has been sort of interesting. What has been kind of your biggest mindset shift when you think back about where you are Geraldine: and where you are now? I think it’s a really similar one. I’m just, one of the biggest things that tends to come up with myself and my clients is attaching your worth to your usefulness. And [00:35:00] it’s something that when I work with spirit and spirit guides, they bring me time and time and time again, that there is nothing you need to do, be or have to have worth. You simply. You are a part of this universe. You are part of this loving energy and, and that is just beautiful. Bang, nothing, nothing more. Like you say, you could sit in a room and do nothing, but you can be contributing to the consciousness of the world by simply sitting in a. Empty room and just having nice thoughts and sending them out, that’s powerful. So it’s, yeah, it’s a big thing that I work with my clients on, and it’s certainly been something I’ve had to really work on with myself. And it comes up a lot when you run your own business. So being able to charge. And I, I very lucky I work with I have support around me with my business and I have a business consultant who’s always saying to me, stop trying to give [00:36:00] so much. You don’t, you’re over giving again and it’s because I want to, I want to help, I want to serve. I’ve had to learn, like I now have a work mobile phone and a home mobile phone because I need to turn it off. To be able to serve right now. Yeah, I will get people texting me in crisis. In the middle of the night or, you know, and, and yes, they shouldn’t be doing that, but I work with people all over the world. So sometimes they just don’t realize, you know, I’ve had, I’ve had it a couple of times where somebody sent me 30 voicemails. Just like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. So I need to be able to switch that off. And it is, it’s learning those boundaries and it has taken time. I had somebody message me the day before my mother in law’s funeral. But I was able to say, I’m really sorry, I can’t help you now. But I have this group, you know, you’re in that free group on Facebook. Go and talk to them and I promise you, you will get support. She had 40 messages, two offers of free services, you know, [00:37:00] it’s a beautiful community and I knew they would have her back. So it’s also, you know, part of, it’s been creating the community around me so I can do this work and not carry the load on my own. Yeah. Gissele overdub: Yeah. And what a beautiful example because you didn’t leave the person hanging. I mean, you honored your boundaries, which was important because you needed to put your own oxygen mask on. But you also said. Here’s this other offer of love where these other people, other beings can be there for you. So I think that’s, that’s incredible. And it reminds me, you’ve been talking a lot about boundaries. One of the things I observed really is people, you know, you use the analogy of a lighthouse. I like to actually use the analogy of a boat, you know, like people often think that way. If you see someone drowning and you’re on a boat that they need to jump in the water with them and suffer with them. And so, and they’re only happy if the other person’s happy, or if the other person’s doing okay. But it’s how, how can you get, how can you change your relationship with suffering and observing [00:38:00] people suffering in a way that you stay on the boat and you can give them a helping hand, but they can choose not to get on the boat. They can choose not to not to accept your help. And that’s okay. Able to still. And what I say is hold a vision of them as they would want to be seen loving, compassionate, thriving, abundant, healthy, all of those things. I can hold that vision for them, extend a hand if they need it, but if they’re not willing to take it, I’m not choosing to go in the water with them. and to me, that’s a definition of compassion. How has compassion, especially for yourself, Helped you get to where you are today. Geraldine: So one of the ways I love that example, by the way, the boats, I will be, I’ll be pinching that line again. Oh yeah. Yeah. You just do, don’t you? Like I’ll grab that metaphor. Gissele overdub: If it helps people who cares. Like, you know, I don’t even know where I got that from. I use other people’s analogies all the [00:39:00] time. Geraldine: One of the things that’s really helped me with compassion is to really accept that we are all divine beings having a human experience and here to learn her own lessons. And that spirit has shown me time and time again, that. The people who are going through really awful things in other parts of the world are doing deep learning that will expand the universe, and to honor them for doing that learning, but I can’t do it for them, and I can’t take that away, but they, they’ve chosen on a soul level, they might not know it on a human level, but on a soul level to, to experience that because their soul needed to learn something, and I honor that. And if I’m inspired to take some action, Start up a food bank, something like that. Great. But you’ve got to take that action from a love, not from a fear. And there’s a big difference there. But one of the things that helps me to really get this in my head is I think of life as a computer game. And everybody’s got their own avatars, [00:40:00] but everybody’s also got their own missions. So the game you’re playing is the different game from what I’m playing and what I need to come here and learn, what my mission is may be different to yours and we may have different ways we need to get there. So it just allows me to be like, Oh, okay, I’m going to let you do you because I don’t know what computer game you’re actually playing. Yours could be quite different from mine and that’s okay. And I really, I love to. Dive into this inside out understanding of, of realizing that we’re all living in the experience of our thinking, not our circumstance. So every individual is experiencing the world differently. They’re living in a completely different world anyway. So my understanding of the world is coming through my thinking and their understanding of the world is coming through theirs and it may be very different. And you can see some people’s thinking, bless. You just think, Oh my God, what are you living in? You know, you know, when I get trolled by people online and I just think, Oh my goodness, you’re obviously living in some very [00:41:00] unpleasant thinking and it’s spilling out, but when you think of this as a computer game and that everybody’s on their own mission, it kind of just lets you know that, okay, I need to focus on playing my bit and let them. Play their bit and it, and it, and it really helps me to just know where I need to focus my energy and let people get on with their learning. Gissele overdub: Yeah. And I think, sorry, go ahead. Geraldine: No, I just think you will get inspired. They’ll be inspired because people say, well, is this happening? I have to do something. Okay. Get really still really connect with your wisdom rather than going, I have to do something and then running off because actually what you’re doing is. Acting out fear and you won’t see things clearly. It’s like having a dark cloud around you and I always say it’s like sending a mechanic into a, you know, into a garage with the lights switched off. They’re going to make a few mistakes. Turn the lights off first, get your vibration up, get you seen clearly and then. And see what action feels right. [00:42:00] Gissele overdub: Yeah, I completely agree. I think what you said was so spot on. I think so often we move to action and it comes from a place of fear or it comes from a place of pity, which is still low vibration. It’s still like, you know, I think I’m above you. I think I’m better. I think that and so. I listened to this guy called Oh, what’s his name? Paul Selig. And he says, when we, when we think we’re above somebody, we’re actually below them. I always have that in my head when we think we’re above somebody, we’re actually below Geraldine: them. Your vibration, your consciousness. Gissele overdub: I love that. It always cracks me up whenever I catch myself, And so, yeah, so often we have that, that, that. Desire to assist from that place of fear or pity or so a low vibration. And, you know, I love also what you said is we don’t often have an expanded view of what’s really going on. And as I sort of began expanding my consciousness, [00:43:00] I realized how topsy turvy this world is. Like, in the sense, the things we worship, it’s like it’s all sort of like. Upside down, right?  And so when you start to think about things from a more expanded viewpoint, like you said, I have no idea what somebody’s life journey is about or what they chose or why they chose to experience something. So me trying to interfere. It’s not, it’s not, might not be in their best interest or mine. No. When you tap in and go to that more expanded or ask for a more expanded perspective and say, you know, I don’t really understand this. This is triggering me, so I’m gonna deal with that part of myself. How can I be of love? In support to this person and then just wait, maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just holding that. I love holding the vision of people and how they would want to be seen and how they could. I don’t like to think of people as like, this is who they are. And this is who they’re [00:44:00] always going to be. Like, I would rather hold a vision of. Okay, this is whom they’re reflecting back to me right now. Mm-Hmm. But what if they could be more, what if they could be healed? Happy, joyful, abundant. Yeah. And how could it maybe, maybe the best, the most only thing I can do is hold that space so that they can either align with it easily. Or it’s there for them if they choose, right? Geraldine: Yeah, I think it’s, I find the more and more I connect with my spirituality and guidance that’s come through, it’s more and more, I need to let go of judgment. Judgment of myself and of other people. And get really comfortable with mystery and not knowing. You know, like Through COVID, I would get people so certain you should be wearing a mask. No, you shouldn’t be wearing a mask. And do you know where I sat? I don’t know. If it feels right for me that day to wear one, I will. If it doesn’t feel right another day, [00:45:00] I won’t. And I’m going to trust you that you have your wisdom and will be guided by your wisdom. And I, I didn’t, you know, I still don’t think we’ll know a full heartedly what really caused it or what was the right way to handle it until 50 years down the line. And even then, are we really going to know? So I just, I find one of the things that’s brought me the greatest peace. It’s just letting go of the need to know and the need to be right. And I’ve just, I don’t hold very strong opinions on much these days. This is the odd thing. But most, most things I’m just, I’m, I’m willing to be really open minded about it and, and just let wisdom. Guide me and trust the other people’s wisdom and their wisdom may be different like I’ve had a I was vegan for a while I’ve always been vegetarian and but I’m not going to judge somebody who eats meat That may be part of their life lesson. They’re learning. [00:46:00] I don’t know It may be part of my life lesson not to I don’t know and I’m but what feels right to me It’s not to eat meat but I am not going to tell somebody else what they should and shouldn’t be doing because I am not in their computer game. I’m in mine. So I’m going to let you play yours. And, and yeah, and even when you see like, you know, there can be certain political leaders, you just think, Oh my God, what are they doing? Certainly in England, we’ve got a lot of those right now. And you just. But a part of me thinks, well, are they here to, and to aggravate, to cause change? I have to have some faith that the universe has got us, that we’re, we hopefully, if we can keep a high frequency, let go of judgment, move towards compassion and love, we will eventually start moving in the right direction. And all I can do rather than judging that politician or getting very angry about it is hold, like you say, hold that space of love, try and see the divinity in everybody. Then [00:47:00] nobody is special, but we’re all unique. There is the little spark. Some people are more connected to it than others. And just, just try and stay in that space of, I’m not gonna focus on your stuff because I need to focus on mine. And the more people that did that, I think the world would be much more peaceful. The Gissele overdub: world would be different, yeah. But we’re so uncomfortable with the unknown, aren’t we? because it takes trust and courage, right? There’s been so many times in my life when I wasn’t in my trusting mode. Where even the inner guidance that I got, I was like, what? Cause I was like, ah, okay. So I’m being guided to do this. In my mind saying, what the hell are you doing? Like, shouldn’t it be? How is this going to happen? I, you, you know, you hear your dreams over here. How are you even going to get there? And it’s like, wow, like, you know, but [00:48:00] every time I trusted it always worked out always a hundred percent, a hundred percent. 100 percent response rate. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn’t enough. Geraldine: I know. Gissele overdub: It’s crazy. It’s crazy. Isn’t it? Like when you think about what I think back, I’m like, that’s so crazy. Every time I chose to trust and step in trust and follow my heart. It always worked out so beautifully. And yet I always felt when push came to shove, I had to control, I had to go back to that because we are so used to knowing everything. You want to immediate information. You want to know the weather. Yeah, exactly. And so I think it’s, that is really stepping into your trust and in your knowingness, like not belief knowingness into your inner knowingness that comes with the, all of us are. Right. And instead of we’re so used to getting external wisdom, [00:49:00] like from other people, tell me what to do. Tell me what I believe to me that really what you’re inviting people to do really is go back to, you know, you got to go back to your home base and figure out, okay, what’s my heart, what’s my Right. Right. What is that aspect of myself telling me because that’s really the only way that we’re going to get to finish our missions and understand the learnings that each of us have, right? Geraldine: one thing I also do is I teach people. To connect with spirit guides and connect with their own inner divinity. So I have a circle, we meet twice a month and I’m only, I always say it’s for beginners because what I want to do is just give you that firm foundation to connect with spirit through love because some people play around with it and end up drawing different things in that are not loving. So I always try and give people that firm foundation in love, but why also, what I’m trying to do is. Make you realize you are a divine being and that you are connected to a loving energy. You are part of that energy and there is wisdom. And my [00:50:00] experience of that is I have spirit guides around me too. And so I get people to just connect with that. And then if they want to go and explore shamanism, they want to go and explore angels, or they want to do Reiki or, or go into like. Fun, you know, like rituals and witchcraft, that’s fine. Like you go and expand and go and do it as long as you know, at the end of the day, that you are part of a loving energy and you, and it’s got your back in whichever form that takes for you. Great. I’m happy. I’m done. So I would say it’s, it’s quite, you know, I’m, I’m not somebody who’s going to introduce you to massive rituals and how to do cards in really fancy ways. I’m going to teach you the basics, but at the end of the day, one thing that COVID taught us is, you know, your yoga classes, your, you know, crystals, you could suddenly not be able to get hold of. And you, you don’t need any of that. It’s wonderful. I love it all. What you need to know is that you are the divine. Gissele overdub: Yeah. You are. [00:51:00] You are the one now. I’m really exploring that the, we are the God self, right? Yes. That, that we are like, the God-self. The God-self is within and it’s not out there that some God in the sky, whereas it’s, it’s us. It’s really us. And so we have the ability and the power to create. Whatever we desire in a way that harms no one and in a way that uplifts like everyone, right. To be the lighthouse, like you were saying. Yeah. Geraldine: It comes through a lot in readings that I get that the spirit is saying, you’re looking in the wrong direction. Stop looking externally. Don’t look at gurus and all this kind of stuff. You go, go inward. It’s there. Gissele overdub: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So two more questions. In this season, we’re asking all of our guests what their definition of unconditional love is. Oh, I love that. What a Geraldine: good question. Because obviously that’s the thing, that most of my clients haven’t had [00:52:00] or certainly not had from their mothers. And what I try and help them to bring to themselves through their inner divinity and what I find spirit guides are incredibly good at helping you because they are, When you connect with spirit and you connect with the inner divinity, you connect with an energy of love that is, is not an emotion that comes and goes. It’s a state of being, it’s a really pure love. And I kind of think that’s what unconditional love, unconditional love is accepting. It’s just pure acceptance of everything. The good. The bad, the ugly, you know, and you, you naturally, you would hope you would have that most of the time with your children that you just accept when they have their mood swings, you accept, you know, that they’re going to have good days, bad days, and you love them because of it. Not despite it. But because of it, and sadly that’s not always able to happen because of wounds that we carry. [00:53:00] But if you want to really love your own children with a deep unconditional love, you have to start with you. You have to love yourself unconditionally. You can only love other people as much as you love yourself. And you can feel this deep love for your children, but trust me, once you start really loving yourself, that love gets even deeper and even more beautiful. It’s, it really is. You have to start with yourself. You have to really love yourself. And, and yeah. And that unconditional love for yourself is accept. It’s not thinking I’m the big, I am, I’m the best thing ever. It’s having that patience, tenderness, and kindness. For yourself, you know, accepting your shadows, your quirky sides, your annoying habits, you know, those things that you, that you do that you would have had a go at yourself for before, just accepting. I am terrible for leaving things in places. I will walk out of a [00:54:00] restaurant and my husband scans the room like what she left this time. And once upon a time, I would have berated myself for it. Really said horrible things to myself. Whereas now I’m like. Bless me. I’ve done it again. Yeah. Gissele overdub: Yeah. It’s so funny. I also realized how I had changed my relationship with myself when I started, I would actually get into fits of laughter over something, not just doing dumb things, but putting myself in circumstances where I was like, when I look back in my life and I was like, Things I had done that I would beat myself up for now, it makes me laugh. It’s like, I don’t know where this laugh comes from. It just thinks like, Oh, it’s like you say in the video game. You’re like, Oh, okay. Isn’t that funny. Isn’t that funny. How I did that. Isn’t that funny. Now that I, all my quirks and annoying things, they actually make me laugh, which is Geraldine: sign of healing. It’s a real client’s clear sign of healing. I remember a point where I knew I would, I was starting to forgive my mom was starting to heal because I was [00:55:00] sharing stories of things she did and was just laughing my socks off. You know, like walking into my house and just saying, well, I lost all and I just found it hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s a real shine sign of being able to move on. And and accept. So yeah, laughter is a good one. Gissele overdub: Yeah, that’s a good one. Yeah. I can you share people where they can come work with you? What’s your website? Where can people find you on social media and so Geraldine: on? Yeah, I’m I’m very easy to find. So I am on. I’m on TikTok. I’m on Instagram. I’m on Facebook. I’m on LinkedIn. I generally just search Geraldine Crane. You will generally find me. My website is www. geraldinecrane.com. And there’s links to all my social media from there as well. So yeah, come find me. I have a beautiful group for women who’ve experienced a toxic relationship and want to heal with a spiritual. connection. And it’s called serene, spiritual and [00:56:00] empowered. It’s healing mother wounds with the love of the universe. It’s a really beautiful group. The women in that just fantastic, but yeah, you can find out my, my group work and my one to one works all there. So Gissele overdub: thank you. Thank you so much for being with us today and thank you for this amazing conversation. I really, really enjoyed everything that we chatted about today and please join us for another episode of the loving compassion podcast with Giselle. Thank you.

Transcript [00:00:00] Gissele overdub: hello and welcome to the loving compassion podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like, and subscribe for more amazing content on today’s podcast. We’ll be talking about treating our shame with compassion. Our guest is Jill Schultz, who is a disruptor, serial entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker. Jill’s mission is to help release people from shame her own experience of experimenting with other children at a young age because of her own sexual trauma has led her to speak about this taboo topic and help anyone who has a secret or has felt shame of any kind to create a life of love success. And abundance. Please join me in welcoming Jill. Hi, Jill. Jill: Hi, Giselle. So good Gissele overdub: to see you. Oh, so good to see you [00:01:00] too. Thank you so much for being on the show and talking about this very important topic. Shame is such an insidious thing that, you know, often we don’t talk about, but I think it’s something that without talking about it, we can’t get to our healing. Yeah, I wanted to ask you if you could tell our audience a little bit about your story and how you came to do this work. Jill: I really want to like, lay a little bit Of a foundation here for people who are maybe just hearing this type of a story for a first time, or if this is your story and you’re just hearing somebody say it out loud and you’re getting triggered, I need to know that your listeners are protected. So there are lots of resources out there for people to have anonymous conversations around sexual trauma and rain is one of them are a I N N. So, please, please, please, if anything that I say is triggering to you. I need to know that you are seeking somebody to talk to you about this. Okay. [00:02:00] So thank you for letting me do that. So I was molested when I was around three or four years old and I’m so grateful for the Me Too movement because I feel like it’s way easier for people to share about what’s happened to them in their lives around sexual trauma now than it ever has been before. But where my story goes deeper is that I, because of what somebody taught me to do. At the ages of three or four, I was the little girl who was experimenting curiously and innocently with other children. And so the time frame that that was happening was, was in between the ages of seven and 12 and I lived with debilitating shame for 41 years thinking that I was the only little girl who ever did anything like that. And sadly, it is way more common than you can even imagine. So my goal and my passion and my purpose is [00:03:00] to create this movement that we get to normalize this conversation. And I get to help people know that they’re not alone, because I thought I was alone. So that’s a little bit about me Gissele overdub: to sell. Yeah. Thank you very much for sharing that. What helped you kind of shift from that story of, of shame and hiding and secrecy to want to actually start to talk about it, to start to be able to heal it. Yeah, well, I knew Jill: When I I’m 55 years old right now. So at the age of 33, I wasn’t connecting with men. I would walk into a room and a man would look at me and I’d immediately put my head down because I did not want a man to see me. I thought if a man. Could see me and know what I had done. How could he love me? And now I say, Oh my God, how can a man not love me knowing what I’ve been through and all the healing that I’ve done? But because of that, I started thinking I needed to get help. And that’s when I first started [00:04:00] seeking out therapy. I’ve done a lot of different work around my trauma. The last, you know, 30 years, but that was the very first step that I took was realizing that I wasn’t having normal relationships with men and very much wanting that. So that was really when Gissele overdub: it started. What sort of labels did you put on yourself around kind of your sexualized behavior because I can only imagine that it must have been really terrible and because you felt so alone. So what sort of things would you tell yourself about your behavior? Well, I’m Jill: unlovable. I’m not worthy. Yeah, no, those were big ones and those affected me in many areas of my life. But the two that really, really stood out was around love in my life and around my business, around success in my businesses. But yeah, definitely, you know, unworthy and un and unlovable, for sure. Unlovable is probably the, the biggest word that I. [00:05:00] Related to over and over and over again. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Thank you for bringing the issue of your business because people don’t often make the connection between the two in terms of business success and feeling issues of worthiness. How did you come to that understanding? Was it just because it was also happening simultaneously in your life? Or did you have kind of like an aha moment that basically said, Oh, the reason I’m not allowing success is my life is because I don’t think I deserve it. Jill: I don’t know if I can remember a moment where all of a sudden it was like this big epiphany, but I, I. I’ve been in different coaching, settings with, with my business. And I was in this organization called EO entrepreneurs organization. It’s a huge international organization. It’s amazing. And I was in their accelerator program because you have to be making at least a million dollars in your business to be in the, the EO program, but they have an [00:06:00] accelerated program that helps you get there. And I just remember sitting in that room with these people and thinking these people are brilliant. And I was struggling so hard to scale my business. I thought I was the dumbest person in the room and I’m quite smart and quite smart. But yeah, that was, that was a time when it was a really big indication to me that it was around imposter syndrome and, and self worth, those types of things for sure. Gissele overdub: So what role in your experience has forgiveness played in being able to help you shift from that perspective that you are a person who’s hurtful for others and might be harming others to one where you realize that you yourself were harmed and wouldn’t have known any better. Jill: Thank you because that was a really hard thing to sink in for me for a long time. And I, I had, I started doing the therapy that I talked about when I was 33 [00:07:00] and I did landmark education in conjunction with that. And if you don’t know what landmark education is, it’s a really. Deep transformational work and the works all around, you know, when you’re pointing one finger at somebody else, you have three pointing back at yourself. So we get to take responsibility. So I did that. And then, of course, I was fixed and healed. And at the age of 41, I was. Suffering from bulimia, which stems from sexual trauma. And so at the age of 41, I was still binging and purging. And I was like, you need to get a handle on this or you’re going to die. So I went back to therapy. And with this gentleman, it was the first time that I was able to see the truth around that. You know, he asked me, he said, Knowing that I was in between the ages of seven and 12 and all of that was occurring. He said, who do you know that’s 12 years old? And I thought of my niece and he said, do you think you’re  niece reasons like an adult. Do you think she acts like an adult? Do you think she, you know, can, can think like [00:08:00] an adult? And it was the first time that I was like, it’s a little girl, like, Oh, it could bring tears to my eyes right now. Like it really was this powerful moment of release for me. To finally be like, Oh my God, you get to give yourself a break. You were just a little girl when all this was happening. So thank you for asking that question. Gissele overdub: Yeah, for sure. So that obviously was the first step towards the journey of forgiving yourself. And acknowledging that you were yourself somebody who was hurt. Because a lot of those behaviors obviously are learned, right. But we may not know, obviously. Like what the origin may have been, and so to be able to look at yourself and your behavior with kindness or compassion, is really key. What role has compassion played in your life? Jill: Compassion is new to me. It’s, it’s a new word. It’s a new feeling. After I did therapy with, with [00:09:00] that. Therapist, I once again was fixed and so I went on a few more years of, you know, still being in stuck in my self loathing and my you know, not having love for myself and I started doing work another transformational program called hardcore leadership and that’s really where I was able to reason. That I do get to love myself. I do get to forgive myself. I do get to have compassion for that little girl who that little girl was, was driving the bus my entire life. Like she was the one that was in making decisions and in charge of everything because I. Had all that pressure on her, you know, so doing that, that leadership work. And I also did their PhD program, which sounds like I’m very important, but it’s, it’s a six month program of leadership. That’s just the next step up. And that’s really where I was able to, to step into that [00:10:00] role of compassion for myself. And now that I have compassion for myself. I get to have that for other people. You know, it’s easy. It’s a really easy, easy thing for me to do now to have compassion for other people. Gissele overdub: Yeah, thank you. And thank you for mentioning the word I was fixed because I think often when we go into these environments, we want. We want our healing to be done. And so we’re like, okay, I’m fixed. I can move on with my life, but we don’t realize that it’s kind of an ongoing process. And it’s, is it not like an onion that you peel one layer and then you’re like, well, what the hell is this? Has it felt like that in terms of, as you start to heal more, you start to find more to heal. Yeah. Jill: The onion is a big term in the transformational development world because it’s. There’s always a next layer. There’s always, or in, in leadership, they call it, there’s always a deeper cut. Like there’s always the next cut that you get to make. So yes, that onion man. [00:11:00] Yeah, Gissele overdub: that onion. And, and how has forgiving yourself, which I think from, from my perspective is a big aspect of loving ourselves. How did it help you forgive others like, would you ever get an opportunity to get closure on that aspect or is it still like a journey of forgiveness towards others? Jill: No, forgiveness came way before anything else did. I was able to forget the person who hurt me because I knew whoever hurt me, somebody else hurt them. And the more that I have done research, I wrote a book all about my journey through all the shame. It just came out on November 1st. You know, healing is a huge component because if you can’t forgive that other person who hurt you, you can’t start the healing process. And it’s not about, and I know, you know, this, it’s not about forgetting that person for them. It’s forgetting that person for you so that you can move forward and move on. But yeah, forgiveness came way before all of the self [00:12:00] love and that for me, that, that was easy. The other step was difficult. Gissele overdub: Yeah, for sure.  I’m glad for you that forgiveness was something that came a lot easier because I think one of the biggest barriers is being able to say to ourselves that we’re even worthy of forgiveness, you know, there’s, there’s this aspect of forgiveness. Sometimes it’s hard for us to forgive ourselves because on the one hand, we were working towards understanding that we’re worthy and it wasn’t our fault. But on the other hand, 1 of the big things that we are working towards and gaining our mastery and stop giving away our power to other people is that we are responsible for the things we. And so how can you balance forgiveness for ourselves and accepting responsibility for what we have done? Yeah, that’s Jill: really a deep, deep, deep question. And it took me a very, very, very long time to get [00:13:00] that to get to that place. I actually. Forgave myself on a certain level before I, before I forgave the little girl. So what, for what she was doing, you know, I held on to, that was the, the, the, that was the root of the shame for me was. How I had acted out with other kids and how it maybe have affected them in their life. And you, I just had to get to a place where I had to reiterate, you know, I was just a little girl. I was just a little girl. I was just a little girl and come to that place of really. It was, it was a hard step to take, to let myself off the hook for that. It was the hardest thing that I have done around. Everything that I’ve created with the book and, and the healing and all of that. So I think you just kind of have to [00:14:00] put yourself back in the shoes of that child. And know that you get to give that child love and compassion, and you get to let that child off the hook because you holding onto that shame is doing nobody any good. It’s not doing anybody any good. So yeah. Wow. Look at you went deep. You went deep girl. Yeah, that was, that was my biggest challenge was being able to let go of that. And I actually did. I, I, I found another therapist and I was so blessed to find her. My regular, the last therapist that I saw he was booked and this is such a God thing. Gissele overdub: Share the story. What do you Jill: mean? It’s a guy. Well, I am. So after finishing the book, I, I haven’t seen a therapist for quite some time. I had been doing the deep transformational works, which is a whole deeper level of therapy. And I had this huge community of people supporting me, [00:15:00] but once while I was writing the book and while I was in all that work, I had a lot of people coming to me and sharing their stories with me. And so I have this. Huge container that I was holding for people plus all of the feelings and the, excuse me, and the emotions that came around writing the book and clearing that space and, and, you know, clearing the path family and like, it was a very, very intense year and a half. for this book to come to fruition. And so I decided I’m like, you know, I, I get to go talk to somebody. I get to go get support. I get to go have somebody hold the cup for me for a while. And I reached out to my therapist and he was booked and like six weeks out. And I was like, no, I don’t, I don’t want to wait. He’s like, I can refer you. And so he referred me to, I call her my therapist, not therapist because I literally saw her for like four sessions. And of course, I’m [00:16:00] fixed again, but I met her and she just had such a different perspective on how to go about healing at the level, at the stage that I was at. And we did this beautiful Hawaiian forgiveness. Practice called Honoponopono and it released me from all of that. Like that was the final straw in my healing around that was I finally was able to release myself from all of that through that beautiful ceremony. And if you don’t know Honoponopono, I called it Lapu Lapu for a while because we didn’t know how to spell it. Yeah, yeah. You can actually YouTube it and they’ll. Walk you through the meditation of how to do the Honoponopono practice, but it’s really really beautiful Gissele overdub: I just learned so I’ve been practicing it for quite a while and I also found it really kind of really moving and really Impacted because I was able to energetically make changes in my [00:17:00] relationship with other people without actually physically making like without physically making changes Although it was like it was great I didn’t know this I didn’t know this story, but apparently how it began was, I guess he was a therapist or some sort of like health practitioner in Hawaii who was, I think, treating criminals or treating some sort of people with mental illness. And so what he did was he didn’t treat anybody one on one. He took the files and he would do that. Pono. I always say that wrong. I think I put too much PO. And, and apparently like each of them would get cured as he was doing that just in the files independently, independently was like, he got the files and he was doing the, this, apparently this is how this started. a friend of mine had shared that with me. And I have yet to look it up. So I’m so thankful that you reminded me that I wanted to look up this story because apparently it was like something that was magical and miraculous about [00:18:00] the, the impact of that practice. And I think it’s so key because it has, like, major components, like, it has all those components that have loving compassion included in it. So I’m sorry, please forgive me. Thank you. I love you and, Jill: me. I forgive you. So if there was any energy there about something, maybe that person had done to me that I needed to release, I was able to release that energy to which I thought was really interesting because when I saw when I saw the practice, I saw that it didn’t have that line in it. I’m like, Oh, she added that. Which is really cool because I had a couple people in my life that I was harboring some feelings around because I felt some injustice and how I’ve been treated and I was able to let that go. But sorry, I just went off on a tangent. No, no, Gissele overdub: this is absolutely great. And you can adjust it to anything to better meet your needs. How I did that part was I would envision myself. And I would say I’m sorry to myself. Like I would say I’m sorry to little Giselle. [00:19:00] I would say I’m sorry to my young self and all for all of those things I did that I felt had hurt her. And so, yeah, so that’s how I did that part because I was like, because I had the same thought. I’m like, okay, so I’m sorry if you’re thinking about apologizing to someone else. But what about when I want to apologize to myself? Because I feel like all of us have done things that we feel shame, guilt, and this is why I think this topic is so important because you’re bringing to light something that I believe happens a lot more than we believe it does,there’s all of this trauma that, that as I feel as a humanity, we’re carrying and. Yeah. One of the ways to kind of bring light into that, to that. Shame is to talk about it. Right. What role did secrecy have in keeping kind of that trauma from like healing? [00:20:00] Oh, it was all Jill: of us. I mean, secrecy was everything, you know, I never wanted anybody to know. In fact, now that I’m speaking very publicly about this, I’ve had two friends say to me. Wow. You know, you always seem like the happiest person in the room. You know, you were always, you know, you walk in a room and, and you just be the most bubbly person there. How could I not know that you were in so much pain? And I said, because we get really good at keeping secrets, you know, and it really, I love that you pointed that out too, because it doesn’t, everybody has something. It doesn’t have to be related to sexual trauma. Everybody has a secret. And so when you hold on to a secret, it is what is holding you back from being the powerful you and creating the most beautiful life that you get to create. That’s, that’s what’s holding you back and saying it out loud. Shame cannot live in the light. So, and can I just tell you [00:21:00] something too? Cause I think it’s really important for people to hear this. I remember I first knew that I got to go to therapy to start healing from all of this. And I’m sure if you’re listening right now and you have my story and you’ve never dealt with it, or if you’re holding onto a secret of any kind and you know, it’s time for you to look at in the eyeballs and say, you don’t owe me anymore. I just have this awful, awful pit in my stomach. And I thought, how can I go in and talk to this person and let them know my dirty little secret? They’re going to think I’m a monster. They’re going to think I’m a pedophile. Those were the thoughts that I had of a little 12 year old girl. And so going in there and sharing my story, Oh God, this could just, this kills me every time. The level of love and compassion and kindness and understanding that was on the other side of me saying those words out loud [00:22:00] to this day is just a effing miracle to me, and it has happened over and over and over again. I have shared my story now. Obviously on a platform like this, where there’s many, many people listening, I, I wouldn’t even know how many people have heard my story to this point, but individually, when I decided to write the book, I said, I need to tell my people because I didn’t want my book to come out and then be like, what the hell? So I sat down and I probably shared my story now, 40 times. And every single time I have shared it, I’ve, there’s been so much love and compassionate understanding. So I need you to know if this is you or if you’re holding onto something, whatever you have made up about what’s on the other side of saying it out loud is a lie and you get to get it out of your body because the other side of healing is. Magical. Gissele overdub: [00:23:00] Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that because I think that’s so important. Often the things we fear in our minds tend to be bigger than they are. That has also been my experience. Like I had all of these things that I thought once I face this fear, it’s going to break me. It’s going to, it’s going to be the death of me, but the truth of matter is on the other side was like, my dream was, was like people who were ready to support and love me. Did you find that your family reacted in a positive way? You know, you might be like, okay, how did I miss it or, or, or, you know, like parents have lots of different feelings about their role in their performance when something happens to their children? So I was wondering what the, what the reaction was, if, if you’re okay, sharing it. A Jill: hundred percent. My, my parents are angels from heaven. Like I adopt my parents out to people. They are the most [00:24:00] beautiful people. And I, it just breaks my heart because I heard Joyce Meyer say one time, I don’t know if you don’t know who Joyce Meyer, she, she’s a female evangelist and she’s amazing, but she said, you know, if you, if you were raised and you had loving parents, you’re already me. Way ahead of the curve. And so I’m so grateful that I chose my parents or however that works because they are beautiful, beautiful people. And I, I already knew that they would be a hundred percent supportive of me stepping into this, but it was hard. It was hard. And of course there’s the guilt. And you know, my mom is like, I just don’t understand how this could have happened. We knew where you were all the time. And sadly. Oftentimes it’s a family member that is the one that’s abusing. So, you know, you, you never think when you drop your child off at an uncle’s or a cousin’s or a grandparent, that they’re going to hurt your baby. But oftentimes it is, it [00:25:00] is. So yes, they are, they were super supportive, but there was that. You know, they, they feel guilty and they still apologize to me. I’m like, there’s nothing to be sorry about. And now, now I get to look at this as a gift, like everything that’s happened to me, and if you’re probably going, what the, what, how can she think of her? This, everything else she’s been through is a gift, but because I have stepped into my purpose and knowing that this is what I get to do in my lifetime. I get to help you. I get to help you. You, I get to help anybody that’s in this pain to know that they’re not alone and that they get to get help and they get to love themselves and forgive themselves and create a beautiful life for themselves. So I feel very blessed. I feel very blessed. And trust me, it took a long time to get to this place, but I wake up. So happy every single day now, because I have taken the steps that I needed to, I was brave and courageous and you get to be brave. You get to be courageous and you get to [00:26:00] look at this and, and heal from it. So Gissele overdub: yeah. Yeah. But you said, I feel so spot on. I feel the same way. I think that, there are times in our lives when we have challenges, but when we reflect back, we can see the gifts that they. Those challenges are brought to us. You know, and I kind of have this thing where I’ve made a choice that I believe that everything happens for my good. And I’m just leaving it at that. Right. Yeah. And even though sometimes it can feel really overwhelming, but as you said, it really is important to have, courage and to be brave in those moments. What role has trust played in your life in terms of being able to have the courage and have the, the, the bravery to be able to keep moving or taking one step forward? Trust Jill: is also a new word for me. [00:27:00] Yeah. I think. The, the steps that I was able to take at 33 and at 41. And that was like, I think that that was, that was God. And I don’t know if you believe in God universe, whatever you or your listeners believe in, I call God, God, and God has been. Huge in my healing. I think every single time that I was like, okay, I need to go. I need to go to therapy at it. I think it was just God like trickling on me. Like, okay, it’s time for you to do this. It’s time for you to do this, you know? And, and, and he was getting me ready for what I get to do now. Like I’m finally ready to step into this. If this had been something that had been presented to me when I was 33, there’s no way. You know, there’s no, but it was little steps, but I hope for your audience that by us having this conversation now, [00:28:00] they’re not taking 41 years to get to this place. You know, I want, I want your, your people to get there like this now, you know? So that’s why we get to have these conversations. That’s why we get to bring this topic up. That’s why we get to normalize this topic, because as you said, it’s way more common and you’re not alone. Gissele overdub: I’m sorry. You’re not special, Jill: but you’re not. There’s a lot in this pain. And so you get to, you get to get past it because you have things to do. You have people that help by getting past it. You know? Yeah, for Gissele overdub: sure. for sure. so going back to the whole financial and success, did you find that as you started to forgive yourself and love yourself more, that the finance part of it actually started to expand? Like that you were able to allow more success in your life? Jill: Yeah. That’s a great question because that’s what I’m in right now. Like I’m a [00:29:00] manifesting fool. Do you manifest? I, I do. Yeah. That good Manifesting and I talk about it. Yeah, I’m calling in the most magical things right now and you talked about trust like when I finally surrendered into the fact that this was my purpose, which I went kicking and screaming. I’m like, no way. I’m not. This is not what I’m going to do. I’m not going to step out and have this conversation. But when I finally surrendered to that, I got, I got into this place of. Okay, this is what God wants. If God wants this, God gets to figure out all the BS. So any obstacle. Yeah. Any obstacle that came up during the book and there were obstacles. Trust me. I would just be like. Figure it out. I’m going to put one foot in front of the other. I’m going to ask you every single day. What can I do to move this forward? And you are going to clear the path. So you’re talking about abundance. I’m like at the precipice [00:30:00] of all of this massive avalanche of things happening. I’m meeting, I’m meeting with an important person tomorrow because of all of this around the book. So, yeah. You know, and I’m really excited about what I’m creating in that way. And I also found, and I don’t know if this is off topic or if this is going to land or if this is relevant for people, but I have found that the more that I step into who I am and my purpose and. All of those things, all the other stuff isn’t really that important to me anymore. Like I’m so truly, divinely happy inside that I’m not looking for external things to make me happy. I want some things. There’s a lot of things that I want, but I’m, I’m not, I don’t need them. To make me feel this happy because I am blissful and it’s weird because to be this happy every [00:31:00] day. It’s such a blessing, you Gissele overdub: know? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I, I totally hear exactly what you’re saying. There has to be an element of trust. You saying that you’re, it’s kind of new to your journey, but in order for you to trust God source universe, you have to be able to trust because if you didn’t trust the people in your life. There’s no way you were going to trust some random source universe being out there. Right. And so there isn’t a strong element of trust in you that enables you to surrender, enables you to say, okay, you want me on this journey. You need to figure this out. Which makes, yeah, it does. And it takes, like you said, something you’re very familiar with, which is extraordinary courage and bravery to be able to not see the path, but say, okay, This is what I’m being guided to do. And this is what I’m doing, especially since in the beginning, you didn’t know that you were going to get all this love and compassion and support that it [00:32:00] wasn’t going to be canceled. Right. Or ostracized given kind of the kind of environment that we are currently. And so I think that’s, I think that’s fabulous. And I also agree with you. About the more you start to find joy in everyday life, the less you need things out there to be. A specific way, because I could, because I see people that, you know, you could have everything and still be unhappy and have nothing and still be completely joyful, grateful for life. And so that doesn’t mean you have to, it just means that no matter where you go, there you are. Right. And so it’s important for you to find that really that joy within. And it sounds like you have, so that’s yeah. Yeah. Jill: I, it’s, it was a while to get here, but if, you know, if you have a calling on your heart [00:33:00] and it, even if it’s hard, like just do it, do it as fast as you can because, that’s where the true joy and bliss comes from. Like I love doing these podcasts. It is one of my most fun things to do is to get to meet people like you and share this conversation knowing that it’s going to ripple and help other people. You know, it’s really one of my favorite things that I get to do now is Gissele overdub: yeah, for sure. Thanks. For sure. And I’m so grateful that you were able to put the connection between like loving yourself more and then being able to open then allowing yourself to receive because allowing is a big part of of stepping into your abundance. A lot of us don’t allow ourselves to receive because we don’t feel worthy. We don’t feel good enough.we feel shame and all those feelings. What. Is your definition of self love? Like, how do you feel like you’re loving yourself now? And do you feel that there’s still more loving to be done? Jill: Well, I [00:34:00] talk to myself all the time now. How are you doing today? Hey, gorgeous. How are you doing? You’re doing great. Like I do a lot of self talk and I would have never done that before. It was always. The negative re over and over and over again. And I also, I take a lot of time off to be quite honest with you. I’m a serial entrepreneur and I have been doing the blind for years and years and years. And the coaching program, the business coaching program that I’m in, she calls it flex time. She takes five months off a year and she’s a nice. Yeah. So I have committed to taking Friday, Saturdays and Sundays off. And those are my knee days. That’s that’s self love to me. And honestly, sometimes if you’re an entrepreneur, that’s when you get your ideas, because you have given yourself a break to relax and just be, and not worry about, you know, what’s next. And that’s when that’s, it’s almost a form of meditation. You know, that’s when you get to be open enough [00:35:00] to hear the ideas coming in. So those are. Those are just a couple of the ways that I, I get to create self love for myself. Gissele overdub: Yeah. And that’s, that’s so, so beautiful. I I’m in full and total agreement that the grind is done, that we are just so shifting away from having to grind it out in, you know, just kind of force ourselves to do things we don’t want to do. I think more that we’re kind of really stepping into inspired action. Right. Can we feel inspired to do this and follow our joy and bliss rather than having to do it? But again, for me, that whole perspective about earning my way and having to do something, never getting anything for nothing is sort of tied down to that feeling like we have to earn love, feeling that we have to earn acceptance and earn value and earn belonging. And I think there’s a real shift in feeling like we are worthy just because we exist. [00:36:00] No other reason, even if we do things that may be hurtful or even do things that would be positive. We still deserve to be loved and accepted and valued and all of the good things in life. Right? We’re human, Jill: you know, we’re going to make mistakes. It’s inevitable. Gissele overdub: And you just, that’s what we get to do. Jill: Yeah. You just get to reset. Yeah. This is one of the things that I’ve, I’ve learned through this leadership program is being able to shift out of my emotion very quickly. So something gets me riled up. I’m able to step outside and go, this doesn’t really matter. Like who cares if the guy cut you off on the freeway, you know, send them love and light instead of being all crabby about it. So just being able to step out of any of that type of emotion very quickly. Gissele overdub: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I completely agree with that. I realized how much I was giving my power away to other people to determine how I felt about myself in my life. Right. But when I stopped doing that, I started to [00:37:00] realize. You don’t get to decide if I have a bad day or not. You don’t get to decide if I have, if I believe in myself or not. How has taking your power back to help you, address some of the, some of the feelings like the shame and guilt and so on that you might’ve had when you were feeling like you were, you know, like an oppressor or, or a victimizer. Jill: Well, I just know now that I get to, I get to have all the things that I want in my life, you know, I just, I know that. And when I I was doing some work around money last summer and I. Came across Amanda Francis. Do you know who Amanda Francis is? She’s a money queen. She’s a manifester. She wrote a book called Rich as F. She’s really, really fun to listen to, but she said everything [00:38:00] on our heart was given to us by God. And it is our only job every single day to feel what it feels like to have those things and know that you get to have those things. And I know That everything on my heart, I truly get to have, I really get to have those things. And I have some crazy things on my heart. And it’s so fun to know that I, I like, I am worthy of having those things. You know, I’ve just, I’ve let go of all the shame. I lived with it for 41 years. I call it my shame cloud. I literally had this dark cloud that followed me. Everywhere I went, I would go to bed, it was there, I would wake up, it was there. And now I look for that cloud and it’s gone, and I’m like, my, my cloud’s gone. It’s just amazing to be able to go through life now knowing that, you know, I deserve to have love. I deserve to have abundance. I deserve to have amazing relationships. You know, I just, it’s just what I [00:39:00] know now. Gissele overdub: So what’s the difference between believing and knowing? Because there are some people that go around like having a belief, like affirming, affirming, affirming, affirming, and it doesn’t stick and the there’s really tapping into that knowingness of, you know what, I get to do this. I get to experience this Jill: for me. That’s just, I think, a God thing for me. Like, it’s something that he’s put into my heart. I remember when I was a little girl. I was probably in between the ages of six and eight, and I just knew from that age that I was going to have a very successful business that I used to visualize myself in this beautiful. And whenever I visualize, it’s always, everything’s been wiped. Everything’s white. Beautiful glass desk and this beautiful white offices and people running around everywhere helping people and just doing, you know, knowing that I was making a difference in the world. And so that’s what I mean about just knowing and not believing. It’s [00:40:00] just you have this deep seated. Understanding that it’s just part of who you are and you get to, you get to have those things. You get to, you just get to be Gissele overdub: those things. Did you still have that knowing what you had the kind of the cloud of shame or was it something that kind of moved to the back of your mind? Something you forgot about? Or was it always there? Jill: It was always there. It was always there. I would see my, my husband, cause I’m calling in a divine love right now. I’m calling in the most incredible love right now. Oh, nice. Yeah. You’re listening right now. Call me. Gissele overdub: I was going to ask about relationships. So this is a great segue. Go ahead. Jill: Yeah. And like I said earlier about seeing everything in white, like. He would be wearing like white linen and we’d have like a white car, like everything was always in white. And so I, I’ll even through all the shame and all the self loathing and all the things I [00:41:00] still have those, visions and thoughts about what. I knew I’d get to have in life. Yeah. Yeah. Gissele overdub: Wow. That’s incredible Jill: hope. I hope it was, it was hopeful, you know, knowing that it, it was there for me. I just needed to take steps to get there, to do the healing, to, to get to the deserve level of that. Mm Gissele overdub: mm-Hmm. . Yeah. And I feel we all have that. I, I feel like we all have this kind of pot of gold available to each of us, but it’s just. Waiting there for us in order for us to allow it to come to tap into it to enable us because life’s not a zero sum game, right? Like your I do feel this strongly like Jill E. Schultz gets to have her heaven and her biggest dreams. And that’s not taken away from anything because that’s your dream. This is what you set up for yourself and whereas each of us have our own separate different dreams that don’t take [00:42:00] away from someone else. But I’m We’re kind of bought into this. Yeah. We’ve kind of bought into this belief that life’s a zero sum game, which it totally disadvantages us and makes us feel smaller than I wanted to ask about relationships since, and you mentioned, you know, you’re calling in your husband, have you ever, cause this popped into my head. So I’m going to ask, have you ever done, like, have you ever written out? Kind of like, like the person that you want to call in. I have found Jill: I’ve been writing that Gissele overdub: out. Okay. I love it. I found that when I did that, and I actually kind of encouraged a few friends of mine who have done it and then attracted the person. because I recently heard that. You know, when you have a thought or a knowing in your heart, it’s still a thought, but when you speak it out and write it out, it is [00:43:00] then manifested because it’s now out there. And so I make sure that I don’t speak or do anything that contradicts what I want to, what, who I want to be. And so I was curious if you had written out, you said you had been written this list for many years. Jill: Yeah, I wrote my list a long, long, long time ago and it keeps getting longer and longer and then I tried to hone it down to like six things and it’s like, it’s just this massive, beautiful man that gets to show up for me. But, what was I going to say about that? Oh, the thing is, the hard thing is. You know, whenever you manifest something, it’s already 99 percent complete. Like it’s already out there. Unfortunately, it’s in God’s time. And that’s the hardest thing, because I know that this person who gets to come into my life now has been waiting for me for 41 years. We’ve been waiting for each other for 41 years. But if I had gotten married at 33 [00:44:00] years old, I’d be divorced. You know, and now that I have this calling on my heart to step into something that most people probably would choose not to step into, because this is a hard conversation, the type of man that is going to be my partner now is going to be a different person than I would have called in at 33 years old. I mean, that’s not to say he couldn’t have shown up for me then. Yeah, yeah. It certainly Gissele overdub: was not God’s plan. And this is so, so important because I have found that to be true in my life. Pretty amazing things that I wanted and there’s times when I was like, I didn’t even have to set the intention. It just came and I’m like, how did, how did they know I wanted that? And it’s so funny, but because time is not real. It doesn’t really exist. Like we’re in a hurry. We think we’re going to run out of time, like the human things are going to run out of time that is not going to come, but I have found in my life, things come at the perfect time. So just enjoy the [00:45:00] ride, which I was not very good at. Not very good. I was always, I was always looking for. Okay. Where’s my thing. Where’s my thing so I can be happy? Where’s my, where’s this or that or the other? And, and being patient in the way of like, not like, I’ll get to wait. It’s more like, okay, you know what? If this was already, if I had already experienced this, what would I do next? And then I do that and I enjoy like living in that from that space and I found that it’s definitely, there’s definitely reasons why I don’t understand why things can happen and I can only look at them in retrospect and go, Oh, yeah, like you said, like, if you had come when I was 33, it would have been like, right? You might not have read it. Jill: Yeah, it’s like the trip to Hana. Have you been to Maui? Have you heard about the trip to Hana? Gissele overdub: I have not heard of that, but I have been to Hawaii. Yeah. Jill: So the trip to Hana is on the island of Gissele overdub: Maui and I haven’t been to hot to Maui. I’ve been to [00:46:00] the big island in Oahu. That’s yeah. Sorry. Jill: Go ahead. So the trip to Hana is this beautiful ride and there’s a book called Maui revealed that at least when I. Read it. The Islanders were not happy about because it gave you a little like I road mile marker, 72, get out of the car, walk a hundred yards to your right. And there’s a waterfall there. So, like, the trip to Hana is all about these beautiful, beautiful exploration and getting to Hana. And to get to Hana, it tastes like eight hours because you’re stopping and looking at all these beautiful, beautiful things. And then it takes like an hour and a half to get back. So it’s the trip to the destination that counts. And so we have to learn to be patient. We have to learn to be appreciative and gratitude of everything that you’re in right now along the way. And not be focused on what’s at the end. Gissele overdub: [00:47:00] Agreed. Agreed. So I want to go back to, you know, since we’re enjoying the ride, I want to go back to talking about some of the work that you’re doing right now. Can you share a little bit about the work that you’re doing right now, and especially the book? Can you tell us a little bit about the book? Yes, I’m Jill: going to get the book. Sorry, I shouldn’t have had it out. That’s okay. Here’s the book. It’s called liberated, releasing the dark cloud of shame and the, I, I didn’t want to write a book. God wanted a book. I just want to get on stages and scream my story from the rooftop. And a friend of mine who was a speaker said, if you want to get on stage, you’ve got to write a book. And so this was one of those places where I just trusted and let God take control because once I knew I needed a book, yeah. He brought the people to me. So this is a compilation of many stories. It’s not just me. It’s other people who have had my same experiences, people who have found forgiveness. There’s a lot of different, modalities. And [00:48:00] the ending is really about not being in victim and creating a beautiful life for yourself. So I’m very proud of the book that came out on November 1st and we’ll have a link there if people want to get the book. And so now, honestly, I’m just back in that place of surrender and trust. I really feel that. Opportunities get to start coming to me. Like I’m doing a lot of podcasts. I’ve probably done 50 podcasts in six months to talk about my story and just share it. But I’m looking to get on stages. I told you I have a really big meeting tomorrow. I’m not going to, I don’t want to blow what that is, but like. It’s kind of like, you don’t know what you don’t know. Like, I feel like some beautiful, beautiful things get to be created around this. And I’m looking to partner. I’m trying to find different support partnerships right now because I’m not a therapist and I [00:49:00] cannot. Be the one to coach people through some of the pain that comes around sexual trauma. So I’m partnering with people that I can say, okay, you need to see this person. You need so that people can get help. People can get supported and people can heal. So those are the things that I’m working on right now is just really. This is all like such baby. I’m, I’m like the brand new baby who’s just here. And now I’m like, okay, what do I do? Do I walk? Do I talk? Like, I’m really just letting God present opportunities. And I’m trusting that everything that we’re creating now is It’s perfectly the way Gissele overdub: it’s supposed to happen. I love this. Does it not feel at times where you’re like, I don’t know what the next step is and it’s so counter what we’ve been taught, right? Like there’s, there’s been times when my guidance is like, You know, meditate all day today. I’m like, what? I’m like, shouldn’t I be doing something towards my business? What do you mean meditate all day? But then when I do, [00:50:00] I realized that I cleared out a whole bunch of stuff and new opportunities came. So I’m like, Oh, okay. So that’s how kind of this works. But I still had to get through and to reveal to myself just how stuck I have been in that, in, in, or I had been in the perspective of. There’s a right way in a wrong way to do this and stepping in trust and stepping into the unknown just seems so unnatural. Does it not? Does it not seem like everything that we’ve been taught very hard Jill: at first, very hard at first, but as I continue to surrender and trust and I saw how God was doing the work. I was just like, all right, you got this. So every day my my morning ritual is I listen to, before I even get up, I listen, start listening to manifesting. Like I’ve been listening a lot to Esther Hicks, you know, the, the, the ramp that the rampages that [00:51:00] Esther does, you know, around all that, listening to that. And I’ll listen to something else on manifesting just as I’m getting my morning started. And then I get really quiet. And I say, okay, God, what do we get to do today? What is the one thing you want me to do today to move this forward? And I just get very quiet and I am following my intuition a lot. I like, I’ve really gotten tuned into my intuition and so I’m just listening and then I’m doing what those, those things are like yesterday. I have my books and I have, you know, 15 contributors that wrote a chapter in my book. And I’m yesterday. My tour was to sign the books for them and mail them out. So, you know, something simple. Today, I’m going to start a 501c3 for all of this around sexual trauma. So my task today was to reach out to the company that’s going to help me with my 501c3. And of course, there’s lots of other stuff. I have three businesses. So there’s lots of other stuff that I get to do, but [00:52:00] I just get to say, what do I get to do today to move this forward? And then I just. Do those things because I have no idea it’s, it’s very unnerving sometimes. I’m like, I feel like I’m the blind right now. Gissele overdub: Yeah, I hear you. It’s so funny because I also see that it’s probably the timing. I just feel like a lot of people in my life are sort of in the same spot too. They’re, they’re starting new initiatives, starting new. Components of their life. So, especially since COVID and it’s about developing that trust in yourself and in source God universe. But yeah, it can feel overwhelming and takes a lot of courage, at least take the first few steps which is great. So just a couple more questions. I’m asking everyone who is coming on my show to define unconditional love for me from your perspective. Unconditional Jill: love. Oh,[00:53:00] no expectations. Like you, you just don’t have any expectations of just putting whatever you have in your heart out there, not expecting to receive anything in return and having no expectations around that. Gissele overdub: That’s a beautiful answer. Because it’s true. It’s, it’s, it’s like open hearted giving, and I think that’s one of the things that makes love conditional is that there are expectations. I expect you to love me. I expect you to behave this way. I expect you to expect, expect. Right. And so I think that’s kind of one of the best definitions I’ve heard thus far. Jill: I was struggling. I was like, Oh, God, what Gissele overdub: do I know? It’s great. It was really, really good. So last question, where can people find you? Where’s your website? How can people come work with you? Where can people find the book? Yeah, let us know. Jill: Thank you. You can see my name on here. It’s just Jill e Schultz. com. My [00:54:00] Book is there. There’s a link for by the book. My resources section is there. So if you are at all triggered today by anything that’s happened on this during our conversation, please reach out to somebody. I do also have a Facebook group called Living Unshamed. Not unashamed, un shamed. And I love that because I found that for my healing, it was way, my healing happened way more quickly when I was in a group setting because you’re with people who are like you and you get the validation that other people have gone through what you’ve gone through. But jilleschultz. com and then all my social media links are on there and all that stuff too. And I’m sure you have some of that stuff in the chat. Gissele overdub: Yes, I do. Wonderful. Okay. Thank you so much, Jill, for being with us and for sharing your story as well as shedding light on something that isn’t well talked about, but needs to be discussed. So deeply grateful that you were able to come on the show [00:55:00] and thank you everyone. And we’ll see you in another episode of the love and compassion podcast, which is L. Bye. Bye. ​

Transcript [00:00:00] Gissele: hello and welcome to the love and compassion podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Don’t forget to subscribe for more amazing content on today’s podcast. We’ll be talking about self love and self compassion while parenting. My guest today is Mariah Kimball. Mariah will help you connect your mind, body, and soul to the love that fuels your earthly experience and allows you to reach your fullest potential and truest expression of love, which to her, they’re all the same. Mariah’s a well of experience, including a master’s in the art of teaching. Certifications in nutritional therapy and other healing modalities such as Reiki and restorative yoga, her intuitive connection to divine liquid love and her interpretation of ancient wisdom through the Earth’s crystal memories make her work incredibly potent. Please [00:01:00] join me in welcoming to the show Mariah. Hi, Mariah. Mariah: Oh, my goodness. Hello. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited and honored to be here with you today. Gissele: Thank you. Thank you so much for being on the show. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you actually got to start doing this work? Mariah: Yeah, so, I’m Mariah. I am been married to my husband for 11 years. We have a magnificent relationship that we’re always looking to deepen and open, to more love. We have two beautiful little girls Claire, who is eight and Juliet, who is six, and they are incredibly little sensitive souls who love so deeply and passionately and I myself love to do wild things like CrossFit and Jiu Jitsu, and I found myself in this work because I ignored.[00:02:00] So much of what made me, me, and it really broke me and I realized that I can be a parent and Mariah all at the same time and be true to myself and enjoy those things that make me different. But it took showing myself a lot of compassion and love and vulnerability both with myself and with my husband to kind of get to this place where. Life is really magical and full of a lot of love. Gissele: Thank you so much. That was Beautiful.  I was wondering if you could share a little bit about your experiences and your challenges with parenting and how that helped you be where you are right now. Mariah: I would love to. I became a parent eight years ago and I, with my first kiddo, it was so easy. Damn it. It was so easy. She would just breathe and I’d be like, Oh, she needs food or like, I just [00:03:00] knew like there was this connection to Claire that really I can’t even explain it. I was like, I’m a good mom. I give myself a pat on the back. This is so easy, right? Oh boy. That, that was short lived. That was really short lived. Because while Claire was open and I could read her energy and her needs really well, Juliet came along 21 months later and. Oh my gosh. I could not figure this kiddo out. She was such a magnificent little soul. I could not make her happy. I could not connect to her. Breastfeeding was hard. I was exhausted. I was in a job I hated that I thought. I would be in for 30 years, right? I was teaching seventh grade and I was just strung out like I was doing all the right things, right? I, I was, I had the perfect job. I had the husband, we had the house, we had all the [00:04:00] things and I had two kids like, oh my gosh, so perfect. I had two little girls and I was doing all the things and I was so unhappy and the harder I tried, the harder it It got, and I got to the point where I was so lost and in such a dark place that I was crying every day at work. I was, I was just drained. Things that used to light me up weren’t. And I, I fell apart and I think I didn’t realize at the time looking at it now I realized like, like, you can’t parent children the same way. And I was trying to, but I couldn’t see that because my well was so empty. Like, I, there was no part of Mariah left I was stripped bare, and I’ll never forget. It was this everything peaks at once, right? Like, everything comes to, like, it peaks, but it’s really like this way, right? Because you’re, you’re in this hole, essentially, like, bottom of the barrel. And, you know, it was totally a dark night of the [00:05:00] soul for me. My, I am significantly older, not significantly older, but I’m a little bit older than my siblings. And so at this time period, I was married and had children quite young. And so that put my, my sister still at home at this point. And so my mom was going away on vacation and she asked that I stay with my sisters. Just to be a support to make sure the house didn’t implode. She’s like, bring the girls. It’ll be fine. I’ll get you all the food and all the things. Sure. Great mom. I can do that. I thought it would be a little vacation. Well, no, I fell apart and I don’t have a close relationship with my sister, but I will never forget the moment where. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was anxious. I was shaking in my body and I was like near tears and my sister is really intuitive and she looked at me and she’s never taken my girls. She had never helped me before. We’re not close and she’s like, I’m going to take the girls. And you’re, you’re going to go shower, you’re going to [00:06:00] take a minute and I will tell you, I sat in the bottom of that shower and I just cried and cried and cried. And that was the lowest moment I had ever had in my life. I couldn’t make my kids happy I needed my sisters to do this. I lost my connection with my husband I was like repulsed by him. And I felt broken. And so that night, my husband and I sat down. It was dark. I’ll never forget it. We’re in this living room. It’s not our house. I’m just like, I can’t breathe. I don’t know what I’m doing. I need help. It’s like, okay. Like, okay. And I, I had to get super vulnerable and say, this isn’t working. I had to be really vulnerable with myself and with him. And it was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life. Probably still to this day is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life was admit defeat. And then I needed help that I needed, some outside [00:07:00] support. To change that, you know, I look back on it now and I definitely had postpartum depression undiagnosed and what led me to that? I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t feeling my will. I had no support, right? Yes. My parents were around and they take the girls, but it, it wasn’t enough. You know, it wasn’t, I was a new mom. I was young. I was working full time. I had a house, like all the things. Yeah. And no friends that understood that experience, right? I was incredibly lonely. Oh my gosh. And just like thinking about that Mariah six years ago, you know, it was actually probably five years ago because Juliet, was probably like two months old at this point. I think that it gets a little wonky, you know, but like the Mariah was 5 years ago. The best thing I could have ever done was ask for support because now I’m like on the other side and I’m like, oh, my God, this is amazing. So every time I [00:08:00] hit that low, I’m like, well, the other side is going to be amazing. This is terrible in this moment, but I’m going to do the work. We’re going to, you know, white knuckle it all weekend through these hard, difficult moments because parenting shifts like that parent. I was 5 years ago. I am a different parent today because my children have changed. And so there’s this need to always be compassionate with myself. Like, yeah, I messed up, but I can apologize. We had this moment the other day, and we just got back from a trip from Disneyland. And I will tell you, it was fantastic. Like, the girls were fantastic. Like, And I have, pretty typical children, right? They’re extremely sensitive, but they’re healthy. They’re, they’re very typical. And there was this moment where my daughter’s like crying and like, she’s almost crying. And she’s like, she’s just not acting the way I wanted her to act where it had freaking Disneyland. And she’s given me a hard time. Right. And I literally said to her, I said, I just don’t expect an eight year old to cry when they’re at Disneyland like this. Like I’m just disappointed. [00:09:00] And I said it and I was like, Ooh, like it hurt. And like, it immediately like shut her down, the tears were gone, you know, and later that day we were walking down the road while holding hands, walking, you know, so much walking in Disney. My gosh. And I, I said, I had this, and my mom was there, so it was an incredibly vulnerable moment. Because grandma was there and I was holding Claire’s hand and I had this feeling inside that I needed to apologize. I just needed to own it. That’s not the kind of mom I want to be. I don’t want to squash her. Obviously there was, this moment of tension. She wasn’t getting what she needed. I wasn’t being clear, right? And I said, hey Clary, remember earlier when I said I don’t expect an 8 year old to cry? She’s like, yeah. Like, I’m really sorry for that. That didn’t feel good in my body. I’m sure it didn’t feel good to receive that. I’m so sorry. I’ll try and do better next time. I said, I hope you’ll forgive me. [00:10:00] And she, she kind of looked at me and my mom is standing behind me kind of walking a little off behind me. And she kind of looks at me, like gives me a little side eye. And she’s like, I’ll forgive you this time with a big smile on her face, you know, and that was it. We moved on. And I, and that gave her this moment of like, Hey, mom’s human. And that reminded me like, Hey, She’s got a little sense of humor. She’s human. She’s growing. She sees me. I see her. It was a perfect, imperfect moment, but had I not been compassionate with myself and like looked at that forgiveness and been vulnerable, man, that could have been a moment of like lowercase T trauma for Claire, you know, where those little moments where we don’t listen and we shut things down and we react instead of respond, like that adds up over time. Wow. Thank Gissele: you for sharing that.  you shared so many powerful things. [00:11:00] I just want to start with what the story you just shared. Because I think part of the issue is that sometimes we’re not honest with ourselves about what we feel. And so I’ve been at Disney. I’ve been in your situation. sometimes You’re frustrated because you’re thinking I paid all this money. I’m tired. Cause it’s not always a vacation for the parents. Yeah. And so there’s like walking, there’s paying, there’s doing a coordinating, but you want it to be magical. And sometimes the kids pick up where we’re at. I thinkThe whole story was really beautiful. Number one, you admitting and acknowledging that you were frustrated and that you were Yeah. You’re like, you know what? I’m really frustrated. This was my expectation. And when people, when we have expectations, people don’t often meet them. And I think that causes us suffering and the fact that you were able to reflect and go back and. Be able to reconnect with your kids because there’s so many moments where we connect and then [00:12:00] disconnect and connect and disconnect and connect and disconnect. And when we don’t connect back, I think that’s what causes the greater distance and the trauma and so on. And so it’s so beautiful that you were able to say, look at I’m not always going to get it right, but I’m trying my best in the relationship is more important than being right. So I think that’s, that is fantastic. What was your mom’s reaction? I just have to ask that question. What was your mother’s reaction? Mariah: It’s not a peep out of her. I think she, I, I have no idea. And I wish I could, I wish I knew, but I didn’t even dare look at my mom, you know, my mom is a fantastic mom. But we choose our I totally believe that we choose our parents because they have the greatest lessons to teach us. So no matter how magical of a parent I am, or my mom is like, we’re always going to come to a childhood with some stuff with some baggage. Right? And so I parent very differently than my mom [00:13:00] does. And so I don’t know if my mom has ever apologize in that way to me and there’s, there’s nothing wrong with that. She just has a very different relationship with me than I do with my girls. And that’s that’s totally fine. And that’s magical in itself because she gets to see me parent the girls, but I also get to see her be a grandmother and like have this. Different relationship and, and, you know, it’s not a do over, but it’s this magical opportunity to be softer to be a little gentler. And I see her doing that and it’s really cool. It’s really magical to see. And she honors me as a mom, which is really nice. And she has, never questions me or my parenting. And so that feels really good, but I think her what, what I [00:14:00] think is really cool is her not saying anything is her saying a lot in a really beautiful way. And I can fully respect Gissele: that. And she might have had, and I don’t really know this. Different feelings about it. Right. So my parents grew up in that old school mentality when you didn’t question your parents. And, you know, I, and I love my parents. My parents are great parents. They’re doing the best I can. I’m doing the best I can with my daughter. And recently had a conversation where I said, you know what? Majority of the time, I don’t know what I’m doing. Kids aren’t born with a manual. So we’re just winging it out here.  And so we are all doing the best we can.really it’s true in, in that forgiveness is so important going back to my parents situation, they grew up in that kind of household where you were like, the parents always write that you don’t questionAnd I know my parents have had problems or issues with their parents and not being able to say, and so that seeing the difference in the generations between their parents [00:15:00] and us growing up and being able to have these conversations, I think it’s very healing. I think it’s very, very healing you Mariah: so healing and just have awareness, you know, that around this. And I think in a healing we do, you know, in this generation, it affects both ends of the spectrum and the children to come and the parents who came before us. I think it totally heals the lineage in this really beautiful way. It’s soft. It’s, it’s compassionate, you know, it’s like every little thing we do has massive impact. If allow it to, you know, Gissele: and I totally agree with what you’re saying. I do believe that any healing that we do not only impacts our past, but our future and our present as well. I do want to go back to what you had shared before in terms of the struggles you were having in parenting your child. Because so often as parents, we You know, one of the reasons [00:16:00] why you might’ve patted yourself on the back is because you felt it was easy and you were doing it well. And then when you weren’t doing it well, or you, or you perceived you weren’t doing it well or didn’t know what was happening. We tend to really judge ourselves. we get so hard on ourselves because we think we have to be perfect and we think we have to be the perfect mother and we have to be always so loving and all of these things. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that we have kind of this programming to compare ourselves? To have to need to be perfect. I Mariah: know. And that, that comparison harm is so real. Especially when we see other moms who are killing it. Doing it so good. And it looks so easy. And who’s Gissele: killing it? I just want to know, like, who’s killing it? Maybe I need to take some notes. You Mariah: know, the mom whose kid’s hair is always brushed and looking good. Like, I need that mom’s magic. Please. That’s fantastic. Oh my gosh. That’s fantastic. Yeah. And you know, it’s like this. [00:17:00] We are so hard on ourselves and it’s so funny, the story that’s coming up to tell you to relate to this is my oldest daughter, bless her soul. She cut my youngest daughter’s hair. And so like this first, like this chunk right at the top of her forehead and she cut it like to the scalp. So this was earlier in the summer. So we’re talking a couple, we’ve got a couple months of growth of like this crazy, like. Bang situation going on and we’ll get it fixed. Now that it’s like an appropriate length, she’s going to get bangs and we’ll fix it, whatever. But like, I look at it every time and I’m just like, Oh man, like it feels like failure. You know what I mean? It’s like simple thing. Like why, especially like, it just, it hurts. Right. I also look at, I’ve started to look at it and be like, this is her season. This is the season of Juliet where she’s got the messy hair. I grew up in a house that like your hair had to be brushed. It had to be out of your face, like, and hair is a big thing for me. Cause my middle [00:18:00] sister, you know, she never took care of her hair and I always told her, I said, if you don’t take care of that hair, I’m going to cut it one day. I’m going to cut it one day. Well, sure enough, one day I cut her hair. She would never go to the hairdressers. And so we would trim her hair at home. I just cut it all off on her. And so I, you know, we bring these stories from childhood to, to our parenting. And so for me to be a perfect parent includes like the nice hair and it never happens. And I always like. Send my kids to school a little defeated, like, and that’s judgy. I’m judging myself. Like, you can’t even get your kid’s hair done. Gissele: Yeah. You know what? It’s so funny. So thank you for sharing the story. Cause it really triggered some stories for me. I was the kid with the messy hair and the sock down. And I was always like, you know, like running around and getting dirty and didn’t care. And my mother would like, that was an important thing for her. Right. And so [00:19:00] the hair seemed to be an issue. And then when I had my daughter, my daughter’s hair would tangle really quickly. And so there would be times when I would be like, I don’t know how to do, cause my hair is curly. So I eventually learned to deal with curly hair, but not straight thin hair. And so it would not in these bunches and I would crowd in Coleman and she would be crying because it hurts so much. And I’m like, I’m trying different things. And I felt like a terrible parent if she went to school with a big knot. And it’s so funny. These are small moments. These are small moments that have such an impact. And to reflect back in one of the things that I actually did do was like, okay, I have to stop having this relationship with this kid’s hair in the same manner. So I researched, I started looking at the detanglers, the detanglers work. Now we just, we layer it in different layers and found it doesn’t tangle. We’d comb it at night, like we, I wanted to change my relationship with what was happening because what I was doing is I was getting really, really frustrated [00:20:00] with not being able to get the knots out. And sometimes I would pull her hair and that’s what she would remember. That’s how our interactions were. And so instead of being those nice moments of combing nice hair and making it nice, it was like, okay, Mariah: let’s And then she feels shame and blame because she doesn’t have perfect hair that’s easy to brush, like, and so she has this, you know, relationship with her hair that’s tension filled, you know, I don’t know, she couldn’t possibly right and that’s what. Yeah, she’s like, they’re totally fine. But like, oh, like, that just doesn’t feel good. You know, like, it’s just hair. Like, it’s part of her. It makes her beautiful. No matter what it looks like. Like, I’m not failing as a parent because my kid didn’t wash her hair. Like, it is what, like, we’re working on it. We’re, we’re, we’re all human. We’re practicing, we’re learning, you know, and it’s, and it’s, I think having compassion too, because like, I, as I pay attention and [00:21:00] I have compassion for myself as a parent and I stopped judging myself, I get to know my kids better and then I can respond better. Okay. Juliet. No, I know. If I say Juliet, you have to take a bath. She doesn’t associate washing her hair with a bath. I have to say, Juliet, we’re going to take a bath and wash your hair tonight. Like, I really clear. I know that because she’s so literal. If I don’t spell it out, she’s going to get furious with me and then I’m going to get frustrated. And then, you know, we blow up over something ridiculous. But as I have compassion for myself and I reflect and I get to know my daughter more and I’m willing to see her truly see her as the little person she is, then I, then it makes parenting easier because I know, I know how to Handle her, you know, I can put the right kind of gloves on to handle my kiddo. And then Claire, she needs a different set of gloves. She needs a different set [00:22:00] of eyes and a different language, you know, to take care of her and her and her anxiety, you know? So with one, I’ve got like anxiety and the other, I’ve got quick to anger, you know, both fine, but both require different things. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And the compassion is so important, right? Because I think what you said was spot on. I realized that I would get frustrated with my children, especially around cleaning and all of those smaller things. When I had nothing left to give, like when I was already spent and full and I thought, Oh my God, now I’m going to have to clean, but they’re like, they’re not doing their chore. No, making myself a victim. I realized that I would just snap at them. And I’m like, okay, so now when I realize I’m getting kind of snippy, I’m like, you know what? No. This is not who I want to be. I need to take time out to regroup and I even had to have a conversation with myself and say, you know [00:23:00] what the chores, do you really want to make this something that everybody dreads doing, including you, or do you want to actually just enjoy yourself even if they don’t want to do it? If. If they need to be done this week, then I will do them and I’ll do it with joy because that’s what I choose. And if not, I just wait and say, okay, your chores. And I keep reminding them. But I had found since I released the tension and the need for it to be perfect and the need for it to happen all the time, I find that they’re more likely, especially my daughter to do it spontaneously. Mariah: Yeah, and when you do ask, and it comes from a place of love, and not that tension, they’re much more likely to respond with love instead of tension, you know, and like, I’ve begun you know, going back to that part where you said, like, when I’m empty and I’m spent, everything’s bigger and harder. You know, I’ve begun pointing out to my girls how I’m different from them, how my [00:24:00] energy and me as a person, I need different things than they need. You know, sometimes I am spent and I literally just need a day on the couch. Like. It’s just who I am. And I’ve come to accept that like every once in a while, more often than I care for. I just need a day of nothing. And my girls aren’t like that at all. And it frustrates them to no end until I explained it to them. And I said, Hey, like, Mom, just, this is how I am like, if I’m going to function and have fun, I just need a day of nothing. And so, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I explained that to them and I sat in bed all day. I’m not going to lie. I sat in bed all along and it was magical. You know why? Because I told them I was honest with them. I’m like, I’m not being lazy. I just need a recharge day. I’m spent. We had such a busy week. We’ve got big travel coming up. And I’m holding space. I’m packing. I just needed it. And they came in. They’d bring little things to me. Hey, mom, will you play a [00:25:00] game like racco with me? I’ll bring the games. Absolutely. Let’s do it. Mom, will you read a chapter of my book to me? Yeah, absolutely. Let’s do it. And so they’d come in and these little pieces acknowledging that mom’s not going to get out of bed or do any wild, crazy things today, but she’s still here. This is what she needs. How can I Support not like they don’t know they’re supporting me, but they’re like, okay, I see mom needs this, but I also need something. How can we kind of merge the two? And there’s still little, so they’re not articulating that, but it was really beautiful. And I was like, I can be the mom they need and be the human. I need to, you know, it’s just beautiful melding, but had I had guilt or shame and no compassion around what I needed. They would have thrown a fit, get out of bed, get to do something. We never do anything. We did a lot this week. Let’s look at all the things we did that exhausted mom. And she just needs a little recharge today. Yeah. I [00:26:00] see you, mom. All right, cool. So compassion goes so far in parenting. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing this. Cause I think this is really important. Number one is you determine what you needed in the moment and what you needed in the moment was to spend time by yourself doing whatever you felt was appropriate. And so many of us judge ourselves for spending time. On the bed, on the couch, just not doing anything. There’s so many expectations, but rest is just as important as action. It’s just as important. And we don’t acknowledge that enough. Like, look at the culture we have burnout, the grind, the doing things like push through, push through, push through is the worst thing you could do, because that’s what leads to burnout. And so I want to applaud you for actually saying, I need this and this is okay. And that’s what you’re demonstrating to your girls. It’s okay for me to put my own oxygen mask on first, [00:27:00] I’m still going to be here for you, but I don’t have to not choose myself to do that. Yeah. And I think that is super, super powerful. Mariah: You articulated that so well. And being on the other side is someone who has chosen to put my oxygen mask on first and experience the positive effects of that. Like, I know that makes me a better person. I know it makes me more of myself and a better wife and a better mom and better like to show up with my clients. Right? Like, It’s worth it. It is so worth it to just take that moment and assess what do I need? You know, even if it seems selfish, it never is. Right. Or what’s culturally appropriate. Like it’s not appropriate to spend a Saturday in bed. No, you know, Gissele: determine that who, who decided that wasn’t you name names. Obviously they were not, Mariah: they were, they were not me because [00:28:00] like that. is so healing to me and fills my cup that I can do, you know, the, all the things the following week. And it’s so simple. And like, I’m can have those moments with my daughter, right. Where I can apologize. And I can say, Hey, that Wasn’t cool because I can see and I can reflect because I’m full. My cup is full and they’re just not as big and the triggers are much smaller. And I can, I can see the triggers for what they are as triggers and I can respond to them and then go back to them at a later date and be like that. Why is that? But why is that, you know, turning me inside out backwards because there’s, there’s information there to be had. What can I learn more about myself so that I can adjust, I can have compassion so that I can again, get to know myself better so that I can take care of myself and myself better. Gissele: Absolutely. Completely agreed. I did [00:29:00] want to go back to something you had said around your kids. If, if, you know, if you hadn’t been compassionate to yourself, they would have had a different reaction. I do believe that kids are a mirror of us. And everything that is happening. And so I do agree that if you are not feeling overly compassionate, for some reason, like they will pick it up and they will reflect back to you what you’re really feeling. And I think that’s why sometimes we as parents have such a, may have a challenging relationship with our kids, especially if they mirror back to something we don’t want to see or admit. How do you manage those moments? Like where they, but they’re now compared to obviously what you used to when your kids reflect something and you’re like, ah, man, come on. This one Mariah: hits like, oh, close to home because I’m working on something right now that the girls mirror back to me. And I just recently realized that they mirror back to me. And I had this [00:30:00] moment of like, oh, Oh my God, they do that because I do it. So the girls do this thing where if they meet any resistance, where if I pause at all to give them an answer, you know, or whatever they go, forget it, I don’t, I don’t need help. I don’t forget it. They get really frustrated. Like this big explosive reaction and I literally go, I just, I just need a moment to figure this out. Like I’m, I’m on your team, like let’s make it happen. Right. They don’t, they don’t see it that way. Right. And then there was this moment where I was in this situation with the girls where I had asked them to do something and they didn’t respond in the way I had hoped. And I said, forget it. I’ll just do it myself. And I literally was like, Oh, Oh, Oh my. It like took my breath away and I was like, I was shocked and so I’m still [00:31:00] working on it, right? Because this is something I just realized. And so, you know, it’s really cool because I go, yes, I get to figure this out and fix it or change it or, you know, shift my reaction so that this doesn’t have to be this way. But it’s also like a, Oh, this is my fault. Yeah. Not that it’s my fault, but it’s also like, yeah. Okay, great. This is really exciting because we can shift this, reaction that we both that we all have. This is like a household thing that we, that we’re working on here, guys. Like, okay. So, you know, now it’s going to be like paying attention to my response is going to, you know, I still haven’t had the conversation with my husband because I haven’t. I don’t know if he does it yet. So, so it’s gonna require me to be like, Hey, Kev, I do this or you know what I mean? So I just, I’m gathering, I’m in the gathering phase of like, okay, what information do I need to have around the situation? Cause it’s wildly frustrating when the girls don’t give me a [00:32:00] moment to breathe, to give them a solution or to help them or support them and end up ripping things up or throwing things. You know, they’ve got so much emotion and they don’t know where to put it, that it just like explodes. Right. So, I’m in the gathering phase where I’m going to gather the information and I’m going to look at it and then I’m going to change my behavior. I’m going to change my response, you know, but that might take a little bit of the day. Why do I do this? You know, where does this stem from? Do I need more support? I don’t have the answer. I don’t have the answers. I don’t have a guidebook. I got nothing. Gissele: Yeah. And that’s exactly how we feel as well. Like, and that was the conversation I had recently with my daughter, right? Like kids aren’t born with a guide. We don’t know what we’re doing. We’re winging it over here. We’re like, okay. And some days we feel we got it. And other days we’re like, Oh man, I did not go well. My husband and I would look at each other and go, Oh man. Because sometimes kids come with challenges. That you might not have experienced right or you may have no and you’re [00:33:00] like, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this like, and so in in parenting in today’s world seems really different than. Then before, right, if there seemed to be more community, there seemed to be more, regardless of how we felt about that community and you know, like the aunties and uncles and all of those things. It just feels like we’re much more isolated and alone nowadays in today’s society that we don’t have that kind of connection anymore of like. You know, like the grandparents and aunts and uncles and coming that huge like circle of love of people coming together where you could just like, okay, I need a moment. Here you go. Right. And so it just feels a lot more more difficult, I would say. And Mariah: it takes more energy to get those alone moments because we don’t have that community. So it’s harder. There’s like another layer of muck. We got to wade through because it requires a babysitter X, Y, and Z and a phone call and half hour drive or, [00:34:00] you know, some people might even be a plane ride. So I applaud moms and dads who take that challenge because it is a challenge to get what you need, like, and it requires bravery and vulnerability to be like, I need help or I need something that I don’t have. And to really look at yourself and be like, what do I need? You know, this gathering phase, where I’m looking at all the things, it’s uncomfortable, like this shifting and parenting with compassion. It’s uncomfortable because you have to look at what’s not working and what you’re doing that, you know, detrimental to your relationships. And man, it, it hurts to not be right all the time. It hurts to, you know, not be perfect, you know, until you acknowledge, until you reach a stage where you’re like, Okay, with that and you lean into that and you love that and you revel in that and you’re like, [00:35:00] but that takes a while to get there through that. You know, I’m essentially 6 years into this journey of. Transformation because that’s what it is, you know, as I transform and I look at myself like I am a new person 100 million times over compared to that little girl who gave birth eight years ago. Like, I, there is nothing other than the fact that I was practically a little girl compared to the woman I am today. And it takes so much, Love, compassion, and bravery to make those shifts in that transition. But I can tell you it is so worth it. It is so worth it to seek help and support. And I think, yeah, we don’t have a parenting guide and our kids don’t have a, have a book that they’re like, Hey, this is all the secret sauce you’re going to need for your kid. Yeah. But there are women out there who are in their wise woman stage and they have great [00:36:00] advice and they’ve been there and they’ve done that and they’re willing to be guides, you know, and to tap into that wisdom. To find those nuggets. You know, recently I heard someone say, it’s like following the breadcrumbs, right? Like you follow these resources and you take what feels really good and you leave the rest. You may love some of the stuff that I say. And you, you may hear me say something. You’re like, Oh, she’s a, she’s a quack. I don’t know. That’s fine. Take what feels really good and run with it. You know, if I say a word that you’re like, oh, I need more information, but research it, follow the rabbit hole. You’re going to find a wise woman at the end of that, who’s, who’s you’re going to connect with. I may not be your person and you may not be that person, but like there, there’s a person for you who can be your guide if you’re willing to listen. And I swear, and that person can change over time. You know, I’ve had like probably two really transformational [00:37:00] women in my, like in the last six years that like, whoa. You’ve, you’ve, you’ve done it. You’ve been there. I need, I, I’m going to listen, you know and I, I’ve, I’ve actually outgrown both of them and here I am, and I’m kind of standing on my own and I’m like, Oh, this is pretty amazing. Right. And there’s still more to learn and I know that and I’m, you know, hungry for the next lesson, because I know how magnificent life is. When you like do the work and you’re willing to look and be compassionate. And it’s so like, I, I see these posts online of these women who just like stuck and these, I’m reading a book right now and they call it like, I’m, you’re stuck with a frog, you’re frog farming. You know, you’ve got this man who, you know, once was Prince Charming, now he’s a frog. And like, if you’re willing to look at yourself and to see what’s changed and what’s shifted, man. Little [00:38:00] tweaks can make such a big difference. But the spark of that is compassion and love. Like you’ve got to have a little spark to, you know, start you down that rabbit hole to find the wise woman to support you so that you can become that wise woman. You know, sorry Gissele: for the tangent. Oh, no, this is great. You know, one of the things I was thinking about is the fact that you’ve outgrown these women is a sign that they’re good teachers. Cause a good teacher builds other teachers, right? Like builds other masters. So I think that’s really pivotal. I think the other thing that you said that really struck me that I think it’s really important to point out is, how probably this work about becoming vulnerable, about really facing all those uncomfortable emotions doesn’t feel good in so often we’ve been taught to run away from those bad feelings, but our success. It’s really through those emotions. And how as [00:39:00] difficult as they are in the beginning, I love the fact that you now enjoy them like a little bit. Just the fact that you’re like, okay, that was uncomfortable that my kids showed me that it’s me, you know, like Taylor Swift, it’s me. I’m the problem. It’s me. But at the same time, you’re like, okay, I get to deal with this now. It doesn’t have to be our forever. And I think there is a shift. So that’s great. Hope for people to understand that it’s not always going to feel that same level of discomfort in the beginning. It sucks. But then as you go through, you do get to the point where you’re like, ah, okay, I get to deal with this now. And now we get to have a different outcome. So I think that what you said was really, really powerful and important because often we’re taught. Move away from the negative feelings, move away from that uncomfortable, move away instead of leaning in, right? Yeah, and Mariah: like protect. Protect, yeah. I [00:40:00] have a story that came to mind, would you mind if I shared it? Yeah, of course, please do. And I want people to really know that these moments can be Tiny moments, but they tell us so much. I don’t I recently had one of these moments where I was laying on the couch and my mom’s, she likes to cook Sunday dinner, which is magnificent. Cause I don’t enjoy cooking. So we’re laying on the couch and Claire came up to me, this was several months ago, and she’s just like snuggling with me on the couch at my mom’s and I’m, and I’ll tell you, Oh my gosh, did it make my skin crawl, you know, like, Oh, And I was like, I just wanted to shove her off. I just wanted to yell at her and be like, get off me. Like you’re eight years old, seven years old. You don’t need to snuggle with me on the couch. Right. And I took a big breath in and I was like, you don’t need to shove your daughter off the couch. It’s okay. If you are uncomfortable in this moment, like this is information, like [00:41:00] tuck it away. You, this is bigger than you. And I knew this was a moment I needed support with. And I have a woman I see every month who like a therapist. And I like talk through this, this stuff with her. So I pinned this moment and I said to her, I want to be able to snuggle with my daughter and not want to push her to the other side of the room. This made me so uncomfortable. Like, Right. And I could have pushed her off me. I could have done all these things to protect myself and make myself more comfortable. Right. Cause she triggered me. And I could have lashed out, but I like, you know, get a little twitchy and you, okay, this is information. All this is, is information. This is uncomfortable in this moment. And this is a fairly simple trigger to talk you through. Right. And so I pinned it and I. Go to Debra. Her name is Debra and Debra breaks me down and she holds space and I cry and go through all the things. And she asked me all the hard questions and I [00:42:00] really have to look at myself. Right. And I, I will tell you, I’ve been seeing Debra for every month for three years, every month. And I am a, my life is fantastic. I will, I will, I brag that my life is really magnificent. And I still see her every month. Like. I want life to be better. It can be better. Right. And I say this to brag from a place of like reverence, like you deserve more. You, you are deserved to be bigger than your triggers. And so I sat with the uncomfortableness. She helped the space for me. I really looked at why I was uncomfortable with this and my oldest daughter snuggling with me in public and all the things, right. And I looked at it and I will tell you, I love when she snuggles with me now, I got over that. I acknowledged it. And I just spent a week and Disney with both of my girls [00:43:00] glued to me, hand holding lots of hugs. And I was totally okay with it. And I reveled in it. And I said, this is what my girls need. They’re sensitive. They’re touchy feely. They’re nothing like I was when I was a child. And it no longer triggers me had I not looked at that and done the work and and gone to my person. Right? I really believe everybody needs a person that therapist, whether it’s traditional or non traditional to, like, talk these things out to whatever the, the modality is. Right? And. It was so magical. Cause I literally looked and I was like, I have the capacity to hold both my daughter’s hands all day for seven days. And like, I don’t feel overwhelmed. I don’t feel itchy and gross in my own skin. This feels really good because it wasn’t about my girls. It was about me, you know, Gissele: and this story, it’s so powerful. It just so powerful [00:44:00] It comes from a place of non judgment, which is the foundation of his compassion, right? So rather than you could have, you know, shoved your kid to make yourself more comfortable, you didn’t. So, but rather than, but you could have also been judging yourself even while your child was there. Had you not chosen to just put a pin in it to observe later, I think it would have been actually being with her in that moment harder. But the fact that you chose, okay, I’m going to put in this, I’m going to look at it from a place of non judgment and able to lean into those discomfort, this uncomfortable conversations. Because we all as human beings have varying different levels of discomfort about different things. Sometimes, you know, like. My parents are going through a caregiving situation where my mom is caregiving for my dad. Sometimes that’s really hard. Sometimes it’s hard for her to not to, to deal with those negative feelings [00:45:00] of having to care for someone and feel overwhelmed and feel burnt out, right? You feel guilty because of your partner, but at the same time, you’re like, Oh, I just, I’m stuck with, you know, caregiving. And so caregiving can be really challenging and to be in those moments and be able to look at those experiences without judgment and to say, okay, what’s the gift in this moment? I may not be able to see it now. Like you said, I’m going to go to my person and help me dig for gold or just look, look at that gift and then be able to then get to the other side so that now you are holding hands and really enjoying it. Not just forcing yourself because of the girls. Or not judging yourself because, but actually truly reveling in being able to hold hands with your beautiful children. So I think that, and that takes so much courage. What role has courage played in your life? Mariah: Lord courage. Huge. I feel like every, you know, there’s this conversation brewing with my husband that I need, I need to look at [00:46:00] something. I realized something, right. I’m always learning. That’s part of who I am deepening my relationships. And I’m reading this book, this magnificent book. And I, and, you know, me, I’m kind of, I kind of, Open this book being like, I’m not going to get anything out of it, but it was recommended and I’m going to read it and it’ll be great to help my clients and have some more language. And dude, if you ever have those thoughts, like, darn it. If there’s not something massive for you to learn in that book, or that experience. Right? And so there’s something I, I realize, and I, I need to approach him with this conversation that I need to have literally not today. I need to build a little courage. I need to like, look back on my belief bank. Right. I need to look back on all those times that I was vulnerable and I was honest and the outcome was magnificent. I need to just. Remember those things and we may not always have that belief bank to lead on to lead on lean on, [00:47:00] but there’s always a moment. I, I truly believe if we look hard enough, we can find places of positive reinforcement that just reminds us, even if they were so small that this situation or this person, you know. Will have a positive outcome that I can believe wholly that this situation will be resolved, that I will be seen, that I will be supported, you know, and I, that’s one of the first things I always recommend my clients do is like write your belief bank, where have things been so desperate and dark and they turned out okay. Hey, you’re still alive. So I think they turned out. Okay. Right. You’re still here. So there’s at least something. And so right now I’m going to spend the next day and a half really leaning on my belief bank that he will see me and he will respond from a place of love. I’m not worried about him. [00:48:00] I know he’ll, he’s going to respond really beautifully, but it’s vulnerable for me. Cause I need to admit that I’ve done something that’s not, That I can improve on that. It hasn’t been from a place of love. Not that I’ve done it purposefully, but it’s like this, this habit that society allows us to do and see as fine as like emasculating men in this way. And like, and I realized this and I realized that part of, you know, something we’re working on together for him is my fault. And I play a big part in that. And so owning that’s scary as heck. So I’m going to spend the next day building up my courage, you know, building from that belief bank so that I can have this inner strength to kind of lay myself bare and say, I messed up. Let’s like, help me, you know, fix this so that we can have even a more magical, deeper, [00:49:00] loving relationship. So I, you know, I. Been at this for 16 years and I’m still like, Ooh, there’s stuff, stuff to fix, you know, at 11 years in this marriage. And we were wildly in love and we’re in a magnificent place. And I’m still like, Ooh, I need a little courage to be vulnerable. And, that’s okay. Like I don’t, if it’s ever easy, I’m doing something wrong. I think not that it needs to be hard, but if you’re not needing to be a little courageous and a little brave, like. Hmm. Are you doing the right thing? Like, I’m not going to lie. I was a little nervous for our conversation today because I knew, I knew you were going to ask great questions. I knew that I was going to have to be vulnerable. And so I was like, you’re just going to take a deep breath. You know, she comes from a place of love and that this is going to help so many other parents, like, like let’s do it, like, let’s do it. And so it’s. It’s just like finding that strength, building it up and knowing that the other side [00:50:00] is magical. If you’re willing. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you. I just want to point out two really important things that I feel you said from my perspective are really resonated with me. Number one is the power of pause. So often we rush to have conversations or to address issues or to just react whereas pausing and really, like you said, tapping into your belief bank or putting a pin in it in the moment really does enable us to really reflect. And then respond. The second thing that I thought was really, really powerful and important is, focusing our energy and attention on the outcome that we want, rather than what we are afraid of. And so often we focus on the things we’re afraid of, which Like contributes to us feeling even more vulnerable when really we can use that same energy and attention [00:51:00] and place it on the outcome that we want to experience. And this kind of comes from, you know, you know, I know that you are a very spiritual person and I’m a long term student of Neville Goddard. And he talks about, you know, how your beliefs impact your reality and everything is perception really. And, you know, you can have the outcome you desire if you put your energy and attention on that, instead of focusing like we always do in society of all the things we’re afraid of, all the things that are negative on all the things we want to fight. And so what I got out of your belief bank really was, okay, so can I then focus on the outcome that I desire, believe that it will happen Put my energy on that and then be open to whatever feelings come up because it’s the resistance that makes us suffer, right? The resistance to feel the feelings we have and so thus enabling us to move forward. So I think you made some really important points about [00:52:00] courage. Are there Are there any areas in your life where you have found that letting go and releasing the resistance has really led to really being able to, live a more fulfilling life sort of the, the letting go allowed you to receive? Mariah: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. I guess I’m just going to be really vulnerable today and like, thank you. Yeah, so. I, yeah, so when we hold on so tightly to things that aren’t, especially that aren’t working right. We desperately want them to work. Oh, gosh, like, if I just do this 1 thing a little differently and I push a little harder, it will work. And that’s not the case. [00:53:00] So, I’m in a massive place in my life right now in a transition of my career. And this is so magnificent, but let me tell you two, three months ago, I did not think it was magnificent at all. Right. I worked for a company. It was magnificent. I had amazing coworkers. And I, I grew so. Much like this pushed my at this job, push my edges so far and like really transformed me quite magical. It took like my teaching skills and applied them to business to like really powerful women. Like, it was amazing. It was like my dream job. And I lost it in April, and there was so much fear around not having an income of not being worthy of my family because I wasn’t producing income, right? That’s not true. I have a lot of worth in my family besides just the money I bring in, right? And so I [00:54:00] created some programs out of fear, out of pure desperation. At the time, I didn’t realize that. And To be quite honest, I don’t enjoy them. They were created out of fear, out of desperation, out of I’m not worthy to just be in my family. My husband makes Enough money that we can, we can live comfortably. I don’t need to, I didn’t need to stress. Yeah. Maybe things a little tight. We just need to look at a little like, sure, of course, but not this desperate. I need to go make money right this second. Right. And it’s, it hasn’t been easy. It’s been an uphill battle. June, July, August, September, October, it’s been five months and it’s been not enjoyable. It’s been incredibly draining. And it’s not working. Yes, my clients are getting something out of it in their joint. But it’s not working for me. And I’ve been holding on to this fact that I [00:55:00] need to have income in order to be valuable in my family. And just in the last, like, three weeks, I’ve opened up to the idea that I can be valuable in my family and to my husband without an income. And to take a moment to step back and say, this isn’t working. It’s stressing me out. It’s putting tension in my relationship and relationship with the girls that it’s draining me. So I’m, I’m quicker to that trigger, right? Just like I was at Disney, what I shared with you guys that I told my daughter is not appropriate for an eight year old to cry. Hell, if it’s not appropriate for an eight year old to cry, do you know how much I cry? Like, oh my, talk about being a hypocrite Gissele: in that moment. Mariah: Shoot, those tears, a lot of them, right? Yeah. Gissele: And so prior Mariah: here. Yeah. Yeah, totally a crier. And so I, you know, I am in this moment. I, I, this is the last [00:56:00] month closing it down. It’s gonna be, it’s like closing of ceremony is gonna be beautiful, and I’m truly leaning into just receiving for my husband. That is my goal. Like, can I show up for myself? Can I show up for him? Can I show up for my girls in this really beautiful, feminine way? I want to lead my family. I want to be the feminine leader in my family. What does that look like? What does that feel like? Who am I, you know, what are all the ways in which I’m valuable? You know, this is really scary. No, not something that I’ve ever leaned into. You know, I always thought I needed to produce income to be valuable in my family where that comes from. I’m not sure do I don’t need to know, but I do know that leaning in to just fully receiving for my husband and allowing him to support our family without stress, [00:57:00] trusting and opening up to that. And receiving him loving me in that way. Whoa, I’m sweating just thinking about it like that’s big, right? Huge. And not every family has this ability. Right. I get that. But this is my journey. This is the reality I’ve created. And so, I’m nervous. I’m excited. And I’m really pumped about what February and April are going to look like because I cannot imagine our life in one year from now because a year ago, man, I, I didn’t realize how stressed I was. I didn’t see all the things that, yeah, this job was perfect, but it was a massive stress, massive stress. I didn’t sleep well. I had migraines, right? So knowing that as I lean into opening this receiving container, what does this look like to receive in this way? Like what invitations are going to come my [00:58:00] way? What beautiful work is going to come out of this because I’ve taken a breath. I’ve looked at. Who I really am and who I really want to serve and how do I want to serve in this life. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. If I can, I’m trying to remember that I, I don’t just have to get through this rest period. I have to actually enjoy it first for it to Work.. Yes. I’m trying to like parameters around it. Like you’re only allowed to rest for a month or you’re only allowed to rest for three months. Like, no, that defeats the purpose Mariah. You need to. Open up and rest and receive all the bounty, you know, and then, and then the invitation and the opening will then come in spades. Wow. Congrats. Congrats. Cause what Gissele: you’re stepping into is the unknown, right? And so often, you know, so often we are so afraid to trust, like we didn’t grow up in us in situations where. We may [00:59:00] not always have trusted maybe our parents or people in our lives. And when we were taught that we always had to have that security. And so to go into the unknown it requires courage. I’ve been in your shoes. I left a workplace that I was unhappy in, with very clearly guided to do something else like clearly guided and everything kind of. You know, move forward in order for me to be in that spot. And then Bob gets like nothing crickets. And I had to go through this journey of. Number one, like you said, am I still worthy and lovable, even if I don’t achieve anything in the world? Like, even if I don’t, cause at the time I had lofty dreams, I’ve got to change child welfare. I was going to bring compassion to the world. I don’t know all these things I do. And then I had to take a hard look at myself and say, can I still love myself? Even if I don’t accomplish anything, [01:00:00] even if I don’t fix the world or help anyone or do anything, can I still look at myself? With admiration and with appreciation. The second thing I had to learn was everything has its time, right? Like everything kind of has its, its season. And how can I shift this moments? Cause I was like you, I’d work, I started working. I was 13 and I always had money and I was always working in here. I was like, Not having any income, not having any money at multiple degrees at all these things. And I was being guided to do this work and I’m like, I don’t know how this is going to turn out. I have no clue. And for me, knowing what’s important, like control, like I need to control all these things. I need to know always working. Like what’s my next step. What’s like five steps here and to surrender in that capacity to just go, okay. It has been for me also. It has been [01:01:00] definitely. I don’t want to call it challenging, but it’s been dynamic. I like to use the word dynamic, because it feels so unnatural to us, even though it’s the most natural thing. There’s been so many times in my life where the universe, God’s source has given me so many amazing things. But then I forget I going back into my fear mode, I go, well, I need to know where the next thing is going to be. And it’s like, what the heck? So So yeah, so I can, I can totally understand that perspective of we need, we need almost to prove our value, that there’s a reason why we’re alive, that we have to kind of earn our worth. It can feel so challenging, and that’s probably been the best gift I’ve given myself, which is like, Okay, I don’t need to prove my get my worth to anyone, including myself. So that has helped me a lot in [01:02:00] terms of being able to let go and I’m still, I’m right at the precipice of getting where I really want to know where, which is. Savoring. Yeah. Each and every single little moment savoring. What has been your relationship with that savoring Mariah: You know? So I’m going to share something that’s probably going to make listeners a little uncomfortable. That’s okay. I’m used to uncomfortable in a really wonderful way. So recently I went to an event, it was called desire on fire. And it was, it’s all about living your life of pleasure, like, like truly savoring, like being turned on about life. You know, and it, and this event was only like, 2 weeks ago and I’ve been, I’ve, I’ve been really in this, this place of tension because my life is. Really wonderful in an [01:03:00] unbelievable ways, except this one little thing work isn’t quite right. Right. And I have this like, I can’t, I’ve had this, tension around like, well, I really can’t complain because the rest of my life is so wonderful that this one little thing that’s not working. I have no right to. To want more. Right. Okay. That’s kind of like the background, right? So I go to desire on fire event. And these two women who have been practicing, savoring and leaning into this pleasure for many years, right? One of the sessions, She got up and she, and the session was all about bragging because as women, we don’t brag. Right. We’re taught to like, get really small, you know, like, it’s not polite to share your wins, like all, all [01:04:00] the junk that comes up with that. Right. She got up on stage and she bragged. And when you brag from a place of reverence for yourself and a place of love and like true self love, like when you brag from that place, it’s a game changer. And I will tell you, she got up there on the stage and she started bragging. Right. And she’s bragging about a lot of things that I could also brag about. Right. And she’s gone on about like, I don’t know, a few minutes and I’m like, okay, it would be polite for her to do one more brag. Like, this is me judging her. Right. And I’m like, I noticed, I’m like, what the, what is that? Like, she can get up there as long as she wants to brag. Like, that’s the point of this. Calm down. Like, I’m like swatting that bitch off my shoulder. Like, Gissele: shut up. This is not your turn, Nancy. Let’s go. Mariah: That’s not the sister I want to be. So I listened to her and she gave me [01:05:00] permission. Like watching her tears running down her face, bragging about her husband and her son and everything she’s overcome. Right. And I realized, like, Damn, I’ve come so far. Like I have so much to brag about in my life and I swear, listening to her brag. It may sound ridiculous. It flipped the switch in my brain that I was like, this is a good thing. Bragging is a good thing. And there’s something about like bragging and acknowledging the wonder in your life that allows you to savor it. Right. And so really silly yesterday that I realized I had begun savoring life in a different way. I took my girls into staples. My daughter was demanding art projects and I needed paper and whatever. So we go in and we’re walking in and I’m holding both my girl’s hands because now I’m not afraid of touch and I don’t mind it. Right. [01:06:00] And this woman is yelling from behind me, ma’am. And I’m like, and I turn around and there’s this woman running towards me with a green piece of paper. And in my head, I’m like, I didn’t drop anything. I know I don’t have any green paper in my car. And there was like, I’m like, what does she want? And she’s like, I have this coupon for 10 off. Like, do you want it? And I was like, I was like, this is one of those moments where I can like truly savor like the synchronicities and the thoughtfulness of the Gissele: abundance that is Mariah: in the abundance that’s all around. Like, it may seem so simple, but this was like a moment of like, Life is amazing. And I’m yes. Thank you so much. This is so kind of you. Like, Oh my God. Thank you. The light on this woman’s face. When I responded with like that love and that savoring, I lit it lit her up. Like she lit me up and then, and she lit up too. And I was like, this. I need more of this in [01:07:00] my life. Like this was such a simple exchange, but like did so much for the both of us. I’m like, I savored it. I like breathed it in and I was like, yes. And then I was excited about it. And I was like, girls, we’ve got 10. Like we should buy something special. And the girls got to pick out like, you know, 12 for the little things that like little art palettes that they’re so tickled about that they can print, they can paint and then display. Like, oh my gosh, so much abundance came from that. One moment. It costs that stranger nothing, you know, to give me a piece of paper. So I feel like I’ve truly leaned into what savoring life means in a different way since then, like, and everybody’s going to have their moments of like, that were that light switch flips. And of course, I’m going to have moments where I’m not grateful. And I’m like, yeah. Yeah. Come back. You know, that’s life. Like life is not always going to be perfect. Like I’ve got that big conversation coming up with my husband that I need to be vulnerable about. But I [01:08:00] can savor that to like the juiciness of that intimacy and that connection. Like, Oh, there is so much. So I would love it. You know, like if you start bragging, like, and you just start, I brag. And when you do it from a place of like reverence and love for yourself, right. And then all you can do to respond to someone who’s bragging is well bragged. So simple. Well bragged. Right. Like so simple. But like, it’s just like this acknowledgement of you acknowledging the magic in your life that is so potent. And Gissele: I think you raised an important issue, at least for me in terms of when I was listening to you. So often we don’t brag because we’ve been taught that is. Not appropriate, not compact, not kind to be bragging, especially if somebody is like, you know, you don’t tell a starving person that you have you, you had cake. Right. And so, but so often we defer [01:09:00] our happiness or our celebration to spare other people’s feelings. But really, there is. A place to celebrate, right? Like there are people that you can celebrate with, you know, that they’re going to be like, well, and then when they brag, you’re going to be like, well, right? Like you’re both going to be your cheerleader squad. Whereas I think. I don’t know. I think what I was kind of leaning into my discomfort when you were sharing that is more around, I do well bragging with people I feel safe with to well brag, and then they feel safe for us to go, girl. And then there’s other people that I know, like, I’m more cautious in terms of I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or make you think that. Right. So I’m just gonna, you know, I’m not going to talk that much about it. Like, but, but I don’t know if I’m, what I’m leaning in with or into is like, am I then [01:10:00] minimizing myself in that moment so that you will not have a hurt feelings. I guess that’s what I have to sit Mariah: with. Yeah. And I love that because right when you brag from a place of self reverence and love, people can feel that there’s a difference. When I go, I got four candy bars and you only got two, like, like that’s different. Like that bragging is like loser fish. Yeah. And like when it’s bragging done, you know, and it’s sort of side and we’re putting down other women, that’s different. That feels yucky. Everybody feels that that is, that’s not safe. That’s not good. Right. That’s not bragging. No. Yeah. That source that, that, that is you killing other women, like energetically emotionally like that. That’s a no go. But when it’s done from a place of love and I did it for the first time. Yesterday with a woman at my gym who we’re not super intimate about, however, there’s like this [01:11:00] camaraderie. I see her all the time. So she’s like, I would, I would call a semi safe space and I recognize the fact that I’m not closer to bar women is because I’m not honest and I’m not truthful and I’m not intimate. I hold back a lot. And so therefore they hold back. And then, so then we, I lose this place of connection and compassion. Right. And so I said, I said it for the first time. I said, I’m going to brag and I gave her a little brag and she was like, that’s amazing. And then she’s like, Oh my God, like, and she had something to share with me that responded. And so in that moment I created connection and like compassion and intimacy in this really simple moment with the with a brag, and I started with, I’m going to do a little brag. And I gave her my brag, but it was a place, you know, like I had my hands on my heart and it was a place of reverence that I was sharing with her and she saw that and reflected it back to me. So I think, you know, reading the room, trusting yourself and knowing like, am I, [01:12:00] am I ready to step into this or do I? Is today I’m a little tired and a little quiet and I need to make myself a little, a little small, you know, is this the right moment? And I think using that intuition, you know, we use our intuition so much when we’re parenting and going out in the world, like trust that. Oh my gosh, you know, oh my gosh, that is like the mom intuition. There’s one thing I can tell women to trust it is that. Gissele: Yeah. Oh yeah. For sure. I could tell you stories about the mom intuition. But I just wanted to acknowledge, like that, what you said, like, I felt like it really resonated with me and also the story about women. So historically, I was not taught to have women friends. I had a really close best friend growing up just. Kind of one person. And then my sister and I are close, She’s my ride or die. But historically with other women, I always, always guarded. I was always, I wasn’t sure, I wasn’t sure [01:13:00] how to show up and I always thought it was them. Right? Like, Oh, they’re just clickie or whatever. And then when I realized again, another Taylor Swift, it’s me, I’m the problem. It’s me. I realized, Oh crap, it’s me. I’m so afraid. Of being rejected that I’m not even allowing them to come in or to even see. And when I changed my energy and open myself up, people just started, like I have, like I do a book club now, like I have so many beautiful women in my life. Some of them just like, you know, I see once in a while, But I have so many beautiful women that I have met through this experience. And I’m like, Holy crap. Had I just been less afraid and less protected and seeming as if it was them that, Oh, you know what? They’re just not my type or they’re just not my style or they’re just this or that or the other. Once I was ready to be vulnerable [01:14:00] and realize it’s my energy, that’s putting people, right. Yeah. And then once I was able to say, no, I’m going to come with an open heart and just love and just be. And it’s okay, because I belong to myself, so nobody can tell me I don’t belong. So when I changed that about myself, I had so many people that were just like, Hey, anyone do this? You want to do that? And it’s like, Wow. I could have done this Mariah: earlier. I wish I had known, had I known, you know, like I known this eight years ago, my oldest was born, man, my parenting experience would have been wildly different if I had that, that sisterhood around me and that community, because if I was willing to be vulnerable and honest about them. You know who I, who I am right and had compassion for all the weirdness that I was, you know that I was trying to squelch down, right. Who would be wildly different. My life would also be [01:15:00] different and I wouldn’t have had the lessons I have and you know so I’m, I’m grateful for that but you know I think about like, I have one relationship where I like look back on and I’m like, Oh man, I wasn’t honest or truthful I was invulnerable, I wasn’t. I didn’t love myself enough to open up. And then I lost that friendship, you know, I’m like, am I brave enough? Do I have the courage to go back to that woman and be like, and own it and look at it? I don’t know. I don’t have the answers for that. I don’t need to know right now. Yeah. We don’t need to know everything at this moment. No, for sure. So I think just having compassion comes, it all comes back to compassion, you know, like. Yeah. I have some softness for myself. I don’t need to have that hard masculine edge that push that go, I’m a feminine being like I can open up to be soft and receive and revel in the [01:16:00] creativity and the compassion and the love, you know, like I am a being of love. It’s what we are as women with a feminine essence. And so, oh, life is just so much richer and safe, like worthy of being savored when you come out from a place of love and compassion. And you’ll have, we’ll have these moments of like light switches. Like I had a light switch moment yesterday in the parking lot of staples. Gissele: Not what you think you do. You think it’s going to be meditating in your chair and then you’re like staples. What’s going on? I know, Mariah: and I was like telling my husband about it, and he’s like, that, that’s amazing. You know, like he knew even though it was insignificant, but it was significant. It was. It’s always significant. Oh, yeah. And I was like, this is going to sound really silly, but the best part of my day happened in Staples. Gissele: Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. So we’re getting kind of to the end. I have two more questions. The first one [01:17:00] is, I’m asking this of all my guests in this season, and that is what’s your definition of unconditional love? Oh, Mariah: I love this, but I also hate this. Gissele: There’s no right or wrong answers, Mariah: whatever flows. Yeah, so my definition of unconditional love, the word unconditional love makes me bristle a little bit because they’re, you know, that implies that there’s conditional love. And there is no conditional love. I’m, oh, there is none. Like all love is unconditional. So we don’t need that. Right. So I prefer to say limitless love because love to me has no bounds. Right. I’ve been married to my husband for 11 with him for like 15. And like, our love is only deeper. It only gets better. And so I think unconditional love or limitless love is just the ability. To know more, to learn more, to see [01:18:00] more of truth. Right. Love is truth. And when you’re willing to look at all the truths, both the pretty and the ugly, right, you deepen and widen that love and it becomes more luscious. You know, it comes from like this, you know, desert, like sandy love to like rich chocolate, creamy with cherry sauce and like thick frosting and just like yumminess. Right. Right. So it has no bounds when you’re willing to see Gissele: truth, powerful, very love that, love that. The other question, which is our final question is where can people find you? I know that you said you’re going through a shift in your business. However, I do feel that once you let go and relax, things that you’re supposed to do will naturally come to you. So where can people reach out to chat with you, [01:19:00] even if they have a question or they just want to, to find out more about what your journey, what it brings next, where can people reach out to Mariah: you? Bye. So you can find me on Instagram, and my handle is my name, Mariah G. Kimball. So I’m on Instagram a lot. You’ll see all sorts of, you know, cheeky things and fun things. And I also have a website, which isn’t going anywhere. But I’m sure it’s gonna, I know it’s gonna shift. And you can find me at MariahsCrystalLibrary. com. And those are the two main places. Gissele: Beautiful. Thank you so much, Mariah, for this amazing conversation. I, it was really, I kind of actually lost track of time. It was, it was beautiful and it was vulnerable and it was so authentic and it made me remember so many different parts of my own journey. And so I’m deeply grateful that you were able to share that part of yourself with us. And maybe we can come back.[01:20:00] Maybe you can come back when you’re at a different stage of your journey. When you’re at a different stage of your journey, and then we could talk about what the next stage Mariah: for Mariah is. Oh, I would love that. It was an honor. It’s such an honor to be here today. Thank you so much. Okay. Gissele: Bye everyone. Thank you for listening to another episode of the love and compassion podcast, which is I’ll.

Transcript [00:00:00] Michael: Hello and welcome to the love and compassion podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Don’t forget to like it, subscribe for more amazing content. On today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about learning from our dogs, how to live a more fulfilling life. Gissele: My guest today is Michael Overlea, who is a canine partnered men’s guide, author of the book, Let Your Dog Lead. He helps male dog owners who suck at relationships, become amazing at relationships. He provides one to one coaching individual in small group retreats. With the dogs, of course, and he’s developing an app so that men can dip their toes in. Are you ready to become amazing? Please join me in welcoming Michael to the show. Hi, Michael. Michael: Yay. Oh, I sound pretty good. Gissele: You do. You sound fantastic. I was wondering if you could start by sharing [00:01:00] with our listeners what led you to do the work that you do today. Michael: A lifetime of not paying attention followed by the death of my brother in 2017. What happened from that event was just, it was my awakening as a but I was plunged into deep, deep grief over the loss of him. He was, he was the one guy I could count on in my world, right? What happened was he died a few days later. I had this experience where I was literally leveled and laid out and crying uncontrollably and feeling like I was being ripped apart. And as I came out of that that, that same, that same day. My dog crawled up on my chest and just started pumping me full of love and healing energy. And I was like, what the heck is going on? So I started looking into this and then I [00:02:00] realized also, well, this is very important. I realized that I didn’t like who I was being in the world, but I wasn’t able to see that I wasn’t able to. Notice how I was showing up and now I could and I didn’t like it. I was like, whoa, we need to change this right away. So that precipitated all of this and what that dog did for me. I never knew it was possible, so I started looking back at my other dogs and realize what they had done for me. My 1st dog kept me alive when I was 11 . I was suicidal after my dad left. And well, right. Yeah, but I just displaced all that. So all these things, all these dogs, all these lessons, like, oh, my gosh, people need to know about this. I need to go help some people and so that they can, they can get out of this, this tough guy, macho destructive cycle. Gissele: Thank you for sharing that. It’s so interesting as a dog owner myself, I have a Doberman Shepherd. It’s so interesting [00:03:00] how dogs offer us so much but very subtly without doing a lot. You know, in the book you talk about how often in the world we’re doing, we’re doing, we’re doing without being. Dogs just kind of show up in the world as beings, right? And so what were some of the key lessons you learned from your dogs throughout your journey? Michael: Oh, that I can slow down. I mean, that is so important. And, you know, before we started recording today, you and I were having this conversation about why on earth do I get up at three 30 in the morning? That’s right. If you want to look at it from a financial perspective, I’m paying myself first, right? So I’m, I’m filling my cup so that I can go out through the rest of my day and give people what, what they might need. Dogs are fantastic. They can get in this huge scuffle fight. And then minutes later, they’re just like, what? Oh, was there a problem? You know, we, we don’t do that. We create these [00:04:00] stories about the event or we bring in an old story about an event and now that guy’s a jerk for life. And it’s like, well, we’re, we’re all hurt people trying to trying to work our way through this world. Their dogs are constantly showing us all these amazing things, how to decompress quickly or discharge, right? Shake it off. It doesn’t mean you’ve solved the problem or the underlying issue, but you can let go of that charge right now so that you can come back to a place where you might be able to get into that a little more. They’re so fast to experience joy. Yeah. Right. They don’t have to plan it. They don’t have to wait for a vacation or a trip or, Oh, I can’t wait to, you know, my life sucks, but I’m going on vacation, you know, there’s just none of that. And again, it’s, it’s this constant overthinking overanalyzing. We create a lot of our own misery and just their ability to be so present all the time. I think is probably the biggest Gissele: lesson. You said so many powerful [00:05:00] things. I want to start with the shake it off. Cause I actually, you know, I read in your book that you do Qigong and so do I. And one of the things that we learn in Qigong is the shake, right? You shake your whole body to release it. And I noticed how often my dog does it. Like when he’s like having an issue or whatever, he just shake it off and then he’ll move on with his life. But as you say, we often hold on to these stories about Who we think we are and who other people are that actually lead to us continuing to suffer because we’re putting all of our energy and attention on our suffering or the story we tell ourselves about who we are. And so I think that was really important. The other one was, is I was reading your book. I remembered about savoring, about savoring my life. Cause I thought about, okay, well, what does my dog do in the circumstance? he loves being outside, even though he’s like has allergies. My dog will actually just sometimes close his eyes and lift his [00:06:00] snout and just like breathe in and feel the air. And I thought to myself, how often am I savoring my life? Like, how often am I really, really present? Like you said, instead of waiting for my vacation or wait, when I do this, then I’ll be happy. how have your dogs helped you savor or get more out of your everyday? Oh Michael: God, in probably a million ways that I don’t even remember. So, I have an example, my last dog Darby, and he’s since he’s left us. Right. And but he, he was the one, he was a catalyst for all of this. So Darby would just do these things to try and get my attention because he could feel that I was like, or caught up in something, or maybe I just needed to go outside. So he would stand at the back door, the sliding door and, and look outside. He’d look back at me until I would get up and I’d go to let him out and he, [00:07:00] and he’d just stand there, right? I’d open the door and he’d, he’d look up at me and one day I finally got it. He, he knew I needed to get outside so we could go outside and we could, we could play or just stand. And I live in a pretty windy area so we could, there were smells coming from all over the place and, and the breeze. And he would, as you say, he would just close his eyes and you just watch that nose work. And I’m like, what is he smelling? I can’t smell it, but it would, it would take me out of whatever I was in and I would just be so present and lost in the moment. It would completely discharge whatever was going on. Gissele: Thank you for sharing that. Cause I really appreciate that because that’s what I find with my dog. he is my Velcro dog. Like he is. It’s completely like always near me, always on top of me or, you know, sleeping around me. And that’s one of the things I found since I started working from home, that whenever we go to let him out, he won’t go without me. Like he will [00:08:00] not do anything without me. And, but I just realized as you were talking that that’s what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to get me out there. Cause it’s true. If I don’t go out there sometimes with him, it’s like, I don’t go out at all. I’ll just sit there, you know, working on my things. And. And I find that he kind of nudges me. And I think what this has helped me realize, and there’s so much more wisdom there that I could tap into that I’m not. So thank you for that. Michael: I think that’s true with, with the dogs and other relationships in our lives, we were just not open all the time. And I don’t mean 24 hours a day, but we, I think we miss a lot because we get caught in our own thing. Maybe we’re uncomfortable about something. So we put up a little bit of a wall and we just can’t see that thing. It’s right here. So, I mean, it’s fascinating. I’ve made a practice of going outside with Indigo almost all the time now. Sometimes I’ll just let her out to go pee, but like 3 30 in the morning, if she gets up with us, I go and stand outside with her. It doesn’t matter what the weather is, right? I may [00:09:00] have to gear up, but we go outside and we stand in the cold blowing snow. Right. And that’s when I come inside, I’m like, Oh, that was great. Gissele: And that’s what I really appreciated about your book is too, is, you have an appreciation for life, like an appreciation, even for the difficult things, the way that you were talking about when you were doing the shadow work. You know, you kind of related to digging and then you’re like, Oh, what treasures am I going to find? And some people are like, well, we don’t want to find those treasures. sometimes that’s very difficult. So that’s one of the things that really struck me about the book, which was like even grief, you have an appreciation for grief and what it can teach you. How has gratitude helped you, kind of live a more fulfilling life? Oh Michael: man, what a great question. I. I wasn’t as able [00:10:00] to feel or show gratitude until I dug into some of these things. So those treasures are things that we buried, right? We, we put them there and then cover them up with something. And then we put something else on top. We covered that up. If you’re willing to start to uncover some of those things, you realize that, you know, okay, the only person who’s really judging me in life is probably myself. Why was I so afraid to experience this? It was painful at the time, but what can I learn from it? And how can that help me be even a better person now? And where can I go from there? Right? So we’re so full of potential possibility, but we keep ourselves sheltered and hidden in place. So once I started to uncover some of these things, I was like, Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah, that kind of sucks, but let’s, let’s take care of this thing, right? Let’s, let’s give it some love, show some [00:11:00] compassion. And I was able to increase my ability to experience gratitude. Gissele: And what you say it’s about perspective, because I think that was one of the things that, I thought was really important about your book, which was you were willing to go there and willing to see that there was a gift there, whereas people avoided because they think, oh, it’s going to be painful. It’s something I just want to forget. Whereas you’re willing to open up and say, where’s the gift in this moment. Yeah. I wanted, since you mentioned compassion, I wanted to ask how compassion has helped you be, be more loving towards yourself and other people.  It’s Michael: fascinating. It’s fascinating. Some people talk about showing yourself more compassion, but maybe I don’t know how to do that. So, can I show more compassion to another? Go. Oh, [00:12:00] okay. I understand how that feels going that direction. And then dogs are perfect for that. They’re constantly showing us compassion. They can just be there and hold space, right? They don’t have to be, Hey, I’m doing this thing for you. So I can show my dog more compassion and only a little understanding that I can’t speak their language. They might be experiencing something when they’re upset. And that’s all that’s it, right? Just this tiny little thing. And that might create a small shift in me. Oh, so when I get uncomfortable, I can beat myself up or show myself some compassion, but it’s a practice. We don’t go from zero to a hundred or do 180 degree turn. It’s a one degree shift. It’s this tiny little thing. And then you have to experience that, Oh, Oh, okay. I’m okay. I’m all right. Maybe I can go a little more next time. Gissele: you emphasize the one degree shift and you give practices that can help people start to shift out of, [00:13:00] start to help them change themselves so that they can change their lives. But not in a way that is, like you said, you’re going from zero to a hundred percent self compassion. You’re, you’re taking those baby steps to get people more and more comfortable with change. And as they get more comfortable with change, they can actually start to do the work to, to heal themselves. Right. So I think that was really, really pivotal. You also talked about vulnerability and I think that’s a really important topic, especially for men. In a world where there has been historically some toxic masculinity, you talked about alpha males in what was considered Darwin’s theory on survival of the fittest. Why is it so important for men in particular to talk about vulnerability? Michael: Because that is death to us. All right. A lot of us are raised to be, you know, be strong and tough and be the one there no matter what, [00:14:00] whether it’s the breadwinner or, you know, you always show up for everybody. No matter what’s going on. You put yourself second all the time. You make sure everyone’s handled and taken care of. I mean, it’s and it’s unmanageable and I mean, if you don’t believe me, just turn on the news. We take the take these things to extremes. We’re not taught, however, to go ahead and feel our feelings, right? I mean, we all have them and they’re there for a reason, but we’re, we’re taught to shut them down, push them aside. Don’t cry. Don’t do this. Because if someone sees you in this vulnerable state, then you’re, you’re prone to attack. So, I mean, we’re fear mongered from the time we’re kids and it’s not an intentional thing from our parents necessarily, but maybe that’s how they were taught and their parents were taught and their parents were taught. If you can’t be a little more vulnerable, you’re not going to experience that love in your life that you want because you’re not able to let it in, right? So maybe you get this tiny little [00:15:00] opening. And then, but you want, you want the whole thing. You see other people being happy and great relationships. Well, you got to open that a little more and then a little more, but it goes back to that, you know, the 1 degree shift and the practice of allowing a tiny bit more. And you can practice that with your dog, right? Maybe not just a cuddle buddy, and the relationship’s not the same for everybody, but what else is possible? What else is your dog trying to show you? Just get curious. Gissele: And, you know, it’s so important that you mentioned not allowing love in. And that’s the thing about walls, right? They prevent us from getting hurt, but they also prevent. love from coming in as well. And so it’s understanding that we’re doing ourselves our disservice by preventing or narrowing what we feel to avoid hurt. Michael: Well, we think it’s preventing the hurt. We’re still feeling the hurt. We just, I I got this Gissele: because it’s self, because it’s self made, right? [00:16:00] It’s our thoughts and perceptions and feelings. It’s about what we think other people are thinking, what we, the memories that we have of whatever events, so we are the ones who are making ourselves suffer, which is why I thought it was really important in your book that you talk about choice I think so many people feel they don’t have choice and that there’s that victim consciousness things happen to me. People are do things to me. But the really key aspect is that we always have choice and we’re always choosing. And we can also choose what we put our energy and attention on, whether it be something that we want to create something positive or to continue to believe we have no choice. Yeah. So how has choice been instrumental in helping you change? Michael: Well, you already hit it on the head. I didn’t actually realize because I was so stuck in my fear and anger and grief that I had a [00:17:00] choice. And when I was able to obtain a different perspective and realize that I’m always choosing anyway, I just may be choosing what’s not benefiting me. That was, that was a mind blower for me. There’s a native Native American story about an elder talking to a younger man about two wolves. And so the elder says, we all have two wolves right and I might, I’ll probably say it wrong but, and you have love and you have fear. And, well, which one is the strongest? And he says, whichever one you feed. So that is our choice. Do I, do I want to continue to do I want to be unhappy? Do I want to be upset? Do I want to be angry all the time? Do I want to be rageful? Right? Do I want to be fearful? Do I want to be scared and hide all the time? Or do I want to don’t want to try one little thing? Do I want to try two little things? Do I want to [00:18:00] step a little further outside my box? Do I want to be happy? Do I want to experience joy? It’s all connected. Like if you could picture a line or we’ve got, you know, bliss over here and just a dismal failure dismay and death on this side, they’re just part of the same line. It’s just where would you rather be on this line? Now, you can’t go from, from abysmal death and failure of life to bliss overnight, but you can start to move down that line. But that’s your choice. Gissele: Yeah, absolutely. It is your choice. And I think that’s helping people understand that they have choice is really critical. And that in that there is no matter what they do, they always have choice. And I do agree with what you say in the book, which is like, we create our reality. We create everything that happens to us, you know, with our thoughts and our perceptions. That doesn’t mean, [00:19:00] cause I think people misunderstand this. People then think, oh, that’s my fault. We don’t consciously do it. It’s subconscious, but it is our responsibility to do better for ourselves. It is our responsibility to, once we have that awareness to heal ourselves, because, you know, as much as each of us support different people, you can’t heal anybody. They have to choose to do the work, to show up, to listen to their dog, to follow their gut instincts and to do all they have to take the steps. So ultimately it is about choice. I wanted to go back to your comment on anger because you talk about anger in the book, which I’m so grateful about. It’s interesting to me how anger seems to be the only acceptable emotion for men instead of, cause anger often hides other emotions like sadness and grief and so on. Has your relationship with anger [00:20:00] changed since you wrote that book? Michael: It has. Yeah, so so many things underlie what shows up as anger for us, and it could actually just be anger, right? You’re, you’re, you’re frustrated and enraged about something, you know, you witnessed or something that happened to you. And oh, and that’s okay, but a lot of times it’s sadness, depression, loneliness, grief, but we’re not aware of how those feelings actually impact us. So they show up as anger. It’s so funny because in our society and others as well, we talk about how anger is such a problem, but then we actually create that and continue this problem by, by allowing people to just. Only show anger, you know, and, and more so men, like women are, women are berated for getting angry. It’s like, what? Why? [00:21:00] That doesn’t make any sense. So, but it’s fascinating. My relationship with anger back to your question was, has changed immensely. I still get angry. But I know what’s underneath it, right? I’ll go, I can still react and get upset. I’ll go, Oh, oh, really? You know, that’s Oh, geez. Okay. All right. Yeah, we’re gonna follow that one away. That’s that’s something I need to work on or man. Yeah, that’s okay. We can we can discharge this and get on with our day. Gissele: I like Dr. Joe Dispenza’s perspective on this. He says it’s not that you don’t react. It’s how long you react. Yeah, Michael: stay stuck in that story. Gissele: Yeah. Like how long are you going to stay there? Right? Like, it’s not that you are going to completely shift yourself. You might still be reacting, but how long are you choosing to stay in the story? How long are you choosing to stay in that victim consciousness? And one [00:22:00] of the choices I would say that you talk about is slowing down. And I wanted to read this part of the book cause I really found it. And I think it was the one that helped me, ah, really go remember to savor. And the book you said, you know, you’re talking about slowing down and it’s, I started to feel connected to everything in a completely different way. I became the bear, the wolf. I was the cloud in the wind. I could go anywhere and be anything. And for me, that was so powerful because. As you said earlier, we’re often limited by our limited thinking. We think, Oh, when I go on vacation, then I’ll be able to be by the ocean when I do this and I’ll be able to do that. But when we allow our consciousness to expand and we allow ourselves to be as we truly are, we could be with the ocean, with the sky, with every, every aspect of it. And then we understand how interconnected everything is and it helps us [00:23:00] feel not so alone. And so. What helped you really connect with that or, or really gain that understanding? Michael: When I was able to spend time with Darby more so outside and just witnessed how he interacted with other animals, you know, plants, trees, water. He just seemed grounded, like always grounded. And I was like, Oh man, I really want that. I want to feel. Just comfortable in, in my skin all the time. So what is that? How come it doesn’t matter where we were. He could just, Oh, I want, I want to find peace in every moment. And that’s where that came from. But how do I do that? If I’m, if I’m feeling disconnected from something, I’m not peaceful with it. And I’m not peaceful with myself. So I, you know, began my practices and [00:24:00] sometimes I meditate. I do self hypnosis just guided imagery. And you’ve already brought this up. If I close my eyes. I can be at my favorite beach in San Diego like that. I can almost smell the ocean. I can hear the gulls and the waves and see the clouds rolling in. That’s what we are so powerful. We create all the time as we’ve talked about. So what would you rather create? Do you want to find that peace in that moment? You can do this at work. Right. You’re feeling frustrated. You’re pissed off sitting in your cubicle. Your boss just went, you know, close your eyes for a second, put yourself back on that beach and be like, okay, you can do it in seconds. It’s fantastic. Gissele: It just reminded me of my happy place, like going to my happy place. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, I feel it’s so important, right? you have this quote in your book called it’s [00:25:00] Which is, each head has a, has a world within it, obviously, because it’s true, each of us is sort of a universe unto ourselves, right? Does this saying have any personal meaning to you? Why did you choose to put it in the book? The first Michael: time I heard it, or read it, actually, I was like, what? That doesn’t make any sense, right? I, I couldn’t grasp that. So, I, I had to spend a lot of time with that, until I realized. Okay, so I have my own thoughts, perceptions the way my feelings show up, the way I express myself, the way I put my socks on, right? Everything I do is, is maybe a tiny bit different to me. We all do similar activities. We, most of us worry about the same things, but in, in our own version of that, and I was like, wow. So you know, how do I see I can look at something and see maybe something completely different than what my friend is looking [00:26:00] at, even though we’re looking at the same object or, or situation. And I just thought that was amazing and fascinating. What that allowed me to do was give myself a break. I was like, Oh, I don’t have to get it. We punish ourselves for not seeing other people’s perspectives or not understanding. And then we’re afraid to try to because we think maybe we, you know, we’re insecure about missing it up or being wrong or whatever that is. And yeah, every head is a world, right? Every head is a world. I mean, you could take this, what you see and what I see are two different things, but it’s the same thing. Gissele: And I think so understanding that also helped me realize that people’s experiences of, I guess what I would quote the same circumstances can differ, right, because it depends on really where they have their perception. And so it is possible for people to walk [00:27:00] away with two different experiences, and we don’t need to negate one person’s experiences over the other we just need to understand it. And so I think that’s where. This current cancel culture is really doing us a disservice because then we don’t get to listen to each other and hear each other’s stories and come closer together and lean in rather than what we’re doing, which is like, I have to be right. This is my perspective is the right one in therefore canceled. And so, but I do think this will change. I think we’re just in a pendulum swing. Before we didn’t believe the victims. Now we don’t right now. We don’t believe the oppressors and now hopefully eventually will sit in the middle where we can actually lean into one another and listen to each other. Yeah, I hope at Michael: least. Yeah. And you brought up like 10 great points right there. In this culture, we have to be right. And you know, I think that goes way back [00:28:00] to as a child underneath all of this sense of not feeling worthy or, or not feeling like you’re enough somehow. And if I feel right, if I feel justified that I feel strong, I feel good about myself. And that’s really unfortunate because we’re still allowing our, our 5 year old selves run how we show up during the day. And again, it’s, it’s not a criticism people because I’ve been there. And sometimes, you know, my 3 year old will still show up and throw a little tantrum. So I have to be able to hold that and be and deal with that. Right? Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting. Like the perspective on being right. I often wonder if, if that perspective has to do with our need to belong, like if I’m not right, then therefore maybe I’m not valuable and therefore I don’t belong. And so I wondered if, maybe that had something to do with it. I don’t really know. Michael: Yeah. Well, it makes sense to me. Gissele: Yeah. [00:29:00] I will say that one of the things that we talk about in our family is the relationship has to be more important than being right. But sometimes we forget that cause you’re right. Like this is kind of a journey, a journey. That we, we have to choose every day to be compassionate and loving. We have to choose every day to make choices that are positive for us and that focus on our dreams rather than, all the negative things. You mentioned the like self worth, how important has loving yourself and appreciating yourself been in your journey? Massive, Michael: absolutely massive. So I think underneath everything is a desire to feel safe and desire to feel loved. If we can’t get that from ourselves, then obviously we, we try and get that from other people. And that’s how we have so many problems in every relationship. Because in some fashion, we’re not feeling safe. We’re not feeling loved. [00:30:00] Right? And that goes to acceptance and all these things. But once I started to realize that I can’t put keep putting all my emotional needs on everybody else’s shoulders. I’m like, Oh, I, I can, I can do this for myself. And I didn’t even know, I didn’t know that I could or needed to. And that was something else that my dog showed me. They didn’t have to be doing all these things or telling me how great I am or how handsome I look. No, I didn’t, they didn’t do all that. They could just be there and love me. And I was like, Oh, this is possible. I don’t have to do anything. So that helped me learn to start to give myself a little more, feed myself a little more, feed that one wolf that I wanted to be. Gissele: And I think this goes to show the power of presence, right? Dogs aren’t, like you said, actively saying, I love you, I want to be there. And we continually seek things outside of ourselves, but that never fills the hole. Because if [00:31:00] somebody doesn’t give us that love, then we’ll feel unloved, right? And so I think that was one of the things that I have experienced with my dog. This is my first dog ever. And it’s that unconditional love. It’s that, that willingness to just be present with you and always excited to see you no matter what. How would you define unconditional love? I think Michael: that is such a large question. As humans, we’re full of nothing. We’re full of nothing but conditions and expectations, right? So it’s, for me, it’s total acceptance of themselves and the other. They don’t, they’re not putting themselves down because, you know, they’re getting too many treats and they’re putting on pounds. They’re not, they’re not making fun of us or judging us because we got a big belly [00:32:00] or no hair or, you know, what kind of car do you drive? What kind of house do you live in and how much money do you have? None of that matters. Literally none of that. So everything can be removed. I can just be here and Gissele: love you. It’s that total acceptance. And it goes to what you were saying about surrender, right? Surrender is such a powerful, beautiful thing. I find, you know, a lot of people focus on manifesting things, right? For me, the greatest thing has been total incomplete surrender. It has been letting go of what I think should happen, letting go of things and just being in the moment. But surrender can feel difficult for people. It can feel challenging. And this was actually a lesson I had to learn myself because I was so used to. Controlling things so used to knowing where, how things were going to happen knowing where my direction was next. And so surrendering has been the thing that I have done, which has probably impacted me the [00:33:00] most, but at times I found the most challenging. What has been your experience with surrender? For Michael: me, surrender was that was one of the most difficult things. I thought if I could control everything, then I’d feel safe, right? And I’d be able to find love because I can control this. I can make this happen. I had read a story about, I think it was Michael Jordan? And about entering a flow state and how they actually get to a place where they let go of trying to control everything. And just enter this other place. I was like, well, what is that? What is that? So I started looking into it. I read a book by Coot Blackson. He’s an, he’s an amazing guy. The Power of Surrender. Yes. I was like, Oh, wow. So I, I actively worked on surrendering [00:34:00] things that I was trying to hold so tightly onto and it was amazing, right? I could go from, go from this tension to this. To flow and like, oh, my gosh, that feels so much better. It was and I’m still doing it. Right? I haven’t, I haven’t achieved status, but it’s fantastic. And we, but we think we’re doing better because we can, we think we can control everything. And we’re, we’re spinning our wheels and wasting so much time and energy on it. Gissele: One of the things I had to learn on this journey, which kind of shook me like one of the questions you ask in your book is who am I, right? So as I started going to this surrender place, I even surrendered the concept of time, right? Like, so then you start to live from that flow state, which means you’re constantly just living from following your passion. Then I got to a point where I was like, the things I was being guided to do didn’t make sense in my head from a logical perspective. I should be doing [00:35:00] this for my business. I should be doing that for my business. Right. And there were days where we, like, I didn’t know what day it was. They’re like, I’m like, is it Wednesday? And there’ll be, we’re like, no, it’s Friday. I’m like, what? I  and it, it kind of got to a place where I was like. Who am I? Like, and who do I want to be in this world that has like kind of this structure? And as I’m living from this flow state and following my highest excitement, I’m feeling really uncomfortable. I’m feeling like I don’t fit with what’s happening.I’ve been there where you’re totally in the flow state, but then people, things remind you that you are. In a box, so to speak, right? With respect to time and things you have to do and all of these things, and surrendering to life and allowing life to flow through you, if you’re not used to it, can feel really uncomfortable. It can feel really challenging.  have you had those experiences where you’re like, Oh my gosh, like surrendering just feels [00:36:00] so overwhelming because it, I guess it doesn’t feel safe because we’re not used to doing it. I don’t know. Well, Michael: we would rather be uncomfortable in this other way because it’s familiar, right? Right. So. Well, we’re uncomfortable to begin with. Why don’t you be uncomfortable in this other way? And see how that feels instead. What, what can come from being able to be uncomfortable? Instead of just being uncomfortable. Yeah. It’s, it’s maddening what we do to ourselves. Gissele: Yeah, but it’s, but it’s very similar to living the life of dogs, right? Like they don’t worry. Now, granted, they’re taken care of by us. And, you know, if we think about it in a larger sense, we are, if we allow ourselves to be taken care of by the universe, right? So if we just allow ourselves to be not worrying about where our next meal is coming, like all of those things, if we allow ourselves to really find as much joy as possible, we could. [00:37:00] Actually live magical and fantastic lives, right? If we allowed ourselves to do that. Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Spend, if you can, spend an hour maybe with your dog, like just follow them around. Right? And then try it if you can take a whole day and do that. And just, they go and lay down, go and lay down or just sit. If they go to look, get up to go check out something, go check out the something. Sometimes I have Gissele: no idea what my dog’s checking out. Don’t you ever find that your dog just barks and barks and I’m like thinking, I’m looking out there and I’m like, I can’t see what you’re seeing. What are you seeing? There’s barking. Yeah. Michael: Well, imagine their, their noses are, you know, at least a thousand times stronger than ours. Right. Their olfactory sense is off the charts. I would never be able to sleep like, man, I still stink. Yeah. I just showered. Whatever it is. And there, a lot of them don’t have as good a sight, but their hearing is at least four times better than ours. So I mean, [00:38:00] all that input, well, they can hear stuff and smell stuff that I can’t even imagine from how far off it is. So but I’ll do that. I’ll actually, I’ll sit on the ground at the same height where she is standing and just like, what? I don’t, what is it? Gissele: Me too. I’ll look around and I’m like, I can’t see anything. I try Michael: and pick up on that. And I mean, and these are exercises I give guys to do, like just stare out the window with your dog. Just. Put your phone down, turn off the music, turn off the TV, whatever, and just go stare with your dog. And just be curious. Maybe there’s a squirrel that you couldn’t pick up on, you know? Gissele: Yeah. And curiosity is such an important part of compassion too, right? Like because as we get curious about one another, we stop judging. And in your book, you talk a lot about judgment, about some of the expectations we have and expectations can lead us to suffer. Right, would you say that your relationship with expectations has changed since you began this journey? Yes. [00:39:00] Michael: Yeah, it has lessened. I still have them. I still, I’m still really good at beating myself up. If I think I didn’t do something well, or, if I feel I didn’t help somebody enough, I can still give myself a nice little kick in the, in the, you know, what? But it’s lessened quite a bit. And I, I realized that. If I’m doing all these things right now, these expectations of others and myself, well, so is that person, and so is that person, and so is that person, so it allows me to have a little more compassion for where they’re at, and that they may not get me, they may not understand me, maybe this doesn’t work for them so what do they need? I don’t know. So, and that, that brings me back to curiosity. Because we really don’t know what we don’t know. We have no idea what’s going on for that other person in their world, you know, when they go home, that door closes, we have no idea what’s going on in there. We just know that when they’re in [00:40:00] front of us, they act a certain way and then we take it personally. Well, it’s, it’s almost never actually about us. Right. That’s just, that’s their hurt spilling out. Gissele: Yeah, agreed. One of the things though that I had learned in my life is that, even though it may not be about me, if I’m reacting to it, then it’s about me. So it’s, it’s my reaction really is the barometer about whether or not, if I don’t react, I’m like, Oh, it’s about them. Like you said in your book, right? Like it’s hurt people, hurt people and you know, people that feel like they’re victims, they hurt others. Cool. Like, it’s not about me, but when I get triggered by something, somebody says or does, I’m like, Oh shoot, this is about me. Oh Michael: crap. Well, we make it about us, right? So like. You know, my neighbor doesn’t get up in the morning and say, all right, today, I’m going to be a real jerk to Mike. I’m going to tell him he’s this, this, and then, you know, so whatever happened or whatever [00:41:00] reason they’re showing up this way is theirs. Now, I need to take responsibility for my response or reaction to Gissele: it. And that I think, like you said, goes back to choice. What choices am I going to make? And that it has been in my journey as well. Like, you know, in, in my desire to be more loving and compassionate, my desire to understand what choices I have to make every day. And some days I don’t always get it right. And then I’m like, okay, what I’m, what choice am I going to make in the next moment? Understanding full well that. The world I helped co create is my responsibility, right? The reason why we have all of these things in the world that are happening is because of choices we make. And so for me, I’m going to choose the most loving and compassionate choices or hope that I do. And when I mess up, I’m going to start over. So that’s where. You know, surrendering, accepting, allowing [00:42:00] and making those one degree shifts as you suggest. I really also love very much that you included opportunities to go out with your dog for a walk. A lot of people just want to read the book and go on, but the opportunity to stop, pause and reflect and look at these experiences differently, I think is really quite key. So thank you for that. Oh, you bet. Michael: I want to touch on something real quick that you just brought up is starting over. So, here on this planet, we go to bed and we get up the next day, we have a chance every single day to start over. And again, it doesn’t mean you do this massive thing. But maybe just this tiny thing, and it goes back to being, who am I being, who do I want to be today? I mean, none of us are going to probably get to, like, Gandhi or Mother Teresa status, and that’s okay, maybe some of you might. But we don’t have to, [00:43:00] I don’t want to be a Gandhi, I don’t want to be Mother Teresa, but can I be a little more like that, a little more loving and compassionate, no matter what? Yeah, I Gissele: can do that. And I think that was one of the things where, again, I go back to that one degree shift, because in one part of the book you talked about, like, when people are ready to change, and this has been my experience, when you are ready to change, your world completely changes. Like everything in your life changes in if you’re going from a place where you want to change and you haven’t yet made that choice. It can feel scary to think that, you know, real relationships are going to change people. Some people are going to flow out of your life. New people are going to flow in out of your life. Everything might just completely, come apart so that it can come together. But if we can start to get comfortable with change, then we can start to take baby steps. And then by the time you get to 50 steps [00:44:00] or a hundred steps, you will have made. 100 percent change. I think that was really, really powerful. So we’re coming to the end of the podcast. I was wondering if you could share with people where they can find you, where they can come work with you, where they can find the book, a little bit about more about you and about the work that you’re doing. Michael: Oh, thank you. So I can be directly reached if someone just wants to email and ask a question at Michael at dogs and men. com. Www. dogsandmen. com goes to a link with a lot of resources my books in PDF form a lot of other shows I’ve been on, podcasts and radio shows. I’m creating an app, as we mentioned, so that’ll be app. dogsandmen. com when that gets released. I’m really excited about that. The [00:45:00] work I do continues, right? So it’s not just me out there trying to help other people. I’m, I’m still on my journey and I’m still finding my way back to my path. And I’ve just been able to work with so many amazing men. I mean, from a special forces, retired sniper to an ice cream, an ice cream manufacturer, you know what I mean? Just these other coaches. It’s just fantastic. The retreats that I, that I have going are just phenomenal. But this is, this is not easy work. This is not light work and it’s not for the faint of heart. So that’s why I wanted to create other resources for people to start to be able to get into this. My book is on Amazon also. I’m working on two other books. I co authored another one, so I’m constantly creating because I’m finding more of me in that creation. I’m able to open and release more of those aspects. So yeah, phenomenal [00:46:00] journey. Gissele: Yeah, amazing. Can you tell us a little bit more about the app before we go? Michael: Yeah. So as you, you introduced it earlier was for guys to kick the tires or dip their toes in the water. So there’s going to be. Initially for the entry level, free level, a lot of resources and some meditations or canine contemplations for you to do with your dog. 10 minute hits of, of like, what, really? Yeah, and then there’ll be a membership level with coaching available and other resources as well. You know, I wanted, I just wanted people to wherever, if, if it resonates with them, be able to pick it up and go, oh, no kidding. I had no idea. So I want to spark curiosity. Right? That’s all I want to do is plant this little seed for folks. If it grows great, if not great, right? Maybe that’s not for them. But if you can be a tiny [00:47:00] bit curious, as we’ve talked about a number of times in the show, that opens up everything, right? It gets you out of your, your stuckness and be like, my, my, yeah, your dog too. Just look at your dog right now. Yes. And that dog right there is trying to show you more. Gissele: Definitely. Well, it it’s definitely going to enrich or has enriched my relationship with my dog for sure. I have a lot more appreciation for the lessons Thank you so much, Michael, for being on the show. Really appreciate it. Please go out and read let your dog lead, a beautiful, beautiful book on how to live a more fulfilling life. And please join us for another episode of the loving compassion podcast with me. Bye. Michael: Thank you so much, everyone. Thanks Giselle. Gissele: Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. ​

Transcript [00:00:00] Gissele: Hello, and welcome to the love and compassion podcast with Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Don’t forget to click subscribe for more amazing content. On today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about the power of love and helping us heal after loss.  Today, we’re speaking with coach Lovemore McLaughlin, who decided to start living after losing her mother. she had numerous challenging moments in the restaurant business and decided to focus on helping people be more compassionate and loving towards themselves. Today, she is a vibrant example of how to live your life with gratitude, joy, and love. Please join me in welcoming Coach Lovemore: Lovemore. Welcome, welcome everyone who’s tuning in and Giselle, I always start with gratitude because it is so much who I am. So I just want to extend gratitude for this moment and thankfulness for you inviting me on and I [00:01:00] celebrate in this moment. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank Gissele: you. Thank you. Thank you. I was wondering if you could start by telling us a little bit about your story in how you actually ended up deciding to coach people on self love and Lovemore: self compassion. Thank you. So the chapter of my story that I will share right now, because there’s so many chapters. Just before COVID, I just was this close to having like one of the biggest meltdown and I thankfully had the vacation that I’ve always wanted for 18 years. Yes, I did say 18 years. I got a moment to catch myself. I got a moment to allow my brain to get to a spot where I could think for myself. Thankfully through R. E. S. T. and I, I knew that I needed a lifestyle change. I [00:02:00] knew that I had to take different actions. And I knew that I had to start seeing myself. Because for 18 years, I saw everyone else. But I couldn’t see myself and I had to start giving myself attention. I decided to honor my late mother’s name. So hence I changed my name on all social media platform to love more. And literally Giselle, I said, you know what, with this beautiful legacy and name, let me. Cultivate a love more lifestyle. And once I realized I was blooming so much to the point where people really could not keep up with the transformation, but it was a beautiful experience. I knew in my heart that moving forward, giving my age. My life has to be more purposeful and more meaningful. So I sat down with myself and [00:03:00] asked myself the question, What am I doing with the lessons, the legacy, and the experiences from my pain? And I recall a mentor said to me, Do not lose. Do not waste your mother’s pain that is always etched in my, in my mind. Do not lose my mother’s pain. Do not lose, do not waste my pain. Every time I’m going through a battle, those are the words I hear in my mind. And I knew that I had to be that voice and vessel to share my experiences. If it’s even for one woman, right, men as well, you know, we can’t forget or men as well. Even though my main target audience are female entrepreneurs or love more programs and experiences and my messages is not limited to women alone. Love is for everyone. [00:04:00] And it’s first the message of love, which I do in my personal and my brand as well. So I wanted to share my voice with women, especially women who. Are where I was because it’s so easier for me to share because I was there. So that’s the short chapter of that story, Gissele: Giselle. Thank you for sharing that. I was wondering if you could also share what your life looked like before your mom passed away. And then like after because you were living a very different life, right? Like it was very It seemed really stressful. So I was wondering if you could Lovemore: share. Absolutely. Before, before my mother passed, I wasn’t a communicator. And it was, it wasn’t like, Oh, you can do better. It was, I can really say that I wasn’t the best communicator. I kept everything inside. And I recall my mom saying to me at nine, I’ll always worry about you because [00:05:00] you do not have a voice. I was I was voiceless. If something was bothering me, it was easier for me to just hold it in and I kept holding things in, holding things in. I mean, I was very close to exploding. I wasn’t sleeping properly before COVID. I was getting two hours max sleep and I was so tired. Yeah, I was so tired when I would go into my bedroom. It was just when I came home from the kitchen, it was enough time to shower. And a shower for me was like the biggest blessing ever. It was how I rejuvenated myself. And then I would just Just lie on the bed because I was too tired to sleep, but just to lie, to rest, to feel some sort, like, like I’m a human or something. And that was my life before, no sleep, always rushing, always rushing to have a conversation. I could not [00:06:00] stop. To pause, to breathe, to catch myself, and to be present with you, to lean in, to look in the eye, and just have that human human connection, interaction. I did not know how to do that. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating properly, I was taking care and feeding others so well, and I wasn’t nourishing my physical body and the rest of myself. No, after, after COVID and after the lifestyle change, I noticed the peace. I have to say that word, the first word that I have to tell you that I experienced, I experienced this peace and I call the joy, I call it joy, bliss, because it was so beautiful. It’s beyond, it’s so beautiful, it’s so beyond me, it’s almost like I don’t even always have the right words, but it was blissful, it was peaceful. I started to be… Honest with myself, which in turn allowed me to communicate better. I became a [00:07:00] better communicator. I would reflect more. So it allows me to stay present and not bring things that doesn’t serve me into the next day or the future. So I, I became, let me deal with things now, check it off, action it, not let it pile up because before everything would pile up. The good, the bad, things that I need to clear. Everything was piling, piling, piling, piling, piling. Then I was close to a point of exploding. And I did explode one morning. And I’m thankful that I got the opportunity to witness my own change. It’s peaceful, it’s beautiful, it’s vibrant. I am so honest with myself. I’m more forgiving of myself and all these beautiful attributes allow me to be compassionate to others, to listen. Not to preach to others, but to listen, and my aim is just to [00:08:00] be there. I am the love that will stand beside you and just love you. Someone else want to preach, you’re going to have to find someone else to preach to, because I, I’m not that person. Gissele: Beautiful. Beautiful. The the food industry where you come from can sometimes be seen as a very highly stressful environment. And maybe not always the healthiest of environments in terms of the pressure that maybe chefs feel and people that working in the restaurant industry. Can you share a little bit about what it was like working in that environment and how. Maybe the work that you’re doing as a chef now shifted Lovemore: on. Yes, it was. There’s so many. There’s so many moving pieces. It’s a fast paced industry. And for me personally, I wasn’t taking the time. To step back, pause in the moment and to look in, like stand on a mountain and say, zoom in on your [00:09:00] life, Shereen, love more, zoom in and look, look, this is what you’re doing. This is what’s happening. I wasn’t reflecting, I wasn’t pausing, I wasn’t asking myself and really saying to myself, okay, where do I want to be in five years, ten years? Not from, a lot of times we ask a question from a financial perspective. But not from a holistic perspective, what do I want my mindset to be? What would I want my self care lifestyle to look like? What do I want my peace to look like? I never was asking any of those questions. So of course, if you’re not asking the question, if you’re not intentional about making change. You know, there’s a saying, nothing happens if nothing happens, nothing change if nothing changes, right? So, I wasn’t even stopping, it was just like a constant cycle of go, more burnout, more stress, no self care, no taking the [00:10:00] moment to be present and to pause. And it kept going and going and it just kept building up and building up and building up and it was just not healthy. Whereas now… I check in on myself every single day before I open my bedroom door. It’s a practice that helps me. It allows me to be consistent with being present with where I’m at, which in turn allows me to be the best me for me, my daughter, and my community. So it is a win win situation. I’m still learning. I’m still learning, I’m still growing, but it is, it is with intention, it is with care and learning to be gentle, give myself grace and be compassionate and forgiving. Gissele: Beautiful. I love what you said about the holistic approach to life because you know, what you said was so spot on. I think people like, for example, if they’re [00:11:00] focusing on abundance, they’ll tend to focus on abundance, the financial abundance, but we’ll miss like the, the family abundance, the health abundance and all those pieces until things are out of balance, right? Maybe they find the abundance, but then the other areas are lacking. And so creating an overall life, like an abundant life. I think it is really, really important. You mentioned that in your journey, you were able to tap into and find this amazing peace and joy. What helped you in particular to be able to tap into that joy? Because your previous experience was one of, you know, not having a voice and being highly stressed and, you know, and, and then being able to tap into that many of my listeners would love to know how to tap into that for themselves. Absolutely. Lovemore: Absolutely. It’s… It’s consistency with the right things that serve you. So, this journey started in 2015. So, I became highly consistent with gratitude. [00:12:00] And even if I was having a challenging moment, I would sit and say, I get to. I get to, you know, bend and tie my shoelaces. I, I never miss the small things that sometimes we take for granted. I would see someone in a wheelchair. I would extend compassion and then I’ll come home and I’ll pray and be thankful that I have my legs. I never missed the opportunity to say, I wake up and I get to see my daughter. I never missed the opportunity to turn on the tap. Every little thing that I do, I extend it to gratitude. And I say, I get to, I get to sit in this moment and have this conversation, everything I never miss. So even through a painful and difficult moment. I always go back to gratitude and how I reframe the situation. I get to bloom more. I get to witness the lessons [00:13:00] in this experience. It’s not pretty at the moment. But I get to experience, you know, the beauty and the blessing and the lesson of knowing that I’m here, but I’m going to be on the other side, which is even more beautiful. So gratitude is such a huge part. And the other thing that I do is I wake up to do all the things that I love. I love beautiful, vibrant colors. If I’m going to my part time assignments. Wherever it was city, I pack the stuff I love. I pack my love signs. The other thing that I do is my bedroom. Every corner of my bedroom is bright colors. Yellow for sunshine. There is love. There’s hope messages. There’s art pieces with… So, we have to remember, most people sleep in a bedroom. We go to bed. We sleep in a bedroom, we wake up, we wake up in our bedroom. [00:14:00] What does our environment look like? Because a lot of times when we talk about feeding and consumption, we often limit that to the food we eat, which we have to eat to nourish ourselves. But how are we nourishing our soul, which is our mind? How are we nourishing our spirit? How are we nourishing our energy? How are we nourishing our inner child? And I always. Say to myself, how am I nourishing my purpose because holistically, we have to be able to define who we are. That’s going to look different for everyone. But when I was redefining who I am, I said, I am purpose. I am light. And I have to nourish my purpose and my light, because that is where we bloom the most. When we are meaningful and purposeful and really caring for purpose and the light that we are, we bloom. So it’s consistently. [00:15:00] living a life where I wake up and I give myself permission to do the things I love. I got up this morning and I said to myself, I’m wearing the hat that I bought last week. I’m not going to let it sit in a drawer like we often do and not get up and dress up and feel good about ourselves. And marry that to the inner work that we’re doing and joining that with the physical things that it’s a beautiful marriage. So these are some of the things that I do, Giselle. And it’s just, it has, it is, it has brought me so much peace. Sometimes I’m in awe of the peace I sit in or how quickly I get back to peace. And Giselle, I have to share that. Because we live in a world where peace is not something that is easy for some people to find. And we are all on our own personal journey. And I often say, I want to share this before I pass it over back to you. I always say, we each come with [00:16:00] different wealth. You may have the wealth of faith in this season. I may have the wealth of smile in this season. Another person may have the wealth of encouraging words. And what we need is to marry and join these different wealth so we can bloom and blossom more. We definitely need each other. And I want everyone to know that you have the unique wealth that can be a blessing. Even if you’re going through a difficulty or a storm, it doesn’t minimize the wealth. That is you. So I just wanted to share that because sometimes I may need to borrow your wealth of faith or encouraging words just to be able to join mine and for me to bloom a little bit more. So I wanted to share that as well. Gissele: Thank you. Thank you. I felt that you said so many amazing things. I think the first thing I want to comment on is the. It adds up, right? So you were talking about being grateful for the little things. I don’t think [00:17:00] people realize that all those little things that you’re grateful for accumulate and adds up over time, right? Like you gain an awareness of how rich and abundant we really are and how rich and abundance, like it’s all around us, right? And so I think we forget, we get so stuck on lack or what we think we don’t have that we, we miss all the things that we do have. The second thing I wanted to mention was really about, and thank you for mentioning like the fact that you love to you know, like dress up and dress up, you know, like feed your soul. Cause that’s one of the things that attracted me to you, which is like your vibrant personality and your vibrancy and the sunflowers, which is one of my favorite flowers. Do you know that sunflowers are like the spiritual meaning of sunflowers is like faith in God. Oh, wow. Yeah, it’s actually one of my favorite flowers. Yeah. So you were going Lovemore: to comment. Yeah. So, so you see, we, we learn from each other. I’ve, I’ve always [00:18:00] been drawn to sunflower. And I noticed in the last, especially this year. I’ve been using a lot. Sometimes we may not know the meaning for something, but we know it serves us and do us well. But thank you for sharing. So here we go to identifying what I just shared that we all come with different wealth. Here you are sharing to me that something I had no clue about. I, all I knew was to say this sunflower is too pretty, not to bask in every single day. And here you are sharing, which it now it makes so much sense because. I’m so heavily. It’s it sits in my sits on my bed every day. I make my bed. What a beautiful thank you for sharing that because now it’s now it amplifies why my soul drawn to this sunflower. Look at this. I even came. I’m like, I bring the sunflower with me. I bring it all this love and light. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. Oh Gissele: my goodness. And I love what you said about the bedroom too, about like, and it’s [00:19:00] so funny. Because there’s so many different environments. We focus so much on like the things that other people see, like our kitchen and our dining room and whatever, but you’re right. Like when we. Go to bed. Right. And when we wake up, that’s what we’re waking up to. So how are we reflecting the joy that we want to experience? So I love that. I’m definitely going to take that as well as your gift to me in terms of like, how can I turn my, the places that I spend the most. And when I wake up and go to bed, how do I establish that kind of loving environment? So I really, really love and appreciate that. Awesome. Sorry. Lovemore: No, I said awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Gissele: So can you share a little bit of you know, you, you mentioned the being able to forgive yourself what role has forgiveness played in your life and being able to help you be more loving and compassionate towards yourself and Lovemore: others. Oh, wow. The [00:20:00] forgiveness was one of the first. process that allowed me to start seeing myself and loving myself. I believe that forgiveness is a pathway to loving ourselves more. I just had to, you know, we have, we sometimes we set so many expectations on ourselves. I have to be this, I have to do this. And I realized that I was being so harsh and I really Realize that even with my, my chef experiences and journey, one thing that I didn’t share was the reason why I ended up in burnout because I didn’t see my value, which affected my pricing and Giselle, I had to learn to heal enough from that journey. And the healing enough from that journey started with saying. I forgive you. I forgive you for the choices you make. I forgive you for not believing in yourself. I forgive you. I forgive you. So I had to learn to forgive myself enough [00:21:00] to start the journey of seeing myself. And forgiveness is almost like a beautiful floral just opening up. And every time I forgive myself a little bit more, I saw that I was blooming more and I started to see the beautiful God in me. And the more I started to see the beautiful God in me, I was just like, I was just so encouraged to be me. So sometimes people are like, I can’t understand how come you’re so joyful. I just started to forgive more, to see myself more, to understand when I look in the mirror I’m seeing God in me and I’m honoring his presence in me. And forgiveness, honestly, was one of the most impactful pathway to my journey of loving more. It allowed me to just like acknowledge where I’m at. acknowledge the conversations that was not supporting my love pathway and saying, come on, I love more. Let’s deal with this. [00:22:00] So it’s, so it’s, I married forgiveness with self reflection. I would self reflect, I would write, I would say, this is where I’m at. And I would say, is this supporting my future? Is this supporting my purpose? And when I said no, I’m like, hold on a second, honey, I have to do something about that. Then I would start the process of forgiveness, which is identifying, acknowledging, then slowly releasing. And I must say that it’s not a one day, five second job. It is a process. I am still healing. I’m still on the healing journey. I must say that I’ve healed enough for a beautiful blossoming transformation, but I will not kid myself to think that they’re not small areas where I can still work on. That’s one thing I learned on my journey never to be so You know, never be too confident to think that, Oh, I’ve got it. I figured it out. [00:23:00] I’ve learned so much. It’s unlimited. The journey of continuous blooming, it is unlimited. And that’s one thing that I wanted to share. I’m still healing baby, but I’m healing continuously and forgiving myself continuously, which makes it a lifestyle for me. So I wanted to share that as well, Gissele: Giselle. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And it’s so true. It’s a journey, isn’t it? It’s a journey of loving ourselves and forgiving ourselves and seeing what you said is. God within us, right? And so what helped you see that? What’s up? You see that connection because I think you know, the majority of people at times feel like, oh, you know, God is over here. It’s a being outside of us. And it’s like kind of this thing there and I’m here and I’m not worthy of God as we were taught in religion, right? What helped you see the Lovemore: God within? I must say that. You asked some really powerful questions, and this is one of them. Very, very, [00:24:00] I’m truly, truly loving the questions you’re asking them. Loving the experience right here, right now. This started, this whole The God in Me started I don’t, I want to get the time correctly. Let’s see. Probably three, maybe four years ago, I was in my bedroom on a Sunday morning, and I was learning to be comfortable with who I am. And I’ve always loved to smile, but a part of me knew inside I was holding back. And one morning I heard a soft voice. Never be afraid of the smile in you. It’s my smile in you. And I never forgot that moment. I remember I leaped out of bed. And that’s when I had the confidence to look in the mirror. I knew that I was the vessel housing this amazing being I call God. Because we each have our own different perspective.[00:25:00] It’s so easy for me to look in the mirror. Because when I look in the mirror, I’m like, This is God in me. The smile in me, the posture in me, but it’s just housing this vessel called love more and it makes it so much easier for me when I walk in a room, the confidence, it comes naturally because I’m like, Lord, you guide my stuff. You guide my smile and the smile, the smile came down with meaning and purpose. Like I’ve always had a smile, but the smile now is like, it has such a sunflower effect. Because I’m like, God. This is you in me. This is the gift that you gave me. I’m not going to hold back on it. This is you and me. When you embrace the God in you, amazing, beautiful things happen. And as I’m speaking, thank you so much for allowing me to share because. Sometimes we go [00:26:00] through the journey and we witness it, but when you speak it, oh my goodness, I’m in like goosebumps over here because I don’t, I don’t even know if I’ve shared that with anyone else, but I remember it was a Sunday morning and I remember I leaked out of bed. Because once you say, Hey God, I see you in me, whenever I create with my hand Giselle, I said, Oh my goodness, God, you’re so good. Look at what you create, right? I will, if I, if I, if I’m creating, cause you know, I love florals and I love to, you know, still create stuff and make things beautiful and vibrant. Every time I create, I step, I step back and I don’t say, Oh my gosh, I’m so great. I said, Oh my goodness, God, look at your hands in me. Look at what your hands created through me. It’s a whole different level. Of appreciation. When you start to reframe things, you start to see how beautiful you are because you see a being inside you that is beautiful [00:27:00] and then you accept that beauty. It’s a game changer for me. It works for me and I’m sticking with it. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. Oh, I’m so glad you share that story. What a beautiful story. I feel like I am on my journey as well is, is seeing the divinity within myself and then being able to see the divinity in other people. It was when I started to accept. That, oh, you know, I am the vessel of God and then it enables me to see God and other people, right? So how has your journey in terms of seeing God within you helped you see the Lovemore: divinity in others? Oh, wow. This conversation is getting, oh my goodness. I wish I could just interview you. I feel like I want to have a chat. Thanks. It’s, it definitely, if I can’t see God in me and in my footsteps, it makes it so much difficult to see the God in others. So it starts with a new journey. I have to see him and know that [00:28:00] he’s, he’s a part of me, especially when I allow him to just, Be the blooming vessel and guiding light in my life. So the more I see him in me, and the more I am relying on him in my daily path, I can see him in you. I can see, now your smile is not just a smile. Now your smile creates this beautiful burst of energy, which we’re both speaking virtually. But for some reason I feel your presence because my energy is being hugged. So being able to see him for myself personally, it allows me to see you a little bit, see him more fully in you. So when I’m looking at you, I’m seeing your smile and I’m witnessing his blink in your eyes and you’re tilting your head. I’m noticing all of that. And it’s such a [00:29:00] beautiful thing, but what’s most powerful is the energy and feeling. Energy never lies. It’s true. And it’s, you know, it’s this peace and beautiful abundance and I feel so hugged and you’re speaking from such a pure place. I can feel it. Your questions are so divine. This is such a beautiful, you know, such a beautiful moment. You’re going to make me weep. This is, this is I have to tell you, I these conversations are watering my soul. Like, thank you for, this is more than a podcast. This is just an experience. It is an experience. Thank Gissele: you. Thank you. Thank you. I was gonna ask about you know what you were saying and being able to see the divinity in one another. I think it really does help us shift away [00:30:00] from the story of being a victim, right? Because often when we don’t see the divinity within ourselves, we see ourselves Giselle affected by other people’s behavior the more that we tap into that divinity, the more that we see kind of unlimitedness how has seeing the, the, the, the God within you helped you shift away from some of the, the love more focused, like, you know, cause sometimes we’re so body focused. Yeah. Or self-focused, not that, I mean, self-love is important. So it, it’s not that that narcissistic focus I’m talking about. Sometimes we get so focused on the smallness of this body or the limit of this body that we sort of forget how divine we are. Can you talk a little bit about that? Lovemore: Absolutely. What’s coming up for me is I. I always just speak from my heart and draw reference. I remember I was going through a difficult time and a [00:31:00] sister of mine said, God is never overwhelmed. He’s never lost. Yeah. God is never overwhelmed. He’s never lost a battle. So it speaks to the grandiose, the unlimitedness of the Lord. And whenever I’m going through a storm. I always say God is never overwhelmed. And there’s a song by Torren Wells. He’s not, he’s never lost a battle. And what that does for me is it sets, it sets the precedence. It’s like, you know, it’s, it’s God in God first. He’s my creator. He’s unlimited, infinite. You know, it’s just like one thing I always learned. I learned as well to change. I, you’ll never hear me say again, the sky’s the limit. I do not use that word. God is, I, you know, we learned, we learned that we learned that growing up as children, right. And then we take it into our adult. And then when I [00:32:00] met God, I said, God, you are my limit. He is my limit, not the sky. He created the sky. So it is, it’s again, it’s always about perspective. And even though we don’t fully understand him because we never created him, he created us. I knew that there’s this unlimited abundance. It’s infinite. It’s above our own understanding. Like words can’t even fully describe him. We only know him this much, right? But his Being in his world is beyond us. Sometimes it just makes my head spin. But seeing and knowing God is never overwhelmed. He’s never lost a battle. That’s the mindset I use. And honestly, sometimes I have to sit with myself and just say that. Because sometimes the situation is so overwhelming. You just need that reminder, like, who is your source?[00:33:00] Remember there’s source and there’s resource. So it’s always going back to the facts and the truth. And we all, as I said, we all have different beliefs, but my truth is the Lord. My truth is God. He is. Unlimited? He’s unlimited, like he created this world and I have to remember that God is unlimited. That’s the source I want to tap into, not into my unlimited belief, because sometimes our belief is unlimited, but God is. You know, ever, ever, ever keep on going always promising. So those are my thoughts. Gissele: Yeah, thank you. I wanted to ask some questions that I know my listeners are going to ask. some of the people that I know and some of the listeners have maybe in the past put faith in God and then feel like there was no reply or there was no, like, you know, their miracle didn’t happen or they lost someone, especially during COVID. COVID was a really [00:34:00] challenging time for a lot of people. What do you say to those people that say, well, maybe God shows up for you, but he didn’t show up for me when I needed him, whatever time. Lovemore: Yeah, yes, Giselle, I’m just going to be totally honest. I’ve had someone who lost their child and she was, you know. Not understanding. I’m gonna be honest with you in a situation like that. I do not preach I do not say because sometimes I myself as the Lord sometimes I’m driving. I’m talking to the Lord. I’m like Lord I don’t know. I do not understand this like what’s happening here. I have to Remind myself. I’m beyond the full understanding so whenever if someone comes to me I’m going to try to figure out where they are mentally. Are they ready for, what conversation are they ready for? They may not be ready for, they may just want to be held. I don’t know if [00:35:00] you know this song by Casting Crown, Just Be Held, I’ll hold that person. What do you want to say? I’ll listen, but I may not respond in the moment because the response may not be the right time. So Giselle, I say this to say that. Sometimes if someone comes to me with a God conversation and I feel like I don’t even have the answer right now, I’ll just say, you know what, what would you like to share? I’m here to listen. I’ll, you know, I’m a huggy person. I’ll hug and I’ll hold them. If there’s a moment where I feel as if I can share from where I’m coming from at another time, I will, you know, I will do that. But if someone is going through the most difficult loss in the freshness of that, I will hold back on. Saying what I want to say, because it may not be the right time. And to be quite honest, I may not even have the answer. Someone comes to say, why did the Lord take my son? And why did the Lord, why did I go through [00:36:00] cancer? Why am I going to think that I have the answer for that? I, I, I’ll probably say, you know what? I, I’m here for you. How can I support you? What are the things can I do to make you feel better? Those are the questions I would ask. I’m not going to try to answer a God question because I’m over here with my own God questions like the Lord, why, but I often pray and like, Lord, give me the strength to go through what you’re taking me through and give me the mindset and the wisdom to understand that this is preparation and give me that strong conviction to know that I’m getting through. to a much more beautiful place, even though my eyes can’t see it. Lord, let me trust in you. Giselle, it’s not an easy, easy journey. I don’t want to tell anyone that it’s so easy. The more you see the Lord work [00:37:00] ways, and I sit and I remember how far I’m coming, how it was difficult for me to hold a conversation. And now here I am, I have enough strength in him and confidence in him, I can walk in a room, I can hold my head up high, and I can look you in the eyes and not hold my head down. So, we have to have more personal evidence that he has come through for us, and he’s going to continue to come through for us. So, if someone wants to ask us to wrap up, I will identify where they’re at, maybe they just need to be held. out for a long time. No preaching. I love you. You know, love has a way of just pouring into the cracks and the emptiness and the loneliness. And that’s why I chose love more. There were people that loved on me. It was such a great experience. I [00:38:00] promised myself, I am going to love forward this love because it’s so good. So love has a way of just filling in the pieces and the cracks, and it’s almost like you’re pouring into an empty vessel. Love has a way of just expanding and filling those empty places. So I would love over preaching. I would listen over a lecture and I would hug until. There’s a time to have a conversation, but it would be a conversation that’s going to put that person in a better frame of mind. So until I feel like I can have that conversation from my understanding and where I’m at of the Lord, I probably would not say anything. I would just hug, listen, embrace, and hug some more. And when the person’s ready for a little bit more, maybe I even suggest someone they can talk to that has. [00:39:00] More knowledge of the Lord than I do because we have to know that we don’t know everything and they’re experts and they’re people who know a little bit more than myself in certain areas. I may just say, you know what, let me, let me suggest someone that I believe that is a perfect person, or let me suggest someone who’s gone through your journey and know there are 10 years over into that experience. Maybe their 10 years getting here is better. So maybe it’s just providing the resources. Maybe it’s just going to the source for me, who is the Lord and say, Lord, she’s asking me questions and I have no idea. I don’t want to trigger her. I want to love on her. Can you guide me through? So that would be my response. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but that would be my response to that. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. What a beautiful response. And, you know, a lot of things came up for me. The first one is, you know it’s the place [00:40:00] of non judgment. Right. Yes. Like you’re, you’re willing to witness their divinity. You’re willing to in, in love is God or source, right? I think you, you’re extending love, you’re extending God. So for me, I think that’s the best thing that you can do is just be for, be there for someone, hold them and love them. And love has such a transformative power. I’ve experienced it myself with people that sometimes if you just love them. Like it has a transformative thing. You don’t even have to do anything. It’s just an extension of love that people either, either they’ll align to it and accept it, or they’re just kind of like, Oh, too much for me. See ya. And so, so love has this kind of transformative way. It comes from a place of nonjudgment. That’s true compassion. It’s this nonjudgment, this allowing to honoring that person’s emotions and experiences and acknowledging that that’s what they’re going through. And you’re right, we have such a limited perspective from our mind, right? [00:41:00] Like we only see this much we don’t see, because if we’re truly the divinity within us, then we’re unlimited, there is no death, there’s just transition. But those conversations are not the time to be having when somebody is in the middle of grief. And so knowing Instead of thinking about what this person, what conversation should be having, what do you need in this moment and can I be a vessel for it? You mentioned faith, which can be really challenging when things where, you know, when things take time or when, you know, you don’t see it out there. What keeps you in your faith in your most Lovemore: challenging moments? Giselle, sometimes I have to borrow faith from others. which is something that I’ve learned. I’ve learned that I don’t have to be strong all the time. I’ve learned that, as I said earlier, we all come, we all come with different wealth. [00:42:00] And if I’m feeling like I need faith and I do not have enough, Trust me, I’m going to call someone, I’m going to borrow their faith, because sometimes you just need to be in the presence or just have a conversation with someone who has what you need. I’m okay borrowing the faith. I’m okay borrowing. I had to learn. That I’m okay borrowing your hope when I am not so hopeful. And sometimes we don’t even have to have a conversation. I could just like scroll on your page and I see you sitting in a fountain of hope. And I sit there enough and you just feel a little bit better. So we have to just learn to be wise and intentional. And know who has what we have, what we need, I should say. And listen, I have borrowed people faith, I have gone in and sat down with my pastor, and when I, when I leave, I’m just like, whoop! You just, you, you, [00:43:00] sometimes all we need is just to sit in the presence of the right person, because remember, God is with us, right? And God knows that I’m, I’m, I’m going to my pastor. You know, to have a conversation, he’s going to just like pour into the pot to make sure he has the right position, the right words. So I borrow from others and one of the, one of my most sacred places where I feel the Lord the most is by the lake and I want to share this when I go to the lake or I’m out in nature and I hear the birds chirping and I look up at the sky and I see I see the unlimitedness of God. I see that He’s just ever so giving. And when I go to the lake, I don’t know the signs behind it, beside it, in it, but it’s almost like the water washes my, my mind. It’s almost like the water is a sponge. [00:44:00] And it’s like, come on. Whenever, whenever I leave, it’s almost like you took a shower. Like the longest shower, you feel squeaky clean, that’s helped me with my faith because the Lord connects with me there and he takes away my concerns. So I always say, you know what, that’s where I go to cast my cares. Anytime I have a cast in my care situation, I go to the lake first. And if I need some extra support. Then I’m like, who is the person I need to reach out for this? Who is the, who is the, who has the faith right now in this season? And who can speak to me from a place of love? I, I, when I’m going through a storm, Giselle, I do not, I do not want a lecture. Mm-hmm. wait until I’ve come through a certain position for you to [00:45:00] lecture me if I need lecturing. Mm-hmm. But whenever I am fragile and my faith is a little bit low, A lecture is going to break me even more because I know who I am. So I run to the league and then I have, I call them my Pelotons. I will just look at my Peloton list, see who has the, who has the capacity to pour into me. Because I want to be poured to from a place of love. And then I just borrow. It’s okay to borrow. I’ve borrowed so much, but it allows me to bloom because I know that someone is going to come and borrow from me too. So we, it’s okay to borrow. It’s okay to give. It’s okay to, to share. It’s a whole part of the, the love journey. So whenever my faith is low, I have no hesitation to borrow enough until I can run to the lake and go gather some more. Yeah. Gissele: Wow. That’s very powerful. Because you are basically. Acknowledging to yourself what you need in the moment. And then you’re [00:46:00] saying, you know, you talked about source and resource, right? Like how, how do I get, how am I able to tap into that divinity, that, that faith, that love and being able to support each other through this journey. Isn’t that what it’s about? Like, if not, we probably would have incarnated here just by ourselves. So I think we’re all here to help each other, to, to love each other, to grow. And to kind of help each other resource, because the more you get from other people, the more you have to give, which is absolutely beautiful. Yeah. And, you know, you speaking of nature I will say, you know, there’s, there’s so much you know, like there’s on the one hand, there’s that regenerative power that comes from nature. There’s that, that. You know, unlimited ness. And then there are these genuine fears of what we’re doing to nature and how much we’ve taken away and continue to do. And so for me, this conversation was yet again, an important reminder of how important [00:47:00] that aspect of us is that that divinity and nature and how important it is to to protect it and take care of it. Wonderful. Yeah. I was wondering if I’m just gonna, so this is kind of my A couple more questions. The first one is as part of this kind of new season of our podcast, I’m asking all of my guests to tell me what they think Unconditional Love is. Lovemore: Wow. Unconditional Love is preparing my mind, my heart, and my soul to sit in this, in this moment. And if there’s… If I see that there’s judgment coming up in this moment because I just wanted to stay present, I acknowledge that and I deal with it throughout the day. I either, you know, Lord, I please, I [00:48:00] ask you for forgiveness. We don’t want to kid ourselves and say that unconditional love is so easy. It is not easy. It is, for me, it is the mindset, it is the practice that the more I practice, To see you, to love you without conditions, the easier and the closer I’m going to get to that part, you know, just like saying, I will never tell someone I’m fully healed. Because that option and possibility is so on, you know, it’s unlimited and there’s always like more healing and more healing. So unconditional love for me is having that mindset that I’m going to catch myself and be honest. So it’s honesty. It’s being honest with myself to say. I’m judging you because my heart is going to speak the truth. Unconditional love is connecting to my [00:49:00] heart and having my heart lead and say, Love more, your mind is judging her and your heart is saying, is telling you that you’re judging her. So unconditional love is being honest with myself, is catching myself, and it’s the action. We can’t say we’re going to practice unconditional love and I don’t go home tonight before I go to bed and say, Lord. You know, I was judging Giselle all, all this time. I thought she was, she was this and that and look how beautiful she is. I’m going, even if I don’t tell you Giselle, I have to have that honesty. This is why I sit in a lot of peace. Because every night I look into my day, Lord, I missed the opportunity to be kind to Giselle today. Forgive me. And not, I’m not going to ask for forgiveness a hundred times and not take some action to say, I need to do work on that. So Unconditional Love is catching ourselves, being honest with ourselves, doing to work to ensure that [00:50:00] we are truly moving forward more and more and more to loving. without the condition. So I don’t know if there’s any human on this earth who can say I totally love without conditions. But what I would love to hear and say is I am being mindful, I catch myself, and I’m committed to learning and serving and learning more because it’s a journey. It is the journey.  And I say to myself, I want to be a better person because God is love, God forgives, God doesn’t judge, and I just want to, Lord, I want to be more like you. If you really, if we really can be honest with ourselves and say, I’m loving without conditions. It’s not always easy, but it’s been intentional and I’m going to commit to this. I’m going to catch myself when I find that I did not love you today with, you know, without conditions. It is the me thing. [00:51:00] It’s me from the perspective of let me see where I’m at. Thanks. And it’s the practicing, it is getting better, and it’s focusing on the love that the Lord exudes, and wanting to be more like Him. That’s my answer, and I stick with it. Gissele: Yeah, no, that’s, that’s so powerful. The willingness is, is huge. I think people underestimate what willingness is. That’s a beautiful way to answer that question. The last question is sharing more about you. Tell where people can find you where they can come work with you. Tell us about your website, please. Go Lovemore: ahead. Oh, awesome. Well I must say again, thank you so much. This has just been such a beautiful, rich conversation and just really setting me up for a more winning week. I just love the conversations. You can find me courtesy of my website, [00:52:00] lovemorelifestyle. ca. I’m on Instagram daily and on my stories daily for Instagram. So that’s lovemorelifestyle. ca. Style coaching. I’m also on Facebook. Love more Sharon McLaughlin, or if you find any one of those, you can reach out to me and then I can remind you as well, where all the places to make it easier for you, wherever you are in this beautiful globe. Thank you for tuning, tuning in and listening to Giselle and I, and I do hope that you connect with us. Let us know, where are you on, on your journey? I, I, Giselle, I wanted to, this is what I want to share. I am just here to share my journey, my experiences. I’m here to connect, connect to the wealth that others bring. And I want us to do this. I want us to come together and I want us to realize how much we need each other. So what I do is… [00:53:00] Over and beyond coaching is I have a passion for bringing in community together. I have a passion for reminding others that you are a leader in the uniqueness that God has created you to be. And no one can take that away from you. So I want to encourage leaders to say stand up because you have a light, you have purpose. And it’s more and above. coaching package. It’s about bringing community together. It’s about sharing our light and love and it’s encouraging others. Let love be your GPS. So When you’re ready, if you’re ready, even if you’re not ready and you think, you know what, let me just follow this path, you can connect with both of us because we are love hearted and we are practicing love, learning love, and wanting to get more and more into that part where we’re practicing love with all conditions. And remember, it’s a lifestyle. So Gissele: thank you so, [00:54:00] so much. And thank you everyone for tuning in to another episode of the loving compassion podcast, which is so bye.

Try Cure today! Receive 20% of your purchase, click on the link below https://zen.ai/HQehoClrVuEeCnK9veV3Cw Transcript [00:00:00] Gissele: hello and welcome to the love and compassion podcast, Giselle. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Don’t forget to like it, subscribe for more amazing content on today’s podcast. We’ll be talking about creating a magical life. Our guest is 11 time bestselling author and award winner, Diana Wentworth. She is well known as the coauthor of the two chicken soup for the soul books. The film rights to her romantic memoir, Send Me Someone, were purchased by Lifetime Network. She and her late husband founded the Inside Edge, a weekly breakfast forum in Southern California which founded many celebrated authors and speakers of today. Diana is a sought after international keynote speaker and loves to support her clients. She is also the host of Women’s Circle and is publishing her latest book, Expect Magic, which is coming out in 2024. Please join me in [00:01:00] welcoming Diana Wentworth. Hi, Diana. Diana: Hi, I’m so happy to be with you. Yes. Gissele: Thank you so much for agreeing to be on the show. I’m so excited to talk to you. You’ve lived such an extraordinary life thus far, obviously not done yet, so you’ve still got more extraordinary to go. Right. I was wondering if you could tell our listeners a little bit about how you got to this extraordinary life. Like how, what were your beginnings like? How, Diana: what led you? Oh my gosh. Oh, my gosh, what a life. You know, there’s a joke on Facebook about sliding in at the end of your life with champagne and saying, it’s kind of been that way with me. Honestly, I’ve just I am just really so, so grateful. All sorts of magic has happened in my life. So much serendipity. So many magical meetings. They’re just completely unexplainable. So I, I guess I should say that I was widowed [00:02:00] two years ago for the second time. So I’m reinventing my life right now with an even more daring encore. to tell you the truth. This Saturday the Women Gone Wild Wealth Edition is going to be launched. And so I’m going to be doing a 10 minute, what they call a She Talk, which is for the women veterans who have the highest suicide rate, I, I think, of all of the, the veterans. And from that, from this vantage point, I’m really thinking a lot about wealth, because this is the wealth edition that’s coming out. And there are basically two kinds of wealth. Wealth that fills up your bank account, and wealth that fills up your heart. And if you have the first and not the second, you’re not truly wealthy. You’re just… solvent. So I, I, what I love to talk about is heart filled wealth, which is often followed by [00:03:00] abundance of all kinds. And so I’m just a living example of how magic can flow into the life, your life, like the times that But I dated Elvis, and at the time when I accidentally kind of became the first co author in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, I was there when Jack and Mark were brainstorming their concept, it was, they had been turned down by almost every publisher in the world for the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and everybody thought it was a cookbook, and I you I had actually written six cookbooks, one of which had one cookbook of the year, and so their publisher said, well, we have to have a cookbook. So that’s what brought that in. And that made that the 3rd book in the series. So it had all sorts of recipes because not not all chicken recipes either. It was really because people come together around the table when they’re traveling, or they meet serendipitously and then there are [00:04:00] stories associated with that. So that was. Yeah. So much fun. And then I was part I was one of the ambassadors that went into the Soviet Union at the height of the cold war and helped begin a dialogue between American and Russian people. And, and that basically changed my life forever because. My husband Paul and I said, you know, wait a minute, things are happening here. People are sharing resources and people are supporting each other and enthusiastic for each other. There are all these wonderful leaders from all over the world on the trip. And we came back to the food world and started the Inside Edge, which took off like a rocket and We hosted speakers for over 37 years from all over the world, and some people walked in and just joined like Louise Hay had never written a book and, and [00:05:00] Dr. Susan Jeffers. I used to give these parties that you had to show up as who you were going to be in five years. And Susan Jeffress showed up in a limousine and got out in a formal gown and said that she’d just returned from her third New York Times bestseller tour. And she actually pulled that off. She wrote a book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, and wrote two more books in those five years. So Jack Canfield said recently that he stole that idea and has done that for the closing of every training he’s done ever since. Oh, wow. Had that futuristic party. So, I, I feel that, you know, magic has played a role in all those pivotal moments just the serendipity, I I was engaged when I was in college to an extremely wealthy man, and I just had this sudden knowing that he was attracted to me because I was so decorative. But [00:06:00] he didn’t really know the real me and I, I broke that engagement. I knew that I would meet the right person. I just always knew I would have this wonderful soulmate. And I went on a trip to Hong Kong, had a sudden knowing that I needed to be down in the lobby in a certain place. So I threw on a really beautiful dress and went down and stood in the lobby and out of the elevator walked Paul Von Wellenatz, who was my. My soulmate and my husband for 25 years and I’m just yacking away here. Is this? No, no, this Gissele: is perfect. Yeah, this is perfect. I do have a number of questions though. So, so what do you think contributed to your allowing them your magical life to flow through you? Do you think it’s predetermined or do you feel like there are some things that people are doing or not doing to allow the magic in their lives? Diana: Well, I think that’s a [00:07:00] really key question. Because I think that we’ve all had inklings. We’ve all had coincidences and so on, but things showed up in my life. So amazingly that I began to trust it and I really began to ask. all the time. I, whenever, I mean, there were times when, when a careers fell apart and I would just be pacing and saying, tell me what to do. And then I’d have this sudden insight. So that’s how we moved from the cooking world into the inside edge. I had a, I had a sudden picture of a human potential organization and everybody was really excited that we created it and everything. But I mean, it came to me like a window opened, you know, and then closed. And I think the fact that I trusted that has made all the difference pressure. Yeah. I think so. Gissele: So how do you cause I know this is going [00:08:00] to be a question that my listener is going to want to know, how do you manage the difficult times when you can’t hear that guidance or when you are struggling with the fear? Because sometimes following that intuition takes a lot of courage, right? Diana: Yes, I think it’s it takes courage. And I think when you become very, very centered, and you have no idea what to do, everybody’s saying that, you know, it’s logical to do this or that, but there’s something inside of you that’s saying, No, no, no, I need to follow my heart. I think that is. So absolutely key and I think that scientists are proving all of this right now that they’re, they are saying, you know, that there is the physicists are saying that there’s this quantum field. And it contains all that is, [00:09:00] and so the fact that I’ve been shown a critical path, I think always comes from my, my knowing and my trust to ask and listen. I think we have to become very still. And we, you know, I’ve been a meditator for 50 years and I use a product called new calm, which it takes me into a kind of a flow state where I feel that I can much more easily access the communication. The physicists are proving that we’re much more connected to each other and to all that is. And this field is the divinity that includes absolutely everything. From our communication with our departed loved ones, to the new web telescope that reveals the birth of the stars. And so this is all moving lifting… connection from speculation to proven science, [00:10:00] and I think that I’ve just always kind of known that I’ve known that, especially if I’m asking very intently very fiercely. Or an answer and I’m pacing back and forth. There’s something about that vibration or that frequency that brings insights and they happen very quickly around me. People who know me well know that everything changes just on a dime all the time, but it’s always a step forward. You know, there’s a stepping stone that just kind of shows up or a person or an invitation like being with you today. Who knows where we come from? Gissele: Yeah. So have you ever had an experience where the guidance you receive like you doubted like that you had or that the circumstances were playing out in a way that you kind of were wondering, Oh, is this or did you always just have the trust. Diana: Well, I’ve always trusted, but I think what’s happening right now in my life is the [00:11:00] most fascinating thing, because back in when I was 30 years old a lawsuit that my father was involved in, and he had just died, wiped us, wiped the family out financially. And I had no idea what to do. And I remember, I remember pacing the floor and saying, tell me, tell me what to do. And I heard the words voluntary simplicity. And that was really, I knew that obviously voluntary simplicity was a great thing to do. I’ve never done it. I went ahead and we had our career, but now that I’m 82 and I’m living in the desert where it’s going to be 100 degrees for the next 4 months. Wow. And I’ve been widowed, you know, so I’m alone. I, I, I’m taking that voluntary [00:12:00] simplicity idea and I’m going to run with it and I’ve already been invited to some beautiful teaching establishments. So I’m selling everything I have. I’m giving away everything that I have selling my condo and I’m just following and knowing that by simplifying my life so that it’s just. Sacred and beautiful and not cluttered with all this stuff that people gather so much stuff and then there’s slaves to it, you know, so I’m going to move into voluntary simplicity now and it’s wonderful because nobody’s saying, oh, Diana, you’re making a mistake, you know, everybody’s saying, yes. And so I find that invitations are flowing in and people want me to teach this and that. And I’m certified in several kinds of yoga and and all kinds of other writing techniques. I’ve done a lot of writing seminars for people all over the world. [00:13:00] So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go out and I’m going on the road. It’s sort of a road trip to surrender is what I call it. Gissele: And surrender is so important. I just want to go back to something that you had mentioned before, which is. You didn’t take the advice until much later. You think that we can always. Like, if we don’t follow the advice that we always have the potential to get back on track to what our original plan was or what the guidance Diana: is, I think this advice about voluntary simplicity was so pure and so good for any phase of life. And I think if I had followed it more that things would have been a little bit different. I got distracted, you know, by the success and, you know, things and having stuff and a nice, you know, really nice cars and things like that. I have always paid a lot of attention to my heart [00:14:00] path and to what I call being in essence instead of being an ego. I think I would have followed that path a little more purely. I don’t know what difference it would have made. It might have made a financial difference or even some kind of a sacred difference. But I know that now that that is key information for me. That’s key advice and it feels so right. You know, I think that’s the thing that, and it does to other people too. I was just talking to a wonderful man yesterday for an hour who’s extremely wealthy and has, you know, a warehouse of his art collection and he’s saying, Oh, I want to do this. I need to do this. It’s just ringing true with people, especially in the crazy times that we’re in right now. It feels good. It feels right. It’s Gissele: so interesting. One of the things that I’ve learned in my life has been that all of that stuff has energy attached to it, right? And so you can be kind of [00:15:00] overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that you have, because that’s all just kind of energy. And so it must be something so liberating to be able to let go of all of these. This energy, this identity, these old stories, right? To really wipe the canvas clean so that you can say, okay, who am I going to be now? Right? Exactly. It does seem like such a great adventure. Diana: Oh, it is. It’s just, I, I’m just lit up with it. And for several months, I was kind of dragging around thinking, gosh, you know, here I am in the desert. I don’t know that many people here. I never really created much of a community. And then all of a sudden I began getting ideas and, and signs, you know, people were saying to me, Oh, what are you going to do next Diana? And I, I do these wisdom circles with women all over the world where we, it’s a nine month process. We have some three month ones coming up, but it’s a nine month process. It’s like conception and birth, where [00:16:00] we decide that we are going to create some kind of a legacy project in our life. Most of these women are women of mastery. They’ve already created something great in their life, but they want, they want to do something that really represents what their life has meant. And We have such fabulous bonding and deep connections, and people are really, really wondering and exploring what their path, their ideal path could be right now. So they inspire me. You know, there’s just all sorts of them that are doing tremendous things, and we are kind of sounding boards for each other, and I love this kind of conversation. Gissele: you talked about the quantum getting our vibration to a really high level is really important for us to aligning with our dreams and it is so much more helpful when you do that in a community with people, right? Because they can help you, we can help each other get there. Right? [00:17:00] Diana: That’s the best thing of all. That’s what I’ve always loved. I had, I often say that I think our core wound is really key to, it’s a sign of what we can do with our life. I was sent away to boarding school at the age of eight. all by myself. My brother went to a separate school and we were only three miles from home. And it was profoundly lonely because this boarding school didn’t have anybody in the lower school grades, just me and my own wing, you know? So this core loneliness made me really yearn for and care about having soul companions. you know, people that were true family, a family of choice. And I think that’s why I love cooking so much, because I could invite people in and watch them connect around the table and create community. And then when [00:18:00] that evolved into the inside edge, which became such a catalyst for connection that all came out of that loneliness that I experienced. So, I mean, we can let those things destroy us or we can find the gift, you know, Gissele: yeah. And you’re talking about alchemy, right? You’re alchemizing really difficult moments into pure gold or into something that could really be beneficial in, you know but so often we get stuck in those stories, right? Those identities of like, I’m the victim, this happened. Things have happened to all of us, right? And so how is it that we can then alchemize those experiences into Diana: amazing? Well, I love that word alchemy and I’m glad you’re using that. You know, it’s exactly where is the gold in this experience? How did it open my heart? How did it? Introduce me to things I would never have learned otherwise, Gissele: or people. And I want to give another example where you alchemize something. I had read your [00:19:00] book Diana: Love your heart. Gissele: And you raise a really important issue, which is women who have heart issues, right? And that’s not often talked about. So can you tell me a little bit about how that challenging. Experience led you to sort of do that sort of work for that is really Diana: helpful for women. Yeah, well, I was I had a sudden heart attack in 09. I wasn’t expecting it at all. Luckily, I got to the hospital really fast, and they put in three long stents, so I didn’t need, you know, open heart surgery. If it had happened two weeks later, I would have been on a cruise ship in, in Ephesus in Turkey. So I wouldn’t even be talking to you now about this, but… It made me very soulful. It made me really… It was a wake up call, I think. And they told me that I needed to walk every day. And being someone who loves [00:20:00] multitasking, I decided that I would grab a poem. I’ve always loved poetry because it can express things that are inexpressible. And so every week I would take a new poem on my walk, and I would, as I walked along, there was something about the rhythm of being outdoors, and just, and the words just went into my bones. And I’d love to recite one for you. Can I recite a poem? Yes, please. There was the first one that I memorized, and it’s the opening of my new book, Expect Magic. So it’s the, the, Epigraph, I think they call it, of the of the book. And it’s by Derek Wolcott, and it’s called Love After Love. The time will come when you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome and say, Sit here, [00:21:00] eat. You will love again the stranger who is yourself. Give wine, give bread, give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes. Peel your own image from the mirror. Sit down. Feast on your life. So that’s what I’m doing right now. And the book begins with this feast on my life. I’m really looking back and, and appreciating the depth of all my experiences and the meaning and the joys and recording or memorializing those things along with all the lessons that I’ve learned in life. So. That the heart attack [00:22:00] was a great gift, and you know, the other thing was that the Chinese have a legend that when we’re born, we’re connected by an invisible red thread, an access to everyone that we’re destined to meet. And the Inuit culture believes that a red thread connects all the meaning in our lives. And now in quantum physics, they talk about the red thread. You know, and so it’s thrilling to me. And then I in my book, which anybody can download on the homepage of my website, which is Diana Wentworth. com the quantum physicists are, are talking about the red thread. And I, I, I took it and talked about the veins in our bodies, the veins and the capillaries. And it’s all about. Taking care of yourself and loving yourself and living a heart centered life. So I wrote that book just in a couple of months and published it myself for the American Heart [00:23:00] Association. And then I got to speak at a bunch of the Go Red for Women luncheons. So I didn’t let any of that go by without profiting on it. Gissele: Definitely. And it’s helpful for women to know that part, right? It’s something that is not often still talked about. Oh, I forgot I was going to ask. No, I remember. I was going to ask you about, since the poem I found so deeply moving, what it really brought up for me was the concept of self love. What, what role has self love played in your life and in your ability to be able to kind of align to your magic? Diana: Well, I grew up probably much longer before most of your listeners. So back in my day, you know, in the 50s, and there was a lot of judgmentalness and competition with women and, and all of that. And it’s, and And I, I went [00:24:00] through a horrible puberty. I grew eight inches in one year. I had acne. I was suddenly very voluptuous and I had just been a little girl, you know? And it was really hard to love myself. And so I really thought of myself. Primarily as somebody that I could make decorative, you know, I could, I could learn to use makeup and I did a lot of modeling in those days and everything. And I did transform my body into something that was much more acceptable. But I think that the women have had a lid on us for so long, you know, we’re not supposed to be loud. We’re not supposed to be out there and and. Full of exuberance and all of that. And something really funny happened because I was in a writing class with another teacher and there were 500 people in the class and she said, [00:25:00] okay, everybody write about a school cafeteria experience. And I wrote about this horrible puberty and everything. And then for some reason out of 500 people, she pointed at me and she said, Diana, read us what you wrote. And it was totally embarrassing. It was all about periods and you know, it was gross, but. Afterwards, I was kind of the next day, I was still kind of embarrassed, but I was laughing. I was laughing at, you know, just the humiliation of it all. Yeah. And I thought, well, you know, women have this, we don’t have that. I don’t have a voice, you know, and so I went to the computer. I went to GoDaddy and I bought a domain called women. Writing wild because I was teaching all these writing classes and I thought, well, let’s tap into that. That’s a great subject. And a couple of days later, I got a phone call from David Fagan saying, Diana, I want you to write the foreword for a book called Women Gone Wild. I mean, how strange is that? That’s kind of an example [00:26:00] of the so called coincidences that continually show up around me. Beautiful. Gissele: Can we talk, since we were talking about, you know, self love and then obviously love for others, can you tell us a little bit about how is it that you ended up writing your book on Send Me Someone? How is it that synchronicity led for you Diana: to find your second soulmate? That was wonderful. My, well, it was horrible and wonderful at the same time to tell you the truth because Paul and I had been married 25 years. We had just celebrated our 25th anniversary. We had lit a candle to the 25 years that we’d had. We laughed and we cried. We marveled over it. We went out to a wonderful dinner and came back and lit a candle to the next 25 years. And neither one of us said a word. And I had a thought that went through my head, which [00:27:00] was, is this our last anniversary? It was very strange. We went to bed very sober that night. And two days later, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and it was completely unexpected. He’d been just fine. And he lived another four months. And then just about a week before he died, I had, he had fallen asleep on the couch and I had gone to take, to get a glass of water for him. And I heard him say. I don’t want you to be alone. And what came out of me were the words, send me someone. And he said, I will, I will. And right after he died. I still felt him so present with me. I could still journal with him and he would tell me certain things to do. And I would, and he told me to go out and buy a squirt gun. I mean, this [00:28:00] is really a strange story. It was, you know, I was like, what, you know, and it was like, this is Gissele: what I was talking about, Diana. Sometimes the guidance that I get to, you’re like, I’m like, what? That doesn’t make any sense to me. Go on. Diana: But I have learned to trust, you know, and it was about 630 at night. And so the toy store was still open. I ran over there. They only had one squirt gun. It looked like a hot dog with mustard on. I mean, it was really strange, but it happened to be the night before our inside edge. It was a very big. Picnic called the interconnectedness picnic. You know, it was right after the 4th interdependent picnic because it was right after the 4th of July. So I took the squirt gun to the picnic and into the walked a man named Ted Wentworth. And I had only met him very briefly, he had been widowed and had been looking for his new wife for [00:29:00] two years, and he had dated 131 women, which he kept track of in a little internet, not an internet black book, but on an on, you know, a document on on a computer. And I remember the first day he walked into the inside edge. He came with a friend and he was very psychic and he said to his friend, she’s here. My new wife is in this room. And so I was the host that morning and somebody said, well, Diana, how are you really doing? Because it’s only been 2 months since Paul had died. And I said, well, you know, it’s really interesting being alone. The first man who looks at me with the idea of a live in relationship could become the victim of an axe murder. And I wouldn’t normally say something like that, you know, that was like a frog that jumped out of my mouth. And so Jed was there for the first for the first [00:30:00] time. And during the intermission, he walked right up to me and he said, this is what he said to me the very first thing. He said, will you live with me? Wow. So this is about two weeks later. We’re at the picnic and nobody’s paying any attention to me and my squirt gun. So I squirted him when I saw him and he took off running after me. We ran through all through the grounds. He yanked the squirt gun away. He threw me over his back, took the squirt gun out of my, out of my hand and then squirted me in the face. So are you going to have dinner with me? Yeah. And I married him six months later. So that was incredibly magic. That’s how the book Send Me Someone was named that. And it’s called A True Story of Love Here and Hereafter. So powerful. Gissele: It’s also powerful. Can I ask in terms of when you had your, your heart attack, was it [00:31:00] around the time like, was it in between the husbands or was it like, were you still Diana: married? No, I had been married to Ted for about 15 years when I had the heart attack. I married him in 89 and This happened in 09. So that’s 20 years. I was married to him for 20 years. Oh, Gissele: wow. That’s a long time. Yeah. No, I was just wondering if there was a connection between the emotional aspect of your relationships and the heart attack, right? Because, you know, as you heard. That heart Diana: attack was a complete gift. And the timing of it was the complete gift because I really grew a lot from that. I became certified in a second kind of yoga. Restorative yoga. And I, I was certified by one of the founders of the, of Yoga Journal. And then when I moved to Palm [00:32:00] Springs here, when Ted and I moved to Palm Springs here eight years ago, I went to a yoga class and it wasn’t any good. And the owner with the salon of the studio was there. And I said, you know, that isn’t restorative yoga. Because I’m certified in it. And I know she says, Oh, well, then you’re going to teach yoga. And so I, that began my yoga career, just, and I had it all, you know, and that was really fun because I called it heart yoga. And I would insert my mystical poetry into the classes because everybody holds the pose for about four minutes. And stay, you know, it’s not a fast yoga. It’s not. It’s not a flow yoga or anything else. You use a lot of bolsters and other kinds of props in order to hold your body open and you surrender into the pose. And it’s really deep and wonderful, but there’s a lot of silence there. So people always enjoyed all the poetry that I knew by [00:33:00] heart. And that’s so Gissele: powerful to be able to hold the pose because I think that’s probably where like you like you said it opens up space. And since you mentioned the word surrender, I’m going to ask you a little bit about what your relationship with surrender has been in what you’re moving into in terms of surrender. Diana: Well, I do think that faith and surrender are their last two big lessons. And. When Ted was alive we would every summer here in the desert, it gets so hot that we would go on a road trip and we would really only know where we were going the first day. So we would normally head up toward Lake Tahoe and then we would wonder, you know, what, what park have we seen or which direction should we go? Where should we go? We would ask. And I began to call that The Road Trip to Surrender. So several people are saying they think [00:34:00] that’s the title of my next book, is The Road Trip to Surrender, because I’m going to be out there kind of living in a state of wonder and expectancy for the next right stepping stones to show up in front of me. So I’d say my relationship with surrender is very alive right now. I’m waiting to hear where somebody thinks that I might have a little kind of a sacred space. Maybe somebody’s casita or guest house where I can just have some basic things in that I can travel and and teach yoga and teach writing and go to luxury spas and. Beyond the faculty, and I just know all this is going to open up. I live in a state of wonder and expectancy. And I think that that helps, you know, just being open and receptive is the answer and the key. Do [00:35:00] you ever feel Gissele: fear or doubt? Like, do you ever feel and what do you do with those emotions? Like, how do you, how do you help people shift that? Just because that’s what I hear, right? Like I, you know, I’ve had experiences where I’ve fully trusted, had very clear guidance, fully trusted, even if it didn’t make sense. And there was other times when more so when it impacted other people, not so much myself, where I’m like, I don’t know if I could like there’s there’s some doubt and fear sometimes even negative thinking. So why do you shift out of that negative thinking so that it doesn’t you so you don’t allow your energy to go down and it shifts you out of Diana: your magic. Well, I’ll tell you what I do. But first, I’ll tell you that yes, I do have those moments. Sometimes I’m absolutely terrified. You know, I’m 82 years old, and I had been lifting a bunch of things and ended up with a bunch of back pain that I really hadn’t [00:36:00] figured it was from the lifting. And it was, it was like, My gosh, two days from now, I could be disabled. You know, what am I going to do? Where would I live? What would I do with all this stuff? What I do every morning when I wake up is I smile. I remind myself to smile because normally we wake up and think, Oh, gosh, what do I have to do today? You know, and, and there’s a fear. There’s a natural fear that runs along with it. And the great teacher Pema Chodron, who’s a Buddhist nun had some great impact on, on the way I think of things. So she says there’s like 17 seconds that we have to turn that around. So the way I do it is first of all, I smile. Because the smile sends a message to your body to release the [00:37:00] feel good hormone endorphins and things like that. And then I do what I, I call, I craft what I call a quintessential question or a quantum question. So this question has the energy and the vibration almost already of the solution. It’s not just what do I do about my bad back, you know what I mean? It’s, it’s more, how can I most effectively light up this world? Or where’s the most joy to be found today? You see, the feeling that you want is in the question itself. And I believe that that does more to generate the upward spiral that becomes my day and as I, I get back in bed and I put on my headphones and I listen to an app called New Calm and it takes me into [00:38:00] a really elevated bed. Kind of a super learning space. And then I began to just keep asking more and more creative questions. Sometimes I listen to a YouTube recording of Jan Phillips. You might want to jot this down because she says there, she has like a five minute recording to music of something that she wrote that’s called Think of Yourself. And she talks about think of yourself You know, this divine opening this, you know, she just goes on and on. And she’s so powerful, that it always reminds me, I think it’s really important first thing in the morning to do these, these things that take us from a downward spiral into an upward spiral. Gissele: Yeah, that is so, Diana: so powerful. Pretty much stay there all day. You know, Greg Brayden has a wonderful meditation that I love where you [00:39:00] put your hand on your heart. And you Just doing that, just putting, and I always in my new calm sessions, I always have my hand on my heart because that centers you, that takes you into, you know, the most open place and I begin to send messages to every cell to renew themselves in their original pattern instead of their pattern. Thank you. Current circumstance, so I feel that that all enlivens my body, that I’m, that I’m doing all the right things to give my body the nourishment it needs through my own suggestions and so on. Gissele: Yeah, what you said is so powerful. I love they putting your hand on your chest. I I’ve done compassion based training. And that’s one of the things that they teach you to do, which is, you know, like, put your hand on your heart or another soothing place to give yourself a moment of loving kindness. Right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. [00:40:00] So exciting. I was wondering if you could tell since you mentioned newcombs, you want to talk a little bit about what that is? Because I know I’m gonna get asked, Diana: you know, okay, sure. Sure. It’s N U C A L M, and it’s the only patented brain science. For years, it’s been used by the military forces all over the world because of the stress that they’re under, and they have a track called Rescue that really takes you into deep relaxation and stress relief. And the only way you could access this for so many years was by buying 6, 000 headphones. And so it was prohibitively expensive. But running the inside edge, I was always inviting different speakers and I invited the inventor. Of new calm to come and speak and I was fascinated and then right after my husband Ted died 2 years ago, [00:41:00] I heard that they had turned it into an app and that you could access it much less expensively and I started using it and I was just expecting to have some beautiful relaxation. What I began to notice after a few weeks was that, wow, I was, it was almost like I was able to download the solutions and I even began to find that I could start dictating into my phone, you know, just on the notes app, 2500 or 3500 words of a book I was writing and it would be so conversational and it was, it was almost like it was tuning me into my higher self. And so they had Tony Robbins as a spokesperson who had always just raved about it and wanted everybody. He coaches to use it. [00:42:00] They don’t pay him anything. He just is a natural fan of it and they had some other great. Sports figures speaking out for it. And so I’m not shy. I’m really good at asking for what I want. And I reached out to Jim Poole, who’s the president, and I told him that he needed me, that he needed an elder, you know, could talk about how wonderful the product was. And fortunately, he and his brother came out and visited me in my home. And I was able to show them through a friend of mine who did a PowerPoint about the future of Newcombe. And so they actually hired me as a spokesperson. Okay, that’s great. And now I’m going to take it into some new uses because they have these tracks now that are called Flow and so on. And they’re beautiful. The music is beautiful. I’m going to be using it in my yoga classes, behind you know, underneath all of [00:43:00] the, the poses so that people are actually getting the benefit of this increased brain function. And they, they have it for sleep. They have it for all different purposes. But what I love is just the rescue tracks and the flow tracks. They have one called Ignite. That is actually a little too powerful. Tony Robbins is involved in that when it makes me manic. No, Gissele: yeah, we don’t want that. Diana: Yeah, that was good when I was much younger. But you know, it just is the most wonderful thing. And I know that if you go to the website they have me there speaking about it. I, I know I have a link somewhere that can give 15 percent off, but I just honestly don’t know where. Go to my website, go to my website, dinowetwork. com and go to [00:44:00] the newcom thing, and it’ll take you to the right page to get 15 percent off, but they lower the price so much that you can join it for as little as 29 a month and have many of the benefits. So. That’s wonderful. Gissele: So we do a transcription of the show. So I can add the links there as well. Like we can link directly to your site and we can link anything that you want to offer. And that gives me now an opportunity to ask you about what you’re working on. What do you want the audience to know about you? Where can people find you? Where can people work Diana: with you? Oh, gosh, well, yes, I love I can give a little 15 minute call, you know, with people to see if they want to work with me. What I specialize in is these wisdom circles. Where people can kind of experience what I call encore magic or expect magic and it’ll have a lot of the tools of like I told you about waking up in the morning and doing these certain things. And people can decide whether they want to work with me. [00:45:00] I work with people privately as a coach just on their project, or we create these circles. My friend Robin Mullen and I have something called wisdom circles. com and you can go to that and see some of the different programs that that we offer. I think it’s really, really wonderful when women are working in community and, and. Gaining new friends and deep relationships and all of that. So you can pretty much find everything you want on my site and download the book as well. Thank you. Thank you. Gissele: And your Expect Magic book comes out in 2024? Any month? I think Diana: so. I I have… I haven’t marketed it to publishers yet. Oh, okay. I’ve been working on it for a few years. Some publishers take a very long time to get it out. I’m hoping it’ll be out as soon as possible. Yeah, that would Gissele: be great because I look forward to reading it. Thank you so, so [00:46:00] much, Diana, for being on the show. It was such an enlightening conversation and so, so inspiring. Yeah, I look forward to hearing more from you. I did sign up for one of your circles, so I look forward to listening about that. And thank you so much for tuning into the Love and Compassion Podcast Diana: with Giselle. Oh, thank you so much for having me. This was delightful and I just enjoyed you so much. Thank you very much.

Georgie: [00:00:00] hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gisele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Don’t forget to like it. Subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’ll be talking about healing our bodies in our minds and souls with love and compassion. Gissele: Our guest is Georgie Holbrook, who is an emotional wellness mentor, spiritual guide, speaker, musician, and author of four self-help books. Her self-healing story has been published in 23 national magazines, and she can be found on international and national podcast as well as her YouTube channel. She’s a gifted, intuitive healer, combining her wisdom with that of her long lifelong angel helpers. She has worldwide clients which rely on her to interpret how to make both long-term and everyday decisions. For example, she really helps some understand [00:01:00] how emotions manifest as health issues, as a language, as our sacred self tries to get our attention by telling our inner story. She teaches that our birthright is to live our passion and not pain. Georgie loves natural principles that are available for everyone who want to experience new possibilities in joyful Living. Welcome to the show, Georgie. Hi, Georgie: Georgie. Oh my goodness. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, no, it’s really fun listening to the introduction. It’s like, oh, I’m, I’m so honored and blessed not only to be on your show, but to be alive. Gissele: Yeah, yeah. Oh, I agree with that. I’m so, excited that you’re on the show today because I actually read your book. I actually found you many, many years ago when I was going through my own, I guess bout of rosacea. it was a really challenging time in my life and I think that’s kind of how it’d expressed itself. and so now, many, many years later,[00:02:00] we actually met through a mutual friend. I was wondering if you could start by telling our listeners a little bit about your story and what kind of got you to this place where you are today. Georgie: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So where to begin? I’ll begin when. when I was about 8, 9, 10 years old. I loved music and singing and I actually would create songs and words and, and this was my therapy and my love. I grew up in, upper Michigan in the United States, here in the country. So my piano and my, my singing was, my joy. So I sang in choirs and whatever, but fast forward, not being informed about dating, I went on my first date at age 14. Oh wow. And I had made my own skirt and my own blouse and, and [00:03:00] I show up on this date not knowing, you know, if I’m, I would, I’m the only child, so not being informed about compassion and education. So I go on my first date to be date raped . And what it did is it took all the joy and totally transformed my life in that moment. So I came home, didn’t tell my parents, didn’t know what to do. Totally traumatized, totally felt, devalued So that event happened, and then I was taking private voice lessons from a man that was just like my cheerleader. I could do all these things with my voice, and he was in an auto accident and died. So two things came in at once and not having anybody that understands trauma at that level and why, why I became silent. [00:04:00] So I went inward and just, felt very unworthy. At age 16, I realized that I could, I was in high school and I could work a part-time job, but not only one part-time job, but two part-time jobs and go to high school because that was my drug of choice at that time. I got praised for working. It was like I could work the afternoon job and then I could work until midnight. And my parents thought, man, that they had a superstar. No, they had somebody that was really numbed out. And so that began my work addiction. And so I got in the corporate world pretty fast and was just eager to take on one job after another to not feel, but I didn’t know that that’s what was governing me, but I just knew that from the waist down, I, I felt pretty numb, but I couldn’t identify with it just [00:05:00] didn’t feel right. But the good news is, , I’ve got a very brilliant mind. So in the corporate world, I was hiring and training and, and whatever the project was, I could figure it out. And that was the basis that later on when I got a health issue, I knew how to solve problems. Mm-hmm. because I was interacting with employees and so there’s no coincidence how the great divine actually orchestrates our life. Yeah. And so I ended up working for a group that some people remember, H Ross Perro in Dallas, who actually was in nine different states and had 40,000 employees in. Gissele: Hmm. Georgie: Along with my own job, right? So it was just piling on. So now I’m working like seven days a week, many times, 12 to 14 hours a day. So I could operate out of logic and brilliance, [00:06:00] but I had no concept of taking care of my health. I mean, that was not in the schedule. Mm-hmm. . So what I found in the corporate world, it really, for me, this is just my personal experience, for me, there was no compassion. There was no compassion for the human body. So in one of my books, I talk about feeling like a glorified robot. Very educated, right? Very brilliant. Could, could do all these tasks, but no feelings on the inside So you’re, you’re on a railroad and, but there’s no tracks down the end and you’re going really fast. Oh, so something’s gonna have to give, right? Yeah. So that was my beginning. That was my beginning that set me up for this body that’s sacred and treating it like it didn’t have a soul and it didn’t have a spirit in it. It just was this brilliant intelligence that was supposed to [00:07:00] operate much like our computers Right. Never to break down. So I hardly ever got sick. So that was my beginning, if you wanna see how my beginning was. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. It’s so interesting how, we glorify overwork. We glorify that achievement. and as you mentioned, and specifically in workplaces, but we don’t know how many of those people are just trying to run away from their own emotions and just keep busy instead of being able to sit with themselves. and I think this is kind of where Covid has sort of been an interesting thing. We kind of had to shut everything down and it gave us an opportunity to really be with ourselves, which some people found really challenging. really challenging. Yeah. So how did, you get to the point where your, where it got so bad that you couldn’t ignore it anymore, like you kept pressing and suppressing. So at what point did it get so bad that you had to go, oh, okay, so , what’s going on here? Georgie: [00:08:00] Right. So I operated, much of my corporate. experience on automatic mm-hmm. , I just showed up. I did it. It wasn’t my passion, I didn’t enjoy it. The, it was just extreme. Okay. So at 36, everything changed because the spirit within us has this language and it’s like, okay, you either take notice or it’s gonna get worse, right? So at 36, having hardly ever gotten sick before I get allergies. And so, you know, we want a quick fix, right? So I actually go on allergy shots for five months, but three times a week at the end of five months, the allergies are gone, but my face starts turning red. Can’t figure it out, makeup’s not covering it up. So I’m going to my local, family doctors and they’re like, it has to be your shampoo, your makeup. So we [00:09:00] study all this for a while. , and that didn’t improve either. So then I’m sent to North Carolina to do a week long workshop, can remember it like it was yesterday. So I’ve got my little fancy suit on, right? And I’m showing up, but now my face breaks out in boils. Hmm. And makeup doesn’t cover it up. And again, I want a quick fix, right? Because this is my job. I’m in the corporate world, you know, and, and the status of it and, and looking well and showing up perfect. And it’s really a pretend world after a while, so, mm-hmm. So I come back and I go to my, so I’m wanting a quick fix. So I go back to, looking up doctors, and I go to my first skin cancer doctor, not thinking I had cancer. I just wanted an answer. Let’s get at it, get it over with. I can’t do this. Boils at 36 years old, right? Yeah. In my face turning red. So anyway, he diagnosed me with rosacea and [00:10:00] he says, , this is an incurable disease. It comes mild to extreme and sometimes it can affect your eyesight. And then he showed me pictures of it and it was like such a strange moment because in the corporate world, for years, I had never come across the word incurable because there was always a solution. There was always a possibility. Yeah. And here’s this doctor just final. This is incurable. You’re gonna have it the rest of your life. And I’m like, baffled. And medication’s your only answer. Now I wasn’t as wise as I feel like I am today, on natural remedies, but somehow in my own wisdom, it was like, I’m not lacking medication, but I don’t know what I’m lacking. So I decided just like you and in your audience to get other opinions. So I went and I got five opinions, five major dermatologists. And they all [00:11:00] gave me different answers, different medication that they suggested in more of an emergency. Some of ’em had, no, you need to do it and you, you need to get on this medication right now. And, and, and that was really confusing. Mm-hmm. . So I decided, number one, and I really want your audience to get this with me, is that in those moments of being diagnosed with anything, if we don’t understand our own body and our own immune system, we are helpless, hopeless, just at the mercy of somebody else. And I decided that I was not going to do that. I would go on my own path. I would understand the immune system. I would solve this to the best of my ability, not knowing if I could solve it. Mm-hmm. and n never be placed in this helpless position again, ever, ever. that this was my challenge. But I realize [00:12:00] that having my background in the corporate world solving all kinds of different issues, kind of being like the firefighter in the corporate world, you know, putting out fires, was really such a blessing in the end because it gave me that, that experience in the corporate world where I could prove what I knew and now I’m here. So I believe the great divine doesn’t make mistakes. Mm-hmm. and isn’t confused. Right? So when I got on this journey, I was a little confused cuz I had no information about self-care, love, compassion. That was not my journey. Mm-hmm. . So over the next six years, I’ll fast forward, I go to many different doctors asking them the same question. If I have a disease cell today, . So first of all, number one, I have a healthy cell today, and then it turns into a disease cell. Why can’t it return? Why can’t it? Mm-hmm. [00:13:00] correct itself because I know that if any of us scratch our arm today, it heals. So why is this one symptom, whatever the, health issue, is it the diagnosis? Why does it feel so complicated? Is there some basics? I mean, we all have 12 organ systems. We all have blood and you know, so, so I’m asking basic questions. Why can’t it reverse doctor after doctor? Nobody’s answering me. It’s mostly medication. They’re sent to school to medicated or cut it out. And that’s the bottom line. Nobody’s understanding the immune system. So now I’m studying with many holistic practitioners and doctors, and they don’t have the answer either. So, six years of this going on the strictest diet. Trying everything to my ability every day studying, I’m progressively getting worse. So I went from boils to my, for my face deforming. In the sixth year, I’m losing my eyesight. I can’t read or drive. [00:14:00] So now like 41, 42 years old, this corporate expert is down. She’s running out of money because my insurance wouldn’t cover my route, but I’m determined. And so at somewhere around 42 years old, my face is deformed. I’m losing my eyesight, and it really looked like my life was over and I knew that I couldn’t live another 40 years this way. There was something in me that was like, I just, I cannot even think that way. Mm-hmm. , I cannot think this is impossible. Then led to a workshop in California on how to prevent. Cancer coronary and stroke. I didn’t have any of it, but there’s five medical doctors that are now in the holistic field giving this talk. And I go, and I’m sitting there when this one doctor gets up in [00:15:00] front and he says he came from overseas to come to America to become a doctor, to learn about the immune system. And again, they told him, you know, we teach you how to medicate medications and cut any out. But he went on and got advanced training in the immune system. And when I’m hearing him, I’m like, wow, if I could only have some time with him personally. Mm-hmm. . So I did, I created, you know, I, it, it, God created it. I had one hour with this person mm-hmm. . And I have this big file of, of my, my background and all my search. And he looks at the first vaccine that I took for allergies and he said, oh my goodness. Most people get. arthritis from that. Wow. But because I had burnt out my immune system literally burnt it out with my work addiction. Mm-hmm. that my immune system then was so low that when I took the allergy shots, [00:16:00] it just finalized my immune system and it came out on my face. Mm-hmm. . Now, the good news is, if it had come out on my back, I wouldn’t, I would’ve still been working. I would’ve killed myself working. Right. Yeah. But I, I couldn’t hide anymore this bright red face that was deforming. So he said he didn’t know if I’d ever heal, but number one, stop going to doctors. Stop looking at pictures of deformed faces. Yeah. Find peace within, he said at whatever price it takes for you to find it. I hadn’t known peace within for years. Right. Yeah. So this is like a, you know, it sounds so simple. But it was, really a, a very big assignment. So I decided to go on a journey and first of all, there was, a hospital that was doing a program on stress reduction. Mm-hmm. . So I went there for five days, but I didn’t hear anything they said because by the time I got on the [00:17:00] elevator to go to this class, everybody’s looking at my red face. I didn’t hear anything. I was just so embarrassed and, and so frail and so skinny. And when, what, what the doctor did tell me, that’s telling me peace within is he took my pulse by taking my wrist and feeling how each organ was firing with each other. and he says, you’ll never heal as long as you got an internalized quiver. Well, nobody else had ever, looked at this, and I had never shared it with anybody because I didn’t understand it. It was like, what is it? So the internalized quiver is when our spiritual intelligence within the 12 organ system moves out of harmony with nature or within ourselves and sets up this vibration that’s strictly governed from fear and trauma. Hmm. Yeah. [00:18:00] So regardless of what the health issue is, we cannot heal as long as we have that internalized quiver. Mm-hmm. . So it has to come back to the equilibrium inside of ourselves where healing can actually begin, where we’re at peace and we move out of fear. So just like your program of fear and love, right? It’s hard to love ourselves when we feel really ugly and the mirror shows it, right? We look in the mirror and we go, oh, you know how, how can I visualize my face being healed? So from that doctor, I got into a group that was working on fear and, and being empowered. It was more of a corporate thing. But anyway, 80 people showed up for a week in a workshop in Eugene, Oregon, and I took that class and really interesting. I, I thought I’d probably die in front of 80 new people looking at me, but they were all about emotional healing, [00:19:00] and this was a whole new idea for me that the emotions had anything to do with healing. . Nobody else had suggested, you know, do you need a hug? Have you cried? No, I hadn’t cried in years. Mm-hmm. And so that first night in that workshop was very profound. They have us make a list, and I really suggest this for your listeners of all your likes and dislikes. And then you put ’em in priority order and you start doing away with the things that don’t bring you joy. But my list was major dislikes over and over and over again. And on the like list of joy or love or, I had nothing. I had nothing on that side. And I was wise enough to know, oh my goodness, I am way out of balance. I go in their commercial bathroom and I’m looking at myself. I’m there all [00:20:00] by myself in the women’s bathroom looking in the mirror, and I say, . I don’t know how to find joy or what I can, like in my life anymore. I, I’m just kind of giving up on life and I’ve got all these dislikes, but I know that if I do my dislikes one at a time over the next five years, I might not be alive, right? We take ’em one at a time and it’s like, no, I’ll just do away with that. So I’m looking in my eyes and I say to myself, okay, to the best of my ability, I’m doing away with all my dislikes right now, I’m just gonna stop and I am gonna find what brings me joy and it’s gonna be different, and I’m willing to learn. In that moment, the internalized quiver stopped the fever in my face left. I, I, I got goosebumps everywhere just sharing it because it was like this [00:21:00] moment when my spirit said, that’s your answer. That’s your answer. You have no love in your life and you are filled with fear. So basically the route I was on that many people are on is trial and error. And we try this, that doesn’t work. We try that. That doesn’t work. And what happens is I end up distrusting my body to heal. I’m totally confused of what is ever gonna work, right? . Mm-hmm. . And if you combine those thought two distrusting my body and feeling helpless and hopeless and just in that energy and God isn’t confused, whatever we wanna call God. But I was confused, right? . So out of this whole experience, fast forward through that workshop. I took advanced [00:22:00] classes with them in one year. My face healed, my capillaries healed, my eyesight came back and eventually they got me to cry a little bit and tell my story. First it was a whimper, cuz I hadn’t cried forever. I was just locked in my physical form. My whole skeletal was locked and shielded from having to act strong and pretend like it, like I could exist in the middle of that, right? From all kinds of people making suggestions every day, you know, have you been in a fire and, and hear some help. And it was endless. It was endless being bombarded. So anyway, I healed in a year and I dedicated my life to God to share my story and. and just see the emotions, how the emotions are a language. Mm-hmm. trying to get our attention. They show up in a physical form, we don’t know how to listen. And so then [00:23:00] they accumulate. You get a knee pain, now you got a hip pain, now you got rollercoaster mood swings, now you got hair loss, now you got tmj. And so we go to all these specialized doctors. So we are a whole person. We are a spiritual body in the human form and the great divine, whatever we wanna call this intelligence that governs our world today, that brings the sun up in the moon, is very accurate and it lives and breathes inside of us. And when we get in harmony with that, oh, life is good. It’s a whole different reality for me. So yeah. Thanks for letting me share that story because it’s, it’s still today very profound, finding the answer. The answer is, within all of us. Yeah. Gissele: And that is so powerful. you know, you mentioned some key things, including, you know, we’re just, a lot of the time, the way that the medical system is set up is symptom management, right? And so [00:24:00] let me take one thing to deal with one symptom. Let me take another thing to deal with one symptom. So I don’t know where you are, but right now, the Canadian medical system’s in a crisis, there’s so much overwhelm. There’s, there’s not enough staffing and so on. So I think this is an opportunity for us to really look at healing from within and understanding how the power is within us and how something like a disease or a disorder or a pain can be helpful in the sense that it’s, it’s, it’s a message. It’s telling us something. how did you find that? That joy was helping, was helpful in turning things around for yourself because I, I can imagine that you didn’t directly go to self-love, right. . And so, so, what role did Joy play in helping you? Because your book is called Joyful, healing, so, Georgie: right, right. Joyful, holistic remedies. Cuz I didn’t have any joy in my life and I Sure was running for years on empty. Yeah. So from that [00:25:00] workshop I would go out in the community and, one thing I did is I went to like bookstores where they were having children’s storytelling and I would just listen to the children laughing and go, what happened to my inner child? What happened? Where, where did laughter, you know, die somewhere along the line. So it started gently and then I spent a lot of time out in nature. Mm-hmm. studying in my own way, just sitting and asking, you know, as far as I can see, to the right or to the left out here in the sky. There is no place where the great divine is not. So then teach me, teach me your ways, because my ways have not worked. Mm-hmm. and, and becoming that little kid, you know, that’s just, I’m, I wanna figure this out. I wanna know how it feels. What does joy feel like? So I’ve, I’ve taken up music again. I play guitar, write my songs around my [00:26:00] story, and, and that’s been helpful. So Joy is, is, is major, I think every day. Finding ways to find joy rather than staying on automatic, even for me, after all these years, it’s like, yeah, it’s, it’s really a great remedy. Love and joy, a great remedy, and not being stuck in situations. , I say, we’re either living our passion or we’re living our pain. Mm-hmm. , right? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Gissele: That’s very powerful. what role did forgiveness have, in your healing journey? because at some point I think you probably had to, to deal with all those emotions of the trauma that happened to you, right. So Right. What was the role forgiveness in terms of whether it be just forgiveness for yourself? Georgie: right. Absolutely. So, you know, I’ve been in the recovery world for a long time, trying to get to the bottom of just [00:27:00] healing right? And self love. So forgiveness is, for me is really important. And a lot of my clients will come and they wanna, you know, they think forgiveness is about those people out there. I think forgiveness is for ourselves first of. Forgiving myself that somehow took on the belief that I was unworthy, that I wasn’t sacred, that I was broken, that I was, devalued. So taking on this message about who I am that got totally twisted in this social conditioning of being not okay. Mm-hmm. , no matter how brilliant that, that my only worth was in work, let’s say. So forgiving myself to see that there was just these layers of false core beliefs that started early in my childhood and then became a belief system. Mm-hmm. . And so forgiving [00:28:00] layers and layers and layers of, just taking a look at even judgment, right? How we judge that person’s bad or whatever. Yeah. So it’s a great question, but forgiveness for me starts with ourselves. . Yeah. Because I was born with a purpose and passion pure, just like my fingerprints that nobody else can duplicate. But now I’ve been wounded and got this other belief system right, that I’m no good. I’m, I don’t have value. I can never accomplish, sure could never write my own story. So there’s just layers, right? But they’re false. And then when we, we heal that part, that voice that is very strong, that wants to prove to us that we’re unworthy. So the not okayness just keeps coming up and coming up, no, I can’t do that. I don’t have value. I’m not [00:29:00] powerful enough. And then face it, you know, just like the rosacea was on my face. Face, the forgiveness. Yeah. And start owning the preciousness that’s within all of us and transform our lives into the sacred, what I call the sacred that lives within us, that intelligence, that’s like our g p s system, our intuition that guides us and says, are you authentic? Mm-hmm. , are you living your passion? Are you congruent? Do you have three, you know, three different groups of people and you show up different in all of them trying to make sure that you look good or that you know, that you say the right thing. No dropping all that because it’s such a pre pretend world. Gissele: Mm-hmm. , maybe it’s, it’s too hard to keep up that, that facade. I wanted to go back to, when something happens to us that is unexpected, . I think [00:30:00] sometimes it can be really hard, especially if it’s a trauma. It can be really hard to feel safe to trust that we are going to be okay. What helped you kind of gain that trust in yourself That no matter what happens in life that you’re, that you would be able to overcome? Georgie: Right? Feeling secure in our own skin. Right. Feeling secure in our own skin. So once we’re hurt, exactly what you’re saying, we’re, we’re now shielded against the next hurt. Mm-hmm. . But there comes a point when if you, if you look at nature, , the worst storms create the greatest rainbows. Hmm. And seeing that, regardless of what happens to me, like the rosacea, right? Who would’ve thought that I would help hundreds of people understand their own immune system, find their sacred self, learn how to do [00:31:00] self-care. If you would’ve told me this in the corporate world, I, I would’ve just, it would’ve been just, a nice thought, right? Gissele: Yeah. And I think that’s why gratitude is so important, right? To be able to be grateful for the, and find kind of the silver lining, in those instances, Georgie: right? In in teaching people right now, I’ve been teaching people how to write their story. not to relive their story, but to stand on top of the story rather than in their story to find out what they experience, how strong they are, just like me with the rosacea, right? Mm-hmm. and then coming out the other side to validate themselves and to empower themselves. Yeah. So we don’t, we don’t keep wallowing in the story. It’s not about reliving the story. It’s like it’s made us stronger and wiser. And especially as women to move on, the world needs our stories. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. And I think using storytelling is so powerful because [00:32:00] I think, each of us has a unique story and a life experience, like you mentioned. And so ev everybody has something to contribute, which I think is really, really Georgie: key. Really key. Whether it’s in a manual , a family treasure, a book, a self-help book, magazine, , it’s needed out there. So to think No, no. Every, you know, there’s so many books out there, why would I write another book? It’s really important for our own healing, for our own coming into self love. Yeah. And one of the things I’d like to mention is that when I was talking about trial and error remedies, which will leave us just totally confused mm-hmm. over those many years, painful years, out of that, I’ve developed a 16 area lifestyle evaluation. Mm-hmm. to move anybody out of trial and error. So it looks at, you know, the spiritual side, the emotional side, the physical side. What are you doing right? What are you, what could you improve on? And then we do baby steps from there. But [00:33:00] in an hour and a half, people get to actually look at where am I out of balance and how can I come back and balance? And in an hour and a half, they get their own answers. Mm-hmm. , they get their own answers. Oh, so there’s a saying, we can’t see the trees for the forest. It’s kind of that same way. We’re just going every day thinking, oh, well, I’ve been studying on the web this, so this is what I’m gonna do. And still coming back feeling empty. It’s like, no. So it, it’s really a joy. Some of the programs I’ve put together that definitely came out of my own story. And then over many years of proving how to come back to exactly what you’re teaching, how to come back to loving ourselves, treating ourselves kindly. So for me, 80% is gonna be emotional and spiritual. 20% is gonna be exercise in diet. Most people, it’s 80% diet and [00:34:00] fasting and mm-hmm. and, and detox and all this. I go, no, stop, stop. Just be gentle on the human body. It knows how to recover. Mm-hmm. it knows how to recover and heal. . Yeah. Gissele: Thank you. That’s so powerful. I was wondering if you could share a little bit with the audience about how they can tap more into their, that inner sacred, spirit that you were talking about, that that sacredness. because a lot of people, sometimes the mind is like the ego. It’s more ego than it is like intuition. So what helps people, get more intuitive guidance rather than ego guidance? Georgie: Right. So let me take a breath here. And self-care and self-love are really the key of coming back to owning our sacredness. If we look at our little finger today, when was the last time we appreciated our little finger? [00:35:00] Probably never right? . What would life be like without a little. , when did we appreciate our little toe? Probably never, right? So what I teach is real, sounds basic about coming home to ourselves. What is this body? You know, when was the last time I really understood where my liver was and how it serves me? 24 hours a day without me even thinking. But if I can come back to appreciation and even have compassion for my body, my body will respond like a little kid that hasn’t been recognized forever and has lost the sparkle in his eyes because it hasn’t been recognized. So I do a body prayer that actually goes through the entire body, starting with the toes all the way through the organ system to the mind bringing us back. They record it [00:36:00] and what happens is that you re-listen to it. , you start going, oh, I can believe this because this is who I am, not what I thought I have. I’m just walking around like this robot, right, this empty body, and I’m mesmerized by tv, computer, text, just keeping myself busy so I don’t have to think. And life is passing us by. Life is just totally passing us by. There is no sacred in our lives. So, great question. So meditation, but for a traumatized person, even that’s hard. Yeah, agreed. So I would like to share just a moment on traumatized people for me, like I was, we treat different in selfrecovery. So a traumatized person is where all the different traumas accumulate in the human body, in the spirit. And they’re trying to get our attention many times through health issues. [00:37:00] Mm-hmm. . , we don’t understand it. Right. So we get all these different diagnosises. So a traumatized person, I take in baby steps of self-care. Yeah. How do you love yourself so that the child within us can trust life again. Mm-hmm. . So it’s a process. It’s a process of learning how to massage your body, how to be thankful, but to do everything with intention of, I’m coming back to my heart, I’m coming back to owning who I am, true to myself is not selfish. Is not selfish. Some, some people have been taught that anything, about ourselves is selfish, is not, not seen ourselves as sacred and, and just part of the great divine plan in life. And that we have a purpose and passion that we need to be living. rather than this story of [00:38:00] what’s too late for me. So self-care. I do a lot around self-care because it’s so important. We’ve kind of lost who we are on this journey. Yeah. Gissele: I love what you said in terms of how you start the journey, little things that really make our body and make ourselves feel seen. I think that is super, super powerful. really, really important. Georgie: So self-care is, is like an emergency that we do every day for a traumatized person. It’s not like, well, once a month I can take time to do this, right? Yeah. . Gissele: one of the things you had talked about was the fact that people perceive self-love as narcissism. We kind of taught, we, you know, we’ve been taught that, you know, it’s more important to do things for others, but don’t realize that if we are, if our buckets are empty, you know, we may give to other people, but we’ll resent it. I think people misunderstand the concept of being loving and compassionate to ourselves and nurturing ourselves [00:39:00] naturally will evolve to wanting to give to others from our overflow, not from our reserves. Yes. but I think people confuse that and say, oh, no, I, I have to, I have to be valuable if I serve others, because if I do it for myself, it’s selfish or narcissistic. But I think people really misunderstand, narcissistic people require. External validation, they don’t really love themselves because if they did, they would not need to control anybody. Right. but it’s funny how we have that, what do you think that comes from that perspective about, you know, that, that we derive greater value from serving others than we do, but being there for ourselves and therefore being able to go from that space. Georgie: Right. I believe that it started as children where we were taught not to cry, not to feel not to be real. Yeah. Where another family teaches you that crying’s important. Right. And that feeling and expressing [00:40:00] your emotions important. But fast forward then we come in life where we have these, these No, no. It’s selfish to feel right. And so we are gonna end up with regrets of not giving people our overflow and how we live our life is how we’re gonna die. So I’ve been in nursing homes where people have been screaming at the end of the evening when other people are beded down and quiet. There’s this group of people that I got to witness, especially women that fight. And, I mean, they’re just angry, but it’s because life is passed them by. They serve their children, they serve their husband, they serve the, the church. They served as a volunteer and now all of a sudden there is no more to life. And so they’re angry. And I would be angry too. So I wanna make sure that how I live right now is really programmed in me. So that the way I wanna die is I wanna be [00:41:00] singing and I wanna hit a high note and just let go. Just let go. Yeah. I don’t wanna be in the nursing home for 10 years begging to die on medication, which is very common in our, our system. Yeah, for sure. Gissele: , you know, sometimes the kinds of parents that said, don’t cry. they couldn’t regulate their own emotions, they needed the children to regulate themselves so that they didn’t dysregulate and so they needed to control their environment so that they would feel at peace. So they really truly didn’t have mastery over their own emotions, so they couldn’t hold space for their children. So therefore they needed them not to have any emotions. And so what a disservice we’ve done to ourselves to kind of not be able to do that. So I love what you said also about when you were advised to find peace, regardless. because that’s true mastery, isn’t it? True Georgie: mastery, yeah. True mastery to be, I believe the children that are taught not to feel if we could follow their lives, will be [00:42:00] the ones that choose addictions to feel something. Mm. And the child that has been taught that they have value in that their emotions have value, you watch them, they will make healthier choices. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Agree, right? Yeah. So if we’re taught to be shut down, we’re just longing to feel something and life doesn’t make sense when we’re shut down incorrectly. Gissele: Mm-hmm. . . Yeah. So, so interesting. I have a number of family members that have, fibromyalgia. It’s interesting cuz they, the doctors call it unexplained pain. Like they don’t know where it comes from. But, and it’s so funny how, from my perspective, I’m like, well that’s, there has to be some emotional stuff, right? That is that, you know, moves around, the pain moves around, but it is that lack of connection that we currently have in the medical system between that and emotions. Do you think that will [00:43:00] change? Georgie: I would hope that it’s changing. That was, you know, hoping that it’s changing. Mainly when a medical doctor has a health issue, right? Like it’s cancer. Right after a son dies or something, they start tying it together. It’s like, oh, I was really healthy and now I’m not. Right? Yeah. So fibromyalgia is directly underneath the skin, you know, it’s like, so. Looking at the emotions behind all the body parts. So if it’s lungs, it’s sadness, breathing, losses, not feeling free enough to breathe. The rosacea is like, what am I not facing? So a lot of times it’s somebody really close to us or some situation really close to us, and we haven’t tied the emotion into the physical. So I’ve helped a lot of people with fibromyalgia because it has an anger component. Yeah. And we’re taught never to show anger, right? Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. and our jaws can show it. Right. so there’s, there’s just different ways that we’re taught, [00:44:00] again, not to feel anger or rage. And both of ’em are healthy when we come back to the gifts of the human spirit that is being authentic. Yeah. Speaking our truth. Gissele: Yeah. Speaking we can speak our truth in a way that doesn’t, isn’t harmful to other people, Georgie: but it’s still valid being kind, being kind. rather than having to be right. Mm-hmm. . And what about Gissele: like pains and like the root chakra? Like the, the pain, like things that are associated in like the bottom, like, like the base. Georgie: so, so in the female part, right? That Yeah. Like maybe around there. Yeah. For, for me it would be from being sexually abused and then being misused, sexually or in my feminine part of not understanding that that sex a lot of times is co coupled with love, right? If I give to this person sexually, then that means they love me. [00:45:00] Mm-hmm. rather than seeing that I am lovable whether I perform any X or not. Mm-hmm. . . No, it’s major. It’s major. So we’re gonna have pain in that area because we’re not being truthful. I’m using my body and I’m not healing that accumulated memories. It might even be generations of how my mother was treated. Mm-hmm. . Gissele: So intergenerational pain can pass like as well. Like in terms of the, Georgie: I I believe our habits are passed down. Our beliefs. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. What Gissele: about back pain? A lot of people I hear get back pain. Georgie: Back pain usually is, tied in with financial issues. Mm. Or the, the burdens that we’re going through, the heaviness of life. I, I feel heavy, I feel weighted down from my situation and it shows up in my back. Hmm. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Isn’t that interesting how the body communicates with us in it, but we are [00:46:00] so. Unaware of the, we’ve so separated ourselves from ourselves and are true inner compass that, you know, we, we need, we rely on external things to tell us where we need to be. Absolutely. Yeah. Because the path towards healing can feel challenging, right? It can be, feel challenging to face a lot of those emotions. I know I’ve gone through my journey and having to face a lot of those, and it can feel really uncomfortable. But on the other side of that discomfort is your freedom, Georgie: is your Absolutely. Yeah. But, and the pain can actually in like, instantly release once you understand what’s driving it. So I have a cl current client right now that has the, has had this pain, an emotional pain like in her stomach where we say it feels like a knot in my stomach. Georgie all the time, right? Mm-hmm. . So I do guided imagery cuz it moves us out of our head. So our body. when Jesus talked in parables, my take is that he drew in the sand and gathered all of us [00:47:00] around and, and then had this story. Well, we have a parable going on from the neck down and we don’t know how to find it. We don’t know how to address it. So we try to figure it out with head knowledge and that doesn’t work. So I do guided imagery where we actually get to talk to the body and find out what it has to say. But just this last weekend and doing guided imagery with her, she said, my pain is gone. Wow. I said, yeah, because we gave a voice to it. We gave a voice to it. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. It’s also amazing, how, I know that you’ve, with, with some of your clients, you also help them in terms of even sell their house Right. And what was that about? Can you share ? Georgie: So I’ve been doing House Blessings for over 10, 15 years now, and at first it was just kind of a hobby, and then when it started working, so I work with Angels and, and they just ask us, you know, so what do you want? Right? So I’ve had homes that have [00:48:00] been on the market for three years, very expensive homes, and nobody’s buying. So you just come in and talk to the, the house or the office or the corporation or whatever we’re working with, the same way we would the human body. Hmm. So we bless it and as we bless the house invariably over the, all these years, the houses have sold in three to five days. Oh wow. Now one, one just sold in 24 hours, but that was an exception. But anyway, I, I treat the house and the situation. Just imagine the carpenters that built the house. , what was their mentality the day they built it? Were they arguing? Were they hungover from the night before ? Were they have a higher consciousness to build this house? Were they ready to just get it done? I mean, did they have any consciousness about having a holy, sacred space? Probably not, right, but maybe So we’re gonna give him credit. So I come in and [00:49:00] maybe there’s been many people that have lived in this house and sold it and whatever. So the house actually takes on a character that says, I don’t, I don’t wanna sell. I’m never gonna sell because you’re not appreciating what is right now. Mm-hmm. So it’s, it’s really fun cuz I can do it remotely and I can teach people how to do it and it’s, it’s such a blessing when you see the sacredness of the voice in the house, kind of like our body that says, , this is the kind of person I would like to buy this house that could really appreciate me And when you get in touch with that, I had a home out in California that was millions and millions of dollars and they wanted to sell it to like some Hollywood people that would use it for parties and whatever. But this home on the desert was absolutely amazing. I said, [00:50:00] no, this looks like a retreat center. And so the angels were, were sharing, you know, the type of person that they wanted to buy at rather than a party place for gambling and whatever. Yeah. And that’s what happened. That’s what happened. Once we blessed the house, that other person came in and, and took over. So. Hmm. Gissele: That’s such a great story. Does it work for renovations? Cuz we feel like we’ve been in renovations forever. It just doesn’t feel like it ends. Like, can we talk to the house and just say like, , we wanna see you finished. Georgie: Right. Right. I think doing blessings often in our, our spaces and removing clutter and having beauty and order. So it’s a sacred place that we live and where we sleep and, and blessing all of it is mm-hmm. and new relationships, you know, when you get a new relationship with some kind or when there’s a death of a loved one, you know, being able to let go rather than grieving for years [00:51:00] where, you know, they’ve gone on. Right. They’re celebrating and they don’t want us to grieve. We can miss them definitely, but we can also feel them and, and I believe that once they’ve are on the other side, they also can help us. Mm-hmm. , right? They’re here to companion us and they don’t want us to be sad. Yeah. Gissele: Death is always the hardest for the people that stay behind. Right. Because I also like, you believe that this isn’t just it like that we have other Right. Opportunities to either to, you know, live other lives or go other places. but but death can feel so final for the people that are here, that miss them. That miss people. Right. Georgie: Right. And that’s where self-care really comes in also. Mm-hmm. and, and maybe expanding our minds that there’s more to this. Right. So I’ve lost four of my siblings and my mom and dad, and I’m the one that’s left. But I know that they’re multi-dimensional and they’re here even in [00:52:00] this conversation. Mm-hmm. , you know. Yeah. Do you ever feel them around? . I do, I do. And I definitely work with the angels and teach people how to connect to their angels. It’s so important. And you know, some people go, no, no, I don’t believe in angels. I think they’re bad. And whatever. I was like, wait until you experience them. You know? It’s just a whole new world of asking. So they’re like expensive employees standing around saying, if you just ask Georgie, if you just ask, we’ll help you. And we’re taught not to ask anybody. Be strong. Just go through this life. And when you turn that around and you know that, that you have a whole force of people here wanting to help you and create a life that you love, it really goes with the sacred. Yeah. Gissele: So powerful. I’m asking this of all my guests. what’s your definition of unconditional love? Georgie: [00:53:00] Wow, unconditional love. So my definition of unconditional would love would be regardless of the situation I’m in, regardless, life is always changing. A coming back knowing that something greater than myself created me, number one. Mm, something greater than myself is directing my life. Number two, and that unconditional love is what I was born with. Mm-hmm. . So if you’ll allow me, I’m gonna try to sing one of my songs. Yeah. Yes, please. So imagine with me the day you were born for the whole audience, the day you were born. You might have been born at home or in the hospital, but there’s all this commotion, right? You go from being the secure. [00:54:00] Child and the mother’s womb, and then all of a sudden there’s all this noise and lights and whatever. So I’m gonna walk you through it verbally and then I’ll sing it. So imagine right now that you could hold that inner, that child in your arms, and with all this commotion going on, that in your inner ear, the angels start reassuring you of who you are. So the angels saying, the day you were born just to you privately, holy, holy, holy, is this child divine and good, divine and good. Your divinity, that sacredness you would learn to love. The angels are singing to you today. Holy, holy, holy, are you my child? Divine and good and sacred. [00:55:00] Allow your sacredness to unfold and own it, and don’t let anybody take it from you or anything. So here’s how the song goes. Imagine that little child in your arm just reconnecting to the inner child. The angels sang the day you were born. Holy, holy, holy is this child. The angels whispered your name. Holy. Holy is this child. Divine and good. Divine and good, divine. The angels are singing you a love song today. Holy, are you [00:56:00] my child? Wait for us in the inner silence, get your answers from deep within like water seeping into dry ground. Be filled with love. Be filled with compassion. The angel sang the day you were born. Holy, holy, holy is this child. The angels whispered your name. Holy. Holy is this child. We take a breath knowing that this day. in every cell and every fiber of your body is a divine [00:57:00] intelligence that lives in harmony and peace and love and compassion allow your spirit to guide you, to lead you, to embrace you, to teach you its ways so that as we live, we live our passion, not our pain, because we’ve discovered self-love, self-love, self-love, and empower ourselves and our voice to give others our overflow and not out of exhaustion and resentment about how we treat ourselves, but to give out of our own self-love and our self-care. Until the people around us notice from our example and want what we [00:58:00] want. So we don’t preach to them, try to change their lives. We just live by overflow of self-love within us. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for having me on this program. Oh, no, Gissele: thank you . Just a little bit weepy there. I was wondering if you could share with the audience as a final question where people can find you and come work with you. So share your, you know, social media, your Georgie: website, whatever you have. Right. So my website is georgie holbrook.com. That’s G E O r G I E H O L B R O O k.com. , you can see a list of my services. I do a free 15 minute with you if you wanna get on and just talk to me of how I can help you or direct you. I also have been looking for other team players that might wanna do some classes together [00:59:00] or our panel of people where we, we get asked questions and find answers. However I can serve, I am here 100% dedicated to being in the ministry of helping others. So, I’m on YouTube, but you can find me through my website easy and contact me so, Thank you. No, Gissele: thank you very much. Thank you so, so much for being here. That was such a wonderful, wonderful chat. I gained definitely quite a bit from myself and I know my audience will as well. don’t forget to check out Georgie Holbrook, on her website and her books, one of them, which is Joyful Healing. and join us for another episode of The Love and Georgie: Compassion Podcast. And free, free chapters are available on all four books. Oh, yes. So that they can read. And many podcasts are on my website also. Nice. Gissele: Wonderful. Thank you so, so much, Georgie. You have a great day. Georgie: Thank you. Blessings to you. Blessings multiplied . Gissele: Thanks.

Transcript Gissele:  [00:00:00] hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Cool. Don’t forget to liken, subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re gonna be talking about how to end hate with kindness, respect, and love with Jay Paul Nado. Who spent more than 30 years working with victims of crimes and perpetrators and learning from top experts. Over the course of his career, Paul has talked hostage takers into giving themselves up and murderers into admitting their crimes. And because of his extensive training and his unique approach to connecting with people of all walks of life and under different circumstances, his life was saved by a terrorist during a terrorism attack in the Middle East. Paul is a bestselling author, a mental health strategist, and was the Canadian Mental Health Association’s first choice as keynote speaker in 2019 for their fourth annual conference. He’s [00:01:00] a regular guest on Sirius xms Talk Talk Radio, a consultant to World News Networks such as C N N, the National in CP 24 for his expertise on terrorism and global hostage crisis. He’s a screenwriter and accomplished keynote speaker on topics of negotiations, conflict resolutions, and mental health. Paul is also the host of Inspire Us. Paul is also the host of the Inspired US podcast. Please join us in welcoming Paul. Hi Paul. Paul: Hi Giselle. Very nice to see you. How you doing? I’m good. Gissele: How about yourself? Paul: I’m doing well. Gissele: I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about your childhood and what led you on this journey. Paul: Absolutely. Well, you know, I, I was raised, in a home where there was a lot of violence. My father was a, a violent alcoholic who used to beat my mother, my brother, and myself regularly. I grew [00:02:00] up not believing in myself. I had low self-esteem. I suffered from depression, and something happened in grade seven that really was the pivot point for me. Up until then, I had no belief that I would amount to anything. my teachers were even telling me back then that you’ll never amount to anything. What are you doing here? And it was that kind of environment way back when in the sixties. So, in grade seven, I started to like girls, and there was one teacher that. He put me on the spot. What he did was, and I don’t know if he did this deliberately, Gissele, but what he did was he announced to the classroom that we were all going to have a test, and he expected everyone to pass. And then he pointed at me, he said, except for you, Nadeau, I already know you’re going to fail. That was so humiliating and embarrassing to me. I, I felt every eye on me. And I remember going back home and just crying that weekend and just, kind of examining my life. And I, I opened the books for the [00:03:00] test and I didn’t know how to study because I’d never really applied myself to, to do that. My mother tried to get me to study, but my little mind just didn’t want to. And I, I did that for the weekend. I just looked over my notes and I went in the next week and I wrote that test. And you know how we have these two little voices in our hands? Yeah. One voice is supportive. We’re the other one is not. It’s like a little devil. Mm-hmm. . And the little devil was telling me, you’re, You’re not gonna do this, you’re not gonna pass this test. He’s gonna humiliate the heck out of you. And the other one was saying, you know, the stuff, like, just answer the questions. Once I had written the test, I handed it in. And what was customary in this teacher’s, class was that he would announce the, the student with the lowest grade. first he would announce the, the, the grade, and we would walk up and pick up the paper. I was conditioned to pick up the paper all the time. Like the first one I’d get outta my chair, walk over. So on this day, he started to call out the [00:04:00] names, and I wasn’t first, second, or third. And I thought, okay, this is, this is interesting because again, those voices right, he’s gonna wait until the very end and he’s gonna humiliate you. That was the one that was really kind of banging on my head. . As it turns out, there were three students left and it was my cousin and another, girl by the name of Gisele and the two, yeah, . And the two of them always competed for the highest mark in, in, in the class. And my cousin was next to be called up and then me. So that was a defining moment. I was the second, last to be called. I had the second highest grade and I didn’t take the walk of shame. I took a very proud walk to the front of the classroom and I started to believe in myself that if I could do that, what else can I do? And I never looked back. What got me onto the police, force was about the age of seven and, and the number seven really plays a role in my life. Mm-hmm. , it just seems that [00:05:00] number seven pops up all the time. When I was seven, my father beat me and I was on the ground after the beating. And I remember looking up at him and just thinking, when I grew up, I’m gonna be a policeman. So I can arrest you and people like you, and that always stayed with me. Now, when I was 17 again, I, my father killed himself and he killed himself with the same rifle he killed Santa Claus with when I was about eight. And, I just remember after his death, just following through with the decision to become a police officer, and at the age of 21 joined the police department. shortly after that, I became a detective. I worked in the Special victims unit. I became a hostage negotiator, international peacekeeper, professional interrogator, and just, I just keep moving forward and there’s so much to do once you believe in yourself, Gisele. And once you believe that you can attain and you shoot high, we were talking about stars earlier. Shoot for the stars and just see where it [00:06:00] lands because if you don’t try, you won’t. , Gissele: yeah. Oh, thank you for sharing this story. There were so many parts that really resonated with me. one of the things that resonated for me about your story was that you became a policeman in order to arrest people like your dad. I went into child protection to protect people like my mom. And so what do you think it is about children that we have kind of, we feel this responsibility for parents? Paul: You know, I, I, I can’t answer that, but I, I do believe that at times we allow our circumstances to define us. Yeah. And we shouldn’t, we sh we should define our circumstances. Never let our, our circumstances de define us. However, I, I’ve heard so many people who have become psychologists, psychiatrists, or whatever, and they did so because of their childhood. and watching their parents argue and not getting a sense of who they were. I, we rise to the challenge to, to become these better [00:07:00] people. And it’s so nice to do that. some people don’t rise up. Mm-hmm. , they just let their circumstances really define them and, and they never get out of it. And years of therapy later, they’re still not well because they didn’t make the choice to rise above and say, you don’t define me. My, my abuse in the past does not mean that I’m gonna become a serial killer. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to be a loser. Doesn’t mean that I’m gonna be whatever. No. I am going to choose for myself. And that is the motivation that so many people need. They need to believe in themselves. And only when you believe in yourself, will other people believe in you. Gissele: And that has been kind of our experience in terms of the more that you love and accept yourself, the more that you can love and accept other people. Yes. and so one of the things also that I really enjoyed about your story was that, you know, when you became a policeman and then you became a detective, and then you were doing these, this, you know, special stuff, the approach that you use with [00:08:00] all of your work seemed to be one, of non-judgment, of, of listening to the stories and seeing the humanity of people. how did you get to that point? How did you decide that that was the approach you were going to use with people rather than the traditional approach that sometimes we have in these systems, which is, you know, judge separate, Paul: isolate. Isolate. Right. What a wonderful question. Gisele. Oh, thank you. For me, you know, my father a, a as as he had a, a Jekyll and Hyde personality. but he sent me out at the age of 12 to find a job so that I could pay room and board and, at the age of 12, I had to lie and say I was 16 and I’d be a busboy and that kind of stuff. But I learned how to speak to adults and ask for what I wanted, how to negotiate. I really learned a lot of those key things. My mother also, God bless her, my mom was just a beautiful woman. Hmm. And when I was about eight or nine years old, she used to sell encyclopedias. Mm-hmm. , like, yes, encyclopedia is our thing of the [00:09:00] past folks. we used to have them, Britannica, encyclopedia Britannica. Yeah. And, my mother used to buy them and then she would sell them for a profit, but she was so busy taking care of the home and we had, different roomers who were, living in the basement. So, She would call into this, this radio station and sell her her, like, they’d give her about two minutes to talk and she’d say what she had. Mm-hmm. She started putting me on the phone and here’s this like eight year old kid saying, I, we’ve got encyclopedia and my mom has, you know, and so I learned how to, how to really come into myself there, what made me kind of shift and treat people, the way that I wanted to be treated. But not only that, there’s a golden rule rule, treat others the way that you would like to be tru treated, but then there’s the platinum rule, and that is treat people the way that they want to be treated. Mm-hmm. Two years into my, my work, about the first two years, I learned two very important lessons. The first one, and, and I probably knew these before I joined the police department, but they [00:10:00] solidified when I joined number one, we are more similar than we are different. the moment I began to imagine what it must be like to be approached by a uniform cop or a detective. you know, if you were the victim of a serious assault, a, a sexual assault, whatever, what would it be like to have a detective walk in and start asking you questions? Mm-hmm. , put yourself in that person’s shoes. How would you want to be treated with dignity and respect? You’d wanna be treated carefully. That lesson really embodied me. It it just like treat people, you know, like you, you’re going to, you’re going to be able to reach them because they are so similar to you. They laugh, love, and bleed in the same way. They have the same worries everybody carries a cross. Everybody goes through something. So treat them the way that you would like to be treated and that much more. Then the second lesson that I learned, that I carried with me throughout my career was you get what you give. Mm-hmm. , if I give you love and respect, [00:11:00] I’m gonna get love and respect likely in return. However, if I give you the finger on the street and call you a name, I’m likely gonna get that back, or maybe even worse. So the way in which you, you treat others is usually the way in which you’re going to be treated in return. And that has been really, a lesson for me that changed everything. As a police officer. I got confessions, from killers who were told by their lawyers, don’t you talk to the detectives? You say that you, you know that you’re exercising your right to remain silent. All that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. yet I didn’t walk in to talk to a murderer. I walked in to talk to a human being. And I wanted to get to know who that person was and, and what motivated them to do what they did. And everybody’s got a story. Mm-hmm. . And once you allow people to tell their stories, it, it just opens the gates and it creates this, this beautiful bridge in which you connect with another human being. So that’s been my [00:12:00] philosophies and that’s what got me here. Gissele: Hmm. Oh, I love that you said that. I love your platinum rule cuz it really resonates with, me in, in the work that we do. because we, we look at compassion from the sense of it. It comes from a place of non-judgment and allowing all things to be. Yeah. and so what happens with compassion in these feelings is that a lot of people think that they’re being compassionate, but then they still force their will on other people. They still need people to change. Right. Like, you know, they still, people need people to do a specific thing and that they feel it should be done. And so that’s why I love your platinum route. Thank you rule. and it also reminded me of a story that my sister told me. So my sister’s a nurse,  she also is atheist, but she would sit and pray with people. She would just give them respect and love, and she would say to me, It’s amazing what people share with you. Like they tell you there’s skeletons in their closet and she’s like, she was just not prepared for that. All she was was just bearing witness to another human being and giving the most that she could [00:13:00] of herself with that love and kindness. But she said the exact same thing. She says, people will tell you things that they’ve never told anyone, and she was just not prepared for that. So what you said really resonated with me, and I remember the, her stories. Paul: Yeah. Oh, that’s sweet. Because it, it’s so true. People open up to you when they feel that you are listening to them Yeah. And that you, that they matter. Mm-hmm. And the moment that they feel that people will open up and people will mm-hmm. , they, they, they will do things. So it’s great. Gissele: Yeah. It’s from that place of like non-judgment, right? It is. what helps you have non-judgment? Like, especially like what helps you when you may be triggered. Like, it’s easy for me not to have judgment when I am not triggered , but when you’re triggered sometimes you’re like, Ooh, it feels a little like a hard edge. What helps you kinda shift out of that into, okay, I’m gonna li in listening Paul: mode. Yeah. Well, I just don’t allow myself to get triggered. Okay. I, I, I don’t take things personally because if [00:14:00] somebody says something, horrible to you, then you have a choice. Eleanor Roosevelt said that, nobody can make you feel bad unless you give them permission to, and Victor Frankl who wrote, man’s Search for Meaning, which is a, an amazing book, he said that, between stimulus and response, there is a moment. And in that moment we get to choose our response. And it’s so true. Is that, We don’t want to be reactors, like we wanna be responders. Imagine, first responders who go to the scene of an accident if they were first reactors. They get out, they go, oh my goodness, look at all the blood. What am I gonna do? You know, we don’t want that. We want people who are focused, they jump out. They’re first responders. They say, okay, we got this. We should become our first responders. We respond and not react. And so, don’t allow yourself to be, personally attacked because it, it don’t take it personally that it’s, it’s very simple. Imagine [00:15:00] that hurt people, hurt people. And if they say something to you that is hurtful, instead of reacting to it, you may want to just ask a question. Are you okay? Is everything all right? Yeah. Where’s that coming from today? You know, and just, just allow it just to not consume you, but you. Respond as opposed to react. So I, I really don’t let that happen to me. Hmm. Gissele: Yeah. So you must have a good, kind of emotional regulation, system, right?  because often what I have found, in my journey has been that, or even growing up, even with my parents, like in the people that I have seen is, or the adults in my life, is that they required us to behave, or children to behave in order so that they can feel at peace. So people that need to control environments need the external to be peaceful. In order for them to experience peace, they need other people to change their behavior in order for them to feel happy. Whereas when you have a solid internal regulating [00:16:00] system, or you can find that peace from within the chaos outside of you doesn’t shake you because you have a good foundation. so what helped you kind of have that good foundation? Paul: Well, I, you know, I, I’m good. I think. , I would attribute a lot of that to, my police experience. Mm-hmm. where things were happening all the time. Something could explode in front of me. Like people could get violent, everything. Yeah. And I, and I had to keep my cool in order to deescalate the situation. Mm-hmm. . And when you condition yourself to, to respond and not react, as I said a little bit earlier mm-hmm. , it, it, it becomes a pattern of yours. It’s like, okay, so if I’m dealing in a fight, like I’ve been in a lot of fights and I couldn’t lose my cool, I had to, I, I, I had two. To keep my cool mm-hmm. and I had to do my very best in order to deescalate and, and stop what was [00:17:00] happening. So I, I think I got conditioned, you know, time and time again. Is that okay? I, I’ve got this and I, I still, every once in a while, I have to remind myself, you’ve got this and it’s just a natural response that we get scared or we get intimidated or whatever. But you. That’s when you take a, a deep breath and you put your shoulders back and put your chin up and say, I’ve got this. And I, I love that philosophy is that I remind myself when I get nervous or nervous and excitement are the same emotion. And, so if I’m nervous, I say, no, I’m excited. And just, here we go. We’re gonna do this. And I think that people need to adapt that, to their lives when they’re afraid of presentations. For example, you know, a lot of people who speak in public, they’re, they’re nervous. They say that it’s one of the worst feelings. you know, they, they rate it as one of the, the worst, but turn that nervousness into excitement. I get to do this. Not I have to do this, I get to do this. I [00:18:00] get to speak. Whatever it is that you’re nervous about, you get to do it. Yeah. So, I, I, I think that’s one of the ones. Gissele: Oh, that’s a great reframe for sure. Thank you. Yeah. Because then helps you transform the energy from one of, like, anxiety and like, Victimhood to one of empowerment and autonomy, right? I get to do this. I, you know, I get to share my story. I get to be here. Yeah, I Paul: love that. And I love what you said about like energy. You used the word energy. It’s true. Like we are energetic beings. Yeah. Like we are energy. And what we put out into the world again, is, is what people are going to receive. So if you are, low on your energy, you’re not confident, you’re shy, whatever it is, people are going to receive that energy and they’re going to treat you likely accordingly. They’re gonna judge you. And people do, judge. But if you are able to raise your energy level and just say, listen, I am as worthy as anybody else. I’m amazing. And, and this is [00:19:00] a morning ritual where in which you talk to yourself and you really set the tone for the day mm-hmm. . And you remind yourself just how special you are, that you’re here and that you’re grateful to be here. Your energy’s gonna be up here because I’m gonna make it. So, and then that way you bring this high energy into the world and people will receive that high energy and they’ll notice you. And I, I, I, I think that that’s just amazing that we get to choose our energy. Gissele: Yeah. Oh, thank you for reminding our audience of that. because it is so true. I think that we don’t realize how our beliefs and our thoughts are getting us to a specific vibrational alignment, and then how we then attract all of these experiences. We don’t want to. So we do get to choose. one of the things I’ve heard from people, is that they find it sometimes hard to have those beliefs about themselves. Like, you know that you’re worthy and you’re lovable, and, and you are, you know, wonderful and, and amazing, because of the negative messaging that they have heard maybe throughout childhood or, but some of their teachers, like this is the people that, that, [00:20:00] that they don’t, they don’t choose to say, mm, no, I’m making a choice. what do you think might help them, start to take steps towards that, towards feeling more, worthy, I guess. Paul: Yes. Again, what a beautiful question to ask. I do believe, I, I, I like to tell people that there are three time zones, in our life. There’s the past, the present, and the future. Yeah. The past, what happened five minutes ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, is gone. I cannot go back and change that. And when I, if I do examine it, I don’t wanna stay there long, because if it’s something bad, I don’t wanna pack my bags and go to the poor me hotel. Like, poor me. I was, I was traumatized by a father, an alcoholic father. Poor me. If I go to the poor Me hotel and I check in, then in the hotel they have this Yme Lounge and the Yme lounge, they, they, they give you these drinks at half price, and you go and you go, poor me. Why has this happened to me? Well, guess [00:21:00] what? Your past is your past and much of what happened to you. If not all is not your fault, and the moment that you tell yourself the beautiful, story with Robin Williams, Goodwill Hunting. Mm-hmm. , you know, there, there’s this beautiful scene in which, you know, Robin Williams is, is just reminding, you know, Matt Damon, the character Matt Damon played, that what happened to him was not his fault. So we have to remind ourselves, Hey, that was not my fault and I cannot wear the victim label. , because I’m not a victim. I choose that, that word choice, that six letter word is amazing. So don’t live in the past. Mm-hmm. , don’t live in the future. Plan for the future. Absolutely. You know, make these great plans. But remember that in a moment everything can be taken away because we, we discovered this with Covid 19, didn’t we? Everybody had these plans. I’m going on holidays, , everybody Gissele: had all these lofting plans they’re gonna do, and 2020 came and it was like, Nope. Not doing any of that. . That ain’t Paul: happening to you in your homes. Yeah, exactly. [00:22:00] So you are not in control. Why worry about the things that you are not in control? What are you in control of? Mm-hmm. , you’re in control of this moment right now. I get to talk to Gissele . Mm-hmm. . And I am on, you know, your show. This is amazing. I get to make a new connection here. Mm-hmm. , I get to choose how I’m feeling. I’m feeling great. Mm-hmm. , because I get to talk to you. So this is the most important moment of your life. Mm-hmm. . And we were all born equal. It’s not like somebody was born to be better than us. No. We have to believe that we are as worthy as everyone. And to answer your question more specifically is that we condition ourselves so. Bring this into your daily routine in which you wake up and, and you take a few moments to be grateful. Grateful. Number one, that you woke up, grateful that you have a family, grateful that you have a roof over your head. Grateful that you have your health, that you have somebody who loves you, that you love something. So take that, that moment to be grateful and then, [00:23:00] As we get ready for our day, we’ve picked our clothes for the day, we’ve picked our, you know, I’m gonna be wearing this red shirt, I’m gonna be doing this, I’m gonna be doing it. Mm-hmm. . Okay, this is what I’m gonna be wearing. Why not go into the closet of your mind and just walk into that bright closet where there’s love and faith and servitude and all those things, and pick the attitude that you want to bring to the world. Mm-hmm. so that you’ve, you’ve already conditioned yourself for the day. You’ve said, nothing is gonna get to me. Somebody cuts me off, I’m in line. Somebody cuts me off. Whatever. I’m on the highway, whatever. That’s not gonna bother me. I get to choose my response. Mm-hmm. and I get to choose that. I’m gonna face this world in, in a loving and supportive way, and that I’m gonna be the best I can possibly be. Mm-hmm. . And we, you know, a lot of people blame and shame themselves for things that, that have happened or they’ve done in the past. I just wanna remind everybody that you are not the person you were. [00:24:00] 10 days ago. You’re not the person that you were five years ago. You’re standing on the shoulders of that person. Mm-hmm. , we are a work in progress and we get to choose, like, if we have hurt someone, then it’s our responsibility to ask for forgiveness and then to forgive ourselves because we’re not those people. We won’t do that again. We’re going to be these new creations every day, and we get to choose how we’re going to welcome this world and what we’re gonna do to welcome it. So yeah, that’s, that’s, oh, Gissele: that was so good. I felt that , I love that analogy of, you know, we pick out our clothes, we pick out the thing, we can pick out our mindset, we can pick out our beliefs. And I think what you’re really talking about is, you know, through our beliefs and thoughts, we kind of create these, these habits and then these identities. And, you know, we walk around with these, I’m a victim identity. I, you know, I, this happened to me identity. And we feed those identities and choose them every day, but we’re not realizing we’re choosing them every day because it’s easier to [00:25:00] choose them. And I think what you’re inviting us to do is really shift out of those identities and create new habits, new habits of, I’m gonna choose my mindset today. Like I choose my shirt. I’m gonna choose what I’m gonna allow to get to me, you know, when I’m driving on the highway, I don’t need to, you know, if a person needs to cut me off, and by all means, please go ahead. You must be in a hurry before you’re getting to. And so that’s, that’s helping us bring our power back. Take our power back, because so often we give our power away to other people to determine how we feel about ourselves and each other. So what a great invitation. , Paul: Gissele , we didn’t rehearse this, but you’re touching on so many incredible things that I resonate with. you, you’re, you’re so right. I’m gonna give an example. Yeah. when things happen to us, we, we, we can choose to kind of put a sticker on it. We’re meaning making machines. Yeah. And when I look back at. My time in the Special victims unit working on cases of sexual assault and child abuse, [00:26:00] when I spoke to a victim who was completely traumatized, and, and you can understand why. Yeah. But then, but then they would attach this label to them that they’re victims. They must have done something wrong to have had this happen to them. Their power and control has not been taken from them. It’s been shifted to the, to a side of their brain where they just can’t see it. Yeah. So my job, remember, I, I put myself in the shoes of, of the people that I was dealing with and the victims I was dealing with. And this would be the tone of my voice and how softly I spoke and how much I reminded them how, how great and special they are. And after a couple of meetings with a victim, if I felt that they were still feeling the victim, mentality, I used to bring in two t-shirts and one t-shirt. It said, victim. And the other t-shirt, it said Survivor. And I said, today you get to choose one of these [00:27:00] T-shirts. You don’t have to wear it, but whichever one you choose will be worn in one way or another. It will come out in your relationships. It will come out in the way that you feel about yourself. What happened to you was not your fault. And you do not have to pick the victim. You can pick this super survivor, you can pick this one and say, you know what, you don’t get to take that from me. Yeah. I get to re, I get to redefine my life and I get to do this and it’s not, it’s not my fault. So you, you pick and everyone would pick that survivor’s t-shirt, Yeah. And then I would get, I’d get a call a couple weeks later, detective Nadeau, I’m wearing the T-shirt and I feel so good. And that was just, yeah. Yeah. Because in these little minds of ours, We can put ourselves down or we can lift ourselves up, and it’s really just fine tuning that thing. Yeah. And I wanna remind people that sometimes it’s not [00:28:00] enough just to say the words. You’ve gotta bring your physiology into it. You’ve gotta believe it. So if you’re standing in front of a mirror saying, I’m not a victim. I’m not a victim. Mm-hmm. , I’m not a victim. And you’re, you know, you’re slouched down. There’s no energy there. So use the physiology, bring yourself up and just start to shout it out as though you were dancing. You know, it’s just amazing what we can do with a little bit of physiology and positive talk and self-love. Just remind ourselves that we we’re an incredible human beings. Well, but what is it? 4 million or whatever, sperm we’re, we’re competing for the job that you got. , you know, like, come on, you’re here because I don’t know, it’s sporty million. I, I have no idea. But you’re here and you’re here for a reason. Mm-hmm. , you know, the meaning of life is to, is to find your gift. And the purpose of life is then to share it with others and everybody. A gift to share with others, and it’s your responsibility to just find what that is, to share it with the world and just remember that you’re worthy [00:29:00] to do it. You know? Gissele: Yeah. Oh, so good. Well said. Yeah, and I love that because it helps us kind of shift that perspective that we’re broken. That’s probably one of the things that I hear the most in my work is like, you know, sometimes people feel like they’re broken, like that, they can’t get to that point. And so that shifting, that the survival really does help them be willing to go there, be willing to see themselves and reimagine themselves in a way that, I think it’s, it’s really getting them towards the path of bring, getting back their autonomy. Yes. what I do love about your work though, is that you not only show compassion, in love and kindness to people that are victims, but also perpetrators. you’re willing to see them in, in a different perspective. I was wondering if you could share with the audience your story about how, love and kindness, saved your life. Paul: Oh, absolutely. soon to be a movie. And, really? Yes. Oh, that is amazing. Yeah. It’s in the works. And, that’s, congrats. Well, thank you very much. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Appreciate that. [00:30:00] In, 2005 during the Iraq war, can Canada didn’t send soldiers to the Iraq war. We sent peacekeepers and our police service was, asked if we would participate in peacekeeping missions and a list of different countries were provided to us. And when I saw Jordan, I thought, yeah, let me go to the Holy Land. This would be great just to, yeah. experience it. And plus the position was one of a teacher and I, I was teaching at the time. Mm-hmm. , I was teaching police officers and I thought this is a great fit for me. So I was, I. Accepted by the United Nations to become a peacekeeper, and I was deployed in 2005. And again, I imagined what it must be like for all these Iraqi police cadets. There was, it was called the Jordanian International Police Training Center. Mm-hmm. . It was a, the largest police academy in the world, just outside of Iraq in the desert, about 150 kilometers away from the Iraq border. [00:31:00] And every eight weeks we got 3000 police cadets. ranging from the age of 16 to 65. Wow. And there was no way for Iraq to, to vet the cadets mm-hmm. , they were in such desperate need of mm-hmm. of men, of police officers to help save their country or defend their country. They were just grabbing them. So we were given, young men and, and older men who had mental illnesses, who were frail. some of them were university, graduates, whereas others had never learned how to, to read or write. Some had never left their home for even one night. And now, wow. 3000 cadets, away from home during a war. And I thought, how would I want to be treated by my instructor? Mm-hmm. . So I came up with, an introduction and I’d. And I had a, a language assistant who would translate for me. And I said, my name is Paul and it’s an honor for me to be here, to share my experiences with you. And I’m hoping [00:32:00] what I provide you, you’ll be able to use back in your country. And it’s an absolute honor for me to be here. I’m here to treat you with dignity and respect, and I would expect the same in return. As much as I’m gonna share with you, I would like for you to share with me and I’m gonna make this class fun. And so this was my opening line or my little monologue that I would give them, and I made it fun for them. We had Sunnis and Shiites in our, in our classrooms, but we also had terrorists who had infiltrated the academy just simply by wearing a police uniform. Mm-hmm. . And it was so easy for them to do. Now they’re being paid to be there for the eight weeks and trained on explosives, self-defense, all this. We tried to, to identify. The terrorists. And once they were identified, of course they were removed, but some of them were able to go underneath and not be, not be found. One student, I had about 60 [00:33:00] students every two weeks, that would come with me and then they would leave and they’d go, to another classroom for two weeks. And that’s the cycle. But one student had this bodyguard and, it wasn’t unusual to see, men with, with their bodyguards because depending on, on their tribe and their village, they may have high status. So it wasn’t a big deal. And he took particular interest in my viewpoint about the war and what we were doing there. Mm-hmm. and we had tea and so we developed a friendship and. He left the classroom and about a month later I applied for the job of advocate and counselor for the academy and I got it. And so it was a beautiful move out of the training branch into helping to support, these cadets and many of them. I was trying to get them better food, more time to leisure time, that kind of stuff. And also, I would have to determine whether or not, a cadet was in, condition [00:34:00] I i in a good condition to remain if, if they weren’t mm-hmm. Because maybe they, maybe they had been sexually assaulted in the dorm or they were suffering from a mental illness. And I would go, to, to the commissioner and I would say these men have got to be redeployed to their, their country cuz they’re, they’re not good here. Mm-hmm. . one cadet came in because part of my job was just to listen to them, because many of them were sad. Many of them, like, I’ve never been away from home. I’m lonely, I’m sad, I’m broken. And I would try to encourage them and see if they could, you know, put out a little bit longer because going back home wasn’t that easy. Mm-hmm. one cadet used to come in just to, to talk and he said, Mr. Paul, there’s going to be an attack and it’s gonna be from within the academy, and, internationals are going to be killed. And I said, well, thank you for, you know, thank you for that. And I went to our security and they already were aware of it. But when you’re on mission or if you are a soldier, you can’t go home [00:35:00] because it’s gonna get heated. You keep going about your job, you’re alert. You have to be more alert. And this is what we did and. Had a partner, a finish officer by the name of Yadamo, who was about a, a foot taller than I was. Just a beautiful human being. I, I love this guy. And I remember we used to get to the academy before all the other internationals because we had toe, the, the, the dean, the whoever ran the academy to give papers and to talk about who’s gonna go back home. So we did that. And out of his office, just as the sun was rising, we were walking through the desert and from behind one of the buildings, about 40 armed cadets, carrying rocks and sticks and everything. They could get their, their hands on belts, whatever. They rushed us and they surrounded us. And Gisele, I, I really believed in that moment that those were gonna be the last moments of my life because they were hooting and hollering. They were [00:36:00] starting to push. And I remember my partner right before the attack, he just, patted me on the head and he said, this is gonna hurt little buddy. And I said, yes it is. And I was thinking about my daughters and thinking I may not see them again. Mm-hmm. . And they reached in and they started to grab us and started to beat us. And we were fighting for our lives. And just as this was starting, I remember getting knocked down and I could hear one voice from behind the crowd yelling, Mr. Paul, Mr. Paul, Mr. Paul. And he yelled something else in Arabic. I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I didn’t have any, any translators there. And, suddenly the whole crowd just parted like the, like the Red Sea. And I was kind of getting my focus back. And I looked for the face of the person who had put a stop to the attack. And it was that cadet that I had met earlier. Hmm. And he came, he had the biggest smile on his face. And it really kind of, I’m looking up, he’s got this smile on his face and he reaches over and he [00:37:00] takes me by the arm and he pulls me up and he says, Mr. Paul, you’ve gotta go. It’s not gonna be a good day. And so my partner and I were, allowed to leave and we rushed back to our office. We called the security, but a stop to all the other, internationals from entering the academy. And we left and our lives were spared. So I can say that not only did I fight terrorism hand to hand, but my life was saved by a terrorist. And I don’t think too many people can say that. Yeah. So that’s the story. And it, when I looked and reflected back on that Gisele, it was the way in which I treated him and the way in which I treated all the cadets with that dignity and respect I spoke of. And non, non-judgmental, because some of the terrorists don’t want to be terrorists. They’re given no other option. , their families will be killed. They’ll be killed if they don’t do that. Yeah. So I wanna remind everybody that once we put a label on someone, this is a homeless person. They must be a loser, they must be [00:38:00] this, they must be, this is a prostitute. She must be this, she must be that. This is what, when, when we stick a label on someone, a negative label, I don’t see who they are. They’re just like you and I we’re more similar than we are different. They’ve got their, they’ve got their broken pieces. We all got our broken pieces, but they’ve got a story just as you do. So why judge them? Why not try to understand them? Not that, that’s my message to the world. Hmm. Gissele: And it is such a powerful message and a message that we believe on this podcast in particular, we, I’ve had stories where I’ve showcased people that, you know, like they were facing situations like you, and they chose to turn. Towards and to love, people that have used even respect. I can think of like Daryl Davis, he used, he went to KKK people as a black musician and leaned in and said, why do you hate me? Just I’m not trying to convert you. I’m not trying to judge you. I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m just trying to understand and got 300 KK [00:39:00] people to leave the Klan. but our natural inclination is to want to punish because when we are hurt, we wanna hurt. When we are upset, we wanna lash out. And if you look at the systems we’ve created, and I love this part of your Ted, I believe it was in your TED Talk. The systems we’ve created reflect the level of consciousness that we have, and they reflect how we act. When we’re hurt, they isolate, they separate, they judge, they punish.  in order for us to change, that has to change. Mm-hmm. and so what are your thoughts in terms of how these, how this consciousness has led us to create this sort of extremism or has contributed to this racism and extremism and all that we kind of see in the world? Paul: I think I could answer that by saying that, my experience with many of the, people who were, antisocial and, who had chosen to become gang members or [00:40:00] just criminals or whatever, , when I looked into their lives, into their past and took time to talk about who they were, what made them up, it’s amazing how we, we all need to be seen, heard, validated, loved. And if you are abused and that’s all you know, is this abuse, then you feel that rejection, I’m not loved. And so as you grow older, you wanna find a group of people who will accept you into their clan, into their whatever it is. And oftentimes if you have this, this terrible feeling about yourself, this, this victim mentality that then some groups will not accept you. And so you might go to a gang and they’ll say, Hey, you’re welcome. And there’s your home, or you welcome as a terrorist, you’re welcome as this or that. They welcome you into a tribe, and then you adapt to your environment. You feel that you are [00:41:00] accepted, which is what everybody wants to feel loved and accepted. And we need to break that cycle and just remind people that they, they are worthy of, of whatever it is that they put their heart and soul into, and just not judge as, as easily as we do, label people. I’ve got a problem with labels. I, I I, I don’t know if this happened, to you in, in school Gisele, but remember those posted notes, you know, where somebody would write, you know, something like dummy or something like that on, on a posted note, and then would come and slap you on the back and then you’d walk around and people would laugh because you’ve got this label. Isn’t that what we do? Isn’t that what we do? We lay this up? Yes. Gissele: We just don’t put the sticky note. I Paul: think so. . Oh, no, no. What do we do? Sticky notes up. Yeah. We, we do, we do. And we just need to break that. We need to break that. And I remember I walked in to talk to, a biker, 300 pound biker, big man. And he had some information about, a, a killing a murder. And I was going in to [00:42:00] talk to him about, about this to see if I could get him to, to give us the information that we needed. And the moment I walked in and I said, w which, which I, I said to a lot of criminals, most criminals, Hey, I’m here to treat you with dignity and respect. And I, and when I said that to him, his head was down. And the moment I said, I’m here to treat you with dignity and respect, he looked up at me, this 300 pound biker, long hair, big beard, just tears in his eyes. And he said, nobody has ever said that to me. Nobody has ever said that to me. And then he gave me the information I was looking for. We all need this feeling, this connection. And if we’re willing to give it to those that we feel, you know, maybe don’t deserve it because of their behavior, but if we can break through that barrier and just open up, then we get what we give. It’s what I said a little bit earlier. If you give this, you’re likely to get [00:43:00] it in return. So if I give you this compassion, this love, this non-judgmental, approach, then I’m likely to get that in return. Because as much as, you know, criminals say, okay, I’m the criminal, but you’re a cop. And there’s, that’s the wall is here. Not, no, no, no. Let’s just chisel this wall away. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Let’s just, you know, I’m a person, you’re a person. I’ve got a job, you’ve got a job. You know, that kind of stuff. Right? Yeah. I think that goes a long way. Yeah, for Gissele: sure. It’s, it’s interesting to me, you know, that we always attribute people’s hurtful behavior as who they are, right? Like, you know, this person is toxic, this person is hurtful, he is a, you know, but when we hurt other people, we say, well, this is my behavior. It’s not who I am. Right? At least you don’t wanna believe that’s who you are, but we don’t give people the same benefit of the doubt. and so one of the things that I like to talk about is, is that it’s, our behavior is not who we are, [00:44:00] right? So we behave in different ways, and we all have the capacity to choose to behave in hurtful ways. We have to choose. To act in different ways. We, like, for me, I have to ch I choose loving compassion every day. I don’t always get it right, but I choose it. And, and I make that conscious choice, like putting on my, you know, I’m gonna put on my mindset today. Yeah. and so, and I think that’s what people don’t realize, because when people start to feel like you mentioned homelessness, when people start to feel like they’re viewed a specific way, they adopt that identity and they don’t believe they can change. Yes. And I think that’s the, that’s the challenge. Paul: That’s, it’s, I love what you just said there. True. It’s so true. I, if you’re in a dark hole mm-hmm. , and this is what you become familiar with, then it’s learned helplessness. Yeah. You learn to adapt to this environment. I can never get out of here, you know? Mm-hmm. , I can’t, I can’t. This is who I am. I’m just [00:45:00] unlovable. I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m broken. And this is what I, I become conditioned to. And it’s like the experiments that were done on, on dogs years ago, which, they, they would bring a dog into a cage that was electrified. And, so the bottom was electrified. There was a, a little tunnel leading out of the, the cage. Mm-hmm. into an un electrified, box or, or a cage. And the dogs would come in and they would, the, the experimenters, the scientists were watching, and the dogs would jump up and jump up, and some of them would see the, the way out, and they would go and they were safe. But to those who were in that panic mode, and they just kept jumping and jumping and jumping, what they noticed was after, maybe a few hours or whatever that the, the dog would become conditioned to, their environment would lie down. And this became the reality. It’s like being. An abusive relationship, somebody who is the victim of domestic violence, it happens so often that they, they don’t [00:46:00] see the way out and they, they think, this is just my life as a kid. When I was being abused by my dad, I didn’t see a way out. That was just my life. Everybody must have this. And I, I remained in that state of mind. Mm-hmm. , because I didn’t know any better. And so your point about, you know, how people, adapt, to this, how they learn to become helpless and to adapt to the environment that they were thrown into or, or whatever circumstance got them there. But they’re there and they say, well, there’s nothing more I can do. Well, there is, and we, we know because we can reach out to people, who can shine their light into us. Leonard Cohen, the great musician. Mm-hmm. he’s passed and a great Canadian musician, hallelujah was his song, right? Mm-hmm. . He wrote a song back in the nineties called Anthem, and I love this, this lyric from it. He said, there’s a crack in everything, but that’s how the light gets through. Mm-hmm. , and we’ve all had our [00:47:00] cracks and our breaks. Some people have had our breaks. We, we have a light within us that we can pour out of our cracks into the cracks of others to support them. And equally they can do that. So let’s be open to receiving the, the guidance, the encouragement, and the help of others and let’s go and mimic that behavior and give it to other people. Cuz we’re not broken folks. We can, we can take those pieces and we can, we can solder them with gold, which is something the Japanese used to do. Yeah. And just made it, I love that heart. Stronger. You are it. And start believing that you are and you will become what you believe. Yeah. Gissele: Ah, thank you for sharing that. one of the things that I have found in my journey, and I know in the people that I work with, is the, the fact that they really have a hard time. They can’t. have that level of non-judgment or acceptance or openness or curiosity until they do that for [00:48:00] themselves. Until they’re able to, hold space for their difficult emotions to have, love and compassion for their anger and all of those frustration emotions. And when they start to love themselves and, and fill up their cup or put their own oxygen mask on first, then, and only then can they be open and curious about other people and to be able to do that. what do you think the role of forgiveness is, in terms of being able to, to help us with some of those difficult emotions like anger or shame or guilt like, and how has forgiveness helped you in your journey? Paul: Forgiveness is not always easy to to give. Right? Yeah. Forgive for, oh yeah, for the giving. Forgiveness is for the giving. Mm-hmm. , you know, so I’m going to give you this, this, this idea that, the transgressions or whatever has happened, they’ve happened and let’s just leave them behind. The rule of forgiveness really is to. Recognize again, that we’re more similar than we are [00:49:00] different from other people. So everybody’s going through their hell, everybody’s got a cross to carry, and, and sometimes they don’t know how to handle it. And so they’ll, they’ll say something or do something to you that you’ll take personally and, and you’ll take this in and say, wow, I’m not that way. And oh gosh, why would you ever say that? I, I feel so broken. Well, you’re giving them permission to hurt you. You just like get Roosevelt said. Don’t give them that. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Recognize that they may be going through something that you have no idea about. You know, I walk down the street and, and there’s dozens of people in the downtown area here and everyone’s got a story and somebody may be the victim of sexual abuse at home. Another person may have lost a loved one. Someone may have just lost their job. Other people are gonna lose their homes. And I just have to look around and all, everything is happening to these people. So if something happens where a [00:50:00] person is mean to me, or they intend to be mean to me again, let me reframe the, the, the thing. They’re not mean to me. Like nobody can break my heart. I, I do that on my own. Mm-hmm. , nobody can hurt my feelings. they didn’t hurt my feelings. You hurt my feelings. No, no, no, no, no. I hurt my feelings. I’m the one who chose to feel this way. It’s my responsibility. And a lot of people say, well, I have this relationship and he broke my heart. Or she broke my heart. No, no, no, no, no. Nobody did that. They didn’t go in and crack your heart open mm-hmm. and did that to yourself. It’s the way in which you, you chose to attach meaning to this and not. Choosing the right way to look at things. So forgiveness, we owe it to ourselves and we owe it to others because we’re humans and we’re, we’re imperfect people living in an imperfect world. But the way in which we, we bring this imperfection to the world makes it that much more perfect because we get to choose the best [00:51:00] versions of ourselves. And by forgiving others, we can also forgive ourselves because we’re, I look at my past and I’ve hurt people, and I, I didn’t mean to, and maybe it was unintentional, maybe it was intentional, but I had to go back mm-hmm. And just truly ask for that forgiveness. And once I had asked for their forgiveness, I had to then forgive myself. Mm-hmm. , there’s this beautiful, Hawaiian prayer. It’s,I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Its the Ho’oponopono, that’s it. That’s it. Yes. Yes. I’ve Gissele: used it. Yeah. It Paul: works. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I used it. yes. And it works, and tears will actually pour. Mm-hmm. You. Mm-hmm. And it’s just beautiful. So Yes. Ask for forgiveness and forgive yourself. So, Gissele: yeah. Yeah. The, the hoon, I always, I don’t always pronounce it right. Theono Pono, I think it’s what it’s called. Yeah. Ho Paul: Oko. Oh, Gissele: yeah. Like, it’s, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. Mm-hmm. . I’ve used it with myself and I’ve used it with other people that [00:52:00] I have. Yes. I felt like I have harmed. Yeah. and so, yeah. Yeah. I, I did wanna ask you kind of a leaning question. Sure. and that is, were you able to find out your dad’s story as to how he became, like how he, kind of got to that point where he was so hurtful? Paul: Yes. And that again, you know, I, I, I’m a work in progress. Gissele , we all are, we all are We all are. And, and I’m always learning different things. And for the longest time, yeah, I think I had a hard time forgiving my father. And then I realized, you know, he even had it worse than I did cuz his father used to, he was a, a violent alcoholic as well. And they lived in, in Quebec, in, in, the northern part of Quebec, in rural area. And, I remember my, my grandmother’s stories about how she had to take the children, my father included, and run out in mid-winter to a barn several hundred feet away where she had [00:53:00] clothes and food stashed because, my grandfather had a rifle and was going to shoot them. Because in a, in a drunken state, and I can only imagine how, how my father was treated and broken. People often break people. we, we talked about that earlier. Hurt people. Hurt people. And I don’t think my father ever had the, that was years and years ago. There wasn’t therapy as, as easily accessible as it is now. There wasn’t anybody who would listen and you had to keep your story to yourself. , you know, if you were in, in a good Christian home or, or Catholic home, you don’t go tell everybody your stuff. Mm-hmm. , you just keep it to yourself. You’d be a big boy. You don’t cry and you just suck it up. And, you know, I imagine that that years of, of abuse in my father, he just couldn’t handle it. he had a mental condition. He just couldn’t handle it. And I do believe that, yeah, his illness is, is what contributed to, the [00:54:00] abuse that we suffered. So once I realized that everybody’s got a story, remember everybody’s got a story. Why is it that they’re behaving this way? I think I understand now. You know what, dad, I forgive you and, you know, I, I, I’m so sorry for everything that you went through mm-hmm. , because I can’t imagine what your life was like and yeah. There was, I Gissele: realized something interesting as you were talking. It’s so funny that your dad was terrorized by his father. You know, he terrorized you and you went into terrorism,  you know, when you went to study like terrorism,  it’s very healing. That’s, that’s a really, that’s what came across my mind. I’m like, oh, because to live in that circumstance must been terrorizing. Like, to be constantly in that fear, in that, in that environment of like, your home is not safe and therefore internally you don’t feel safe. No. and so, yeah, I can only imagine that, that that kind of, that, terrorism at home, right? Like that, can be a [00:55:00] very, wow. It can be very frighten. Paul: It, it is for a lot of people and we just gotta realize that, we, we have to examine, and, and not just, accept we have to really, use our minds and question. Mm-hmm. , this is not my life. Yeah. I don’t have to stay here. Mm-hmm. I’m in this abusive home. I don’t have to, I’m in this abusive relationship. I don’t have to, I am, you know, I’m conditioning myself to, to reach for the bottle, to pour away, all of my, my sadness and stuff. No, you don’t have to, you know, life is full of choices and you are not your circumstances. You define your circumstances, so, yeah. Mm-hmm. . . Oh yeah. Gissele: Yeah. And the other thing I was thinking about as well was that, it’s interesting, a lot of like, it, it seems to be like there’s huge shift that’s happening, in consciousness and in in awareness, you know? And, and people that, you know, were alive during the time of war. There was a lot of scarcity. There was a lot of fear. my parents’ generations didn’t believe in therapy. Like, you don’t tell anybody [00:56:00] your business, You know, what will people think? And there was all of this value in external, like what people perceived and all of this misconceptions. And now when you see this newer generation that wanting to talk about mental health, wanting to, addressing, wanting to talk about loving ourselves and loving each other,  you know, I believe, and I could be wrong, so correct me if I’m wrong, that one of the things you had mentioned in your TED Talk was about the power of belief and believing that we can get there. I was wondering if you can, talk a little bit about how belief can help us, hopefully, create a more loving and compassionate world. Paul: Absolutely. Again, another wonderful, brilliant question, but yes. You know, when we start to believe in ourselves and, and I, I spoke about my grade seven pivot moment, that moment that shifted everything for me. I started to believe in myself. when you start to believe in yourself, like the grade seven pivot moment for me where I started to imagine. I was not [00:57:00] a loser and I could do things and I could accomplish things, and then I pushed myself. Belief helps you to push and open the envelope, and the more that you believe in something and you do your very best to make it happen, the more successful you will you will be. So if we believe in the goodness of others, we’re going to approach them with goodness, and we’re going to bring this, this energy out. And. They’ll receive the energy that we give. And so we could really make a change in this world if only we sat down and started to listen to each other’s differences. Because you, you can imagine if we were all the same, we’re not, we’re born in a particular country. we’re given, a religious belief often, you know, by, by where we were born and beliefs of the community or the country or whatever. And they, they may not coincide with your own, but they are entitled to their beliefs. And just as much as I am, I, I can’t, I can’t say somebody, well, you can’t [00:58:00] believe that. Come on. You know, like, you can’t possibly believe that that’s wrong. Well, it’s my opinion, right? In my opinion. And. What is it? Two bucks or five bucks? We’ll get you a coffee. You know, like it’s, everybody’s got one. But, no, the belief is strong. It’s like, I believe I can lose 15 pounds and I truly believe it. Now, what must I do to make that belief a reality? I must do the work. I must exercise. I must change my, my eating habits. I’ll go fasting. I’ll do this and I’ll do that cuz I believe in it. I see it, I visualize what it’s going to be like. I see myself 15 pounds lighter or 50 pounds lighter or whatever. I see myself getting that job. I see myself getting that date. Whatever it is, when you start to believe and you, you, you make it happen because you manifest it. And your, your belief system is one in which you will not accept anything lower. Mm-hmm . If you are truly [00:59:00] committed, then you will make it happen. And I’m a believer in that, I, I believe that there are so many wonderful opportunities out there. I tell this in, in many of my talks. I say, I do not want to be visited by the ghost of missed opportunities on my deathbed . When I’m on my deathbed. I don’t want these ghosts coming in and going, you know, Paul, we whispered something in your ear mm-hmm. , that you could write a book and you kept saying, no, no, no. Mm-hmm. , let me show you what it would’ve been like if you would’ve written that book, or if you would’ve asked this person out, or if you would’ve become this that you wanted to become, but you never tried. I don’t wanna be visited by those ghosts that make me feel bad about the life that I’ve lived. I wanna be visited by the ghost of rock and roll, who go, dude, that was so awesome. What are we gonna do next time to come? This is great. Yeah. What’s next? What’s next? What’s, this was a ride, man. What ride are you taking us on next? Mm-hmm. . That’s why, Gissele: what, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. You mentioned manifestation. Also a big believer in manifestation. I think where people get tripped up [01:00:00] though is when they don’t see it, right? So you set your intention and you’re like, yeah, I’m gonna ride all, you know, all these things. I’m gonna do all these amazing things in, where is it? And so the belief has to be strong enough. Your vision has to be strong enough. And that’s the, the thing that I felt from you. You don’t take no for an answer, which is you stop paying attention to what is not out there, and you hold onto the vision and then it comes into alignment. But a lot of, like a lot of us, and I say we, because we’re interconnected, we’ll say, well, it’s not there, therefore it’s not a reality. Oh well, , right? And in this environment where we are with, you know, instant gratification, we expect our manifestations to be just there when we desire them. But if we manifested everything we thought we could create some chaos for ourselves, , some real negativity. So it’s kind of a blessing that we don’t, but I love how you said about, you know, hold onto your vision and stick to that vision and don’t take anything less than your vision. Because then, then you won’t get visited [01:01:00] by that ghost that’s saying Paul: Yes. And there’s, there’s a bunch of ghosts that will visit you. But , you know, for me it’s, it’s a matter of, of trying and, and just visualizing and saying, I’m going to give this my best shot. And it may not happen. It may be that you’re giving it your best shot, but you just don’t have the talents and it’s okay. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , because those ghosts have missed opportunities, are not going to give you a hard time for having tried for having your best forward. And you may find something that was even better than the first thing that you tried. Mm. It may be maybe a relationship. Oh, nope, that one didn’t work out because it wouldn’t have worked out. Yeah. We see this, but we’ve got this other person for you. And whatever it is that, that belief, that manifestation, it takes work. It’s not gonna happen overnight in many cases. Mm-hmm. and for me, writing the books, I had no desire to write a book. Mm-hmm. . And people kept saying, Paul, you got such interesting stories, you gotta write a book. And I said, no, no, [01:02:00] no. And then I found myself in 2013, just in between jobs and thinking, what am I gonna do? And I don’t like to have idle time on my hands. It just, yeah. it, it’s lonely when you have that. Right. And so I thought, why am I, yeah. Yeah. So this whisper came to me, Gisele, it was a whisper, and it said, write a book. And I, I listened and I said, get away. You know, like, and then mm-hmm. , the whisper became louder. And I do believe that we, we have whisperers. And this whisper was loud enough that I, I, I thought I said okay. How do I do this? So I went to a bookstore and I picked up a book on how to write a book, . And Gissele: that’s so great. That’s what they’re there Paul: for. Yes. But here’s the thing, read the whole book. I only read 40 pages , and I thought I knew Good year. I thought I knew it, and so I started to write. But the thing was, and here’s the big. Is that I was not committed in the very beginning. I would write for an hour, I’d leave it for two weeks, I’d come back, I’d write [01:03:00] for another hour and a half, maybe two hours, cause I was bored. And then I would come back three weeks later and I’d look at it, and this was a pattern because I, I didn’t want it bad enough. Ask yourself, how bad do you want it? Mm-hmm. , how bad do you want to achieve this? Are you ready to put the work into it? And I remember after about eight, nine months, may, you know, even a year, I had a bunch of writing that didn’t look anything like a book. Mm-hmm. . And I had to go back and read from the very beginning to where I left off. And that could be 50, 60 pages just to catch up to where I was. And I thought, are you committed or not? Is this gonna happen or not? Paul, how bad do you want it? And so I wanted to be accountable. Mm-hmm. . So I went to social media, Facebook, and I thought, okay, I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna type out, I’m writing a book. and I pushed the send button and I shared it, and, I thought nobody’s gonna say anything. And then I got about 20 people saying, it’s about time. Can’t wait. . [01:04:00] So there’s my accountability, when’s it coming out? And then I put a date on it and I became a committed writer, which meant that I sat down for four and a half, five hours a day, and I wrote at least one or two sentences that popped out that resonated, and then I completed it. And had I never listened to that, to that whisper, I wouldn’t have, I, I self-published my first book and I thought, okay, it’s out there. I’ve done it. I’ve, I I did it, I’m done. Yeah. Yeah. But then, As, as this, this world can suddenly change everything for you. Yeah. And in a, in a New York second, your life can change. It’s for the better. And you gotta have this faith, this, this beautiful faith. Mm-hmm. , one of the 40 people who bought my book, turned out to be an editorial director for Harper Collins, one of the biggest publishing houses. Amazing. Yes. Yeah. And he invited me for coffee and I said yes. [01:05:00] And, he pulls out my book and he slides it on the table and he says, we wanna publish this worldwide. And I said, yes, you do. Yes, you do. And the, the contract was, was created and now the book is available worldwide. But let’s believe in this, this thing, this faith. Let’s have faith that, that the world is conspiring for us. Paranoia is the belief that the world is conspiring against you. Pronoia. It’s opposite is to believe that the world is conspiring for you. When you start to believe that the world is conspiring for you, every good thing is gonna happen. Your life will change because your energy will be broadcast and you’ll be attracting what you give out. Remember, you get what you give. And if I have this belief in myself that, Hey, I’m gonna make this happen. How bad do you want it? I want it real bad enough. Give you a small example. I have a guitar here in my home. Mm-hmm. . And I’ve had it for about 30 years and. Collecting dust . I [01:06:00] wanted to learn how to play it, and it was hard and I thought I wasn’t committed. Yeah. I didn’t want it bad enough, so I never learned how to play it. But those things that I want bad enough, oh my goodness, you ain’t gonna stop me. I’m gonna make it happen. Mm-hmm. , I, I, you know, if the door is closed, I’m gonna take a chainsaw. Just break it down, you know, I’m gonna get to where I wanna be because I can, and each and every one of your listeners can do the same. Mm-hmm. , the moment that you have that belief, which you talked about so beautifully yourself, is that belief is, is not enough. It takes work. And if you are looking at it and saying it’s not happening fast enough. , examine yourself. Mm-hmm. Socrates said, an unexamined life is a life not worth living. And from time to time, and I, I write about this, I, I say from time to time, every two weeks or so, in the very beginning, take a sheet of paper and just put a, a line through it. And on the one side, write down the things that are working in your life and on the other side, write the things that are not [01:07:00] working on your life. And then be brutally honest with yourself when you take a look at the things that aren’t working. This relationship is not working. Am I doing my part or is it a relationship that I need? Whatever is not working well, I’m, I’m 50 pounds overweight. Okay, well, how bad do you want it? Are you going to put the label that I’m. To do what it takes to make that that change where I can put the things that’s not working from that list onto what’s working. Mm-hmm. and remember this, Lao Tzu, said the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Mm-hmm. . And I’ve added to that. The idea is that we keep moving forward, we keep taking those steps. So the journey of wherever you wanna be begins with you taking the first step and then the second and then the third, learn how to run, learn how to master that course because it’s your course to master. And that’s what I would have to say about that as first got would say. And that’s all I got to say about. Gissele: And that is a beautiful, beautiful way to end the podcast. so final [01:08:00] question is where can people find you? Tell us about your books. Tell us about your websites so that people can go check you up. Paul: you bet. Thank you so much for that. Yes. You can reach me if you just Google my name, Jay Paul Naau, or Paul Naau. I’ll, I’m. In several places on the internet. My website, I have two j paul nado.com and that will bring you to my website. I’m a keynote speaker and, and I love doing that. I’ve had a great year speaking, so you can, you can reach me that way. My email address is there. You can reach me that way. inspire us is my podcast and just, yes. easiest way go to the web, Paul Nadeau, or J Paul Nadeau. You’ll see. You’ll see everything. Yes. And Gissele: your books are available on Amazon and anywhere where people purchase books. Paul: Pretty much. Yes. yep. my, my first book, which, I called it Hostage to myself, but Harper Collins, called it Take Control of Your Life. It’s available in many, many bookstores across, north America and it’s available everywhere. You can buy books online. [01:09:00] And the other one is available through Amazon. I’ve got two. One is, dam, just ask. It teaches people . Yeah. Dam. Just ask. A lot of people don’t ask for what they want in life. Yeah. That they’re afraid. The fear, I go into another topic. It takes Gissele: courage. It takes courage because all the limiting beliefs come up and then you go, oh, maybe not. Right. Paul: So it takes courage. Exactly. Exactly. So this book will teach you how to get that, that courage damages out. It’ll teach you how to negotiate. The other book I have is, the Badass Guide to Conflict Resolution, how to Deal with Conflict. Cause a lot of people look at conflict and they avoid it. Conflict is opportunity. It’s an opportunity to create a better relationship to understand that other person gets back into the talk. So I, I’ll end it there. But you know, when you look at conflict through a different lens, you look at it as an opportunity to really listen to the other person, Stephen Covey said, seek first to understand and then to under, to be understood. And if you carry that into your work, as a [01:10:00] salesperson, as a negotiator, listen to the other side first. Listen to the person you’re in conflict with. Maybe it’s a loved one that you’re arguing with. You shut your mouth. Listen to what they have to say. Ask and and then speak and when you understand. So Gissele: that’s me. I love that conflict is an opportunity for us to come closer Paul: together. It is. It’s to build a bridge to really understand. Well imagine. Soldiers at, at war, and they’re faced with conflict all the time. They may be even in conflict with the people that they, they, they’re, trooped with mm-hmm. . And yet they’re sup They’re going to help each other. They’re gonna listen to each other, they’re going to get through it, and they become closer because of the conflict. And, and that’s how real relationships, can be developed by understanding the other person and looking for the opportunity to get to know you better. What is it that you’re struggling? What is it that I’ve said or I’ve done that makes you feel this way? Can we talk about this? I really wanna understand your side, and I, I, I will not say anything. I will not judged you. I’m just gonna shut up and [01:11:00] listen to you. , you speak first. Mm-hmm. And then, yeah. So thank you. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you so much. And thank you to everyone don’t forget to, tune in for another episode with a Love and Compassion podcast with Gisele. Thank you. Paul: Thank you, Giselle. It’s been an Gissele: absolute pleasure. Thanks. Oh, me too. Thank you so much for being on the show. .

Transcript: Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. . we believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. so don’t forget to subscribe for more amazing content. On today’s podcast, we’ll be discussing how yoga can help us heal and love ourselves. And our guest is the incredible Echo Giselle Winer, and who has, extensively qualified and a certified yoga teacher. And she’s also the host of the Echo Yoga YouTube channel, which is obviously available on YouTube, which is actually where I found her in doing, a lot of her, yoga. I was looking on her website to how to describe her. And I encountered this beautiful, I guess little poem that I think also introduces the other non 3D aspect of her, which I’m gonna read a little bit of, if you don’t mind, echo, which is, I am not, I am not my body. I am not the texture, temperature, smell, sound, [00:01:00] or color of my body. I am the vibration, the frequency, the intangible, knowing, unknown, the depth of my glare as I stare into your eyes, that is where you will find me. The story that comes from my mouth will not paint a picture of my essence where truth is wordless and indescribable. But tell me a story anyways, and let me tint your ear with enchanting poetry. Welcome echo. Echo: Thank you for having me. Gissele: Thank you so much for coming on the show. This is a real pleasure for me. I wanted to, I was wondering if you could begin, with the audience, by sharing with them how you got to be on this journey. whatever you wanna share in terms of really finding, kind of a hallmark space with yoga. Wow. , Echo: like what didn’t lead me to this journey? I think that’s the [00:02:00] truth of it. What didn’t lead me to this journey? you know, in the, the simplicity of that answer. Is, you know, I think, I think that life is yoga and that’s the beauty of yoga. I think we get confused sometimes on, on yoga being the asana, the physical postures being this, this workout. But there’s so much more to yoga. And of course you would know that. And for me, I didn’t know that when I first started the journey. It was very much a physical practice that was used in a way to work with my physical body. And I’m so glad that I found myself on that journey because I had a coach that said, You know, you should really try yoga. You need to calm down, you need to meditate, you need to breathe, and you need to just be. And I remember thinking, of course, I’m breath. I’m breathing right now, like I don’t need somebody to coach me how to breathe. And I remember finding that part of yoga very annoying and it was too still for me, and there [00:03:00] wasn’t enough movement. And what I found over my time of just being on the yoga mat and learning to breathe and learning to tune into the more subtleties that I was actually quite numb most of my life, that I was quite disassociated from my body, and that I needed a lot of stimulation to feel alive. I needed a lot of distraction to stay in my body. and what unfolded on my yoga mat in the first years was profound because it was so unexpected. I wasn’t looking for a spiritual experience. I was looking to simply have a nice flat stomach and to stretch my body. And what I found was like this essence of God or truth or source, or whatever you want to call it, but something unfolded on the yoga mat that led me back to myself in a way that I had never experienced before. And I’m still on that journey, you know, 17 years later. And it’s been profound, and I’m constantly a [00:04:00] student every day again and again, beginning, beginning, beginning, and realizing like, yeah, every single thing has led to this point. Every single part of my life has led me to this path of yoga. Gissele: Yeah. Oh, that’s such a beautiful answer. And I think when you were talking, I think you just, you described, I know that I resonated with that, having had my own journey and being in that spot where, you know, you don’t realize that you’re not breathing, you are holding your breath a lot of the time. And there’s so many people right now in the world holding their breath, you know, taking shallow breaths and, and not really wanting to be in their body, in their space, just looking for distractions. and from that perspective, yoga can be so, healing. so one of the things that you mentioned is your talk about the essence of yoga. What do you think that, what do you say the essence of yoga is? Echo: Hmm. The essence of yoga, I think, or I feel, I feel the essence of yoga [00:05:00] is presence and it’s truthfulness and presence is, is like the biggest gift that we can give to anybody. It’s the biggest gift that we can give to ourselves and it’s so rare. In our lives, society has us in transactions. We’re so transactional. We’re constantly purchasing and consuming and acquiring, and it leaves so little space to just be and to be present. And that’s, that’s really what has brought me again and again to the mat when I lose my way. And sometimes even being a yoga teacher and offering classes online and having this whole space and this platform around yoga, I find myself wandering for my yoga mat or my meditation cushion, and something inside feels imbalanced and I feel anxious or I have energy in me that I’m not able to guide in a skillful way. And I, I get curious like what’s happening right now, and each time it’s a lack of [00:06:00] presence. And that’s what leads me back to the yoga mat or leads me back to the philosophy of yoga, or the meditation or the breadth of it is simply echo. You’re not being present. Go be present. And so that brings me back to the path over and over again. Gissele: And that’s, really great. one of the things that I know that, I’ve heard for all my listeners is that, being fully present can be, can feel scary, because there is, a whole bunch of fears or unaddressed emotions, un felt feelings, and that sometimes that can feel really overwhelming. I think people don’t know how to be truly present in the moment, and especially if they’ve got a lot of negative thinking. what can help those people kind of, embark on the journey towards greater. Echo: I think slowing down and moving step by step. We think that we need to, if we’re gonna go on this spiritual path or we’re going to go practice yoga, that we immediately need to [00:07:00] be absorbed into the world of it. So our day is like every day we’re doing yoga, we’re meditating, we’re reading yoga philosophy, we’re chanting the sutra, and true, truly just giving ourselves spaciousness to. Really sit in what we don’t know yet and what doesn’t feel comfortable, and choosing just one thing for a moment that doesn’t feel comfortable and pushing our edges slowly. It’s like we want to push the edges past the fray to get to the finish line immediately, almost as if we’re in our job or we’re in a relationship or we’re consuming a product. And that’s, And yoga tells you like, Hey, just like, wait, be patient. Like it comes with time. And so I think for anyone with that overwhelm or that frustration of so much coming up, it’s like just be with what comes up, step by step and create boundaries and create the safety and the containers that you need in order to really. Go within yourself to just be, with what comes up. And don’t try to solve it all. [00:08:00] Like it. You don’t need to solve it, and don’t if you can, try not to go to somebody to ask them to solve it for you either. Just let it be unknown. Let yourself be confused. Let yourself be a bit frustrated and taken aback by it, and just observe, become like the sharp witness to your experience and your reactions to life Gissele: and, and what helps you in those moments. because the unknown can be scary, right? What helps you really sit with the unknown and not let your mind just take you to the worst case scenario? Echo: my breath. Honestly, like my favorite mantra, and I say this in all my yoga classes, so if you’ve done them, you’ve heard me, but I consistently am telling myself throughout the day, Breathing in, I’m aware that I’m breathing in, breathing out. I’m aware that I’m breathing out. And anytime I’m overwhelmed in public on a bus, in traffic, in a confrontation, I close my eyes and I come back to that because [00:09:00] that brings me back into presence. And when I’m present, I generally am not overwhelmed when I’m really present. Because when I come out of presence, then comes the anxiety. When I come out of presence, then comes the numbness. But if I’m fully present and I’m doing that mantra of breath, that’s all that I can focus on. That’s the only thing that exists in that moment. And then I can just fully breathe for my belly and take those full diaphragmatic breaths that bring me back into my body. Yeah, Gissele: and and I love that because for me, the gift of that has been. The awareness of the abundance that exists, like in the abundance of breath. I don’t have to think about the breath is just there for me supporting my life. And, and, and it reminds me of that, that, full support that I feel I receive from the universe Echo: source. I think what you’re just, what you’re saying is so important to me to note on abundance because, [00:10:00] and this is taking a little bit of a tangent, but something that has created so much suffering in my own life, and I’m sure many people can relate to this, is the loss of love, the feeling of loss, period of intimacy, of deep connection, and something that I used to always believe. Really in my core, before I really got onto this path was that when I lost someone or I lost a connection, that they walked away with the abundance. That whatever opened in me, the love that I had, the care that I had, once that person left in their body was no longer in the room, were close to me. Then I lost access to that abundance. And something that one of my teachers once told me was, Echo, when you love and when you come out of relationship, like the abundance that you have in that, you don’t lose that. That’s what abundance is. Abundance is everywhere We are love, we are, we are everything. And so if somebody walks away from you or they leave you even in the most painful of ways, [00:11:00] you don’t lose that love. Like you’re still abundant. They can be abundant. You can be abundant. That’s what abundance is. And so for me, This has been such an important lesson because even in the most melancholy and dark and heavy moments where the days are dark and the rain is just pouring and there’s thunder and there’s lightning, and I’m just so overwhelmed by my feelings, when I can come back to the breath, I can remind myself I’m safe here. Like I close my eyes, I’m in my breath, and the breath is always there, and that is abundance and that is love. And that state is always there for me to take. No one can take that away from me no matter what happens, like that’s available to me always. Gissele: So beautifully said. And I think loss is something that we all, work through, right?  whether it be the loss of a relationship, it’d be, you know, the loss of, abundance like financial or the loss of like health or, you know, wellbeing or whatever. I [00:12:00] think we as a society, I think where as a collective we really are in that fear of loss, but like you said, when you come at it from a place of there is no loss in the universe, nothing’s ever created or destroyed, and it’s always like in this abundance, it’s always accessible to us. It does make us feel safer. It does make us feel more supported, which I think is important, at least has been important in my journey. Echo: Yeah, and I mean, yoga really kind of creates the pathway to befriending and coming into a lover ship with your body. Like truly your vessel becomes your sanctuary. It becomes your church, you know, your mosque, whatever you may want to call it, it’s your holy place. And that little rectangle that you have when you roll out your yoga mat, it, it is your home. It’s, it’s your holy place. And so I really treat that space when I’m there as like, this is my time with all of Myselves and my body, and to know myself [00:13:00] deeper, my higher self, my little self, my inner child, my protectors, my managers, all the parts of me exist there in that moment. And it’s like the great meeting of the family that is like me, the universe that is me unfolds on that space. And you just fall into this deep, Yeah. This deep, deep lover ship with everything that is you. And I Gissele: think that comes across in, in the videos that you post on your YouTube channel. You know, one of the things I, that I love most about your videos is that, they’re so loving and welcoming in the sense that, you’re not striving for perfection. In fact, you see the perfection in each moment, so you can hear, you know, like the families in the background and you can hear the animals and the birds and the, and I think that is so beautiful because so often we try to manufacture this image of perfection rather than really allowing the perfection already exists in each and every moment to, to [00:14:00] flourish and to really be seen. actually, it’s one of my favorite parts when you can hear all the different sounds and just kind of integrate them into your practice. Echo: Yeah, it’s, it’s strange to me these days with the online world, we take the humanity out of our, our experiences and we become products. And I don’t wanna be a product, you know, I’m an ally to people by putting these posts online and. When I first started posting classes, it was more of I, I didn’t really imagine what it would become or that people would actually watch it. It was more of a, Here I’ll put my classes online. I have somewhat of a portfolio to show or treat centers when I’m traveling the world of what it is that I teach. And it can be a reference for them. And it took on a life of its own. And I think the reality of it, I make mistakes all the time. Like, I don’t know how many times I’ve pushed. Yeah, I’ve pushed record and I said, Hi, my name is yoga. Instead of saying I’m Echo, or how many times I’ve sung out of tune or, you know, made [00:15:00] weird, loud sounds with my breath. And I think that when other human beings are watching these videos at home doing yoga, already feeling a bit maybe insecure or not seen or acknowledged and fearful of going into a yoga space, that’s perfect and beautifully manicured and. Everybody is doing the postures this perfect way. It gives them the permission to just be themselves, to have their cup of tea, to come into child’s pose if they need to. And it’s more like, you know, doing yoga with a friend. Like we’re sitting beside each other. And I’ve had many people say that. They’re like, Oh, it’s like, you’re just right there with me. And so I don’t want the professional lighting and like the perfect audio and blinking everything out. It’s like you’re, you’re wherever I’m, wherever I’m at, you’re practicing with me. If I’m staying in a tent, we’re gonna do yoga by the tent. If I’m staying in a pent house, you’re gonna do yoga with me in the penthouse. It’s like, maybe we’re gonna be by a river, maybe we’re gonna be by a barn. Who knows? . Gissele: Yeah. And, and you know, I think that’s one of my,[00:16:00] favorite aspects of it is that it’s from what I perceive to be a level of self-kindness and self-loveit’s okay, you just accept yourself. You just fully are in that moment, in acknowledging that part so that you can allow that to, to go. and I think so often we shame ourselves into perfection and thinking that it has to be perfect, otherwise I will not be acceptable or somebody will think I’m not professional. but I think the journey towards getting acceptance is really accepting ourselves. Echo: I mean, that becomes your super power if you can love yourself and you can accept yourself. You’re a dangerous person to a society that wants you to fit into a certain box. And that’s something that I’ve learned over the years as well, is that at this point I am like so madly in love with, with who I’ve gotten to know myself to be and the inner workings of my universe. And I could spend the rest of my life just in relationship to echo like, you know, the inner me. And I would be fascinated [00:17:00] and in awe of all of the things that exist within me and the things that are possible and the capabilities and what I can learn. And so now I don’t need so much to seek outside myself for others’ approval or validation like I did need when I was younger. And so when I come into connection with people, I can just freely be myself because I’m not trying to peacock for anyone. I’m not trying to impress anyone. I just show up as I am. And. I really, I really don’t care to be perfect anymore. Like I, I wanted to be seen a certain way, I think when I was younger and I wanted to be impressive, and now I just wanna be free. And so I think this is what is so beautiful about how this kind of channel and the practices and my school has, taken shape. It’s given me so much freedom to really be myself, to work for myself and work in a way that doesn’t feel like work anymore. I’m able to bring the people that inspire me to teach with me on my trainings and to teach on my channel and to offer their [00:18:00] gifts to the world and allow them to be free, to be imperfect. And I’ve said that to people before that have made comments on the channel about, This is too dark, or you shouldn’t have said this, or you shouldn’t have said that, you should edit this. And I just say, I’m not gonna do that. I’m a per, I’m a human, you know, I’m not a robot. And if you want somebody that’s going to be perfect, then this isn’t the channel for you. And I’m perfectly happy with not being acceptable to some people and being acceptable to others. And I think that is, that creates so much freedom in your life. Mm. Gissele: I think you’re right. I, I do agree with you that when you love you and fully accept yourself, you do become the most powerful being in the world because you are no longer giving your power away. and so, yeah. So, but, and then that’s a journey, right? That’s the journey, I guess. Going back to the, the noises and I remember the Italian family that you could hear in the background, like I started to get curious about them. I’m like, Oh, I wonder what they’re like and, and what their day is. You always hear them kind of [00:19:00] prowling around and you know, that was one of the ones that really stuck out with me. I’m like, Oh, cuz I guess my background’s Italian. And so I was like always listening for the, for the kids playing. And it always made me feel so joyful. Echo: Oh, I love that. Yes. That Manolo Manolo, that’s, the place that I lived in Mexico, Manolo, he’d sometimes run into the yoga videos, which was really enjoyable as well. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I love that as a person has gone through their own journey of, of perfectionism and needing external validation. I think my journey has kind of taken an extraordinary turn in terms. Understanding that everything really comes from within in that, and really understanding the whole concept of true power. What true power really is. And we so often, you know, idolize and lift up individuals that we perceive to be powerful and then don’t really acknowledge where true power really lies, which is in the individuals that are just quietly [00:20:00] being loving and compassionate and, and really, truly loving themselves, and therefore, that spills over to the whole of the world. I consider you one of those Echo: people . Yeah. And yeah. And living in a world where you’re kind of taught to love yourself is to be selfish or to be, narcissistic. You know, this word gets turned around a lot and I think it’s important to be a bit selfish, and it’s important to be self centered at some points of like, my needs come first for me in my life. You know, Who’s going to care for me more than me? And I think it’s important that we give ourselves that, right? You know, we give ourselves the right to be number one in our lives, and then for our dharmic path or our purpose to be number two, and for our relationships to come third. You know, a lot of people put their relationships first and it’s like, okay, I’m in an intimate relationship. You’re my universe now. And it’s like, no. Like I’m still getting to know the universe that I [00:21:00] am, you know, I don’t, I don’t have space to just give that up to. Melts into someone else. And we’re really taught by movies and books and songs to be codependent in nature and to give, to create our identity around our connection to tribe or our connection to others. And I think it’s so important to first know yourself deeply. Make yourself, number one, make your work. Number two, work that you’re really passionate about. And then comes the tribal aspect, because then when you show up, it’s out of gratuitous love. Like once I love myself and I love my path, and I love what I’m doing. When I come to you, I have so much love to give. That’s not transactional. You know, I’m not coming to because I need something from you to fill me up. I’m not trying to fuel myself with you. And we constantly even say, Relationships feed us. Does this feed me? I don’t wanna have to feed off of my friends and my lovers, you know? That’s right. I don’t, I don’t wanna be a vampire. Yeah. I wanna, [00:22:00] I wanna show up and I wanna nourish these relationships. I don’t want to deplete them of their energy and life force Gissele: thing. What you’re talking about is this unconditional love that when you are so full of that, that love within your vessel, it just, it, it overflows from you and you can give to people from your overflow without the need for them to be different or for them to give you something or for them to change. and that they can feel like an, an overwhelming journey. Right. so my question to you is, what helped you be more like to fully, fully love and have compassion for yourself.. Echo: Well that I, that, that journey was a dark one, that’s for sure. And through love, through intimate love, erotic love, like the love of intimacy, I feel it was never the relationships in themselves that were so important. It was the breakups. It was how I dealt with the breakups and the transition of the loss of the [00:23:00] person. And I had two significant breakups that really broke me. And interestingly enough, one of them was right at the beginning of my yoga journey. And I didn’t learn the lesson in that breakup that I could have. Yeah. And so history repeated itself. And a few years ago I found myself in another really, really painful, portal in a relationship. And in. I was just so humbled to my knees. Essentially, I just was brought to my knees, and humbled in a way where I just felt so much pain. So, so much pain because I, what I realized was my desire to be in a loving relationship. It actually always stemmed from being loved. I really wanted to be loved, but I didn’t want to love, I wanted to be loved. The aim was that the aim was, I want someone to love me. I wanna experience what it means to be loved. But the thing is, is if that’s what I’m going into a relationship desiring, I’m not [00:24:00] going with the gratuitous nature. I’m going cuz I want something from you. And I didn’t realize that these relationships were transactional for me. And after being humbled and kind of broken down and feeling broken, I had to realize like I was never broken and your heart can never be broken and that I am resilient. And I was shown. The light essentially in the darkest night of the soul where I just had kind of given up and was in this victim mentality, feeling helpless, feeling sorry for myself, going through all of the things that we go through when we feel like everything has been taken from us. And there was like this voice inside that was like, Get up, stop being dramatic. You’re catastrophizing, you’re not dying. Your heart is not broken. You have the ability to love. And what it taught me there was let your aim be to love and not to be loved. And you will find so much more love and you will feel the enjoyment of what it means to truly love without energetic hooks and [00:25:00] people. And so for the last couple of years, that has been my practice of, I go into connections. And of course it’s beautiful when somebody stays for some time and you have a story together and there’s a journey. But I let people go, You know, I let them go if they need to go, if they have a journey, if their D path takes them somewhere. I simply open my heart and I leave it open. I don’t contract because I don’t get what I want, and the love isn’t lost. It just transitions into different constellations. We think in relationships, okay, If we’re no longer intimate, this has to end. We have to break up even that word to break up. This is such a terrible terminology. Like what do we have to break up? Like I wanna see this more as a, how do we continue this love, but in a different way? And so the relationships that I have now are more about, we transition from. Maybe it’s motherships, and intimacy to friendships, to kinship, to brother, to sisterly love [00:26:00] and we stay within the tribe. And that love that’s unconditional cuz it’s like just because you leave and you go to have another relationship with somebody else and experience intimacy and our story is transitioning. I’m not gonna take my love from you. My heart is open to you. Like the door that exists here, that has opened to you in the room, that exists here. It’s always there. And anytime you need to come, like you have a bed to rest in and I will be there to embrace you and hold you. My love is not conditional. So this has been powerful and painful. It’s been painful cuz most people don’t love this way and it would be nice to receive this of course, but me letting go of that surprisingly has invited it in in other ways where I do receive unconditional love. It just looks a lot different than I thought it was gonna look when I was younger. Gissele: Yeah, what you said was so, so powerful.  In so many different ways. And I think what you’re opening up to, or, or [00:27:00] have opened up, for our audience is really a re knowing of love, not as something that is, is kind of from that zero sum game lack perspective that, you know, like, this person is the power to take away love or to give me love, or there’s so, so much love that I can go around. I have to love this person, but not this person to one where love is unlimited, where, where you can open up the potential. So, so much love to be, love to, you know, offer yourself and have that love come back to you. and yeah, I, I think it’s an, an absolutely wonderful journey. when I realized that shift for myself, I, I thought it was. I had a similar shift in terms of understanding that I didn’t need to go externally out. And I think my goal now is like, how can I be more loving? How can I be love? I’m not always there, . Mm-hmm. . And you know, when I have to meet myself where I’m at there when I’m not there. but the, the desire [00:28:00] is there Echo: Yeah. Well what you just said is so beautiful. I love that. Like, that self-acceptance when you’re not there is also important of like, I’m a human and I’m imperfect and sometimes I want what I want and sometimes I want this, I want this person, I want this thing, I want it to love me in a certain way. And I think it’s really beautiful and vulnerable when we can say that. And we don’t play games with each other. We’re not trying to get people to. We let people know like, Hey, this is what I need. This is what I want, this is what I long for. What are you able to to provide in that instance? And then maybe somebody says, Yeah, I feel the same way. I wanna provide that love for your, Maybe they say, That’s not what I feel in this space. And then we can have choices. But like, kind of circling back, what I was gonna say before is this, is that whole idea, the new age, look at polyamory. To me, we’re all polyamorous. Like if you have two children, if you have two children, you love both of your children. That is [00:29:00] polyamorous to me, is just, you’re loving multiple people. And what I find so sad is this suppressive nature that we have in our culture of, if I’m in a romantic relationship, I can’t possibly love anyone as much as I love this partner. But I, what I see in my relationships is I love my friends in a profound way that I also love my partners, but. The things that we experience together and the proximity that we have with each other, it’s different. You know, there are things that I will do with my intimate lovers that I’m not gonna do with my friends, or I’m not gonna do with my parents, but I have so much love for each of them. And love is just love. Like love. When my heart is open, love is deep, and it’s profound and it’s warm, and I experience it in a certain way with many people. And so this idea that we have to restrict ourselves and that we need to validate one another by saying no, the love I have for you is unique. And it’s not for anyone else, it’s just for you. We’re just [00:30:00] perpetuating kind of this helplessness into our relationships where we feel like we have to complete each other. But if we could just be open and honest and say, I love everyone. You know, I love so many people, so many being so many things, and I choose you. I love you and I choose you. I choose you to share my daily connections with, This is where my proximity is. This is where my body is, this is where my heart is. But also, I exist in so many places and I’m loving so many things simultaneously, and that doesn’t take away anything from you. So we get rid of that scarcity mindset of if I love over here, it takes away from you. It’s like, you’re not getting any cookies if I get cookies over here, . Gissele: That’s right. That’s right. But when you think about even the concept of marriage though, right? And I’m married, right? Like there’s an element of lack, right? There’s an element of I need this paper and I need this assurance and I need this. And so the whole structure itself and where it comes from, it [00:31:00] does come from that place. And so I think we’ve kind of super imposed our ideas on what romantic relationship should look like without outcome. In mind without really truly understanding, number one, what love really means to us and how to love ourselves, and then being able to understand how we could fully love others. Right. Echo: Yeah, I love that. I love, that’s so beautiful how you said that. Like even speaking to the fact that you’re married and seeing the limitations on the way that we experience things in the modern day world, like marriage doesn’t have to be restrictive. You know, because I, I read this the other day in a book. It actually said, When we speak of marriage, we speak a lot more of what we’re not allowed to do, more than what we are allowed, which is really interesting. You know, it’s like you get this thing and you get to have this new experience, but the way that we explain it is what you’re not allowed to have instead of what is there. And so it’d be so [00:32:00] beautiful if we were able to, to take away the limitations to things and create. new shifts in the way that we experience our relationships and we experience ourselves and love. Hmm. Gissele: And I think that’s the purpose of these sorts of conversations, right? As you share your wisdom, it really does plant seeds in our audience to be able to play with these ideas, as my husband says, play with these ideas. You know, as, as you know, as for the potential to change, for the potential to be open, to reimagine all of these structures and ideas. Not from the base of fear, but from a base of more loving and compassion. Kindness and curiosity. And curiosity and all the good things. Yeah. Yeah. I’d like to go back to, loving our bodies like cuz because yoga is, is, as you mentioned, there’s a spiritual component to it, but there’s also a physical aspect to it. Mm-hmm. in those moments where it’s hard fi hard to find the pose, or it’s hard to bend and [00:33:00] move, what helps you Show up for yourself in a more loving way Echo: yeah. Well interestingly enough, this is something I’ve been on the journey with in the last two years. I’m 38 now, so I’m getting closer to 40. And the body is aging and things are changing. And what I could do, do so easily when I was 20 years old doing handstands and back flips and you know, getting into the splits and just kind of jumping around without warming up. It’s not as accessible for my body now and I’m a yogi, you know? And some people say, Wow, that’s really wild to imagine that you have those limitations. And I’ve started to put that into my practices as well, that I’m filming online. And people will even write, Wow, you have body pain as well. I wouldn’t think that you would have body pain cuz you’re a yoga teacher. . And so I’m, I’m doing my best to be more authentic in that because I have something happening in the right side of my body from a snowboarding injury that exists in like the pure foremass and my, my right glute [00:34:00] need that’s deep and it’s like this cing hot kind of pain that happens a lot when I’m doing forward folds and I have an asymmetry in my body because I have scoliosis, so my right leg is longer. Then my left leg. And as you get older, those asymmetries become heightened in a way. Your body gravity is pressing. And so I have to be so much more aware of how I’m moving my body now. And in a way, it’s such a gift because I’m noticing when I’m on the yoga mat, I am starting to move more intuitively instead of the practices that I was taught when I was younger from Ashtanga and from Biro and from Iyengar, to be very strict. And this is the posture, and it has to be equal on each side. You need to really intuitively think, okay, if this side is less open than this side, maybe I stay on this side for a minute longer. You know, if I have a, if I have an extension on this side, my right leg is longer. Do I need to extend my foot a little bit [00:35:00] further up the mat so I can bend deeper into my knee when I’m doing a certain posture? And so I really take the time. To use it like a playground. It’s like a body playground. Cause my body is changing and it’s different each time I come to the yoga mat and I give myself love on the yoga mat. I’m like, Oh, the right side is feeling really tight today. It’s too painful to stay here that long, so maybe I don’t stay as long on the right side as I stay on the left. And it’s about exploring and if you’re following along on a YouTube video, if you need to pause the video, it’s about like taking care of what you need to do because each body is unique. And to put on a practice and say, This is the practice, you must do it this way for everybody, is wildly inaccurate because the way that our joints even fit, you know, in the ball and socket, some of us have femurs and like arms that sit into our shoulder sockets and into our hips that are just different and they are not, they’re probably [00:36:00] never gonna open into external extension the way that we want them to. And we can force, and we can force and we can do every yoga practice online and go to a class every single day. And we just have to give our body permission to be where it’s. And to be different and to be asym symmetrical. I rarely meet somebody that’s perfectly symmetrical. So to have these perfectly symmetrical practices is really unrealistic. So I think letting your practice look a little messy, but being really unique to yourself and exploring, using props, using couch cushions, using encyclopedias like furniture, yoga. Like bring the props that, like get a chair, you know, if a forward fold laundry for you. Yeah. Or clean laundry . Yeah. If forward folds hard for you, get a, get a chair and like assist yourself. We don’t need to make it look beautiful and perfect and each just feel good. That’s what it needs to be. It needs to feel good. Or at least not [00:37:00] excruciatingly painful like it can be. Gissele: Yeah. And again, that’s really what I appreciated in your practices, the allowance, inviting, the curiosity. The lack of the need for perfection. the, just the embracing and acceptance of my body where I’m at, you know, whether it be emotionally or physically. I think one of the things that I,know about your practices is that, you talk about desiring wholeness, not, you’re not aiming for happiness, you’re aiming for whole. Can you talk a little bit about what you mean by that? What, what does wholeness really mean to you, for you? Echo: Well, I feel like we live in a culture that I can say sometimes is really targeted towards like toxic happiness, toxic joy, where it’s like, be happy, be orgasmic, be pleasurable, be stretchy. Like all of these things. And I, I see a lot of spiritual bypassing in the yoga world and the spiritual [00:38:00] world as well, of if you’re angry or if you’re inflexible, if you’ve got a lot of body pain, it must be your issue. It must be your mind. You must be suffering. You’re doing something to create this for yourself. And I feel that we all. There’s purpose for the challenges that we go through. If you’ve got a tight, rigid body that has a lot of pain in it and it doesn’t want to feel super enjoyable and free and open, then allow it to be as it is softly. Just care for it. Nurture it each day until it’s ready. But if you’re going into shame around, Why am I not flexible? I’ve been doing yoga for five years, why can’t I do this? Why can’t I do that? This is not a wholesome practice. So when I say to be wholesome, Instead of happy. It’s more about, I wanna feel what I feel, and if I feel sad, if I feel rigid, if I feel angsty, if I feel angry, I’m gonna bring that into my practice. If I’m angry, I’m gonna hand scream into my hand. I’m gonna shake my body, [00:39:00] I’m gonna punch a pillow. I’m gonna do the breath of joy, whatever I need to do. If I’m sad, I’m gonna cry. I’m gonna sit in child’s pose, I’m gonna do my prasadas or my prayer to the ground. I’m gonna be grounding and do yin, even if I feel like I ate too much the night before and I wanna do a super fiery practice that I can get a workout in. I don’t, because if I wanna be wholesome, that’s not what my body wants in that moment. It’s grieving, it’s mourning, it’s sad, and if I’m joy, And I’m happy that I celebrate that and I move through the fire of my practice and I challenge myself and I do handstands and arm balances and you know, side planks. But my practice is not routine. These practices, these yoga practices that are very rigid, I’ve practiced them. They have their purpose. This isn’t me saying anything negative against any other practice. Cause I think whatever. Fuels you go for it. If it feeds you and it feels good in your body and it serves you, I congratulate [00:40:00] you. But for me personally, there is no routine to my practice. Like I, the routine is that I practice, so I meditate, I’m mindful, I do my breath work, and I move my body each day. And it looks different because I am different. I am constantly changing, like the pulsation that is me, the fluctuation that is me. In order to be wholesome, I have to observe what I’m feeling at any time, and it’s rarely the same. So my practice can’t be that routine. And when I. Put myself into a routine, which I have for years, where it’s like, wake up at 5:00 AM do an hour of yoga, then meditate. Then you have your practice, read your yoga philosophy. It’s beautiful for moments, you know? And sometimes weeks at a time or a few months at a time, but at any point it’s too rigid. Something gets lost in translation. And it’s like, I said this in some of my videos as well, One of my teachers said like, Not too rigid, not too loose. You know, like it’s both like not too tight, not too [00:41:00] loose. So it’s like to be, And same in meditation seat, like you wanna sit up tall, but not to the point where it’s all your thinking about in your meditation. Is my spine straight enough? It’s just like loosen up. Like don’t take yourself so seriously. A wholesome practice is like, Be a human being. You don’t need to be a robot. Like so many yogis I feel like turn themselves into these spiritual robots of like, I chant this mantra, I do this breathwork, I practice for exactly 90 minutes. And wonderful. If that truly feels embodied for you, go for it. If there’s a part of you that’s now just turning it into every other thing that you’ve done in life as like a product or a workout or whatnot, then just be careful and really ask yourself, is this serving me or can there be more adaptability here? Gissele: Yeah, and I think what you’re talking about is really showing up as our authentic selves, right? Whether it be like, you know, and, and it’s so interesting that you are mentioning that because I’ve been [00:42:00] trying to get, like I’ve been working, or not you the word trying, but I’ve been really working towards, Being more consistent in getting up in terms of like, you know, cuz I do, I love doing meditations before my day starts. I love doing the yoga work, although some, I, I actually prefer to do it at night. It kind of closes my day, like midday to night. I’m exploring Chiang. and so, so, so thank you for saying that because I feel like it’s given me the space to, oh, I don’t have to be so rigid about these things. I can ask myself, Hey, what am I really like? What, what does, what do I really feel like, What will bring me the, the joy or, you know, peace or what, whatever it is that I’m looking for in that, in this moment. So, so thank you for that. I really, really do appreciate that piece. I wanted to ask about the interplay between, cause you know, one of the things I had noticed from your website is, is how you introduce yourself in that beautiful poem. Talking about how, on the one hand, where are [00:43:00] these. higher Self, Spiritual indestructible, powerful beings, right? That, that are connected spirit and source. And on the other hand we are these, it feels like we’re these physical limited temporal beings. How do you find that you integrate them so that you can live a life or, or how does yoga help you integrate them so that you can live a life where you are really appreciating the journey and not wanting to jump to an outcome, whether it be spiritual bypassing or or so on. I dunno if that question was clear. Echo: Yeah. I mean, I like it. I like it’s vagueness and it’s ability to be very expansive in nature. I think. Number one, like not taking myself too seriously is a big one. And seeing the humor of the human body. Like when I think about how frail and temporary this body is and how ancient the being is that’s inside. You know, I [00:44:00] wake up in the mornings and a lot of times I like stretch my arms up and I’m just like, Okay, here we are again. We’re an echo. Like this is a beautiful costume. It’s a fun one. Oh, she’s got a few more wrinkles here and she’s. Her skin’s a little dry here and I kind of do an inspection and I just really appreciate how much the body is changing and the fact that it’s got skin that falls off and nails that fall off. And I’m like, this is, so, it’s an organic plant. Like I live in a plant and this is the way I see it sometimes. Or I’m literally like, I am a plant. And it, it’s remarkable to me, and as I get older, especially as a woman, we have so much pressure. Don’t get old. You know, It’s not appealing to get old. Look as young as you can. Mm-hmm. keep doing yoga. And so many people even remark about that, you know, as a yoga teacher, wow, you’re so fit for almost 40, you look like you’re 30, you look so good. And I’m just like this, This is damaging these [00:45:00] comments. We think that we’re complimenting people, but what’s wrong with looking 40? What’s wrong with aging? What’s wrong with looking my age? Because even I find myself, if somebody now says that I look the age that I am, I feel offended in a way because there are all these like, I wanna be young, I wanna be youthful, I wanna stay fit. I want my body to be young. And so I’m really doing my best as I have lots of gray hairs coming in now. Like I’ve got a really wild white street going through the top of my hair and it I look very witch. And I thought, I think, you know what? One day I’m gonna be the old crone with the wrinkly face, and I’m gonna look like the old witch with my long brown hair. And that’s gonna be majestic because that’s a whole different being that I get to meet. And each phase of life, as the young girl transitions into the woman, as the woman transitions into the elder, I get to experience these echos of myself, these different [00:46:00] versions of myself that are miraculous. And if I’m holding on to only being the young, sexy, desirable, like thin, beautiful echo, or that version, How sad is that, that I’m only I, oh, I want that version to be the version that I am, and then I miss out on the opportunity to meet all these other versions. And so I think that’s a big part of like not taking it too seriously and appreciating the organic nature of this costume that you’re wearing. And see the humor in that of like, Wow, okay, this is what a cool costume I get to be in. What can I learn about this? You know, this thing that I’m wearing, this body that I’m in and how it moves as it, as it ages, you know, it, it changes. Sometimes we need more slowness or maybe we get more energy and it’s exciting. It’s really exciting to be on this journey with my body with curiosity and allowing it to change cuz we really don’t like. As a, as a [00:47:00] species, and I know for myself, we like things to stay the same. We like familiarity and life is short. We are changing constantly, and it’s happening so rapidly as we get into our thirties and into our forties, where that benchmark of youth into adulthood is, it’s scary. And we find ourselves in this kind of purgatory of, I’m not a kid anymore and I’m not an adult. Maybe I never will be an adult. How do I accept this? Mm-hmm. . And I just try to laugh at myself and, and talk to myself in the mirror. Each day I talk to myself of like how I’m feeling and reminding myself that’s just a story. You’re beautiful, you’re lovable. Like you’re abundant. Like all is well, you’re healthy, your body is healthy. You can run, you can walk, You can see. How miraculous is that? Who cares if you’re sexy or you’re skinny, or your hair looks perfect, like. This is something that society is just plastering on us. And I just let that go more and more.[00:48:00] Gissele: what helps you let go without the fear Cuz clearly in your journey, you have made a choice to look at it as a, as an exciting journey. As a journey. You welcome and like you said, in this collective society we have co-created, we see change as bad. We see the unknown as bad. We see, oh, there’s this thing, What is this thing? And then we see it as a, as a potential negative. What helps you not feed into that story and really go to what an exciting journey this is and, and, and accept that temporality of, of this human body. Echo: I guess a big part is trust. Like a big part is trust that my life has only. Served me and gotten better and more refined with age, like the people that come into my life, the explorations, the experiences. [00:49:00] Even as my body gets older and it will begin to, to deteriorate and look in a different way, I’ve actually, life has gotten better. It’s more and more beautiful, and the love is more and more pure and more and more unconditional. So I trust that I will always be loved. I will always be accepted no matter what happens, or how wildly gray and frantic my hair becomes, or how wrinkly I become that love is, is going to shift in the way that I see it physically is going to shift. And just trusting. Trusting each day that I’m still gonna be cared for. And reminding myself like that I am conditioned by a society that is very sick, that is very sick, and I don’t want to be an example of that. And so when I give myself those harsh criticisms, I go Ah sweetie. Yeah, you’re still in that story that what you’ve been told is true and that’s not true. All that’s so cute that you still feel that. But no . So I just like, I give like love to her and I’m like, Oh, that’s so cute. You still have that? That’s still in there. [00:50:00] Mm-hmm. . Okay. Well, okay, let’s, let’s just be with that for a moment. All right, let’s move on. Let’s go eat something. Let’s go play guitar. Let’s go for a run. Do things that feel good in your body. Go take your body for a walk. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. So good. and this might be a challenging question. I noticed we’re almost coming up to the end. can you share or like maybe one or two, like mystical experiences? I know sometimes it’s hard to describe in words. I know having had my own, sometimes it’s really hard to put it into words, but I also help cuz I think one of the reasons why people get really stuck in the story is because they think that this is all there is. So this is their only shot. This is their only chance. And, and so is there anything that you can share from that perspective that help people maybe open up to the potential to their own spiritual experiences? Hmm. Mysticism. Echo: Oh, there’s so much mysticism. Trying to find a [00:51:00] story that doesn’t take a lifetime to explain You know, I think, just to simplify, there’s been so many mystical markers since the beginning of my journey. Even how I found yoga, you know, it’s like it came into my life, unexpectedly. I wasn’t desiring it. And, and really, yeah, it’s revealed to me and showed me something that I am, that I wasn’t even sure that I could be. And I think. What I feel and what is my belief is that this is not the first life that I’ve lived. I’ve been here many times. I’ve been many different versions of, I’ve been male, I’ve been female, mother, father, I’ve been sister, brother, I’ve been an elder, I’ve been all of the things. I am a witch. All of these things in one, and this is one lifetime. And so for me, what helps me is that I’m like, I get to be echo for just the small fragment of time and the grand spectrum [00:52:00] of life. When I really let that go, and I enjoy being an echo. The mystical experiences like the numerology, the synchronicities, the dreams that come in, because it’s almost as if life is rewarding me for trusting it. And I just say like, I accept this. This is the body that I’ve been given. This is a gift. Like this Vessel is such a gift. No matter what body you’re in, what limitations you have, you are a flavor of life that does not exist in any other capacity. Like you’ve come into life with this specific spice to experience life in a certain way that no one else will ever experience it. And the poetry that comes through you, the songs, the movements that come through you are uniquely yours to give to the world. And so I wanna show up. As like the flavor that is echo in like the biggest and smallest and grandest and most humbles way that I can, so that I can get [00:53:00] everything that I can from this costume that I’m wearing. Because this is the one time in life, this is the one time in space that Echo will exist because at some point echo will be something different. And so the mysticism is, it’s happened throughout my life where I have, I, I have ended up in places like I remember one mystic. There’s so many experiences, but one particularly, I was living in Japan and I was living in a small mountain town and I went on a walk in the evening after having dinner. Cause I always go my walks. I take my body on a nice little walk and I had had. A very challenging time with a boss. a week prior where I had to leave quite quickly with my partner and we had to move to another village about three hours away from the village that we were living in. And we didn’t know anyone. We didn’t know if we were gonna have work. We didn’t have any money. We were quite stressed at that time. I was teaching yoga, but I couldn’t find any work because I didn’t speak enough Japanese. And as I’m [00:54:00] walking through the snow and like listening to music, I come across this village and I like look up and there’s these signs and the snow is falling, and the signs literally say Echo Land. And I was like, You’ve gotta be kidding me. Oh. And so I take a right and I walk down the street and literally ev, it’s Echo Land. The, the place is called Echo Land and there’s Echo Hotel, there’s Echo Cafe, all these places that end up being my home for about seven years. For seven winters. Wow. And where I end up teaching yoga and living and it, and it became like a second home to me. And it actually. A gift that I lost that job that I lost a week prior and found myself here at a yoga studio called Como Rebi, which in Japanese como re stands for the light that shines between the trees and the forest. That really mystical light that that comes between the trees. And I ended up teaching there and I ended up living in Japan. And it became a home to me for seven years. [00:55:00] And just this mystical experience of finding myself on this back road, walking into echo land and it changing my life and bringing me closer and closer to my path. And so that those kind of experiences ha, have happened over and over and over again to the point where I know that I’ve been here many, many times and that I will be back. And so I’m just gonna enjoy this ride because it’s not gonna be very long. And I take it with the pain, the physical pain, the physical pleasure, the mental pain, the mental pleasure. And I just learn each day to be an observer of, of. Gissele: Oh my gosh. Your response like brought tears to my eye. . So I was like, Oh my gosh. I’m cognizant of the time and I was just wanting to, for you to share where can people find you? What’s your website? What’s your YouTube? We’re also gonna link it to the transcript of the video, so just share whatever you wanna share. Do you have something coming up in the new year or later on, or Thank Echo: you. Yeah, so, [00:56:00] you can find [email protected], which is just echoflowyoga.com and Echo Flow Yoga on YouTube, on Instagram, on insight timer for free. Meditations everywhere. Echo Flow yoga and I do have programs running consistently, so I do have a 200 and 300 hour teacher training program that is trauma informed. So if you’re looking to deepen your path, and you don’t necessarily need to be a teacher or have a desire to be a teacher, but just wanna go deeper, I have an online five month program for 200 hour and 300 hours to really just dive deep into the physical, the philosophy, the conceptual, the, the philosophy, all that stuff. And I have a month long program. Called Detangling, human heartbreak. That’s all around the suffering that is to be a human and the angst and the pain and how to deal with that suffering and to become shadow dancers of our experience. And yeah, and I also have a SoundCloud [00:57:00] called the Shadow Dancer with Echo on it. And I do lots of live sets of aesthetic dance, specifically to move the body through grief and anger and pain and pleasure and all of the things. So lots of offerings. Find me. Gissele: Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, yes, thank you so, so much for this beautiful interview. I’m so, so grateful. and yeah, hope you can come back again. Echo: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

[00:00:00] Gissele: Hello and welcome to The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. On today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about the power of love in helping us heal our bodies. Today I’m speaking with the filmmaker as well as the producer of the incredible film. Love Heals, an award-winning documentary following the journey of Dana, a chronic pain sufferer in Search of healing. Today I’m here with Krisanna Sexton, who is the filmmaker who has been passionately producing content since she was 16 years old. As an independent filmmaker, she’s able to craft stories in a way that reflect her heart of love and compassion for the person on the other side of the lens. And I’m also here with Dana Croschere, who is not only the producer of Love Heals that is featured as a main character in the film. Dana’s journey is an inspirational one full of obstacles, [00:01:00] including two unsuccessful spine surgeries in 2020 while still experiencing some pain. Dana has been able to harness the power of her mind to accomplish things she once thought impossible by practicing the ancient mind body techniques featured in the film. She now greets every day with a smile as she works hard to spread the message of Love heals. Welcome to the podcast Krisanna and Dana. Krisanna: Hello. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Gissele: Oh, no, I’m so excited that you’re here. I was so, so moved by your film, and hopefully I will not get teary eyed. During our conversation, I actually saw, a preview of it in, Anita Moorjani’s, Instagram, and I was instantly drawn and I saw a little clip of it and I’m like, okay, I gotta watch this film, and I’m so glad that I did. before I start with my questions, I just wanna tell you that I was so moved, there was moments that I, it just touched my heart so much, and I, I just wanna share one in particular. the scream therapy that you did, Dana. [00:02:00] If you remember that I was screaming with you and I was crying my eyes out and I, I never thought that I actually would’ve been that moved, but I, I don’t know, it was like something shifted or something happened for me. And so I immediately thought, okay, I wanna talk to these ladies. I think this will is phenomenal. And so I just wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you for, helping me find water up, fire down, and also for sharing your story. Krisanna: Yeah. Means a lot. Dana: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Thank you so much. I haven’t heard anybody say that yet. Like they actually did it with me and I, I just find that, oh, Gissele: I just, it was very unexpected cuz when you started to actually do it, I’m like, okay, what’s happening here? And then I don’t know what happened, but I kind of got sucked into the, into the event and I remember kind of screaming with you and I was, I was really, I was crying and then I was like, okay, what’s happening here? Then I thought, oh, I should do this scream therapy, . for those of my, uh, listeners who haven’t seen the [00:03:00] film, I was wondering if you could start sharing a little bit, Dana, about your story and a little bit about your experiences with chronic pain that actually led to the development of this film. Dana: Yes, thank you for asking. it was back in 2017 when I first started experiencing pain. I was just exercising. I was running on a treadmill and I pulled a muscle in my calf and it was like, you know, oh great. I pulled a muscle. I can rest and figure this out. It’s no big deal. And after a period of time, my other calf and legs started to hurt and it. It just wasn’t getting any better. It’s like this injury opened up a can of worms in my body. ultimately I started seeing, you know, practitioners I went to physical therapy. ultimately they thought, well, maybe the pain is coming from your back. So I started to do some chiropractic care and all of that was leading me nowhere fast. My pain wasn’t getting any better. It was just kind of spreading [00:04:00] in the lower extremities of my body and my, my lower back sciatica. And, you know, I felt really lost because I had spent an enormous amount of money and time trying to figure out how to heal from this pain and what was actually causing it. So eventually, one of the, the practitioners said, well, you need to go get an MRI on your back because there are a lot of nerves that run through the legs that come from the lower back. So I did mm-hmm. and they said, oh my gosh, you have. a herniated disc and there’s nerve compression and spinal stenosis and you know, all of these terms that are very scary. Mm-hmm. when you get them back on an mri. And I thought, oh my gosh. Okay, well there’s the answer, you know, at least I understand what’s happening. And, you know, the very last thing I wanted to do was surgery. So they sent me for an injection saying that, you know, this should really help you. Mm-hmm. . And I thought, okay. And it actually made things much, much worse. I think, they hit a nerve. I [00:05:00] actually had worse pain after the injection and my, oh no, ankles and feet. I mean, it was getting really, really bad. So one thing led to another and during Covid it was March of 2020 when, you know, all of this was coming to a head and they said, we need to get you in surgery before your body starts to like shift. And my foot was acting weird and, and they just made it sound very urgent. . And I thought, okay, so meanwhile, Krisanna is, and I won’t steal her thunder, but she started getting interested in my journey in a way of like, maybe I should start filming this and I’ll let her speak more to it. But there was something in her that just thought she should start documenting my journey because it was so crazy. I mean, it went on for years and, you know, I won’t ruin the punchline of the film, but I did go through those surgeries, obviously, and, and they made me worse, than, than before. So and so began the journey. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you for [00:06:00] sharing that. That must have been a terrifying time. You know, and so it’s so interesting. So thank you formentioning, Krisanna’s documentation because I remember in the film, one of the things that really struck me was that Krisanna had sent that she. Ready to witness a miracle. And I was gonna ask her what made you think there would be one? Because the circumstances weren’t that, you know, like things were not great, things were scary. And so I was just wondering, Krisanna if you could share what made you think, oh, I should document this cuz something good’s gonna happen? Krisanna: Hmm. That is a great question. First, I think I just started filming because I felt compelled. It’s like my intuition. Said, I said I had to, or something like I just mm-hmm. and it wasn’t like I was filming all the time. I mean, there’s plenty of really, really hard, painful moments that I would’ve never picked up a camera. But, I think because even as we got into some of the recovery journey, Dana was like a full-time [00:07:00] student of her healing and trying to recover. And we actually started to hear stories of people who miraculously were out of pain or, you know, achieved some, some sort of like, incredible healing after trying different modalities and alternative modalities. So then I thought, well, she’s doing a lot of different things, so wouldn’t it be really cool if we find the one thing? And I know for a long time we were on this journey of finding. , the silver bullet or the, the one thing that was gonna help her, achieve a pain-free life. Because in our mind, at the time that was healing. Healing was not, not having any pain. So of course, as we embarked on that journey and what you see documented in the film is we started to realize it’s changing our relationship to what is healing, changing our relationship to what is pain, or maybe I should say, redefining what is healing, changing our relationship to pain. that’s actually the most important piece. There is no such [00:08:00] thing as now plenty of people do have, like, in one moment they go pain free, but throughout their life they’re gonna have other issues. Like that’s the human experience. So, yeah, I think that’s my long answer to, to why I, I don’t know that it was like a specific moment or anything. It’s just I felt compelled and then I started to think at the end of the day I thought this footage considered my hard drive and just be like a marker maybe in a year or two years. , we’ll look back at on it and I’ll, we’ll actually see progress, because it felt like nothing was changing. So I held onto this hope that things are changing. Maybe it’s just so slow that if I have these little markers in time, we can look back and say, oh my God. Like, there was a point where Dana couldn’t even sit for more than 15 minutes. She like, she couldn’t sit and I thought, oh, she’ll never be able to really work again. And I can now we can look back and say, oh my God, she’s doesn’t have that sciatica pain. She doesn’t have that. So even though there’s still lingering stuff, it’s always changing. It’s always evolving. And anyway, so [00:09:00] yeah, it’s, it is been a really amazing journey and opportunity. Mm-hmm. , Gissele: well, you said was so powerful. There were so many layers. the first one that I wanted to talk about was really the, the concept of you saying, you know, people think that the goal was really to be live pain free. And so we are so sometimes body focused that unless everything is perfect, it just kind of. Makes up upset, right? Like, because oh, everything should be perfect. But really your journey was way deeper than that. there’s so many aspects to it. I wanna talk about the power of belief because you had to believe despite what was being shown out there, what the reality was telling you about what was happening for Dana and what you were witnessing. You had to believe that it could get better. And so, and the power of belief is so strong. What, what role has the power of belief for having that kind of inner guidance, played in your lives? Krisanna: Hmm. I’ll answer first and then I’ll let Dana, because of course she was the one [00:10:00] experiencing it. But, there was some seed that was planted in my mind at some point. I can’t pinpoint it. I just think it was divine where someone said to me, and, and then I, I’ve heard it since. Change is the only constant we have. Mm. So when Dana was laying like, could barely move, yeah, walking a little bit, trying to recover. It felt so long. And I literally would say it was like my mantra and I would say to Dana, like, change is the only constant we have. And even if it feels like it’s changing for the worst, that’s still change. It’s still something is shifting. There’s no such thing as being stuck. It’s just not even So our brain tells us this is forever. But I just held on to that hope of like, if it can change for the worst, whatever that even means, then it can change for the better. And what if I just redefine what good and bad looks like? Like maybe at some point we’re actually look, gonna look on this with gratitude. And I would journal about that. Like something about this, I can’t see it now and I’m angry and I basically hate everything but , at some [00:11:00] point I’m gonna have so much gratitude because on the other side, It will make sense why we had to experience this dark season where we, I mean, really a lot of our friends or just people in our life couldn’t even hang with us. It was too heavy. It was too much. You know, like they were, they were going through Covid stuff, but they were like going on road trips and doing all these things. Meanwhile we’re hole up in our house trying to help Dana recover from surgery. So yeah, we felt like victims and there was a lot of steps in working that out, but I think that I had to hold onto something. and I like re even developed a new form of faith. I had walked away from my spirituality that I was raised with. Mm-hmm. of like the, the Christian faith. And I just, I was rejected in that faith, but I found a new faith that was similar but my own. And that was also an anchor. Like, okay, there’s something greater outside of me that’s guiding us and leading us. And this is not the end, maybe it’s just the beginning. So if I write, if I frame it that way in my [00:12:00] brain, what would that mean? If it was just the beginning, what kind of story would I write with this chapter? And I wanted to write the chapter of being a really amazing partner and being someone who showed up with love and care and, you know, didn’t judge Dana regardless of where she was at in her healing process. And that, you know, that was just an intention that I said, so. Okay. I feel like I rambled a little bit there, but No, no. I’ll let Dana share too. , Dana: that was great. Wow. you were the best partner. , I actually can’t believe that I got so fortunate to be cared for by such an incredibly kind, loving human like Krisanna. To be honest with you, I don’t know how I would’ve navigated that season without her. so you didn’t set the intention, you did it . You gave me the love and support that I needed to get through the most difficult time in my life. So, but the question was about belief. And I will tell you that I really had to dig [00:13:00] deep on this one because the truth of the matter is when I went into surgery, I had a deep belief that that was going to help me heal. That actually it was gonna take care of all the pain that I was experiencing. So I thought if that was my belief, and I believed it with my whole heart, and it went the complete opposite direction. You know, I went through the first surgery and something felt wrong. I wasn’t healing. I was still in, I mean, way worse pain than before the surgery. Not just because of the surgical site. It was something more, and I didn’t know that they, you know, nicked my spinal column and I had a spinal fluid leak for six weeks until they put me back into emergency surgery to repair it. And then the repair didn’t go the way they, they had planned. And I was laying in I C U at some point going, how did I end up here? Yeah. How, how did this happen? Because my belief that I was going to heal through all of that was so strong. And here I am not knowing if I’m going to leave the hospital [00:14:00] because I could not, I couldn’t get the pain under control, the leak, you know, it was just, it was a bad situation and I thought, I may never walk again. I may not live. So after a period of time, I was, I was a victim, right? So I felt very victimized. I couldn’t believe, I felt like my life was over. I made the biggest mistake of my life by going through this surgery. And then I started to find out how many surgeries, especially spine surgeries, are actually unsuccessful and make people worse. And I thought, what in the world is happening? But what happened during that time was that I got connected to a community. So I was doing research and I found an app actually called Curable, which is for people with chronic pain. And it just came to me as an ad. And I started to listen to some of the content on there. And there was a spine surgeon who does appear in our film. And this man was talking about the damage that is being caused by people with these procedures. And I was like, oh my gosh. This is [00:15:00] real. I’m not, and, and I’m not alone. And it just so happened at the time, he had a community, like he did live q and a sessions over Zoom twice a week for people like me. And I got plugged into a community. And why that is related to belief is because then I started to hear stories of people who, who came back from these situations mm-hmm. and started to find ways that they, whatever it was, like Krisanna said, there’s no silver bullet, but he taught a lot about calming the nervous system. Mm-hmm. , you know, doing expressive writing to release suppressed anger or other emotions that we have, have not expressed in our lives. And I thought, oh my gosh, what is all of this? I’ve had so much trauma in my life. What am I, what am I hanging onto? Mm-hmm. . So, I started to believe that it was possible for me to overcome all of this when I would hear stories of hope of other people that have experienced severe chronic pain, thought their life was over and through these practices, we’re able to turn it around through their [00:16:00] belief system and, and knowing that they can heal in this way, knowing that they can start to get their life back in ways that they thought they never could again. So I think the community aspect of it was really huge for me to start hearing other people’s stories, which I felt very isolated and alone. Krisanna and I both really did for a long time. So getting plugged into that was huge for me. And then in the film you’ll see that we met with, Dr. Bruce Lipton. Mm-hmm. who actually wrote the book Biology of Belief. And then we started to really understand how our thoughts literally become things and how we can craft our future and start to. Believe in ways that these things actually can come to fruition. And you know, obviously that’s probably a whole different podcast. But , no. I will say that just visualizing the future that I wanted and believing that I could get back on a mountain to hike or on a bicycle [00:17:00] to ride, or taking a walk with my beloved Krisanna around the park. Again, all of those things as I believed it and would take small steps towards getting the life back that I wanted, it started to unfold that way. So belief is so powerful. Gissele: Yeah. Absolutely. And as you said, it takes an enormous amount of courage when you don’t see it, right? And it is about taking those baby steps to go forward. And so I think this is why the story is so powerful, because, you know, we’re always wanting to get to the end. Well, why don’t I see it? Why isn’t it here? Why isn’t it, you know, why isn’t it manifested why I have a line to it? And that just only reinforces that it’s not there. But taking baby steps in order for us and having the courage to take those baby steps are so, is so, so profound and powerful. you guys mentioned, the connection between our emotions in our body, and I’m a big believer that, you know, illness and disease is just, kind of that stuck energy that hasn’t had anywhere to go. can you tell me a little bit about how [00:18:00] this experience helped you understand the connection between emotions and the physical body? Dana: Wow. Yeah. I, I mean, I realized through this experience that there is a direct correlation and. . I think the first eye-opening experience that I had with that is, it was actually Krisanna’s mom sent me a book, I don’t know, it was maybe a couple days out of surgery. And the book was called The Body Keeps the Score. And I was like, what is this ? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And I started reading it and I’m like, oh my gosh, this is me. This is me. And then, kind of around the same time as I started seeking information about chronic pain and, and chronic illness and what is causing it, why do we get stuck in this loop? Why didn’t I just heal after I had that first injury instead of it progressing into what it is? And then I started to realize that there are tools out there, there are books out there, you know, the [00:19:00] Mind Body Prescription by Dr. John Sarno. The John Sarno is one of the, the physicians that actually. understood this connection to be true. And then, you know, his colleagues are like, you know, you’re crazy. What do you mean? But that work ended up becoming really important in my life. And I got connected with, there’s a woman that had a chronic pain. She didn’t go through surgery, but she healed herself and she launched a platform called the, you know, my t m s journey. And t m s stands for something that basically explains that the emotions and all of the suppressed anger and different things that we don’t release throughout our life start to cause a physiological response in our bodies. It gets trapped. And I, and so I just was eating that information up. I was like, I, I had not heard of it that way before. And so it made so much sense to me. And then I, I thought, okay, if that’s the case, then I am willing to take the journey within. to figure out how to release [00:20:00] these emotions and things that I have just piled up throughout my life with trauma. And, and that’s what brought up, you know, the, the first thing you talked about, right? I went to this incredible, wise practitioner who was going through like the chakra system. I didn’t even know what that was back then. , what do you mean? We have all these energy centers? Well, we’re made up of almost all energy as humans. And so we, I began to peel back the layers and, you know, my throat was something, you know, us holding back and not speaking our truth or not living authentically. it, it all makes a difference as we go through life. And, you know, Krisanna briefly mentioned it. , our sexuality was something we both had to suppress because of our upbringing for many, many, many years. Right. So that played a role. So when you have an experienced practitioner that can take you through something like releasing, I’d never screamed like that in my entire life. And it broke [00:21:00] wide open something in me. Mm-hmm. that I had been suppressing. It was like the scream of a little girl who was raped. It was the scream of the person, the little girl inside of me who was just for help to be seen, to be myself, to not be harmed or abused in whatever way. It was like all of that just built up over time.  emotions being stuck in the body was something I, it was kind of a new concept to me, but it made so much sense. And nowadays you can just, , I mean, find so much information on this out there. I just wish people understood how important it is to take that journey, to start to process their traumas, because they can live such a different, more whole, beautiful life, you know, when they’re willing to, to do that work. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you Krisanna , Krisanna: oh, I feel like Dana shared so powerfully. I will say that it, this, the, the darkness of this [00:22:00] journey was kind of like the initiation into. Looking at everything. And so it, even though Dana was the one experiencing so much pain, like feeling so helpless in that season, brought up a lot of stuff for me. And so we both on our own, just were like, okay. I called it the drudging. All right, let’s look at everything. And we were in therapy and we were singing intuitive and just like, let’s do all the work. We can do all the journaling, all the, and it was like our own separate journeys, but parallel, because I thought we’re being given space and time and an opportunity and let’s, let’s just do this inner, inner dark work that we’re finally, we finally have that this space for. So yeah, it was really, really painful. and I felt like a lot of times it got worse before it got better. Like I, I couldn’t meditate for more than 10 minutes without hearing a screaming girl inside my head like screaming. So we were doing Joe Dispenza’s training at the time, like virtually, and we’re actually going to his in-person in March. In Australia. Yeah. So we’re [00:23:00] doing seven days intensive, so excited for that. But this was all virtual and at the time I could barely get through it or I would get through it barely. And then I would scream like into a pillow, literally because I had this little girl that was starting to surface. So I had to actually do that work in order just to calm my mind enough to be able to meditate. And that felt like baseline , you know, people would sit for 20 minutes and I couldn’t do it because I had so much unrest. So yeah, I think the emotion piece is really powerful. I think it’s something. We’re ever learning and trying to better understand. I will say something I observed that I just like to provide as maybe andisclaimer is I saw that Dana also put a lot of pressure on herself to like, fix it like something’s broken because I have all, all this pain, so there must be something emotionally broken in me, so I need to go and fix. And it was like a job almost. And, we’ve been doing some work with Anita Marjani and she talked about this thing of like, even in her journey. Well, and that’s how you know, you know, Anita [00:24:00] obviously, even in her journey, she said she does believe that there are these components that lead to illness and disease, but she had to, she was basically saying it’s unc. yes, it was my fault, but it was unconscious. So I just feel like I need to say that because I think we can just almost like be frustrated with ourselves. How dare we hold onto this? Well, it’s safety. It’s like all we know to do when our parents are, you know, it’s toxic at home. And then we shove things down so that we don’t express to keep ourselves safe. What a gift that we have that part of us. And then as adults, we can start to release it. And I think it’s just like having grace and love and compassion through every step of that journey. That there’s nothing broken with us, there’s nothing wrong. We were always doing the best we could. And now that we, now that we are conscious and we can say, oh, this is a, this is a piece I can work on. Beautiful. What a gift. But yeah. Thanks for letting me share. You share? Gissele: So I wanted to, ask a question a, around what you just said, because I think what you said is so pivotal, and I’ve observed this too in my own [00:25:00] life and in the people that I’ve, been with, which is, you know, we, we have this understanding that we create our own reality. We have this, or at least some of us have this understanding that our thoughts are create and then we get really mad at ourselves because most of the time we’re created subconsciously. So we wouldn’t want to hurt ourselves on purpose. We would never do that. but we do it because of all of these beliefs and thoughts and, and, and, and just kind of emotions that we have pent up. And so this is why I think love and compassion are so important, having love and compassion for ourselves throughout. Aspect of the journey as we get to kind of unpack, as we get to kind of have the courage to face that fear, what role did self-love and self-compassion have in your journey, towards healing? Dana: Literally everything. , it was everything. Good answer. . I mean, but to really, it, it’s true. And I will get a little bit more succinct in this because [00:26:00] at, at the very beginning of this journey, when I would start to hear how much love and compassion for yourself was the key component to, I, I don’t wanna even say healing, but the acceptance of where I was at, I just, I couldn’t even fathom in that moment. But as I started to do the work, I would do things like write a letter to my body or write, I was like learning these skill sets of things I’d never done before in, in expressive writing. And then what started to happen was, , I would read it back because I would have, I would write it in third person and I would go, that poor human, oh my gosh, what? They have been through so much and thinking of it as I would a, a friend or a loved one or family member, and I was like, wait a minute. So if I can feel that way when reading back something that’s not, you know about me, but it is, why is it that I’m not able [00:27:00] to find that compassion? Love for myself. I’m treating myself like a machine. Okay, I’ve checked all the boxes today. Why don’t I feel any better? Or, you know, I’ve done all this work, I’ve done, you know, my meditation and this and that and the other, and, and nothing was changing. But I realized very quickly that the more that I was not loving and accepting and compassionate to myself for where I was in that moment, all that does, when you hope and wish to be somewhere other than you are is it just ramps up your nervous system and teaches your body and mind that you’re not okay. And it just has this perpetual cycle of pain, emotional pain too, especially because you get so defeated. So something at some point clicked in me going, wait a minute. My body deserves to be loved and accepted for where it is right now. Everything that I’ve been through, who I am today is a result of what I’ve gone through. And so I, it took me on a, I will [00:28:00] say a forgiveness journey as well. Not just of everybody who hurt me, but of myself. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect. And what I found through this journey as well is that a lot of perfectionists struggle with chronic pain and chronic illness. Mm-hmm. , it’s like one of the types, the, the human types that tend to get into these cycles because we’re just so darn hard on ourselves. So the role that self-compassion and self-love played was. , absolutely instrumental. It was pivotal. It was the, it was the paradigm shift that I needed in my journey to start to change my mindset about who I am, about why I deserve love, and about what was possible for my future with that. And then people will see if they watch the film we visited again when we were with Bruce Lipton, he was doing what’s called muscle testing on me. And I’m like, what is, what is this? Yeah. about, you know, do I, [00:29:00] do I really love myself and how can we start to, cultivate more love for ourselves? Because I think it’s one thing to say it. Oh, sure, I love myself. Of course I do. But do we like really at our core, do we, so I think I needed that awareness. The fact of the matter is, a lot of this was just my lack of awareness. So if there’s anything that my journey can do for people or our film is create a level of awareness and self-reflection that people may not have had before, that can start to put them one step closer in that direction of more love for themselves, more recognition that they can take an active role in their healing journey and more hope that that a shift in a change is possible for their lives. Mm-hmm. ? Gissele: Krisanna, did you wanna Krisanna: say something? Hmm. I mean, I just love everything Dana’s sharing, but I find the word love very interesting and I thought a lot about. , even as I [00:30:00] created the film, I would ha I had like post-it notes all on my wall and like all the different, and I thought about even trying to dig into like, what is our definition of love, but it’s so big , it’s like too much to try to embark on and, you know, 80 minute film. but that being said, I really love, we were just at this event with Anita and she talked about, she doesn’t even like using the term unconditional love because if it’s not unconditional, what is it? It’s not love. And I think that we think we love ourselves. I thought I loved myself, but it had a lot of conditions. Only if I perform this way, only if I act this way, then you’re good. It’s like, you know, I was a, a mean abusive parent to myself, almost . And it was only in the film really that I started to unpack what does it mean to truly love yourself? It’s like, as I was editing, I realized, oh, I actually don’t even know that I have this for myself. and that I think is a, as a journey, but. . I don’t know that we can even experience it from others, because I think we [00:31:00] have moments of unconditional love for each other. But I, I found even for myself and just kind of being in this world for a while, I’m theorizing this maybe, but I feel like the truest, most pure, unconditional love is in our, in our inner self, in our inner world and our true self. And meditation is such a pathway towards that. Like, once I could finally meditate, then I could experience this state. They, they actually call in Korea. It’s called Mu, and it’s where it’s nothingness. It’s where the, and they say that’s the state where you can experience unconditional love. And so I think everyone has like different terms for that. But when I got there, I was like, oh, this is so peaceful. There’s no judgment. There’s no shame. There’s no fear. It’s just pure, it’s like pure essence, like where we came from. So I think my journey now is like, how do I regularly reconnect to that? . And then as I give that to myself, it’s only then that I give to others cuz I thought I would, was unconditionally loving, even towards Dana. I was like, oh yeah, I think, but then in the back of my mind, there would be these other like, [00:32:00] you know, strings attached or, this person didn’t do enough for me, or I give so much and then well then it’s not love, it’s not pure. So I’m still unpacking that and that’s still a work in progress, but I think I’m just recognizing, it just starts within. I can’t give to anyone else what I’m not giving to myself. And that is the most healing form of love. And then of course, what it does to our nervous system is creates the perfect conditions for healing. We can do all these other things, but in that state of pure love and pure essence, healing just happens. It’s just, and I think it’s not just physical, right? It’s like mm-hmm. layers of trauma and emotional stuff heal too. So, yeah. I love, love . Gissele: I, I completely agree with what you both had said. . You can’t really love someone until you fully love yourself, because then you don’t need them to be different. You don’t need to them to give you anything. It, it really comes from within. And I know in my own journey it’s been, it’s, it’s been challenging, right? I remember that I had a hard time even doing, I don’t know if you guys, I’m sure you guys have [00:33:00] heard of Louise Hay. She used to have this mirror exercise where you tell yourself how much you love yourself. And it was so hard to get through and I didn’t realize how hard it was to get through. but you know, like when you commit and over time, the more that you show up for yourself and the more you face those challenging emotions, the easy it does get easier. Sometimes it does. Like I find Chris Anna, it is the same thing, or sometimes it gets a little bit worse and you’re like, oh man, , is it time to eject? And you’re like, okay, no, I’m just gonna, even if I just show up for myself for five minutes. And over time it does get easier and easier in, in being able to tap into that. that well of love that we naturally have and I feel we’re born with. but then we’ve learned all of these things that kind of get us away from ourselves. And so for me, the path of going back to myself is also about unlearning, unlearning, all of that stuff, that we’ve learned. I I wanted to, go back to the, the process that you guys share in the, in the film. I think it’s a water up, fire [00:34:00] down. and, I gotta say, like when I heard about it, I thought it was so, so interesting  I’ve only started doing it a couple weeks ago, I think, and then I found that my breathing is like, from my belly, which I was always a shallow breather. I was always like, right. And I’m like, and, and I would try different exercises to try to get the, the, to move down and it just didn’t. And so naturally, and then I also sit straighter now, so. That’s good. I was wondering how you found, water fire down in sort of what, and how it helped you kind of, in your journey. Krisanna: Do you want me to go first? Dana: Yeah. Cause this is, this is a bigger, answer. I think both of our perspectives are very different, in how we found all this and how it helped us. So, go ahead Krisanna. Krisanna: Yeah, I was just gonna say, you know, water at fire down is, is kind of the terminology that Ichi Lee put around this energy balance, which is based in, in ancient Korea, Korean. [00:35:00] Practices. But of course you see very similar practices throughout the world. Interestingly, something I wasn’t able to fit into the film, but one of the women who was in our retreat that we filmed was taught the same principle in Hopi tradition. Oh wow. But it was not called water up fire down, but it was all about babies need to have their bellies warm and their heads cool and the, and they taught like this is the way of natural balance. Your belly needs to be warm and your head is cool. And so she’s like, I never un really understood it until I came to, so I say all that because, you know, this is terminology that’s around something that’s so much bigger than, you know, energy balance. It is talked about in many different traditions and many different practices. That’s the term that Ichi Lee used. And so he was the one who really wanted to create a film in light of Covid and what everyone was going through with the pandemic. He wanted people to understand that you have the power to heal yourself and that self-love is the way that you know that there’s a power and self-love. And so that’s really what we were presented [00:36:00] at the beginning was he was sharing about this idea for a film and wanted us to work on it. And I was like, well, any, yeah, something that doesn’t put the onus on an individual but puts it on yourself like, you know, it doesn’t give your power away to a guru, but it says you have the power inside of you. I was very interested in that. And then even as we did the filming initially at the very beginning, it wasn’t even supposed to be about Dana or our journey at all. We were just gonna tell this people’s stories and really try to unpack like what that looks like. And then it turned into Dana’s journey and it was like a, had this download in meditation and then Ichi Lee had that the same day. and we, we agreed, oh my God, we’re supposed to be following Dana’s journey and see, and just see how it helps her. So, we had been exposed to some of these things before, but we hadn’t like really dug into it. We had gone to the retreat center in Sedona, but this was our, our time to say, what does it look like when you really dig in and like do this daily? And then what does it look like for [00:37:00] people trying it for the first time? How quickly can they, heal or transform or whatever? So yeah, I mean it is, it’s a really powerful concept, but I wanted to share the Hopi bit because that was something that was really enlightening to know it’s not just, it’s amazing one person’s deal. but yeah. I’m curious Dana’s perspective too. . Dana: Well, I think for me, I lived my entire life with a hot head. Like I literally was feverish throughout my entire life and I never understood why. and my energy balance was so far upside down. Yeah. Because it was just so imbalanced. Yeah. So for me to start to learn these concepts, when we started the film, I was like, oh, I’ve done yoga before. I’ve tried meditation, all these things, but I did not know the power of bringing that energy and that fire down into your core. I actually, it, that concept really never occurred to me until [00:38:00] we started doing the film and learning the concept of water up, fire down, and then it all made sense. So all of the practices that we were taught, you know, we’d gone to retreat, but when we filmed for the documentary, it was ver, it was so helpful to learn like in my brain and in my body simultaneously, what this means and how it shows up in our lives in everyday life and what we can do to get that balance back. So it was pivotal for me to understand that that is a, is a environment. It’s an environment that your body can be in harmony and can create that healing effect in our bodies. Because the mind is, I mean it’s, it’s amazing to learn when you learn about the mind body connection and how it’s just truly one entity and how we, the pathway to all of this was through the body. I was like, okay, this is, this is a big concept for me. So what I found was that there were certain modalities that resonated with me more [00:39:00] than others. So when I would. , like, tap on my, not just the e f t tapping that you hear, that you see, that is also very, very helpful. But I needed to get out of my brain and into my body. I needed to stop thinking about all of these things and start just being in my body where that started to become my safe space. That should be the safe space. So just tapping. And then, we learned a lot of Qigong and, and Tai Chi techniques. And for me, meditation is, is really great. I, I can do that. But there was something about connecting movement with breathing was very meditative for me was like a moving meditation. So part of my healing, I think, really comes in the form of like Qigong movements and stuff like that. Now of course we’re gonna immerse ourselves in, meditation for a week in the very near future, with an expert. But I think there are many, many ways to get that energy balance. Once you have an understanding and given tools. The point is, [00:40:00] Not that we don’t have the information accessible is, it’s more like, are we going to use it? Are we gonna practice it regularly? And I will be the first to admit. There are times I get so busy that I’m like, oh my gosh, I didn’t get into my body at all today. And guess what? My body will tell me. or Krisanna, Krisanna will also tell me . So yeah, energy mouth. Your body tells Krisanna, and Krisanna tells you , I think. Yeah, they’re, in cahoots with each other to help me. . Yeah. Krisanna: And also I’ll just add about, you know, the gut brain is really powerful and there’s so much science around that and, and we hold our stress and a lot of our trauma in our stomach, so it gets cold. And so when we put attention towards it, it is interesting. You know, I’ve experienced my own kind of releasing and then we hear people telling us like they start doing work on. Abdomen area and like the body will start shaking. It’s like releasing years of trauma. And that can be kind of scary cuz we’re taught also that like, that kind of shaking is not good. And of course it’s [00:41:00] amazing how science is like proving all of these things that have been around for thousands of years, that this is very healthy for us. So I think it’s amazing that just having the attention on the stomach and the gut brain and then of course there’s now a lot of science around the heart and heart coherence and so it’s all connected. Our whole body is just trying to send us all these messages. But yeah, for myself it was incredibly transformative to do the work in my core, which I know released a lot of stuck trauma that I didn’t even have memories of. And I just can feel myself getting more and more access to energy. Like my body didn’t have to, protect me from whatever that was. Mm-hmm. , I didn’t even have to know what it was, but it’s like, oh, I’m having more energy and I have more joy. And it’s just amazing how it all goes together. Gissele: It is. Yeah. And then you have more energy to create, to focus on what you wanna create. Right. it’s such an incredible thing to witness unless you’re doing it.  I have had, experiences with Dr. Joe stuff, Dr. Joe Dispenza. And I was having those weird body shakings and [00:42:00] energetic releases, but I wasn’t connecting the two, I was just like, oh, you know, Googling the YouTube and people will be like, oh, that’s very normal. I’m like, okay, that’s, that’s , that’s fine.  I did wanna comment on something you both had said, that I think it’s important for us to stress, which is, the allowance. And so often in our lives we’re in so much under so much resistance. We don’t wanna be where we are. We hate what’s happening to us, but it’s that resistance that prevents it from really going. And so being in harmony, it’s, it’s part of that is being an allowance. what role has allowance really helped you in getting to the, to where Dana: you are? I, I think allowance is almost as important as self-love and compassion because I had to let go. Allowance to me means letting go and just allowing whatever the outcome to be. without forcing, without pressure, without, [00:43:00] I mean, just so much angst over what the outcome was gonna be. And I’ll be honest with you, when it was realized that I was going to be part of the film and the protagonist and my journey was gonna be followed, can you imagine the amount of pressure I put on myself? Oh my gosh, I have to heal during this filming. Like, what am I gonna do if I don’t get any better? And I, at some point something clicked in me and it was like, oh my gosh. The amount of pressure that we put on ourselves as humans to make sure everything goes exactly as we want it to is just, it’s so, I think, detrimental to the human spirit in a way, because it just, it just makes things really heavy and. That’s how I felt for the longest time until I allowed myself to be where I was and not try to push and force. So allowance is really important and I think it in the letting go, and [00:44:00] accept, so actually it’s really as important and it is combined with self-compassion and whatever, you know, loving yourself looks like. It’s certainly not putting pressure on yourself to be something different than you are in that moment. The more I could accept myself, even, even accepting the anger, even accepting, feeling defeated, feeling like a victim, I actually had to process those feelings first, because usually that’s what I would suppress, like I wore as a badge of honor. Like I, I am so strong and I get through everything, and I forgive everybody, and I’m not, I’m never angry. I thought that was such a good quality . Mm-hmm. , you know, but it wasn’t healthy for me. . It’s very normal and important for us to express when we’re sad or angry or frustrated and then let it pass. or when we’re afraid. I had so much fear, you know, there’s a reason why animals in the wild, they get chased and then after they shake, literally physically shake, [00:45:00] shake it off and go back to their life, they’re grazing, whatever. I know we hear that term a lot, but it wasn’t until I started to understand that I needed to process those things and allow, allow the anger, allow the pain, allow, allow it all to pass, and then I could move into, you know, a more authentic state of being, which was everything. So, yeah, allowance is, is huge. Krisanna: I love these questions so much by the way. Oh, thanks, . Really beautiful. I love this conversation. . Oh, same, same. Yeah, it’s just refreshing. , think I just intermixed, I, I interchange the word allowance with acceptance. Mm-hmm. . So, to me, there, there’s actually a moment in the film where this beautiful master o talks about, healing is the, like, the pathway of accepting, or, I don’t know, I’m like blanking how she says it, but it’s essentially, it’s accepting, it’s accepting everything. And I really had to sit with that, that that sentence has, has, stayed with me for a long time. And I [00:46:00] find if, if we align with the message, I’ve heard this a few times in the last few weeks from a few different people. I really respect. I think some of it was in our Joe Dispenza training, so I’m like, oh, this is something coming to mind for me right now that I need to absorb, which is everything is either motivated by love or fear. And so if we look at those two, well, acceptance is love. And then fear is the opposite. Anything that comes out of fear. So when I’m afraid I control, I judge, I think things should be different. I don’t understand why it’s not happening sooner. Like all of that is in this fear emotion that I think, it’s important for me to just love and accept. So I, it’s interesting the dance of, of love and fear, but I think acceptance just says it’s okay that you’re afraid. And, we don’t have to change anything. And I’ve been even asking myself this as it relates to my, like people in my life or even close family, what would it look like if I just accepted them exactly as they were and I didn’t ever expect them to [00:47:00] change and I didn’t ever expect them to do anything different than what they’re doing. What if that’s like their divine right to exist as they are? It feels so hard, , but. , that’s so loving and isn’t that what I would want for myself from them? And isn’t that what I, how would I would wanna even treat myself? Okay. So that’s my work is to accept myself and accept and, and even this was a journey as, Dana was on her, on her journey, I realized I was not well. I needed to learn to be accepting of her choices for her own healing. That’s her divine, right? She got to decide if she wanted to take pain meds or not. It was not up to me to tell her, you need to take pain meds because No, no, no. You know? So, man, I just think that’s like the secret of everything. If we could just sit in acceptance of all that comes up and then observe it and be like, well, it’s really interesting how mad I’m getting about this right now. Okay. I’m just gonna accept myself and love myself through it. , oh, do we’d have access to, it’s like, goes back to the other question. We’d have access to so much more [00:48:00] energy because our brain is so. I have to control and I need to be safe. And it all comes from fear. So yeah. Even the work I feel like I’m doing right now is how do I send that inner child who is so programmed to fear, how do I just send her so much love that she’s like, let’s, let’s down. That angst or, or the angst reduces, I guess even if it’s never gone, it’s like, oh, you don’t have to be in the driver’s seat. The fear is a guide I wanna move towards. Yeah. The things I’m afraid of. Cuz the other side of that is really great, but that’s only through love and acceptance. Gissele: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I, in my own journey of learning to love myself, I had to ask myself the very difficult question of even if I accomplish nothing in life, even if I don’t do anything or help anyone or do anything, can I still love and accept myself? Can I still see myself as worthy of my own love and attention, and that was hard. It was hard for me to look at, cause I was always, [00:49:00] I always had the need to accomplish. I also had that perfectionism in terms of like, oh, I gotta contribute and it has to be a huge contribution. And oh, and it’s like, no, no. If I can look at myself and say, I don’t need me to change, I don’t need to be a specific way, things don’t need to be in a particular way. I can still see myself as worthy just because I exist, just because of that, like that, that’s powerful. And what you said is so powerful. If I can allow myself. I don’t need people to be different. I can just allow their divinity to be in as long as by first starting to see the divinity in myself, and it’s like, that’s . It’s like, wow, I wanna get there, . Krisanna: Mm. I’m gonna have to sit with that. I’m gonna, I wanna do some journaler journaling around that because yeah, I think I, I’m still like, no, but I’m here to do a lot of things So . Gissele: Yeah, exactly. And, and so we are caught in this accomplishing in this doingness instead of the [00:50:00] beingness mm-hmm. , instead of just being, I am magnificent. You are both magnificent just as you are.  And I think sitting with that interesting how the more love you inject in there, the more stuff comes up to, you don’t even have to go looking for, like, you don’t have to dig for gold in there. You just, as soon as you inject a little bit of love in there, that stuff comes up, goes, no Here are all the reasons why I don’t think that would work. Right. And so I can feel very, very challenging, but, but worth it. And the other thing that I also wanna stress that you pointed out, which I think is so phenomenal is, you know, and I know in my journey I was the perpetual student, I was always looking for experts. Tell me what to do, tell me how to fix it. And then I had to realize, oh no. Like all these people are my guides. But if I don’t do the work, if I’m not there to be my own hero it just goes nowhere. And so my relationship with my teachers has sort of changed,my relationship with other [00:51:00] people has sort of changed because really, No one’s coming to save me . Right. How has your relationship with experts changed? Dana: Oh, man, that’s a great question. I feel like I don’t put so much weight on the opinion and idea of others anymore because those are things that they believe and may have worked for them. And I found myself in the beginning of my healing journey when I started to unravel all of this looking for like, well, what, who had my condition? Who had spine surgery? And then what did they do? And I’m gonna do that. I’m gonna do the same thing. And it was like, that’s not how it works, . But I really had, I was so, I just felt so desperate for healing. And you know, people experienced that physically, emotionally, like, well, what are you doing? What works for you? And. . I think for me, just recognizing [00:52:00] that I, I wasn’t looking inward for decades of my life, so it’s really hard to expect somebody to recognize that they’re their own best healers. That sounds outlandish to them. Mm-hmm. you know, my dad is a great example. He is, had chronic pain as long as I can remember. Back pain, leg pain. It was like so similar and he, his hip and he’s getting injections and he is just always putting the power in the hands of these surgeons and doctors. And at some point, you know, we got the film done and I was like waiting for him to watch the film and I thought this was gonna like, completely change his life. And he would take a different route and start to take the journey inward and do the work and, you know, maybe it planted a seed, but he’s still doing this outward approach, like, who can help me, who can fix me? And I honor his journey. You know, my dad is in his late sixties and. and it hasn’t been easy for him. And it’s asking a lot of us as humans to crack ourselves wide open. [00:53:00] And I recognize the amount of courage that that takes. Mm-hmm. . But once you do that and can start to listen to those inner callings and, and things that are intuition is, is deep down telling us, waking up every day and realizing I need to ask myself, what do I need today to feel most whole and have the most amount of wellness, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual that I can have today? What does that mean? Does that mean I give myself a break and I sleep extra? Does that mean I do something for somebody else because that’s gonna make me feel most alive today? Does that mean I do my, you know, meditation and my Qigong maybe, maybe I go to the gym, maybe I take a walk. Whatever that is, I think it changes for each of us. Mm-hmm. and recognizing that those answers lie within and not in somebody else is life changing. I’m so grateful to have that now. Krisanna: Yes. Amen. I think experts are very important and I think [00:54:00] also realizing that we’re all one is very important because if we’re all one, then we have access to the same information and knowledge and counsel. And similarly, especially man, I just feel like Dana and I’s whole relationship has like the same month we got serious and our relationship is the same month that her pain journey started. So this is, and I, you know, there’s no negative feelings about that, but it’s just interesting that that’s also been our journey. So in the beginning for several years, and especially the more desperate we got, we did a lot of what I call giving our power. and I now look back at some of those decisions and I think, you know, there are no accidents, but I have regrets because, it caused a lot of pain. even in giving our power away, because I think there’s people that are really incredible and do a lot of good in their expertise. And then I think there’s people who can, like the [00:55:00] ego, likes to do, who can take advantage and it can be for their own gain and even our entire medical system. There’s a lot of beautiful things about it. But then there’s also parts of our medical system that take advantage of people that look at the amount of procedures versus the outcomes, you know? So, in giving our power away, I just found that, you know, we weren’t any better off. We just like basically had less money and more pain and more suffering So now really what I feel like we gained in this journey, and something that I like to share about is just sovereignty. maintaining your sovereignty. And it doesn’t matter how much you feel like you’re suffering, it’s not ever worth it to put your healing in the hands of someone else. But like you said, to see them as guides. And I also think that I, our intuitive ones told us there’s as many healing paths as there are people, because everyone’s healing path is so unique, right? So we all need a different access point. So even when people, now, people, you know, people from all over the world email Dana and [00:56:00] are looking for answers and she just encourages them like, yeah, here’s a set of resources. But you have to go inside and, and maybe start somewhere, but very quickly you’re gonna feel like, ah, this isn’t for me. There’s something about it, or, Oh, maybe there’s something here that I should pursue because I’m curious about it and I feel compelled to learn more. And then that leads me to someone else and then that leads me to someone else. And so, yeah, I just, I think we’re over the, the idea of gurus. I think there are plenty of people that still need to give their power away for a period of time, and I honor that journey. Even in religion, we see that sometimes we need to look to someone else. But my hope and what I know is true for my own journey is that eventually I realized, oh, that was just a mirror pointing back to me. What’s possible. So when I see someone like Joe Dispenza or someone like this incredible level of influence, that’s what’s possible. That’s the limitless potential inside of me that I also have access to. And what if I just looked at that within myself instead of saying, I need him or I need them. I [00:57:00] look at that within. There’s some well there that maybe I won’t be on stages, but for me, maybe it looks like creating films, maybe for someone else, it looks like raising their kids in a beautiful way, that they become humans who help other people. You know, like there’s all of these ways in which we can access that limitless potential. but you know, I just, I, I really honor those who have that influence and keep pointing us back home because that’s ultimately where all of it resides. And like I said, if we’re all one, if we’re all the same consciousness mm-hmm. , then it’s all within us anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Gissele: Wow. What you both said is so, so powerful. Yeah. That’s, I got nothing . I got nothing left to ask. It’s just mic drop in here, . Krisanna: Well, thank you for such thoughtful questions. I mean, it sounds like you’ve been on quite a journey yourself. Fantastic. I have, I have Gissele: definitely been on quite, quite a journey. , you know, Dana, you mentioned leaving your work. I left my [00:58:00] work that was very, you know, very similar to the medical system. I used to work in the child welfare system. very fear-based, very constricting, very focused on separation, isolation, not on purpose, it’s just how we designed it because that’s where conscious, consciously we were. Right? I find these systems are just a mirror of where we are as assess as human beings, what, what our level of conscious awareness is. And so when I look at my life, how I dealt with hurt was separation, isolation, get away from me. I don’t want to or punishment. And so what do we see in our world? Jails, medical systems that are all about cutting stuff off, taking stuff out, separating, isolating, and how do you deal? How do we used to deal with people with mental health issues? We used to separate and isolate anything that is aberrant. . one of my, the degrees I did was in statistics, right? And they have this bell curve thing where it’s like, but do you know that the bell, like the majority of medications and all that stuff is done for the 80 percenters, right? Like, for the majority of people that the, you know, [00:59:00] and there’s outliers, people that don’t fit into this curve, and we’re all so desperately trying to fit into that curve because we have this need to belong. But miracles are outside the curve. Magic is outside of that curve. It’s outside of that norm, or we’ve deemed norm. And so that’s what I am really playing with now, right? Like, you know, like, like this film, like not, not the norm, right? And so, and, and this is why all of these point to magic and miracle, which  . I think it’s our birthright. It’s our birthright to live this experiences and live with joy and abundance and all of these things that we want to experience because, like you said, we’re consciousness and consciousness wants to expand, whereas fear makes us contract. Hmm. And so, so yeah. So it’s been an interesting journey of really getting to know myself and facing my own fears. And this, your film resonated so deeply with me in a way that I didn’t [01:00:00] expect, I thought is Oh, that’s cool. I, you know, I’ve had seen, I, and I’ve done Dr. Joe’s work for a long time as well, and I love Dr. Joe’s work and can’t wait to see him and when he comes to Toronto . but, but there was something about your film that was so deep and so it just resonated with me in a way. that I hadn’t, a film hadn’t in, in a long time. And so I went all in and I’m like, okay, let me see it. And, and then when I did, I was, like, I said, I was crying with Dana. I was like, you know, and, and I thought, wow, wow. Just, you know, like, to be able to express that connection with someone that I don’t know that I’m seeing in a filmto me it was, wow, that’s powerful. That as she’s healing and she’s screaming, I’m doing it with her, I’m, I’m connecting in that way. So, so thank you. Thank you for that. Hmm mm. Dana: Thank you for that that makes, such an impact on me [01:01:00] because in those moments I felt, so vulnerable and so just, ugh, gosh, I can’t even explain. How a lot of the things that things we show in the film and things that we didn’t just felt so vulnerable and I felt alone for a long time. And then after the film was released and we started hearing from people just like you, that expressed how even in watching the film, they felt parts of them start to heal or open up in ways that hadn’t before. And I think, yes, you know, Krisanna and I have been put, I think together as a couple and also placed on this planet to help spread awareness, raise consciousness, and spread a lot of hope and healing through our films. And it just blows my mind. We did it like it’s actually happening. The film’s been out a year and we still get messages from people that blow my mind, and I’m just so [01:02:00] honored that it impacted you in such a way that took you another step on your journey and maybe opened up something different for you. and that you allowed us the opportunity to have this beautiful conversation to share with others. I’m just really honored. Krisanna: Thank you. Gissele: Thank you. I did wanna give you an opportunity to share with our, my audience, like where can they find you? Where can they find the film? What else are you working on? What do you wanna promote? Please share. Dana: Okay, I will share about Love Heals, and then I’m gonna pass it to Krisanna because we are, creating something new as well. So if anybody listens to this and they want to see the film, I’m actually gonna do something a little bit special for your audience because the film is not available all the time. We do limited releases and we’re creating strategic partnerships. And, the great news is, you know, we’ve won some awards and film festivals and our film is being accepted, to be na nationally broadcasted on p b s maybe in the fall of this year for a couple years, but there’s still no guarantee that you’ll see it. So [01:03:00] if your audience would like to see Love Heals, I’m gonna give them a private rental link and so they can go to love heals.com. I’m sorry, take that. The website is Love heals film.com/rent. that is not accessible publicly, but if people are feeling like, gosh, I really wanna see this film now because they think it would help them in some way, I also don’t wanna hold that back from people. So there is a rental fee, but you know, right now it’s just not available for purchase or available all the time. So, I suspect that will change in the future. Mm-hmm. , this is, this is the year we’re still really pushing out partnerships and, and creating a lot of momentum, and then I suspect later on it will be more available. Oh, and also we have a really cool social media platform, like I think Love Hills film on Instagram and Facebook. We have a community there. it’s really interactive. We share some really cool behind the scenes stuff, so we’d love to have you follow us on social media as well. For sure. Krisanna: Krisanna. Yeah. And well, it’s [01:04:00] really amazing because. in creating Love Heals and the response that we’ve gotten, which by the way is not all glamorous, , like, releasing a film is a lot of hard work. Mm-hmm. and Dana is kind of the main force behind that now because I also have my own business and I have other client work. so anyway, it’s, this call, I will say is very refreshing to like remember back because sometimes the days are just long and hard it feels like. And that’s okay cuz this is the chapter that we’re writing and trying to help a lot of people and, and all that to say, This really sparked in us something like, like a new calling, I guess, where we just decided, man, together we are a force and we can create content that really helps spread hope and healing throughout the planet. So Dana just, she was compelled after she saw this article from HeartMath about heart coherence and the studies and the research that have been done between horses and humans. And she also had an experience where she saw an autistic child speak for the first time she was at seven years. [01:05:00] in working with a horse. And that just sparked in us something like, what is going on here? there’s some magic to this horse scheme and connect connection, but it’s not just about the horse. The horse,is its own powerful, energetic being, and there’s science around that. But then the research of heart coherence, which is where, you know, Joe Dispenza teaches and others teach in that way, like how to achieve that yourself. And, and we’re making a film about that and we’re just going on a journey of discovery. And I think it’s about connecting to ourselves, which also helps us connect to nature and mother Earth around us. And horses are really like a beautiful access point, to that. And they also have their own sovereignty. And even the caretaking of these animals is a reflection of how we care for ourselves. So yeah, I mean, we are just exploring that. So that film, we’re super, super excited. and it’s called Rescued Hearts film. And we just put the website up, rescued hearts film.com. And that’s a great way you can also connect with Dana and I. Our businesses [01:06:00] live wild films, , so I know we’re giving you like a lot of different options such No, this is great. But yeah, we’re just on this journey of like, I think this is gonna be one of many. As we’re in production of this film, we have other people reaching out to us saying, wait, I’d actually like for you to do a documentary in this, and then I’d like to hire you for this. And so we’re being very selective, but we feel,how we wanna spend our time and energy is in creating content that just encourages people to do the journey of going with and, and the remembering, the remembering of our, of the power and, and this well of like wisdom that exists inside of us. And sometimes we just need to be, encouraged in that way. So yeah, check us out. Rescued hearts film. Mm-hmm. . We plan to have the film done by the end of the year and which is a very exciting and. . in the world of documentary, it normally takes two to three years, so it’s a very tight deadline. But we did love heels in nine months, so we feel like it’s possible. We feel like the world needs this message now, and we like to put deadlines on it so that it doesn’t drag out, like mm-hmm. We have to, so we’re doing a lot of production anyway. thanks for [01:07:00] asking, but we’re, oh, no, this is great. Gissele: This is so great because I think you point to something really pivotal in your film, which is we’ve become so disconnected with ourselves that we’re so disconnected with nature. Right. And I think this is why we’re seeing things as they are. The weather is weird. how do we reconnect back in a way that is harmonious and imbalance? Yeah. Beautiful. Mm-hmm. , thank you. Thank you so, so much for being on the podcast. I so appreciate this. I would love for you to come back with me. Your next film is out . Yes. To promote it. We could talk about it. I’m definitely in, in seeing it . So yes. Thank you so, so much. See you soon. ****Exclusively for our listeners: Rent the film at lovehealsfilm.com/rent.

Transcript: [00:00:00] Gissele: hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast, with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. On today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about parenting with heart, and we’ll be talking to Joe. Joe has worked with children and parents and families for the previous 10 years. He started out as a qualified teacher. he then quickly became interested in helping children and families on a deeper, more holistic level by becoming a play therapist before training and compassionate inquiry. And at the Newfeld Institute with a background in psychology, play therapy, teaching, and now compassionate inquiry. He’s a particularly keen in working in supporting families, parents and adolescents, and he’s also just started his own podcast called The Caring Instinct. Welcome to the podcast, Joe Atkinson. Hi, Joe. Joe: Hi. Thanks for having Gissele: me. Oh, no. Thank you for joining us. So looking forward to [00:01:00] chatting about this. Yeah, I was wondering Yeah, sorry, Joe: go ahead. I said me too. Yeah, Gissele: yeah, yeah. I was wondering if you could start by telling our audience how you got interested in, Compassionate Inquiry. Joe: well, to do, I, I’ll have to go back a little bit further to I, I, before, I started teaching, I was studying addiction, psychology and counseling. That was what I kind of did fresh out of university. And, there it was,I read a book by Gabor Matte. . Mm-hmm. very famous in Canada and around the world. Mm-hmm. in the realm of hungry ghosts and, About addiction and, and, as I moved into childhood, you know, he, he was also writing about child development and mm-hmm. , A D H D and other books. So I kind of just was always following his, what he was doing and, and, so that took me to, when I started working with children, I was always following his stuff. And the story goes, I had children myself, they’re now four and two, and I wanted to, um, I wanted, I didn’t wanna work with children [00:02:00] and go home to children. I wanted a bit of, a bit of balance there, to be honest, . So my intention was to start working with, with, with adults and, and do something a bit, you know, have a bit of balance. And it just so happened that Compassion Inquiry just started up around that time, so I was just straight into it really. Gissele: Mm-hmm. for those who might not know, can you tell us a little bit about what Compassionate Inquiry is? Joe: Compass Compassionate Inquiry is a psychotherapeutic, approach developed by, Dr. Gabel Matte. it’s, it’s an approach to, to counseling. and it’s kind of a, a cocktail of, of how he’s, developed, approach of the process of working, of being with people in, over the years, which he was, I think he was kind of put under, under pressure to, share with others. He didn’t really think it was a thing and then, he decided to do it and it’s, it’s taken, taken off and, you know, been a big hit. And, I’m really grateful to, to have, studied and been a part of it. Yeah. Gissele: [00:03:00] Why did you think that he didn’t think it was anything that he should share? Joe: because, the way he talks about it is he, it was just how he would, he naturally, interacted with people. Mm-hmm. and, he was a doctor. He worked with addictions as well, and he, he wasn’t a, a therapist with, with training. Mm-hmm. . but he became very famous and, and would do a lot of talk. A lot of research would write books and he would spend five minutes with someone or 20 minutes with someone. And it, in my mind, it kind of developed in this cocktail of as he learned and put things together and intuitively formed it just, so for him, I think it was just something he did. Gissele: Mm-hmm. So it naturally flowed Joe: through him. Yeah. It just naturally flowed. If someone would say, you know, no, that’s a thing. Oh, maybe it’s not a thing, but, yeah. And Gissele: what does it Joe: entail? it’s, um, it’s, there’s, we would call them stepping stones. So there’s,it’s an inquiry and we might be guided by our own curiosity and, and interested in what’s, what’s showing up in the [00:04:00] moment. in entails a lot of body work, noticing feelings going into childhood, and, you know, finding out about coping mechanisms and patterns, beliefs that might underlie the behavior, which we’re really interested in, exploring and, and, and which show up and manifest as, as issues in our, in our, in our lives. Really. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And that’s why I find the link to, with children really interesting as well, because, you know, with children we’re very interested in, in behaviors and pulling and, and pulling and pulling at, pulling and pushing at behaviors and shaping them very early, so. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I like the links. Gissele: Yeah, for sure. And I, and I know one of the key aspects of the, compassion piece is the curiosity, is the shifting away from the place of judgment. Yes. do you think it’s easier for us to do that with children than it is with adults? Oh, Joe: depends. I think it [00:05:00] depends on a lot of things. For some, for me personally, it’s, it’s, it’s always been easier with children. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I think for some people it’s harder with children and some people it’s just different on different days as well. Yeah. But, yeah, I think it’s j it depends on a lot of things. It could be anything. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What’s it like for you? Gissele: I think it’s, . I think it used to be, like you said, very similar in terms of, I used to be easier for, for me to be more, I would say caring, kind, open, curious with kids. I think I historically expected a adults to know better. Yeah. whereas, now it’s more, the more I became compassionate towards more loving and compassionate towards myself, the more that I didn’t need other people to act differently. And so I was then able to be more open and more curious about them. Yeah. Okay. But in the beginning it was, it was definitely more. Okay. The kids. Yeah. More likely. Joe: And I think there’s a lot of people and, and I [00:06:00] think some, but on the other hand there’s some people that, oh, we really, we really need to get these kids up to, you know, up to standards or socialize and stuff like that. And maybe with adults they think they’re, you know, it’s too late or something like that. So they can be really. , maybe the opposite. Gissele: Yeah. And I think you, you raised a really important, topic, which is, how the school system is sort of structured, right? Yes, yes. I think the school system is structured in a way I see it in my kids’ schools, is structured more around the achievement, less so much on the social emotional pieces. Like to me, I would love to see, schools teach about self-love, self-compassion, healthy relationships, like those key things that we’re always, always striving for. And yet the focus really is on math, arithmetic. Like tho those things that are more like, yeah, achievement base, Joe: what your, you can, you have, you do have those things, but they’re kind of like, you know, they’re on the outskirt, they’re not, it’s not a [00:07:00] central part, it’s a mm-hmm. it’s, it’s like, okay. It’s almost like, okay, we’ll put it in there. Kind you mean Gissele: like as an afterthought. Joe: Yeah. And, it’s, yeah, something that’s around and, and, you know, people take it seriously and it’s not a joke, but it’s not, it’s not as central as it as it should be. Hmm. Gissele: Yeah. So, yeah, and it’s interesting that you mentioned that because, you know, to me that’s sort of fundamental, especially in, in like when you look at bullying and harassment that can happen in schools. It can be sort of challenging for children if they don’t, are not able to regulate their own emotions. So, and if they’re not able to regulate their own emotions, it’s hard for them to learn. And so you would think that there would be an invested interest in teaching those skills so that the kids can absorb more of the information that is being taught. But yeah, it’s, it’s sort of strange that way. Do you think that the school system sort of needs. [00:08:00] Some revamping or do you think that it’s, it’s good as it is, or what are your thoughts on the subject. Oh, Joe: definitely. Yeah. I, I for sure it needs, revamping for me, it’s, it’s really lost in the uk and there’s a lot, there’s so many children with, they’ll get diagnosed with a D H D with, with, with a whole number of different, disorders you might pull them in. One thing I notice, here in the uk, and I think it happens, in other countries, is that there’s, there’ll be certain behaviors that might manifest oppositionality or, there’s frustration or there’s, there’s, there’s the, there was this acting out and the school’s general approach is, there must be a problem with this child. And so that’s where the attention is. And we, and then we’ll, so we’ll get together. We say, okay, what’s, what? Must be wrong with it? Maybe he’s got, there’s something wrong with his, brain or something’s, so a disorder or something like that. And that’s where the energy goes. and it’s [00:09:00] very hard to step back and, and look at the environment they’re in and see it as, as, as part of it as well. And we kind of just get lost, lost in that. And then what happens is families get lost in that thought as well. They, they go down the path. They might look for a specialist in, in, in whatever, and, and we kind of get a bit lost, but everything points towards the child as the one who’s got the problem. Yeah. And in, in a way That’s right. They’re manifesting that, you know, that that’s where we can, there are issues. You can see that. But it also gives that message to the child that you are a problem. And it just makes things much harder. Gissele: Yeah, for sure. And it’s interesting, I, I think of that quote that talks about how, you know, if a flower doesn’t bloom, you don’t blame the flower Yeah. You look at the conditions that which Yeah. Prevented the flower from coming up, right? Yeah. but you’re right, we spend so much of our energy and attention on the blaming thing, right? Because it can’t be [00:10:00] the system, the system is set up in a specific way. And I think what I, what we don’t do well is deal with outliers, right? Whether it be too intelligent, what people consider too intelligent from an IQ perspective or not, they’re the, the systems are mostly made up for the people that fit a box, they fit the 80% box. And for those people that are out outliers, rather than the systems being able to accommodate, it’s sort of like you as a kid have to adjust to these systems, which makes it more challenging. Joe: Yeah, for sure. And I think, Yeah, you’re right about the outliers but also, I, I think the people that are don’t get a notice are in there. It’s almost setting them up for, issues later in life as well. They kind of, they almost go sail through school, maybe without any big issues or anything, but they come out of it whenever it is 18, 19 to it’s 16 to 20, and they have no idea who they are. Yeah. They’re,there might be depression or they, they just, [00:11:00] they’re ju they’re very lost. And the, the school system works very much, you know, you have, you do your year and then we pass you onto someone else and it’s very narrowly for, you know. Okay. I’ll, we want to get you up to a, yeah, here we have like, great, you know, a number seven or eight, and then I’ll pass you over to the next and then we’ll get you up. Yeah. And that’s. It’s, it’s really hard to see the big picture. Gissele: Yeah. I had heard that it was sort of like the, factory work, right? Like you just kind of like piecemeal things. Right. And that was, it was structured similarly to factory work and the times also align with people working. And so it’s, it’s very much structured that way rather than self-directed learning or self-interested. Whatever you’re, you, you’re interested in, you’d gravitate. And it’s interesting to me that the schools that are, that are not publicly funded work that way. Right? Like the Montessori is All of those, those kinds of schools. it seems a little bit strange to me that, that we’ve [00:12:00] sort of created these systems. Joe: There’s a guy, Ken Robinson, but here, he died recently actually, but he’s got a TED Talk and, in one of them, he said if you went to any business with the, with the, with the school model mm-hmm. , they would think it was crazy. I e you know, you, you tell them, okay, we’re gonna get your workers from nine to 10. We’re gonna get them all to do accounting for an hour. Then we’re gonna ring the bell. We’re gonna make them get up, go to a different room, forget about accounting, and do marketing for an hour. Then we’re gonna ring a bell. Then we’re gonna get them to get up, go to a different room, and they’re gonna do, sales for an hour. Gissele: the business would just laugh. They would just laugh at you for, for if you were trying, would try and get them to implement that model. It’s, it’s a weird way to do things. Joe: Mm-hmm. and I think schools were, the whole reason they came about was to, the main reason first was to get people into factories. Gissele: Mm. [00:13:00] But I don’t think we’ve mo modernized them too since that time. Right. It’s like, I think, I think it’s based on a very outdated Joe: model. Yeah. It’s like we’ve been sucked into them and even if we’ve changed ourself, which we’re, we’re still kind of plugged into that system. So it’s, it Yeah. Even if we don’t have the same intentions, it doesn’t work. Gissele: Yeah. And even I was reflecting on, so I’ve done some post, graduate degrees and, even those systems don’t seem to really work, like with the ability now to learn on online platforms, to learn from different sources to Google anything. Right. It, it just makes you wonder how these systems are really gonna survive. Like it’s, it’s kind of seems sort of outdated, right? Like Yeah. Yeah. It seems sort of like these systems really aren’t Yeah. Helping Joe: us be optimal. And the, [00:14:00] ironic thing for me is that, my kids are foreign too. So I’ve seen, you know, they’ve not, my daughter’s only just started school. Mm-hmm. and you know, already they’ve learned so much and they’ve not, you know, the learning process is very natural. Yeah. In a way we get in, we get in the way of it more than we help it. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. And they’re so, they’re, they gravitate naturally to learning. Hmm. But we sort like, these systems sort of, I think make it harder. Yeah. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about some of the work that you do with parents, because, especially in parenting, compassion is definitely needed as a parent, myself and you as a parent. can you talk about some of the challenges that you have seen in working with people and we can, you know, talk a little bit about some of the challenges that come from parenting. Joe: Yeah, sure. So, where do I st it, along with a similar line of what’s happening with the schools, and education is, to me [00:15:00] almost feels similar for parenting as a, as a general, it’s here that, you know, you can go into the books stop here, and there was, there’s thousands of books, well, maybe thousands of exaggeration, but it feels like over hundreds of books on, you know, this is how you parent. Yeah. this is what you do. Slightly different, lenses or ways to do it. But this is almost like it’s a skill to be that we have to learn or all of a sudden and it’s, it’s almost like we’ve lost our confidence to, to parent. And, I, my belief is that that’s come from a part we’ve lost, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves and. in some ways. And part of that might be that compassion that, that, that is so useful in parenting. So what I would, if, if I could do it, if I do, that’s great if, but my intention is to help parents to kind of reconnect to themselves and find that kind of parenting [00:16:00] instinct within them. Mm-hmm. I really don’t wanna be telling people what to do or, this is how we do, because it puts us in a, almost like a dependent role, which is actually feeds the anxiety of, of the children that they might be with. Cuz they might, they might need another session or to read that next book or stuff like that. I want to empower parents or give them that confidence to, you know, that they know what they’re doing, even if they’ve not read the book. Gissele: Yeah. I love that you said that, because we feel the same way, which is like, You can read a thousand books. Yeah. But it’s you doing the work. It’s you doing the, the showing up, the difficult conversations. They’re leaning in. They’re leaning out. It is about tapping into your inner wisdom as a parent. And so I love that you said that we really have lost our connections and our trust. our trust of ourselves. Yeah. why do you think that is though? Joe: For a whole load of reasons. I think it’s,let’s go back to the [00:17:00] schools as well. Cause it, I mean, it’s almost like their, if the intention of the school is to produce factory workers, it’s kind of an intention of it to disconnect from, from yourself as well. So, it comes at from many different angles. It feels, and we just lose. We just, we just lose it. We just lose it. And it’s a very, my personal experience very, even when I feel like I have it as well, it’s a very fragile thing to hold onto. You know, I might have it, but then something happen, you know, and it’s, it’s just gone. You know, it’s not there. It doesn’t come back for a few hours or you, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s something that really needs our attention. We’re, , our attention has been hijacked as well with phones and, yeah. social media and, and entertainment and, and these kind of things. We’re just, so many things in societies seem to be pulling us away from ourselves. Mm-hmm. or advertising. That’s what it’s, that’s how it works. We are on, and [00:18:00] so it’s a very, you know, we’re going against the flow in this, this work. Yeah. It’s, it’s natural in the sense it’s coming back to ourselves, but at the same time, very unnatural in our environment. So it’s, it’s strange, isn’t it? Gissele: Yeah, it is. It, you know, as, as you were talking, I think one of the things that I truly believe is that we tend to give our authority away to other people and to other things. Right. And so we, there is an element of us, you know, and I say us because it’s all of us as human beings that have created this world, that we have these systems, these things. there’s an element of us that it’s like you almost don’t wanna accept responsibility for what you’ve created. And so there’s a group of us that are okay with people telling them what to do. It’s okay with following these rules. It’s okay with the right, because then you don’t have to accept responsibility for your life and what you created. [00:19:00] Yeah. But the, you know, you mentioned manifestation earlier. The ability to manifest into, align to all of the good in your life comes from the accepting responsibilities, okay, this is what I’ve created, or this is what is currently happening. I’ve contributed to this. And from here, from my point of power, I can move towards focusing my attention and energy on what I do when I create. Yeah. And so there is an el an element of, okay, have I, I’ve absconded my responsibility to other people as experts. , right. Or from this book or that book or whatever, but then are not really stepping up into our own power. And, and that makes it really challenging for us to work from that place. Right? Yeah. Especially in parenting. Joe: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, in that sense, it’s a very, you know, leading parents into a vulnerable territory almost just to, rediscover that responsibility or, or find that it can, when you get there, you’re gonna [00:20:00] feel everything, all the highs and all the lows. Yeah, Gissele: exactly. Because don’t you cuz don’t we want somebody to fix it? Like I I’m a parent of teenagers. You’re, you have little guys, right? Yeah. So I’m a parent of, you have teens and pre-teens and sometimes the stuff that they go through was not stuff I went through. Very different challenges. Sometimes it feels so heavy and you don’t know how to help them, but you can’t save them. Right? And so, but you wish somebody would just like, you know, would just tell you how to, how to do it right. And you can’t, and it, and that uncertainty, the unknown can feel really uncomfortable,  I’ve said this to my teens at times and we have a great relationship, but there’s times when they’re going through their most challenging times when I say, I don’t know how to help you. I don’t know,  What do you need from me in this moment? It feels like, oh my God, I should know this. Like, maybe there’s an element of self-criticism, like, oh, I should know this. I’m their parent. Joe: Yeah. You feel, and there’s,[00:21:00] out, there’s a guilt that comes with maybe not knowing it or not, having those answers in the moment. Yeah, and we, I feel as, especially with stuff like guilt as well, a lot of the, the books out there and the advice is to kind of steer away from, from guilt, you know, get away, you know, guilt-free parenting, I think there’s books called as well, guilt-Free, oh, these kind of things. And it’s the same comes coming back to the connection or coming away. Mm-hmm. . For me, it’s the same thing. It’s, it’s leading us away from the connection to ourselves. Guilt is something that, when it shows up, in my work, I always say, great. It shows that you’re, you are, you care, you are, and you are in a, you are in a relationship where a part of you really wants to take responsibility for what happened. Mm-hmm. , it doesn’t mean it’s true. It doesn’t mean that you by the cause or you don’t have to go with it or make it right or wrong, but it’s gonna be then either side. [00:22:00] Mm-hmm. . So just always Yeah. Have your guilt. Yeah. Gissele: It’s sort of like, welcome those emotions. Don’t make them wrong. Right. Joe: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess what, how that links into, to what you were saying, is it, it’s the Yeah. Having your emotions, having that experience that that unknown is that guilt and being able to stay with it. Yeah. And there’s like really leaning into it. Gissele: Yeah. One of the interesting things that I think that, you know, I’m so, blessed to have the children that I do, and also to be able to have the conversations that I do with them. I remember as a kid when I realized my parents were human. Yeah. I think I, I had my parents in a pedestal and then when I realized, like sometimes when they, when, you know, when they did different things that were so hurtful, you know, like realizing that, oh, these people don’t know what they’re doing. Yeah. My God. Like, you know, and, and, and really sometimes feeling so hurt. I took the [00:23:00] opportunity to tell my kids kind of early on in the relationship that I didn’t always know what I was doing. It’s that sometimes I wasn’t gonna get it right. And it’s sort of like, forgive me in advance, right? Like, so I, you know, like really talking about doing the best we can and not always getting it right and being able to talk about it and ask for forgiveness and talking about that doesn’t mean that. You know, I wasn’t confident as a parent. It just meant that I understood that I was a human being first, working through learning on my way to how to become a parent, and that I was going to stumble and make different choices. Yeah. That maybe I was gonna look back and go, maybe not. And so I think that that kind of helped me in the way to have a better relationship with my kids rather than having that. Why do you think we have that kind of, how was it received? Yar key? Hmm? How Joe: was it received? Huh? Gissele: It was actually received very well, in fact that they, my kids kind of joked about like the fact that, you [00:24:00] know, yeah, I know . It’s sort of like, it was sort of like a funny joke. Right. I think that sort of helped when. like the fact that we were able to come back and say, I’m sorry about that. Like, I think that the, the being able to come back and talk about the fact that like myself or my husband had made a mistake or the willingness to talk about how that felt, was good. Like I, I think it was, I think they still, the kids still held us in a pedestal, some sort. I think I, I think it might be a natural thing for children to do. but I think once we fell off the pedestal, I think they were like, oh yeah, they kind of told us . Yeah. Yeah. So I think they still had that pedestal thing, but I think when we fell it wasn’t as far to fall Joe: maybe. Yeah. Yeah. It’s almost like what comes up for me, when you talk, it’s like it gave you, the space to pause in the relationship and just explore what was happening for maybe both of you, and they were old enough to, to do that with you and, and, [00:25:00] and see. And I imagine that if you couldn’t, weren’t able to do that, then you weren’t not, you are not leading them into that territory of being able to pause themselves. Gissele: Yeah. Although it can feel challenging at times. Like when I, and I’m interested in, in, you know, what you, what you would tell parents. Like if I, if I cannot regulate myself, I cannot help them regulate. Yeah. But sometimes, sometimes they have a hard time with me saying, I can’t help you right now. I need to put my own oxygen mask on first. There’s times when I think my children want me to fix it, and I’m like, I can’t fix it for you. I can’t do this. I, if I could, I would’ve done it already. I would’ve been like, fix Yeah. But I can’t. But sometimes there’s like a little bit of that parent guilt, which is like, oh, I wish I could be there for you. But I know right now that my bucket is empty. Mm-hmm. What would you say to Pam? Joe: A few things come up for, first of all, it, It makes a [00:26:00] difference developmentally where the, the children are at. So for my children, four and two, I wouldn’t do that. yeah, fair enough. With, yeah, they’re, they’re just too young. Because until the ages of about of five, at least five, five to seven children can only have one feeling, one emotion, one thought in at a time. which is why ev everything’s, you know, pure and the tantrums and yeah, I believe in Santa Claus and these things, that’s, everything is just one thing at a time. And then if everything unfolds, like, you know, your, your flower analogy, everything, the potential is realized, then we’re able to mix, emotions and feelings. So, we can have, love for someone and, you know, want to hit them at the same time. And we can have them in the same, but it might not. unfold is a tantrum that our experience has become, are tempered. So for younger children, if I’m saying, my bucket is my bucket is full, I’m giving them the message that, [00:27:00] the they’re responsible, they’re responsible for my feelings. Oh yeah, for sure. So it’s too, yeah, it’s just, and because they can only have, do one thing at a time, then that’s what they’re gonna do. And they’re just could have, they’re almost become the parent in the relationship. Yeah, for sure. And everything gets skewed and, so it depends. Development. And even though that is potentially could happen, five or seven, we’re all different. We all have different, so sometimes that, you know, it depends. That’s why we all know our kids be, you know, moms, they know their kids best, so we’ll all be the ones to know this. So that would be the first thing that comes to mind. And, the second thing is, yeah, it’s showing that we’re, when, when it is, when they’re developmentally right. When you have that sense, it’s, showing the human quality of the, that we are not, yeah. You know, we can’t just, we can’t do things anymore. You are, it’s [00:28:00] experiencing what, what’s it like for you in that moment is it might be frustration or sadness or, a mixture. And you’re just showing these, the, the, these normal, the normal kind of journey of, of, of the emotions and how they show up in life and they just get to see that in you. Gissele: The reason why I raised it with the, because here it’s good. I’m not sure the same in Canada, but you get, you hear a lot of, with young children, you know, don’t hit me, you make me sad. Joe: Or, that makes me an angry. And we’re almost taught in the books to Yeah. Share our emotions with our young children. Mm-hmm. You know, with the aim to teach them the behaviors, the pushing and pulling of behaviors, which is. kind of what we really wanna get to. Yeah. And they’re just developmentally, they just can’t handle it. And what it does, it just sets them up to be the parent and take responsibility from, and the only way they can do that at that age is shutting [00:29:00] part of themselves down. Mm-hmm. , which, which fills it. Which ironically maybe suits them in our society. And it looks, it might look like everything’s going well and, and, everything but it’s, it’s, it’s not good for Gissele: development. Oh, for sure. Thank you so much for raising that. That’s really, important because, developmentally, in terms of where the kids are, you can have those conversations. I can have those conversations cuz my kids are older, right? Yeah. And so my kids are 14 and 12.  the fact that I have older kids, I’m able to say to them, you know, like if they’re struggling, okay, I, I, I just need a moment to regulate myself. , and then I can help you co-regulate. Or I will say, you know, like, you know, what do you need from me? So in, I can have those conversations with them, but when they were little, that’s a totally different thing. That’s sort of like a, a tap in. Like my husband would have to tap in if I just, if I just didn’t Yeah. But I, I didn’t have that emotional awareness at the time. Yeah. For me it was about giving, giving, [00:30:00] giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving. And then I would get frustrated when I would give.when my kids were little. I didn’t have that awareness that I have now about the need to put my own oxygen mask on first. But I think what you said is really key about how, how little or how old are they when you can actually start to have those conversations, right? Yeah. Joe: It’s, but what else, another thing that comes up for me is, we’re not meant to parent in this, in this, way. We’re not meant to be, you know, quite often it’s just one parent in charge. If we’re lucky, we’ve got two. even if we’re together, you know, being in the same place, you know? Yeah. For however many years we’ve been around, we’ve been in tribes, there would’ve been aunts and uncle, you know, and, and just the kids would just be bouncing off. And so the chances are you wouldn’t have, you know, filled up anyway. Yeah. Or if you would, it [00:31:00] would’ve been a seamless move out and it just, it wouldn’t have had the same EF effect that it does in our, you know, parenting, you know, isolated parenting systems that we have now. It, it just, it’s, it’s kind of a new thing, which is, which has grown with our society. So I said, you know, you just have to experience, you know, have your, have your emotions for what’s, what’s happening. Just you have to experience it and, yeah. have space for Gissele: it as well. I think you raised the other key thing too is that like the need for community, right? Like we really are raising our kids in isolation, especially if you’re a single parent. Yeah. The need for that community, the need to come together to help, us really come together and I am so grateful that you have learned so much about parenting. Remember when we used to have to let our kids cry? That was so [00:32:00] painful. It was, it was very painful for me in particular. I found it. Really, I just couldn’t do it. Yeah. Joe: We were told to do this. Gissele: Yeah, it was, we just, we couldn’t do it. Like, I just couldn’t, couldn’t it, it was so heartbreaking. Like it was heartbreaking for me. I just couldn’t regulate enough for me to allow them to cry. It was grading to me to hear them cry and cry and cry. but that’s the advice that we gave. Right? And so, but now we’re saying that that advice is outdated and hurtful. Joe: Wow. Not, not so much here in the uk, I don’t think really. I mean, there is part of us that there is, it’s not the only way to do it, but it’s still very common here. Yeah. Oh yeah. Gissele: No. So one of the things that we hear like at least now is that that is, is not a very loving thing to do. That there’s the reassurance needs to, to happen still. Like that re reassurance in terms of. , you need to come back, sooth and then go and come back sooth and do [00:33:00] it that way. but even then it’s, I just don’t think that we’re meant to parent in the same like what you had mentioned, which is when you think about the olden times and not that I was around and the olden times. Yeah. But when you look at tribes and communities, the babies are with the parents everywhere they go. Yeah. Like have, have we studied if those kids have attachment issues, like, cuz when you see, you see them with their parents constantly. Right. In community. And then when, when you think about the, you know, there’s that model of attachment, there’s that model of attachment that says, you know, if kids are securely attached, they will naturally go and explore. Like once they have that secure attachment, the home base, yeah. They have a home, a securely home base. Yeah. Then they can, that attachment, if they’re securely attached, they will actually wanna explore. They don’t wanna be next to you. They wanna actually see the world, but they have to have that reassurance that there’s that secure base. Joe: but a lot of parenting techniques are the, [00:34:00] to, you know, you can be too secure. Let’s say that the attachment can be too secure or there’s an, a worry about that. But, I mean, I studied a lot with, Neufeld, Gordon Neufeld and he would say, just like the plant analogies that you’ve used before, you can a, a plant or ch it can never be too securely attached. Yeah. It can be too insecurely attached. Yes. But it’s very different. Gissele: The model I was thinking is circle security. . Yeah. Okay. So it’s, it’s the nurturing, it’s called circle of security. So there’s a nurturing, and the more that there is that secure base, then the kids naturally go and explore, and then they’ll come back to the secure base, and then over time their exploring becomes bigger than that secure base. Yeah. but growing up I wasn’t taught that because my parents didn’t have a secure base. Right. They grew up with a, you know, some child abuse and neglect and so it, it kinda, it’s amazing how it gets handed down, those kinds of old perspectives about [00:35:00] how we, how we should parent. I, is there anything that we do currently that you think maybe years from now I’ll go like, mm, maybe that’s not the best thing we could be doing? Joe: Oh, I think most of it, . , I would say. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there’d be a, we’re not squid. I feel like society’s quite open about this. We’re not set up for, children or. family, you know, we’re set up more for the economy,getting a bigger G D P and, and getting people into, the workplace. Mm-hmm. that’s where our focus is. Yeah. We have things set along that road dotted around like the, you know, that might support these kind of things. But that’s the, the main goal of, of the things we have in the, the, the schools, the systems are to take us to that place. And we’ve bought into it Gissele: kind of, because we think that’s what [00:36:00] determines success, right? Yeah. Like IUC success. So it’s one of the things I’m thinking about because, because my kids are older, they’re thinking about graduating high school and what do they do next? Yeah. And there is this real impetus towards, well, they gotta go to university and they have to have good paying jobs and whatever. And so, . And so I, I see that, that, you know, you know, my children struggle with not knowing what they’re gonna do. And should I know this now? And it’s like, no, live your life, have joy, right? Like live the most in this moment. Do what, what, what brings you, what brings you the greatest pleasure? What I mean is like, for example, like if, if drawing is something that fulfills you, maybe that’s what you wanna do a career in, right? It’s, it’s, it’s so thinking outside of this conventional, you gotta be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer, right? Yeah. It’s, it’s what makes, what gives, makes your heart sing, brings you joy. And could that be your life path, potentially, Joe: right? Yeah. And even if it [00:37:00] isn’t on the, you know, the economical path to, you know, we all live in the real world. It’s something you can have space for in your, in your life. It’s, and pe there’s so many kids that just don’t have any idea of what that is. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s where they just, they just dunno what they wanna do. They, and they don’t for a career, for a hobby or they just don’t, they’ve not, they haven’t had space, they haven’t been alleged to that place where they can find that. Gissele: Well, and I think, you know, from my perspective, I think that would be a great opportunity for schools to do that. Right? Like, I mean, they, they go to career counseling, right? Like, oh, you know, you do a survey. Yeah. Yeah. it seems like they still do the same things. When I was younger, they did a survey and they’re like, you’d be good for social work. I didn’t end up doing that. I did that. I did something. I didn’t even know what social work was, but Joe: social worker accounting and I, it, I don’t like it though. . It’s like, Gissele: yeah, [00:38:00] so, so they, I think they still have the same survey cuz I think my daughter mentioned that she completed it. but. . So rather than really aiming to cultivate what brings you joy and what really is your gift to this world in in right, it’s more like fit this box. And so, you know, and I don’t mean that as a form of criticism, this we’ve all contributed to this world that we have created. Hmm. It’s just, I think we are kind of redefining what we mean, what it means to be happy, what it means to be joyful, what, what it means to be successful and to be fulfilled. Yeah. and I think that those changes will reflect also as well in terms of how we parent children. Yeah. Right. And, and the sort of expectations that come along with being a parent. Because I remember my parents had expectations of me and I’m trying hard not to have expectations of my children in a way that is diminishing.[00:39:00] right? Like that, that, you know, it’s sort of that unconditional love. You’re only lovable if you achieve. You’re only lovable. If you are successful. You’re only lovable. You can, you are still lovable. Even if you decide that, I guess playing on electronics all day is what you’re gonna do.  it might not be a good balance. And so one of the things we talk about with our kids about is having living in a balanced life, right? Yeah. Which is having good exercise, going out, having fun with your peers. You can do some electronics, right? Like that brings you joy and makes you play with people. But also you have to have other aspects of your life that are in good balance. Yeah. Including, you know, honoring yourself in your environment, which means chores and you know, like taking care of their body, like hygiene, Joe: for example. And how is it received when you have. Gissele: To be honest, I, in all of this conversations that I, with my children is stuff I’ve learned along the way from them and from our interactions. I find. So before, when I was, when I was [00:40:00] younger and, and hadn’t gone really through my self-love, self compassion journey, I had a thing about cleaning cuz my mom was a bit of a clean freak. And so I had a thing about cleaning and I, there was so much, so much resistance to it. I would force them and I would, I didn’t realize I was making them miserable and making myself miserable every weekend when we would clean. And then one day I just, I had it with myself and I had it with that. I, I didn’t want to have to suffer through another weekend of cleaning. And I didn’t wanna make them suffer because they would complain about how much I was making stuff when they were littler. They were more apt to cleaning. We could, we would make it more fun, but as they grew older and sometimes they just didn’t wanna do their chores, there was a lot of resistance in me and then I, I would put a lot of pressure on them. And so then one day I just said to myself, I’m done with this. If I really want this to be clean, I’m gonna do it myself. Like I, if that’s really important, I think, why do I want them to do these chores? And I said to myself, okay, I want them to, because I want them to have these skills to be able to [00:41:00] take care of themselves in their environment when they leave elsewhere. Right. Because when they leave my house, when they leave from not being with me, I’m gonna have to do it right. Or I can hire someone. And Joe: so, and that’s just to jump in there that Yeah. Mm-hmm. But please continue after the, yeah. Just to check out the idea. And I feel like this in society is that our responsibility to teach these, skill or teach these, and you can, we do, it’s almost if you can teach someone, how to clean, , but you can’t teach them to want to clean them up. Clean up. Yeah. Yeah. Two very different, but yeah, go on. Gissele: So what I found was I let go of the resistance of the need for it to happen and then the need for it to happen in a specific way. Mm-hmm. I sat down with my kids and I said, basically, we feel that you doing a chore is your way of saying thank you. It’s it, we’re all responsible for keeping our environment clean. And from our perspective, it was about skill building. It was about, you know, when you leave this place, you [00:42:00] honor yourself and you honor your environment by keeping your things tidy, keeping your body clean, all of those things. When I changed my approach and said, you know, and then I started to say, you know what? I’m gonna teach you how to clean the bathroom. So I went through the different steps, which I hadn’t done before, right? Mm-hmm. I, and then I sort of let it go. And if they didn’t do their chores that week, I, I honestly said, okay, do I, is it important for me to clean this? And I would just do it myself? I found once I release the resistance, It became harmonious. And honestly, my kids started to do it themselves. Out of their own volition, out of their own joy. one of my children will hum and Haw at times. Yeah. But then I just remind them and say, this is how we’re building a skill. This is what I’m teaching you this time. And then the whole thing flips. It changes. It goes from resistance to, oh, what am I gonna learn? What am I gonna learn that I didn’t know? And they’ll say, oh, I know how to do that. And I say, well, did you do this? And then he’ll go, oh. No, I didn’t. And, and there’s, there’s the [00:43:00] re i, I see the re the, the resistance release. And they’re more open to being able to know, oh, I’m learning a skill. I’m learning something that I can have on my toolbox rather than it being, I have to do this. I’m your child’s slave . Yeah. Which was always the perspective, right? Like, oh, you know why you just want me to do this so you have somebody. Right? And so once I realized the resistance, like once I realized that I was making everybody miserable and decided to let go of that, the whole process just became harm harmonious from, from my perspective and I think from theirs as well. I mean, sometimes we squabble over like the dishes and stuff that still, but then at the end, my husband and I will do them, and then we just kind of rather see the space cleaner than, yeah. Yeah. But that, that Joe: was hard experience. What comes up for me as you, as you share that is the, there’s a kind of, you brought them, into relationship more. Yeah. With, with that and the values. , our values get passed. They’re passed down more naturally. In that sense, there’s not, whereas when there’s, it’s forced, like you say, and there’s, [00:44:00] it comes with all your emotion and your what, whatever’s going for you. There’s just a very natural no, not gonna do that. Yeah. Resistance to it. And, we’re just, you’re just really far away from them in that point. But you found a way to come, come to their side or come closer to them. And whenever you’re there, the tea, it is just, the teaching is just effortless, isn’t it? It just, oh, this is easy. Whereas if I’d asked you in, in the resistance, you might have said, how do I do? You might have, I was the victim, Gissele: Joe. I was that me how to do this. Yeah. I was like, I’m always doing this. And sometimes I do fall into that victim mode. And then I, what I’ll do is, you know, I take opportunities to say, okay, what do I need in this moment? Okay. I, I really need to. Myself to ask for help to whatever. And then so I will give myself what I need in this mo in that moment. And then I can’t let go of the resistance. But until I do that, I’m not [00:45:00] open to, to that shift. And so, but this has been through like, you know, learning through making mistakes, which is what I love what you said about, you know, going back to yourself in terms of what feels right for you and your relationship with your kids. Because all kids are different, right. And so what each of my kids needs from me is different in their own ways and how they communicate with me those needs is very different. Right? Yeah. Joe: yeah. And brings me back to the, at the point, at the beginning, very often when we ha, when we notice these troubles or things aren’t working just like the schools do, it’s very easy for us to get the problem is in the child. Yeah. Whereas you were able to stay with yourself. Might have took a bit longer than you wanted to, but you were, you, you stayed there and there was, you know, you noticed something and then there was a shift and everything else just flowed. There’s no, no one, I tell me if I’m wrong, but no one told you what to [00:46:00] do or it just kind of worked. You knew what to do that in that place, but you wouldn’t have got there without having to go through that or notice what was happening and then there’s some kind of release for you and everything came from there. Gissele: Yeah. And that’s when I, you know, in, in, in my parenting journey, like it’s really been about trying to understand. In the beginning it was about trying to understand my kids, right? Like it, and it, it still is of trying to get to know who they really are and to really see them. Cuz I didn’t feel always as seen and, and it’s not purposeful. My parents were doing the best they could, the same way that I am doing the best they can. We all sort of are, right? Yeah. it’s more about understanding how my beliefs about them, about who they are and my reactions impact the relationship. And so, and so what I’m trying to [00:47:00] say is, is it, it’s really important for me to, to understand where I’m at, at every moment. Like when I’m triggered by my kids, I take that opportunity to say, okay, what’s happening? What do I need in this moment? What’s happening for me? Whereas before it would be like, oh, this is your fault. You are doing this, or you’re not doing that. Yeah. Because if I can’t regulate myself enough, I can’t engage in conversations and sometimes I can’t. And so Joe: for me, yeah, for say, can you do it live? Or sometimes it’s, you know, looking back the day before, . Gissele: I’ve done it live. Yeah. And this is where I had said to you that, you know, earlier when I said to my kids, I, I, I need to regulate myself right now, I’m dysregulated. Yeah. So I can’t, we can’t have this conversation in this moment because I’m not gonna be receptive and I’m not, but my kids are older, so they, they understand that piece. Yeah. I, I have these conversations more with my daughter than my son. My daughter’s 14, my son is 12, 13, right? Yeah. So and so I just say, [00:48:00] I just need a moment. And they know that I go and, and meditate and, and I just need a moment to regroup, to really understand what’s happening for me. And then I can come back. Sometimes it isn’t in the moment and I have to reflect back. And that’s where the apology is so important to be able to come back and go, I’m really sorry for how I acted. Then I can see that this is not, not making up an excuse, but I can see how that was, you know, hurtful or inappropriate or whatever. . And I usually find my kids are very forgiving. Right. but yeah. Yeah. But sometimes you have to deal with all of those uncomfortable emotions. Yeah. What, what helps you lean in? Like, what do you offer, like what do you suggest to parents in helping them stay in those? Because sometimes it feels really mucky to feel with those feelings of shame and guilt in, in, you know, like those, those kind of inner judgments that we make. Joe: Well, we, it’s really,how do I say my intention is to facilitate, cultivate a kind of [00:49:00] an, an energy all about compassion. having compassion for those parts when they show up. And,Gordon Neufeld would, I love this quote. He says, EV every child needs an invitation to exist in our presence. An invitation to exist in our present. And I take that as well to mean, all parts of us. So, all parts. So the, my intention is as these emo you know, the hard ones that we experience, the shame, the guilt, the, whatever it might be, when, when, when it comes up, how can we cultivate a relationship with these, where they have an invitation to exist in our presence, which we can do now as, as adults, hopefully, not all the time, but in the right pla you know, sometimes live, sometimes not. Can we make space for them at time and really get to know them, befriend them and, and, so it’s like cultivating that energy towards them. It’s in their relationship with them, just like it was in the relationship with yourself, with the [00:50:00] tidying up, which, which helped with, The actual outcome of it. It’s the, that’s where I, I put the energy, I invite the energy to go mm-hmm. . So, and that starts with me. I’ll be, you know, let’s have a look at that. You know, let’s see that, that, that’s what the session’s all about. To, to, to have those feelings, to be, to lead, to lead people into the vulnerable territory like that mm-hmm. Yeah. And hopefully from that, they, they can do that themselves as well. And they go and they start to do more. And, and that’s where all our natural wisdom is. Mm-hmm. . But these things have to just move first and we have to get to know them. And many of us, we’ve disconnected from them from an early age. Yeah. The negative people call, say negative, positive emotions as well, and. The idea behind that, that we kind of get is, okay, we’re gonna move towards the positive one. I’m gonna get away from the negative ones, but [00:51:00] really the invitation is that they’re all, they all have work for us to do. Yeah. Just like that. Guilt is a, is a, is a great sign that we’re in a, taken responsibility in a relationship within a re it’s great that we have it, not something that you might wanna, you know, experience on a Friday night or you wanna move to, or have, you know, like happiness or Pete or something like that. But when it’s there, welcome it. . Gissele: Yeah, for sure. And, and, and I love that you said that because it’s true there, there’s no negative or positive emotions. They’ll ha kind of have a gift that they’re giving us. Yeah. Sort of like a warning signal, right? Like it might be an annoying warning signal, but it’s telling us that something, it’s either we are in an out of alignment, like, you know, our Yeah. Our leaves or actions may not be in alignment with who we truly are. Yeah. Joe: and these emotions, they have work to do for, and the, the pr I would say the primary, primary work of the,[00:52:00] and to, to, to help us stay connected and to, to, yeah. Mm-hmm. to help us form attachments. Yeah. And that’s where their experience in relationship. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. And I think in staying attached, in, in, you know, especially connected to ourselves and our own emotions helps us to have. or helps us to be able to bear witness to those difficult emotions that our kids have.  How do you manage your kids’? tantrums, ? Joe: Well, if I’m on form, it’s a, you know, it’s just like that, that welcoming energy. It’s just, yeah, great. say it’s, it’s A tantrum of frustration. I didn’t get this thing, or this didn’t work out. This is so, it’s great that they can have that emotion. in my, the, the back of my mind is, , how can I make it safe for them to mm-hmm. experience this and express it? Where am I, you know, maybe I’m at home and it’s just me and, you know, you don’t have [00:53:00] the eyes on you. It’s great. You know, we can, they can hit or scream or do something, and it’s much as maybe we’re, maybe we’re in a supermarket or something like that, and there’s eyes on me as well, and it’s, it’s harder for me to, to do that as well. Yeah. So, but, and there’s so many different situations, but the, the always in the back of mind is, how can I keep, keep it, keep this, safe for, for this to move through them and mm-hmm. come with them, on that journey, come alongside them as they go through that journey. And what, what you notice when you do, when you do do that, and it works, is with frustration. It will turn, it turns to sadness and this kind of a, a release and a. It didn’t work. Something didn’t work, and it’s the energy dissipates in it and it goes and it’s just, yeah. But, but when it, if it doesn’t work, if you don’t manage to do it, or you are in a, you are in the wrong place and it’s too much for you [00:54:00] and it, it kind of get arrested and it just doesn’t complete mm-hmm. and you note what I noticed after, you know, we are just gonna have to go through the same thing, you know, later on, before doing a saver play or it’s gonna move somewhere else. Or maybe it’ll move towards my wife or someone, someone else in there who looks after them. And it would un it’s always, it’ll be kind of in the bank ready to move. Yeah. For later . Gissele: And That’s so great that you say that because I’ve observed that. Yeah. I’ve observed that with my kids. Sometimes when they are, like, they, they’re just so pent up. They need to, it’s almost like they need to push off that energy to someone else. Yeah. And then they’re fine. Yeah. And it’s sort of like, You know, and so rather than allowing it to dissipate, sometimes they just have to push it.  And then they’re fine, and then everybody else is in a bad mood. It’s so true. Yeah. I, I’ve definitely experienced Joe: that. And I love, you know, emotion. I know e in Latin is too, and motion is moved to mo. It just will always want to [00:55:00] move. And it says the process of coming alongside it and, and help giving it ways to move and, you know, wherever our kids at developmentally, the younger they are, the more, more help they’ll need to come outside. And then as they get older, it can come out in different ways. More expressive in art or in writing or something. And it’s just always a changing, Process, but every time just trying to get, make the way to their side to be with them on that journey and not to, not to get in the way of it, in a way. Yeah. But just to create, just to create safety around it. Or the other thing that I would have a, especially for young children, it is play. Mm-hmm. , can I bring it into a, a, a play mode mm-hmm. . And when that works, you know, if there’s a frustration with my daughter, you know, and, sometimes we can just go into this play. We’re gonna have a play fight or mm-hmm. , we can go and do some, [00:56:00] do like, have a attacking each, you know, called each other poo poo heads and this kind of stuff. And it’s, it’s pla and it just, the energy just goes that way. Mm-hmm. . And it’s, it’s another safe way for it to move. . Gissele: So you transform it basically. Yeah. So rather than it moving and going in Yeah. You know, setting off a, a firecracker of, of upsetness . Yeah. It’s more around how can we shift it? We transform the, the, that Joe: energy. Well, not, I mean, I don’t do it or we, it just, oh yeah. I’m just there when it happens. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That’s how I, I just, and, if I’ve created the environment, it will just happen naturally, you know? Yeah. Just like it does, but, and if I haven’t, that one’s safe for later or it will, it will be displaced or, but hopefully what I don’t want it is for it to be pushed down or like repressed. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. And I think that’s, so when we repress those emotions, that’s where difficulties start to come. Right. Whether it be like relationship [00:57:00] difficulties or Yeah. Or disorders. yeah. The, I was wondering is are, are both your kids the same gender? No. Oh, okay. My daughter’s. Have you found, it, it differences in terms of what is vocalized are acceptable emotions for children? Joe: not in them so far, A bit too young for me to, about ge more generally with other children. Yeah. There’s definitely,don’t be sad, is more, a bit more for boys than for, you know, these kind of things. And there’s, there are little, little things like that. And my wife will say to me, you know, she’ll notice that in me when I’m dealing with my son and my daughter, that I have a little bit, I have more, space for her emotions than, than maybe his mm-hmm. I can’t see it. Yeah. But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Yeah. But these things can be very, you know, they’re, they are unconscious, so it’s just some something to. It stays with me to look out, but there’ll, there’ll [00:58:00] always be things we, we won’t be able to see in ourselves. Gissele: Yeah. I think this is where it’s helpful, like to have a loved one. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a partner, like you mentioned. Right. Yeah. Mirror back to us, those, those areas of growth for us. Right. Because like you said, we, we might not notice. Yeah. I remember my son when he was really, really little. he was such a loving and, and affectionate person. Just always loving and affectionate, always wanting to hug people. And in my culture in Peru, like we hug and kiss people all the time. . Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, you know, but it was really, it was interesting to see the dynamics as he got older, how that was regarded by other people in terms of what boys should be doing and in terms like more acceptable in girls, not as acceptable for kids, for boys to show that kind of level of, you know, yeah. Desire for hugs and love and, and that affection. And so it was interesting for me to see. because I, I guess I hadn’t expected it. Right? And so it was like, [00:59:00] oh, now the conversations have to be different. It have to be about like people’s, which is, you know, it’s fair, like people’s spaces and respect of like the boundaries and our culture versus other people’s cultures. but it was interesting how, as the kids, my kids grow up, the, the conversations for boys and girls around what are the acceptable emotions, anger is acceptable for men, anger not so acceptable for women. Yeah. Sadness, not so acceptable for men, women okay. To be sad. So it’s, it’s weird how we limit that, that the toolbox. But the kids need all of those tools Yeah. To be able to demonstrate. And so it’s interesting how we’ve, we’ve created a society that does that, right? Joe: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, and yeah, we need all of them. And it’s weird and it is different. We, we have a similar thing in our, cuz my wife’s from Columbia. Gissele: Oh, nice. Joe: you know exactly what you were saying and we’re, I’m, you know, English we’re very Gissele: No touch, Joe: you know. Yeah. And that’s so it’s we’ll [01:00:00] find that, I’m sure we’ll find that as, as, as they get older as well. Cuz they’re being raised in England. Gissele: Yeah. Joe: we’re coming to the end of the podcast. I just want to give you a moment to tell people where they can find you, where they can come work with you. So tell us about your websites. Anything that you got working on, please share it. Gissele: Yeah, Joe: so my website is, www.joeatkinson.co.uk.  I’m a therapist. obviously work with a lot of parents, but not necessarily, you don’t have to be a parent to work with me. I offer some mentoring for children as well, but, I, I work more with adults, now than I, than I do with children. And, we’ve just started,podcast ourselves called The Caring Instinct. So come and check that out. the idea is that, we’ll, once it builds up, we’ll, we’ll set up a, a parent support group where, which we’ll meet once a month, and, and,yeah, the idea is for to, for parents to reconnect, to themselves and, you know, step away from experts and specialists, and we want to kind of create that [01:01:00] environment there to, to rediscover parenting in that way. Oh, beautiful. And, yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s based on, the work with Gordon Neufeld at the Neufeld Institute. Please check him out and Yeah, Gissele: no, it’s so great. Joe: I’ll check out. Gissele: Thank you so, so much, Joe, for coming to talk to us. Joe: Thank you Gissele: about your experiences and your knowledge and your wisdom. and, please check us out again on another episode of The Loving and Compassion Podcast with Gissele .

  Transcript: [00:00:00] hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Gissele: We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to our podcast for more amazing content. On today’s podcast, we’ll be discussing how someone who was so devoted to spreading hate can turn their lives around to focus on spreading love and compassion instead. Our guest is an international speaker, Changemaker, and the author of the book, the Cure for Hate. He’s also a father of two and co-founder of the Not-for-Profit Organization, life After Hate. He has made it his mission to help people leave hate groups and cultivate greater compassion. He’s an attorney turning in his previous life. He played a pivotal role in white supremacy and Canada, Welcome to the show, Tony Mcaleer. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. I wanna begin by saying just how much I loved your [00:01:00] book. It resonated so much with me and I, I found myself kind of giggling at the fact that I thought to myself, here I am an immigrant Latina, right, immigrant to Canada, who is resonating so much with a message from a white male who was, you know, background is from the uk. and I chuckled at the fact that I thought, you know, your former, you would’ve been kind of amazed by that, right? Maybe Tony: ab Absolutely. A absolutely, and it, it’s just sort of a testament to, you know, on the, on the surface, it’s, it’s something that’s my past is something that’s so horrific and out there yet be behind. That is a very human story. And you know, I wrote it with. through the lens of probably a thousand hours of one-on-one and group counseling where I really, did a deep journey inwards to understand why I ended up like that, why I chose to do [00:02:00] the things that I chose to do and what I got from them. And, you know, when, when I speak to people that are leaving movements behind at, at Life After Hate, which I left in, in 2019, but they’re, remain a great organization. there, there’s very human stories behind the sort of tabloid cover, labels that we, that we put on people. And I think that holds true for people mired in, addiction or, yeah, other areas of life where they’re, where they’re struggling and it’s easy to. just read the tabloid cover that’s presented to us in past judgment, but when we get to know the stories behind it, they’re very human stories and they’re, and they’re themes that connect, connect all of us. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. That’s, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That’s so true and so wise. I was wondering if, I know in your journey your childhood played a key part in you eventually kind of joining the white supremacy movement. Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood [00:03:00] and kind of how it led you to that journey? Tony: Sure. I grew up in a very affluent, middle class neighborhood in Vancouver and went to, all boys private school. my father was a doctor. We were immigrants from England. I came when I was two in 1969. And I went without any sort of material wants and needs. My father was a great provider, and that was his love language, you know? Mm-hmm. , yeah. Be, be a provider, as a little boy who didn’t get to see him very often because he was a workaholic. the thing I crave most is time and attention was in very short, short supply. And, when I was 10, I walked in on him with another woman. And this man that I so idolized and, and worshiped, you know, I think there’s probably many of your listeners can relate to the time when the God fell off the pedestal, you know, in the, in their own childhoods and that really. Shattered my trust, not just in his authority, but in all the authority figures in my life. I didn’t trust them anymore. And I [00:04:00] was angry and was a whole flood of emotions. And I went from being an A and and a B student to a C and a D student. And by the next year, the teachers at the school, all boys Catholic school, tried all kinds of carrots to motivate and inspire me. None of them worked. so they resorted to the stick. And with my parents’ encouragement, they, gave me a deal. And that deal was if I didn’t get an A or a B in ma major tests and assignments, I was to be hit on the rear end with a yard stick. And you know, I think even to this day, as, as I think back to those times in the office over and over and over again, where I was getting hit on the rear end with the, with the stick, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more powerless than I did in, in, in that office. Tony: And. I went from listening to Queen and Elton John to The Clash and the Sex Pistols, and got into the punk scene because I, that’s where my, my anger resonated and found a, found a [00:05:00] home with other angry, angry kids and people who didn’t feel that, that they belonged. And I just wanna be clear here. I don’t blame anything on my childhood. Mm-hmm. , share with you these things from my childhood. So you understand the lens through which I made these, these choices. And what I got from initially, joining the, with the, with the skinheads and then later becoming a leader and, and into more serious organized white supremacist groups is I got power when I felt powerless. I got attention when I felt invisible, and I got acceptance in community when I felt unlovable. And it’s, it’s these sort of emotional drivers, these vulnerabilities that are created. Through, adverse events in our childhood or traumas or, or whatever that create the vulnerabilities that make the ideology seem so seductive and creates the vulnerabilities that people like me, when I was a leader and recruiter, became [00:06:00] quite adept at exploiting The, the, the common misbelief is it’s all about the ideology. And if we could just stop or change the ideas in the person’s head, or stop them from reading this or make them read that, you know, we can change everything. But while the ideology plays a significant role, these deeper, these deeper psychological drivers play a far, far greater role. And, and these things become about identity. Mm-hmm. and they become about, they, they’re emo, they’re deeply emotional. connections. It’s one thing to convince a person not what they believe is wrong. It’s a whole other kettle of fish, to convince a person that who they are is wrong. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what you said was so spot on. The first part I wanna address is, which I really, really, really resonated with me because I remember the day when I felt my parents, like when I saw them fall off the pedestal and I thought, oh, these are just humans, . And I had much the [00:07:00] same experience in that I stopped trusting the adults in my life. I thought, okay, I can’t trust you, so therefore I’m gonna be making decisions for myself. And so I think I felt that part of the book. and so I thought that was so pivotal. The other part that I really thought was really important is that you make clear in your book, It’s not like you sought to be in a world of hate you, you didn’t seek to be in a, in a world of hate. You made a series of choices, which led to beliefs and thoughts, which then encrusted into an identity. And so what you mentioned about you can’t just tell people that their ideas are wrongs because it becomes so enmeshed in who they are. what did you find or, or what helped you kind of shift away from that identity of, of aligning to the beliefs of, of white supremacy to one where you could actually start to soften it? Tony: It started with the birth of the birth of my children. And there there’s a, a couple aspects, to this, you know, the birth of [00:08:00] my daughter when I’m standing there in the delivery room and this, I get handed this little baby girl and mm-hmm. , you know, she’s got scrunchy face and she’s like that and opens her eyes for the first time. And, and, And my face is the first picture her brain’s gonna take. And, and I connected to another human being for the first time since I couldn’t remember when. Because you know, as we go through childhood, you know, if I think back who little Tony was, you know, at the age of three or four, I was this bright, curious, little mischievous, stubborn, sensitive, open to the world, little guy. And as we go along, we learn it’s not safe necessarily to be sensitive or open to the world or, or curious. And we put on armor and we put on masks and we shut ourselves down in order to feel safe. Mm-hmm. . And I was so cut off from my heart, you know, and, and living purely in ego. and, and, you know, the ego should never be driving the bus , right? [00:09:00] True. It’s okay. Chirping from the backseat. Yeah. And giving suggestions of where to go. The heart should always be driving the bus. but when the ego’s driving the bus and it’s not tethered to the heart, it can take us through some very strange and awful, awful places, as it did with me, but with my, with my children, I, you know, I connected, you know, for the first time since I couldn’t remember when I, I began to accept. I was making decisions with someone else other than me as the primary, factor. And you know, the beautiful thing about children’s love is it’s, it’s infectious. Mm-hmm. and it’s safe to love a child, you know? And at the age of two and three and one, they’re not capable of shaming, they’re not capable of ridicule, they’re not capable of rejection that that comes in the teen , teen years But, but in, in, in this moment, it became safe for me to allow the thawing to begin and to allow myself to feel and, [00:10:00] and to begin the slow movement from my head, into my heart. And my son who was born. 15 months later, I, you know, between the two of them, I got to parent them the way that I was wanting to be parented. I had all the, the time and attention that I had craved as a child. I offered, offered them. I probably wasn’t as good a provider as my, as my father, but, but they turned out pretty good anyways. But mm-hmm. , it was very cathartic to be able to, heal those wounds, you know, and, and repair, repairing them through. they’re doing that with my, with my children. And so they taught me my very, although I didn’t quite know it or understand it at the time, they taught me my very first lesson in, in compassion. They gave me my first taste of compassion and, and mm-hmm. , you know, what’s, what’s incredible is they, they couldn’t speak the word compassion. Tony: They had no idea what it meant. Mm-hmm. they didn’t say, oh my God, that’s too hard. I can’t be compassionate with that person. And there was none of that . Yeah, none of [00:11:00] that limitation. in, in their minds and they just, you know, they, they loved me. And, and when we’re compassionate with someone, we hold a mirror up and allow them to see their reflection. The humanity reflected back at them when they can’t see it themselves, when they, when they look in the mirror. And, and that’s what my children did for me. They, they saw, could see in their eyes and in their faces and their expressions. They saw this magnificent human being. And I didn’t see that when I looked in the mirror. You know, that’s, that’s the, the, the, the problem with all these childhood, and events, and traumatic events, and it doesn’t have to be sort of a childhood event. It, it can be a catastrophic event around you. I mean, it’s not, it’s not necessarily that we have to, you know, suffer abuse or anything like that, but, That leaves us with, with the feeling that we’re not good enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not pretty enough, we’re less than, we’re unlovable, we’re weak, we’re powerless. And we go out into the world living our lives in reaction to that. And, and we put on mask to pretend ourselves to be powerful. And we, [00:12:00] we become, overachiever or perfectionists in order to hide what we believe, the false belief of what all our flaws are. Mm-hmm. . And, and that leads us to a, an alienation of the self to a dehumanization. And I truly believe the level to which we dehumanize other human beings is a mirror reflection of our own internal disconnection and dehumanization and what my children did with me through that compassion. And just began the process of rehumanization. You know, if, if toxic shame is the root of a whole spectrum of antisocial outcomes for a person, whether they project it onto others, through what various forms of violence mm-hmm. or whether they do it to themselves through various forms of self-harm. that compassion is the rehumanizing part of that, that dehumanization process. And, and that, that really started it for me. And another piece was when they were two and four, I became a full-time single father. And in the nineties, you know, it’s, it’s [00:13:00] not fair that it was that way, but single dads were like unicorns. Yeah. And I got, I was able to transition. That became my identity, you know, you know, so-and-so’s a single dad. And, and I, I got, acceptance and approval and community with my family, and I got all of the things that I had been craving, that I saw it in the, in, in the white supremacist movement through the illusion of those things actually got for real. and, and that sort of became my identity. So it was. You know, the challenge with helping people leave these movements behind is when you go into these movements, you excommunicate yourself from friends founding in society, and you go, that’s okay. I, I, I’m getting, I’m gonna get my needs met over here. I wasn’t getting it there. Tony: And then when we realize that it’s all an illusion and it’s all false promise, and we become disillusioned when we go to leave, that those movements behind our old friends founding society aren’t waiting for us with open arms because we’ve violated the [00:14:00] trust and that that trust has to be rebuilt. And, and there’s this part in the middle that they call void where you have no identity, you have no social circle. You know, you’ve, if you’ve left that behind and you haven’t established a new one, you’re in this place where it’s, and, and without that I identity, it’s a very lonely place to be in. It’s often where people. go back because the perception and the pain of the loneliness seem to, the mind seems greater than the pain of the dysfunction when we go back to that toxic, toxic place and life after hate. We created, a community in that, in that void to help people, transition to the other side and reclaim their humanity and, and live, like compassionate lives in the, in, in the community. Hmm. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you. You said so many key things. I think the first thing that I wanna comment on is the, children are such a gift, right? Like, I, I do believe that our, at our very core, we are [00:15:00] loving and compassionate, but then we learn all of these things and create all of these barriers that, that kind of prevent us from being loving to ourselves and other people. . And so, you know, I was, when I was reading your book, it really struck me that, you know, you had such, such a sense of belonging that you said that, you know, somebody had asked you like, when did you lose your humanity? And you said, I didn’t, I traded it for acceptance and approval. I was wondering, well, there was nothing left. Yeah. Until it was nothing left. I was wondering if you could comment on, the way that extremist movements in, in, in, you know, like extremism uses the language of love and compassion and belonging to attract people to that, to that kind of ideology. Tony: Well, they, I mean, these are, these are primal human needs. Mm-hmm. , you know, as, as human beings, we, we need to belong. We’re social, we’re social animals. And you know, they, they use language, [00:16:00] they use the language of grievance. Mm. To, to drive a wedge between them and society. And then they exploit these feelings of the need to belong and, and they create a belonging around grievance. And that’s what makes these movements so, so toxic. Mm. And, and so dangerous. you know, because the, it you be then get trapped in the identity of grievance. And, and one of the things I’ve learned through all of the counseling that, not only I went through, but that I observed and others in, in group and stuff like that, was that the identity of victim is the most disempowering state a human being can be. And it’s not to say people aren’t victimized and, and that people, shouldn’t recognize that they’ve been victimized. But when we say I am a victim and the world is happening to me and I have no power, when we take on the identity of victim, it, it’s very disempowering and. and it’s easily manipulated. [00:17:00] Mm-hmm. . And, and in this world there’s, you know, different, different, you know, it’s often opposing narratives of, of victim grievance that, that is manipulated and, and leads people to a place where, you know, if the, if the solution doesn’t include compassion, I it, it, it, it’s a false solution. It, it can’t bear anything. But, but further, further misery. Gissele: Yeah. And in a world of victimhood, there has to be, because we live in a world of duality, there has to be a perpetrator, right? Yep. And so we con continue to give energy and attention to that idea of victim perpetrator, victim perpetrator, and it continues that dichotomy. Whereas compassion really has no other, there’s no duality in it. It’s like the feeling is more, less dualistic I would say, or pitting one against the other. What would you say your definition of compassion is? I’m curious. compassion is, for me is, is, you know, the desire [00:18:00] to alleviate or taking action, to alleviate the suffering, suffering of another, so, or others as a, as a group. that’s why I say, you know, things that are so much rooted in, in, victim identity, aren’t really about alleviating that suffering. It’s about keeping the suffering in place. And, and that’s why without that compassion component, it, it’s, it’s problematic. And, and you know, when I talk in the book about radical compassion , And in that, you know, there’s, there’s the need to, or the, the drive to alleviate the suffering of, of o of others. Tony: And a radical compassion. I, there’s three components I talk about. One is that your practice of compassion must take you outside your comfort zone. Mm-hmm. , you know, and this age of extreme polarization. we are not going to solve this by tiptoeing around it. We’re not gonna solve this from within our comfort zones. Mm-hmm. . and, and that requires courage. And, and I’ll, I, [00:19:00] we can get into the three Cs a little bit. The second piece is, it’s not just enough to alleviate the suffering of individuals or a group, but we must also take a social activist role and look at the environment which gives rise to or supports the suffering and, and work to alleviate that. And the third, and it’s the most important lesson that I ever learned about compassion. I think it’s the most. Missed component of compassion is, is developing compassion for self and that that journey inwards to understand and have compassion for self. Cuz we can’t have compassion for others until we develop it within ourselves. And I think that’s one of the, the, the bravest, most courageous journeys a human being can do is, is to turn inwards and take a look at, at the whole of us that’s inside the good and the bad. And, and learn to love and, and accept it. And, I had a great, powerful coach and mentor and guide to help me [00:20:00] through that process. And the more I understood myself, the more I understood. . And as I started to understand others more and see, see them through that lens, it gave me glimpses back in, into myself. It was like this positive feedback loop. Mm-hmm. . and again, I say the level to which we dehumanize other, other human beings as a mirror reflection of our own internal disu dis dehumanization and disconnection. That’s the, the negative feedback. The, the polarity of that is, is the opposite. The, you know, we humanize people as we humanize ourselves and as we humanize ourselves, we humanize, we humanize people and yeah. That’s why the, the, the answer has to be, compassion, you know, because I, as I talked earlier about toxic shame and, and that internal disconnection, compassion is the antidote to shame. Mm-hmm. . And when we can, we can help people get to that, that place. It’s, and it’s, [00:21:00] it’s exponential, you know, if we want to give compassion to others, we have to mine it from within ourselves. Mm-hmm. . And the more we mine it from within ourselves, the more we exponentially expand our capacity to give compassion to others. And, I think that’s a really, really important point because I think if we, if we’re compassionate for everybody else, but not ourselves, that’s not about compassion, that’s about ego. It’s about being seen to be compassionate. Mm-hmm. . if we’re compassionate to ourselves and nobody else, that’s not compassion either. That’s narcissism. Hmm. And we have to hold, we have to hold both, at the, at the same time, in a healthy way. And, and I think at that point, it, it, it becomes a truly powerful, powerful force. not just in our own lives, but in the lives of other people. Gissele: Yeah. I, I completely agree and I loved how you said in the book that it was almost a social responsibility for you to be compassionate and loving towards yourself because you loving yourself, translated to you being loving for other [00:22:00] people. for us it’s akin to, you know, you fill up your bucket and then you give to people from your overflow, not from your reserves. Right? Instead of trying to, manipulate people or manipulate their energy or need them to give you something, you can, you flow from within. Exactly. And so I thought that was really, really important. Gissele: And it also showed the interdependence in all things, right? So what I do for myself, I do for others, and what I do for others, I do for myself. Tony: in this journey, the, I absolutely discovered that we are all, yeah, all connected and, and in intertwined. And when I was in that world of white supremacy, I didn’t see any connection anywhere. We were individuals, we were groups of individuals trying to. Battle for scarce resources from other groups of individuals. And everything was, you know, the ego sees the world through separation, right? Mm-hmm. And heart, see, art sees things through, you know, connection. And I often say to people, I said, well, you know, listen to someone who’s reading from a religious scripture if they’re talking [00:23:00] about us versus them and pagans and infidels. Mm-hmm. and the heathens and, and, yeah. And separation. You know, they’re talking from their, their head, their ego. Mm-hmm. . But if it’s about coming together and community and love and compassion, forgiveness mm-hmm. , you know, their, you know, they’re talking about the same book from, from their heart. You can, yeah. You can listen to people to hear whether they’re head centered or, or heart-centered. , Gissele: you, actually in the book you talk about doing a lot of different things that you weren’t proud of. can you tell our audience how d how challenging was it for you to be compassionate towards yourself considering all the things that, you know, you talked about toxic shame, y you know, how hard it was it for you to deal with that toxic shame through compassion? Tony: It was really difficult because I was involved in lots of street violence, you know, in the book. you know, there’s a, a gay bashing I write about, you know, that, you know, I remember with my, you know, with my [00:24:00] mentor at the time I was, it was doing a program on, workshop on public, speaking of all things And he said, and we all had these ideas in our heads of what we were gonna talk about. And, and, he said, I want you to think of the most shameful thing you’ve ever done. And then I thought, , there you go. Then go up on stage and tell the story. Wow. And you know, that was the story where we had chased the gay man into a construction site and he, he hid under a, like a crawlspace. And, you know, we were 17 at the time, and like kids at the lake, we threw stones into the darkness. And, you know, every third or fourth stone elicited a, a yell of pain and terror from, from this young man. And when, I remember when I told it on front of this class of 30 people and I couldn’t feel it, I, I was disconnected from it. I couldn’t, I told it sort of as a third party mm-hmm. narrative. And he said, no, do it again. You’re not feeling it. [00:25:00] Do it again. And then it was okay. Now I want you to tell the story from his perspective. Well, you didn’t feel it. Do it again. And I think for two hours, you know, I told this story that took six or seven minutes to actually tell mm-hmm. over and over and over again until I could connect to it, and feel it, and, and feel the shame in my role in it, and be able to express, that shame and really that compassion and, and forgiveness for, for myself was one of the hardest things I had to overcome. Because I know all the things that I, that I didn’t said. You know, I think I probably did more damage with my words than I did with my fists, and, and boots. But it, it was hard. And I remember reading. The, the Dalai Lama book on compassion as I was trying to deepen my [00:26:00] understanding. And he said, you know, the more I have compassion and forgiveness for myself, the more I diminish my capacity to do harm in the world. Yeah. And that really, clicked for me, and I realize I’m approaching this all wrong. Right. I’m, I’m not, I shouldn’t be having compassion and forgiveness for myself because I deserve it. I was sort of, sort of getting over my, it’s not about me. Mm-hmm. . Right. and I was hung up on my, whether or not I deserved it or not. I deserve to have compassion and forgiveness for myself because the world and the rest of society deserves it. Mm-hmm. , you know, and if I, if I can’t have compassion forgiveness for myself, Then I’m still gonna be not a nice person. I’m still gonna be a jerk. I’m still gonna be, oozing harm into the world through, words or behaviors or anger or losing tempers or, or, or whatever. Tony: And it was, once I flipped it around that it’s, it’s not about me. Mm-hmm. the world deserves it, [00:27:00] then I was able to get to that, that, that place. It’s the me part. Still put up a bit of a struggle, but I was able to, to get there. But it’s that, that paradigm shift was, was key for me. Mm. Gissele: And you mentioned as well that what helped you in your journey was also getting forgiveness and compassion from others, those people that you had harmed. can you talk a little bit about that? Tony: Sure. No, that’s, that’s,I’d been doing these. personal development workshop. So I’d left, I got in the movement about 82, 83, left in 98. Mm-hmm. was a single father, and still lived, emotionally dysfunctional, life and drank too much and, and stuff like that. And I started new career as a financial advisor in 2004. In 2005, I was doing,these workshops, put on by this, this guy named Dov Barron, who, he was from England. I was from, England, the, you know, I was from Liverpool, [00:28:00] he was from Manchester, and we, he’s about 10 years older and bonded over Monty Python and quirky British pop songs in the eighties and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. and I really connected with him and, and did all of his courses about getting out, stepping out of your own way and getting rid of limiting beliefs and dealing with the ego and such. And, and the friend that had introduced us, eight months later, hands me a gift certificate for my birthday and I got the gift certificate and I open it up and it’s like, ah, great. It’s a gift certificate for one-on-one counseling with Dov like , who, Gissele: that’s exactly what I wanted. Thanks . Tony: Yeah. Who doesn’t want therapy for their birthday? So I go in and, and, and the see Dov and, and I’m. Telling ’em about why I’m angry at my dad and why I’m angry at my mom and the, the Catholic school I went to and you know, all sort of, all the, the blamey bits you do at, in your first, counseling session. And, and then I thought, do I tell him the rest? Do I tell ’em about being a skinhead and neo-Nazi and Aryan nations and stuff? And I like, Hmm, I, [00:29:00] I’m not sure cuz the reason I was terrified to do that is it when people have found out about my past, it usually meant the end of the relationship, if not an entire social circle. And this was a relationship I valued and I’m humming and hawing and I’m staring at the carpet as if it’s gonna give me some sort of, cryptic clue and. He’s like, mate, just, you know, we only have an hour here. Just let it out. It’s okay. It’s safe. And I’m looking around the room like anything, but at his eyes, And he goes, look mate, you look like you’re trying to swallow three golf balls. Just let it out. And, and in a sort of great leap of faith, I decided to let loose and I told him about skinhead and Aryan nations and Holocaust denial. And the more I tell him, the more he starts smiling. Mm-hmm. . And the more he starts smiling, the more annoyed I’m getting. Here I am burying my soul in my first therapy session. And, and here the guy’s like laughing at me and I said like, what’s so funny? He leans in with a big grin on his face and he goes, you know, I was born Jewish. Right. You know, I’m like, [00:30:00] oh, of course. The irony, right? And I, and think back. Watching with shame. And here’s this man who wants to heal me, wants to see the best for my family, and, and a man who loves me. And here I am knowing that I’d once advocated for the annihilation of him in his people. And he said, that’s what you did. That’s not who you are. I see you. I see little Tony. And with that, I began sobbing. And, and you know, for the first time I felt that somebody saw me. And, and, and if, if this man could learn to love me, surely I must be able to learn to love myself. And that began a magnificent journey. into that self-discovery, that self-inquiry, the healing going, running towards the pain and the [00:31:00] wounds that I’d been running away from my entire life, and that had had cast a shadow over my entire life and, and was able to sort of, with his guidance weigh weighed into the muck and, and start to clear it out. Gissele: Yeah. It’s amazing how unconditional love can be so powerful. just the, the witnessing of someone and being there without judgment, without the need for them to be different. Just seeing the humanity in someone else is so powerful.   Tony: to receive it from someone who we don’t feel we deserve it from. Yeah. You know, it’s like, it, it’s sort of, you know, doubly powerful. And I, I’ll say this with, with the, with the caveat that I’m not saying for a minute, it’s. The responsibility of marginalized communities are people of color to take this on. I’m not saying this should be your first step in your journey of, in practice, of, of compassion, but I’ve certainly met enough people who was the next step for them, as, as people of color in marginalized [00:32:00] communities that in, in order to. step out of their comfort zone and, and, and take their practice of compassion to another, another level. It was something that they chose to do and it’s incredible gift should you choose to give it, but I’m in no way suggesting it’s an obligation. Yeah. Gissele: and thank you for mentioning that because I think that’s a really key point. I love what, Valarie Kaur says about it, which is, you know, obviously, you know, put your own oxygen mask on first. Love yourself first. And if you can’t do that for other people, like if, if I as a marginalized person, I’m not the point where I can say to you, Tony, I either forgive you or love you or see you. I can allow other people to get curious about you. I can allow other people to love you. I can allow other people to get to, to extend compassion to you. I don’t have to get stuck in that cycle of hate, but when I think about how we, the systems we’ve created and our systems reflect our level of consciousness, our systems are about separation, alienation, punishment. And in the [00:33:00] book you talk about how nobody goes out to become Hitler, right? Like, nobody goes out, Hey, I’m gonna be Hitler. I’m gonna be this hateful person. and so it’s interesting to me what, what that I had read in your book, something that I had reflected on myself. And so I found it like, oh, wow, somebody else believes this, that people blame Hitler. But there was a whole bunch of people that followed him, and the treaty of Versailles was actually very harsh on Germany. And so it, it really suppressed people. And this is not a justification, but out of that suppression, people desired. Something else people desire to be, to be given to, to. And so it sets up the environment where people like Hitler could come and, and say, I’m going to, like you said, with the, with the movement, I, I can give you, you know, we, we gotta get ours. You know, we gotta stop being oppressed. And so these systems aren’t built, that [00:34:00] we’ve created, aren’t built on radical compassion aren’t built on, on unity. They’re built on separation. why do you think that is? Like, why do you think that we are kind of have created these systems, but I mean, we tend to blame individuals, but don’t see kind of the larger context? Tony: No, and, and, and, you know, there’s, there’s, you know, politicians of the current age mm-hmm. that, people point to and, and, you know, say it’s their fault, but really their symptom. Yeah. You know, they’re a symptom of, of something else. And I think under stress, we regress. Right? And, and I, I’ve, I’ve said to people, you know, multiculturalism and intolerance works until you have to compete with your neighbor for a crust of bread in the street. And then all bets, all bets are off. We devolve into tribalism. And, and below the tribe is the family or the, you know, the, the community and, and ultimately down to the, down to the [00:35:00] individual. And I think, you know, in a, in a more global perspective, there’s the ebb and flow, the rhythm of polarity back and forth where we go from one mm-hmm. to the other. And, and I, I’m, I mean, I’m hopeful mm-hmm. , right? As much as, you know, there’s chaos happening in the world, I think, I think the old order is dying. Mm-hmm. agreed. You know where winter is? Here? . Yeah. . and agreed. And I’m, I’m looking forward to getting, you know, it’s like being in the middle of January, you know, we got another month or two of cold weather and, and then it’s spring and, and, and, and green, green shoots. But it, winter is never fun. . Yeah. Except Gissele: honestly, in, in, in, in the book you talked about how kind of that, that pendulum that happens right between like the, the extremism and how censorship doesn’t really work because it’s silencing. [00:36:00] So what, whereas compassion allows us to lean in censorship prevents us from, from really listening to each other. How do you think censorship really feeds the kind of movements, like the, you know, like white supremacy? Tony: Well, if you, if you’ve got. these movements that are, you know, exploiting a grievance narrative mm-hmm. further alienating and further disenfranchising those people, makes those groups more, more attractive. And, and, and suppression simply, simply doesn’t, doesn’t work. It makes things more extreme. If I can’t speak through words then maybe I’ll have to speak through violence. It, I, you know, the, the steam has to escape somehow. Yeah. . Yeah. And I think it’s naive to think that, that, suppression of speech, and I just wanna be clear here, there’s a difference between. You know, speech that is promoting violence, which is promoting illegal acts, [00:37:00] which is already illegal. Mm-hmm. and harassment. Cause I often see the two, conflated that we need to limit ideas over here because people over here are being threatened and harassed. I, I think that we need to separate those two and I don’t think censorship works. And I think I agree. We, we go down a slippery slope and I, and I’m actually shocked at how quick it’s moved from, hateful speech. to now this nebulous disformation misinformation and the number of topics that you can get, you know, banned on social media for, for speaking about is rapidly expanding. Yeah. And I think that’s a, that’s a very dangerous and a totalitarian precedent. Gissele: Mm-hmm. agreed. I think, you know what, we resist persists, right? And the more we resist it, it doesn’t go away, it just goes covert. Right? And so what we’re missing is an opportunity to really lean in and, and have conversations with [00:38:00] one another about why. People Exactly. Why, why people believe what they believe. And so it really is a missed opportunity. to get better at listening and, and listening means not, not just waiting for my turn to speak . That’s right. Not so, not not thinking about my counter-argument so that I can prove that you are right or wrong. So it’s listening with, like, compassionate listening. Tony: We listen to people to, to understand, you know, I think the society conflates listening with validation. Yeah. I can listen to someone and understand someone. I don’t have to agree with them. You know, their, their grievance is real to them. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s real, it’s real to me. And I think that understanding is, is the first step. It’s the first foundation in healing. If we want to heal and repair the polarization in society, we have to be prepared to listen to people we don’t agree with and try and understand, where it is that they’re, that they’re coming from. Keeping more judgment or calling them [00:39:00] names is not gonna change, is not gonna change anything. So there’s. I talk a lot about, these days, about the three Cs. Mm-hmm. , and that that’s, you know, I think as, as human beings in the society, we have to practice more of the three Cs. Three Cs are, compassion. First of all, courage. You know, I spoke about that. You know, we, we can’t do this from inside our, our comfort zone and curiosity. We have to be curious about why we have to be curious about people and, and move beyond the, the, the, the tabloid headline label that we, the one dimensional labels that we, that we throw on people and understand the, the, the story. If we want to change them, we don’t do it by telling them something different. We do it by listening. Gissele: Yeah. And we, you know, it’s so interesting that we make these caricatures of people. Everybody is one-dimensional, except ourselves. Of course. We’re , we are more than that. I wanted to, talk a little bit about, vulnerability [00:40:00] in men in particular and about true intimacy. how might a fear of being vulnerable lead to a life of hate? Tony: That’s a, that’s a great question, and I’m a huge fan of, Brene Brown. Mm-hmm. And, and, and really when we, talk about, you know, practices that we’ve learned, at, at life after hate and working with people coming from these spaces, it’s, you know, when we listen to someone, Air their grievance. and we give them a safe space to do so. We give them the safe space in which to be vulnerable. that’s very transformative in and of it of itself. And once they realize it’s a safe space, that they, they start to reveal themselves mm-hmm. . And then we can, we can work with that. but in the absence of that safe space, everything is, is nailed down and, and, and, and shut. And in that absence of safe [00:41:00] space, there, there is no place for the heart. And then we find ourselves back in that space of the head. The ego driving the bus and the ego is, without the heart as a guidance system easily, so easily gets itself, gets itself lost. And, and so many of these movements are predominantly male. Yeah. And, and, and there’s so much confusion about what healthy masculinity, looks like. You know,  nobody really defines healthy masculinity. There’s, there’s only toxic masculinity, and nobody, nobody provides an opportunity to understand what, you know, what, what’s behind the divine masculine? What are the principles? What are the features of the divine masculine? How can we, how can young men embody the divine masculine? How can the divine masculine embrace the divine feminine within, within a person? There’s, there’s a whole world that needs to be explored and understood and brought into being that gets completely [00:42:00] ignored when all we look at is everything through the lens of toxic masculinity. Even some aspects of healthy masculinity are labeled toxic masculinity, because they’re not divine feminine. You know, there’s mm-hmm. , it’s a, there’s a, a, a distortion, and I think. that’s an important thing, which needs to be unlocked. if we’re going to usher young men into embracing a healthy identity in masculinity, and at the same time, embrace that divine feminine, so that the, the two are in balance and, you know, we should be able to go back and back and forth with them and, and, that’s what I’ve learned in Tantra anyways. Gissele: Yeah, . Yeah. And since you mentioned the divine feminine and masculine, obviously there’s a spiritual component. has spirituality been a key in your Tony: healing? Absolutely. I, I don’t think that you can see the world through the lens of connection. I mean without it, it being spiritual and, and [00:43:00] really spirituality and connection or interchangeable words. For me, I, I was coaching, a women’s adult, women’s soccer team. Mm-hmm. , and we talked about the four quadrants of we wanted to have, mental health, physical health, emotional health and connection. What we really wanted to say was spirituality. Yeah. But that, that, you know, there’s so many trip wires and triggers involved with that word. So we replaced it with the word connection and everybody was fine with it. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. It’s funny how people get triggered because they think religion, whereas spirituality is not Tony: religion. No. And in fact, often religion is anti spiritual. Like that it’s, it’s, it’s the opposite. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. but that, that spiritual component and, and understanding that we’re all connected, you know, that those are all deep, deep spiritual, beliefs. And I think my. the, at the beginning of my journey, one of the most profound things I [00:44:00] did, and I didn’t really understand what I was getting myself into , but my introduction to meditation was a 10 day Vipassana. Yeah. And that was a really profound experience that really, you know, opened the door. And, I’ve been a, a spiritual seeker and, and a seeker of crazy wisdom traditions and, and, and such ever, ever since to develop,perspective of the nature of who I am and, the nature of the universe and the nature of creation and, and where we all fit in it, and how we can realize our, our highest truest self. Yeah. Yep. Gissele: Yeah, spirituality has definitely been, something that has really helped me heal in my journey. it’s interesting from this, from my perspective in the spiritual perspective, the soul cannot be broken. So, so it really kind of has helped me shift from that belief [00:45:00] in good and bad, right or wrong. because if I cannot be broken, other people cannot be broken either. And so it helps me move away from that victim perspective and to see myself as a victim and therefore to see you as an oppressor. the other thing that it helps me do is it, it also helps me see the divinity in you. So if I’m part of the, of this universal source universe, juice , then so are you. Gissele: But we just forget. And so there’s only behavior that is in alignment or out of alignment. . And so I go back to as children, our, our very essence is love and compassion. We just wanna be loved and to love. And so, but we create all of these barriers. And so going back to our true essence is really the return to that love and compassion. and so I find that that helps me forget, like, it has helped me forgive, people that I, I felt needed to forgive and myself when I was really hurtful. Tony: Yeah. No, that’s, that’s a, that’s a great point. And you know, I’ve had people say to me, [00:46:00] I’m not buying it. You know, people never change, you know, I’m saying, you know, I agree with you. And they go, what? Yeah, yeah. I said, you’re right. People, people never change. I said, you. The who I am is Little Tony, who I was as a neo-Nazi, couldn’t have been more, diametrically opposed, the opposite the, the, the pure polarity of, of my core essence. It wasn’t who I was, you know, and, little Tony was always that core essence was always there. And, and, and you’re right, it never changed. Mm-hmm. And that often confuses . Yeah. Gissele: So that’s why from the perspective, be becoming more loving and compassionate is about unlearning. It’s about unlearning all of those beliefs, those things that, those identities that have solidified based on our continuous habits. And that’s what I loved about your book. You’re like, I made choices and every choice that I made solidified a thought and believe in. And then before I knew it, I had this identity, which was so enmeshed within white [00:47:00] supremacy. And so to challenge the, the ideology was to challenge the essence of who I was or who I thought I was. and so you kind of had to unlearn everything and really kind of go back to yourself, which must have been challenging, right? Like it’s, it’s easy, it’s easy for us to have this conversation, but you’ve lived it, right? Tony: It’s, it’s challenging, but so rewarding at the same time. Right. And, and when my life was in direct opposition to who Tony Little Tony was. I couldn’t have been less in flow. I, yeah. You know, everything was difficult. Everything was a challenge. And as I’ve gone to live my life more in integrity with who little Tony is, and I’m not saying I’m perfect and I’m not there yet. This Yeah. journey takes, takes to the lifetime. Yeah. But the more I get an integrity, the more I find myself living in flow and the easier. life becomes, and even though, you know, we have to look at uncomfortable parts of ourselves and acknowledge uncomfortable things about [00:48:00] ourselves as we peel back layers of the onion. that short-term pain versus the, what I know is the long-term gain of doing that and the fear of doing it is, is purely psychological in the mind anyways. Tony: You know, it’s, oh, if you open that door, it’s gonna, you’re gonna burst into flames. Like you open the door and it’s like, no, that didn’t happen. And . Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. And I think that’s what stops people. The fear is, feels real. It really feels real to go through. so thank you for mentioning Living in the Flow because I, I wanted to go back to something you had mentioned before, which is the belief and lack, the belief in not enough, the belief in competition. When we are in survival mode, it is really hard for us to be compassionate and loving for other people because we see each other as competition. But as we start to. Understand that, that those beliefs aren’t true. There’s so much opportunity, there’s so much potential, there’s so much abundance everywhere. We can then shift from that survival strategy to start to say, [00:49:00] Hey, Tony’s not a threat to me because my abundance is mine and there’s so much abundance in this world. This is unlimited possibilities. Then we can think open up to the potential. So from my perspective, living our dreams really is a key part of creating a better world for everyone. More loving and compassionate world. What are your thoughts? A Tony: absolutely, and, and you know, the beautiful thing about being, being in flow and living that life, is we get to inspire others. Yeah. You know, people are like, what’s your secret? Or, you know, like, you know mm-hmm. people that knew me then, or even, you know, know me now, they can’t, they can’t even imagine me as that other person. Yeah. Gissele: You know, because you’re not. , you’re actually not the same identity wise. You have shifted. Right. And so yeah. It’s, so to that, those memories must feel like a bit of a dream, right. At times. Tony: Yeah. No, there, there’s, there’s certainly a, a sort of an ethereal distance mm-hmm. to them. And, and, [00:50:00] you know, I’ve almost, I almost can’t believe that I did those things. Yeah. But, but, you know, I understand. And you know, there was something I just wanted to talk about earlier is that, that within compassion, we can hold the, the space of perpetrator and victim, you know, it, it, yes. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, a duality, but mm-hmm. within compassion, those two things can be held and healed. Gissele: Yeah. And our perspective on the definition of compassion is actually allowing all things to be. , which ca which people say, oh, well then you’re allowing all of these negatives to be it. It’s not, it’s about the non-resistance in the curiosity and then making a choice. I’m choosing not to, so I understand that these exist. The, the victim, the perpetrator, who am I gonna choose to be every day? Like, who am I gonna choose? And knowing that it’s a purposeful choice and that I sometimes may falter, but I can still choose again. And so that’s where the [00:51:00] non-resistance is really key because all of these anti programs, anti-drug, anti-racism, anti, all you’re doing is feeding that same perspective. We’re feeding what we don’t wanna create. And so I think what your book invites us to do is to reimagine to, to, to really think about, okay, what do we wanna create and how do we heal ourselves in order to get there? Tony: Yeah. Cause a lot, a lot of my life was, you know, where, you know, where we end up as human beings, you know, for, you know, forget the specifics of my life. Where we end up as human beings, you know, at, at any given point is it’s the totality of the choices we made. And many of those choices are unconscious mm-hmm. until we decide to, or sometimes the, the, the decision is made for us to, to awaken to that fact. Yeah. And choose to live life from intentionality. Mm-hmm. choose to look at every decision. you know, as, as I talk about in the book, we, in life, you know, [00:52:00] we, we come at, at, at living from one of two places, you know, fear or love. And we get to choose, which, we get to choose expansion over current contraction. We get to choose connection over disconnection. Mm-hmm. . And, and with those choices, we can inspire others. , and I think it’s who we choose to be in every moment of every day. Mm-hmm. , that is the power that is going to transform society. It’s not some government body or some politician on a white horse that’s gonna save the day. It’s, it’s who we choose to be in every moment of every day and, and how we inspire others to make conscious choices. To choose connection and to choose love over fear. And I think it’s, it’s it’s millions of little tiny choices. And so we have to look at all of the choices we’re making and, and conduct ourselves with the, that proper intention behind it. Gissele: Yeah. Oh wow. So powerful. And I think really that is kind [00:53:00] of the purpose of this podcast for people to realize that it’s, it’s the, everything that every choice that they make is not meaningless. It’s not. cuz people want other people to change and systems to change. Oh, once the system changes, things will get fixed. But they’re, they’re taking themselves outta the equation when, if they’re experiencing, they’re aligned with it. Right? And so they, they’re consciously contributing to those systems. So that kind of transformation really begins at home with ourselves. And so I think it’s really an invitation. Tony: Absolutely. It starts with us. Yeah. It starts with us. And, and I’ve recently became a founding partner of an organization in the United States, called, starts With Us, starts with us that, looks to. Beyond the polarity that’s, that’s happening in society and to, be more compassionate and less judgmental and learn to have dialogue with people we, we disagree with. it’s worth, it’s worth checking up, you know. There is, there is a, there is something sane out there in the middle . [00:54:00] Gissele: Yeah, definitely. And you know, in, in talking about, before we conclude, talking about compassionate conversations, it’s, it doesn’t mean that the purpose is for us to change each other. It really is, like you said, understanding. It’s about mutual understanding Tony: and, and finding, you know, what we have in, in common with each other. We, we have things we can connect. Yeah. You know, there, there are , you know, it’s, it’s once every, you know, four years we’re in the voting booth and we have this disagreement. but there’s so much more going on in between those times that we have to connect on, whether it’s, you know, sports or art or culture or the food or what our kids do, or, you know, what we want for our kids. You know, those, those things don’t, don’t change. And, and you know, when I was coaching the, the women’s soccer, one of the things we did at the beginning of every season is we paired new people with, [00:55:00] with the veterans and they had to go out and find out, you know, what are your three, three biggest fears of the other person they had to meet in person. Tony: Oh, what are your dreams? That kind of thing. And they had to come back and, and, and, you know, find three things that you, that, that you had in common. And, you know, when they had these conversations, they came back and they said, you know, well, you know, I couldn’t believe it. You know, we were in the same piano class when we were seven and mm-hmm. I didn’t even like this, this, all of a sudden when we, we had these curiosity questions to engage with stranger. Hmm. all of a sudden, you know, it’s like six degrees of separation. It’s the, there’s even less degrees of connection between, between every, every person. And, and once, once the people on the team had uncovered those connections, the team bonded way faster. Mm-hmm. , right. And, and the, and the, and the group, you know, coalesced and felt more connected. And that translated into like, we, we used to call it like hacking the, the team . Cause [00:56:00] they would perform better on the field and they would pass. Yeah. We’d be more willing to pass. And, and the, the eagles were gone and we didn’t, you know, have any cattiness. And it, it was really remarkable. what can be done with, with little, little exercises just like that in, in. Gissele: Yeah. There’s more that unites us than divides us. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. Latina relating to white male from the uk. Yeah. so, I, I’m gonna, I’m starting this kind of thing where I’m asking all of my, guests, you know, from my perspective, you know, whatever this universe source God is, it’s all love and it’s unconditional love. And so I’m asking all of my guests what they think, what’s their definition or what they think unconditional love is. That’s, Tony: that’s a great, that’s a great question. And it’s that love is, is, it’s, it’s at a connection [00:57:00] level. You know, it’s, I’ve even experienced it at a vibration level. Mm-hmm. me. It’s, you know, at an emotional level. but it, happens at a level that’s below for me. you know, the things that we see that, that are, that are different, you know, and it’s, it’s, you know, it’s like namaste. The God in me sees the, sees the God in you, and regardless of where life has taken you in the, and, and the choice is made, that divinity is, is always there. And, and, you know, and, and I can, I can connect, with that, you know, doesn’t mean I love everything you do . Yeah. Or, or everything you say. but I love and respect and connect to the divinity that is within every human being. Mm-hmm. . Gissele: Beautifully said. last question. Where can people find you? Tell us about your organization, your website, and about the book or anything you wanna share? Sure. Tony: The, the book is The Cure for Hate, A former White supremacist journey from [00:58:00] violent Extremism to Radical Compassion. you can get it on most book sites, the Cure for hate.com. You can reach me or Tony at the cure for hate.com. If, if you want to email me, there’s a film I’m featured in, which is on Amazon Prime called Healing From Hate. And, we’ve got a film just about to be being submitted to festivals this week. So next year it’ll be in festivals. the Cure for Hate, former white supremacist confronts the legacy of the Holocaust. So for that chapter where I go to Auschwitz and, and. Wow. And, and atonement and, and that, that I spent 15 hours with two day, over two days with a, with a guide that was all documented. So we have a documentary about that whole trip, and the journey of, of Atonement. Oh, because what started with, you know, and, and you kind of caught onto it earlier too, I started with trying to heal myself. Then once I healed myself to a part, I was like, well, I can heal people that were wounded like me. And that led to the start of co-founding Life After Hate [00:59:00] and, and helping those people. And now, I’ve grown my bucket where I can go back and heal the communities that I’ve, that I’ve once harmed. And that is really where my work is at now, is going back and, undoing the damage that I’ve done. Mm. Gissele: Beautiful. Beautiful. And thank you very much Tony for being on this podcast. This was an amazing conversation. Please go out and get the Cure for Hate. It is an amazing, amazing book. And please join us for another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gisele.

Transcript  [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gisele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives in our world. Gissele: Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. On today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about Becoming Unlimited with Greta Pontarelli, she has coached thousands of people in businesses worldwide. She’s been a keynote speaker and featured on numerous television shows in magazines, most notably, inside Edition, A O L Cs, Steve Harvey l the New York Post, Anne Marie Claire. She has mentored celebrities, world-class athletes, and ordinary people with extraordinary dreams and help them kickstart their mojo to bring their dreams to life. In 2012, she was invited to compete in American Ninja Warrior, which is a great show by the way, and was shocked to learn that she was [00:01:00] the oldest person to ever attempt the course. She thought, where’s everyone else? And in that moment she had an epiphany to use her art form to motivate others to become the very best they can become. She is a 12 time world pole art master champion and from conquering Mount Everest to becoming part of Chuck Norris’s stunt team, greater maxi, seemingly impossible scene possible. Please join me in welcoming Greta Pontarelli. Hi Greta. Greta: Hi. Thank you so much. I’m honored to be here and I want to in some way inspire people to let them know that they could become the very best they can become. Cuz I see so many people stop short of the finish line. Yeah. So many people give up and the possibilities within all of us is it’s miraculous. Yeah. So I hope it’s some way that I can be a, a catalyst to help them know that [00:02:00] age or any limitation should not keep them from. Passionately pursuing their dreams. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you so much for mentioning that. Cause that’s exactly why I wanted to have this conversation with you. we were introduced to our mutual friend called Julia at another conference. And when I heard your story and saw you perform, I thought to myself, wow, it’s so amazing how we limit ourselves, with our own mind and our own limited thinking. and so I was wondering if you can begin by telling the audience a little bit about your childhood and maybe some of the messaging you that you may have received that may have helped you on this journey. Greta: Well, it might, my mother always taught us in life to not ask for a lighter load to develop stronger, should. So she always said, your challenges can become your strengths if you allow them to be your thrusting walk instead of debilitating you. So that’s something that has always stuck with me. So no matter what I did, if [00:03:00] something didn’t go out right, I go, okay, there’s a lesson here. There’s something to learn here that is going to develop muscles that I didn’t know I had. So I carried that with me my whole life. I was the oldest of six, so I had a lot of responsibility. And I think learning to work hard learning, if the road turns left, sometimes you turn left. In other words, things don’t always go the way you plan, but you always say, okay, what are the other possibilities? And you just keep going. And it’s been, it’s been a great blessing to have so many wonderful mentors around me in my life. I just, I feel extremely humbled and grateful because if I could give back even a piece of what they have given to me, my heart will be full . Gissele: Thank you. you mentioned talking about, you know, the reframe your mom used when facing challenges, cuz I think that’s one of the things that limits people [00:04:00] is that fear is, is that it’s the not wanting to face those fears and face those challenges. can you think of a time when it was challenging for you in maybe what helped you kind of overcome? Greta: Well, one thing is I’ve had both of my hips replaced. Mm. because I did gymnastics when I was younger and I competed on hard floor . There were no spring floors back then. And so when I started hitting my sixties, I started losing my flexibility, my splits, and I started getting pain. And I think, I thought, okay, what can my body do? Mm-hmm. . And I started building in my strengths and saying, okay, I, this, this is not the way I was 20 years ago. I just kept losing flexibility. So I developed other things and eventually I got to the point where I had to have both of them, fixed because I had a lot of pain nights. So I went forward, but I still, I probably won five world championships while my hips were [00:05:00] completely compromised. As a matter of fact, when I was at the airport, like traveling to these world championships, I had to be taken in a wheelchair. And they had to take me back in a wheelchair and then I would go there and win because I would find, okay, I can’t show that, but there’s something else I could do. And I would build on that. I think that’s what we need to do. We need to look at possibilities and if you look at possibilities, there’s always something out there that you know, will manifest your dreams. I was you. It sometimes when that happens, it actually becomes a strength because in my case, it made me become stronger and develop more strength moves and other moves that, that were really not being done at my age. And so when I finally got them done, then I got my flexibility back and it was, you know, it was a home run for me because now I had the strength and the flexibility. So I just feel so grateful that I just kept going because most people would say, okay, I can’t keep going. You know, [00:06:00] my body is compromised. But sometimes that’s the time to really look deep inside and say, There’s something else I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to keep going, but the room turns left and so you turn left. Gissele: Yeah. Oh, that’s so beautifully said. And I think that, like, as you mentioned, I think that really is the key to facing success rather than failure, is really turning those moments when we have probably the greatest fear and the, and we see the greatest challenge that you were able in those moments to shift your perspective and say, okay, so if I can’t do that, then maybe I can do this and be still be able to win. I mean, that’s extraordinary to be able to be, I mean, you win in a wheelchair, , you did, you perform something, won a world champion and they’re back in the wheelchair, . I mean, there’s gotta be, like, in those moments, what do you say to yourself? You just say to yourself, just keep going or, Greta: yes. In those moments, you just, you just keep going. You don’t allow that to hold you back. You just do, and then you just have to say, okay, [00:07:00] there’s, I’ve, I’ve well prepared, I’ve built on my strengths and. You open doorways where you thought there were walls, you just don’t stop. You can’t let yourself stop and say, okay, this isn’t going to work for me. I’m not gonna be able to compete. I’m not gonna be able to train because I have these challenges. I just kept working. I was fortunate enough that I was in a art forum that I could do that. If I was a runner, that would be a different story. I might not have been able to do that, and then I, I probably would’ve transitioned into another sport or something else at that point. But mine, I just had to transition into different moves and be creative and work on choreography and, and actually all my choreography is about transformation. All of it. So it’s about the Phoenix rising out of the ashes. So it gave me, it gave me an impetus to share that story because that’s, I was living that story. Mm-hmm. , I was living that story where I felt like I was, like, I was being [00:08:00] burned and I was. Losing something that really meant a lot to me. Mm-hmm. to be able to do my art form and then to realize that I rose out of the ashes with, you know, more for than I had before that I found I was able to be more authentic. There was, you know, there was more conviction in what I was doing because I lived it. Mm-hmm. , you know, I lived that and it was something that was, you know, a part of my soul and my beings. So, I think you just have to dig deep and share your story. Everybody has a story. Mm-hmm. , and, I love the journey. I mean, the stage to me is just a platform. Mm-hmm. , it’s, it’s really, not about the medals. I mean, the medals gave me visibility on a world stage, which was wonderful in some way. I can inspire other people, but it, it really was about sharing that story. It was, it’s the journey. It’s not the end point. [00:09:00] So, that gives me great fulfillment, inside. Mm-hmm. , Gissele: I love what you said, because as you were thinking about, like, you know, you said had running been, had I been a runner, maybe it would’ve been a different story, but then the subsequent sentence you said was, well, I would’ve just would’ve shifted to something. Yeah. I would’ve shifted to, it wasn’t like it’s over, it’s done. Right. Right. It’s like, okay, how do I maneuver? There’s a flexibility there and ability to see, I’m still gonna hold onto the vision. Yes. It just, maybe I’m willing to to flex the vision Greta: e Exactly. Yeah. Because it’s, it’s unlimited. Gissele: Yeah. And I, and I think so, the other thing that I think that I, have observed about you and your work is, is really the, the joy of the journey, which so often we don’t really. Allow ourselves to savor. Like, so rather than, because you’ve been able to shift the, okay, ev, if every challenge is an opportunity and a gift, right? It does open you up to, to [00:10:00] savoring the experiences. Whereas often we are so bent on getting to the destination that so, so what is it about that, that’s, do, do you find that enjoying the journey helps you get to the destination or, or enjoy it more? Maybe Greta: It does. It does. Because in the journey, I celebrate every little victory. I mean, there’s sometimes you try things and you struggle for a while, and then finally some little thing about it works out. And that gives me great joy. So that to me is the journey. I mean, the endpoint is a, is a performance on a world stage that lasts four minutes. It can’t, it can’t be about that. It really can’t be about that. I have to love the process and I have to say, how can I bring my character to life? You know, and how can I need more of my heart on the stage? And, and when I tear that it, you develop a, a kind of a, an elixir inside of you. You know, the endorphins, they [00:11:00] talk about the oxytocin, whatever. It’s that, that, that feel good feelings that as you work out and train, it’s exhilarating and it really feeds your heart and your soul because it’s not just working out that is allowing these to, to manifest. You’re actually. Working on the creative plane and it’s kind of like sometimes you feel like it’s a little bit of an alchemy because you are taking something that is very raw and trying to turn it into gold and trying to turn it into something that is, that is magical in a way that touches the heart of the audience. That in some way they take something home with them that changes their life in some way. And that’s, and that’s the goal. And it’s something that I always work on and I am very in touch with people send me these emails and say, because of you, you have changed my life because of you. I saw you do this. And I thought, wow, I had given up at age 30 or 40, and then I see you do this and you have just mantled all [00:12:00] of my excuses. So that’s the journey part, you know, seeing the people that write to me, and by the way, I love people to write, to connect with me. my social media, I’m not. Super active on it, but every time somebody writes to me, I do try to respond and I do try to keep my foot in the door there. I just don’t have a lot of time to post every day. But, I really, would love people if they want to reach out to reach out to me on Facebook. it’s really about people, you know, I love people and I, my mission is to, in some way, you know, in empower their lives in a way they weren’t empowered before and make them believe in themselves. Cause people need, oh, they need so much inspiration and healing. I mean, as a, as a human race, we’ve gone through a lot the last few years. Mm-hmm. , there’ve been a lot of challenges and they can either strengthen us or debilitate us. And I, I choose. I choose to love and [00:13:00] to strengthen me and to allow me to keep going. Gissele: Yeah. And that is so inspirational in, in a world where we’re taught or we align to, to beliefs where that things are negative. And to look at the, at the, at the negative or to be very fear-based, to, to focus on really on the joy and the journey in, in thinking Unlimited really is, inspirational. It really does help people because that’s all that people hear is, is it really that negative messaging? What got you interested in that, that in pole dancing? well, I always think I, I always follow my passions, but what happened is both of my sisters who are younger than I am, came down with beginnings of osteopenia and it runs osteoporosis. Greta: runs in my family. Yeah. And so I thought, I’m not gonna take drugs, so I’m going to find out what can I do to remineralize my bones, because if they have it I’m sure I do. [00:14:00] So, even though I was in good shape, I thought I was, I was not. I didn’t have a program that really gave me what I needed to strengthen my bones. So I looked online, we say, lift weights or lift your body. And I found these beautiful artists on YouTube and it looked like Circus de Soleil, they were joining mm-hmm. acrobatics and spinning. And I just, watching them was just so magical and so beautiful. And the feeling of just almost like they were flying, you know, as you rotate around the pole, you get this kind euphoria and I thought, this is what I wanna do. That’s how started it was in my head and about. It was fortuitous, but about two or three weeks later I got a card in the mail. Would you like a free poll lesson? Oh wow. It’s to me there. Yeah, I think, I think the teacher thought, oh, she’ll never be back. Cuz it [00:15:00] was not easy. Mm. It was not easy for me at first. but it wasn’t until I thought, well, let me come back a few times a week. I’ll sign up for a month and see how it goes. And then things that were hard suddenly became easier. Greta: And that’s what I talked about earlier. I celebrated those little victories and I thought, oh, I can do something that I couldn’t do last week. And very soon it became a positive addiction. I just, I loved it. I loved the, the artistry. The artistry was a big part of it. Not just joy moves or tricks, but being able to share an empowering story, that is what I started seeing in it. Mm-hmm. And if when you share that story, you are bringing a character to life, you work on the costume. You work on, usually they have like an l e d screen or video in the background that frames it. You find music that brings it to life, and then you create the storyline and the character and the moves the way the character would do it. So it’s, [00:16:00] it’s really a production and I really, I’ve loved all part of it because it just allowed me to be artistic in many ways that I wasn’t before. And it allowed myself to, to grow and to unveil gifts that I didn’t know I had. Hmm. Wow. As you were talking, it occurred to me that, you know, one of the things you said was that you had to make a decision to keep showing up, right? Gissele: Because in the beginning it wasn’t, yes, it wasn’t easy. But you had made that commitment, and I think that was one of the things you also had mentioned earlier, which is so many people quit before they get to the end. Why do you think that is? I think it’s, I think it’s for a lot of people, it’s just human nature in a way that when they see a challenge that instead of wanting to move through it, it kind of debilitates them in a way. I don’t know if it’s something that we’ve been programmed, I mean, [00:17:00] in life. I mean, a lot of people like to take the easy way. Mm-hmm. When you think about it, a lot of people, when you think about losing weight, how easy is it just to eat a little less and to exercise more, but they’ll go through surgery. Greta: Mm-hmm. and I understand that some people don’t have the willpower, but inside of them, that willpower exists. And if they dug deep enough and found the right mentors and right catalyst, they could have completely done it on their own. So I think that that transforms into many different, this, this, it transforms you when you find that part within you that you thought you couldn’t do and you could do it. And I really believe that there is so much within all of us. I mean, it’s, it’s unlimited universe. Mm-hmm. , and I think picking mentors like positive, empowering people like you, your website and surrounding yourself with people that are going after their dreams. If they did that, then they wouldn’t have [00:18:00] given up because the catalyst to move forward would be all around them. But so often people want the easy way. They just want the easy way. It’s part of, I think it’s part of, it’s kinda cultural in a way. Cause when you think about what. Oh, ancestors did like coming across in a wagon right. Across How many people could do that today? They wouldn’t even know I, right. Not too many people going on those wagons. what you take, what do you take? We’re Gissele: farming. Farming is a, is kind of a dying art right? Yeah. At least in the North America. Lot of the farms. Greta: I, I really believe, I really believe that the, if particularly starting with children, if your children don’t have struggles in life, you need to somehow create them. For them. You need to give them challenges, right? Yeah. The more, when they overcome challenges, they develop an inner strength, an inner power. Mm-hmm. , and then whatever challenge comes before [00:19:00] them in life, they’ll know how to deal with it. Because you’ve had these little victories of being able to overcome things and that develops personal power. And I really believe they need that. If they have the easy way, they’ll always be looking for the easy one. So I, I kinda embrace the challenges because I always feel like it’s moving me to grow in, in ways that I would’ve never grown without them. And I think it’s a, it’s a mindset. Mm-hmm. , and I just encourage everybody not to give up before you hit the finish line. Not to give up, just say, okay, I can do this, I can do this. I’ve got the strength exists within me and I’m gonna do it. Mm-hmm. and empower themselves through positive affirmations. Mm-hmm. , and from people that, move that towards their dreams. Mm. That’s so great. Gissele: It takes courage, right? One of the things that I’ve seen, in the people that I’ve worked with and even in my own journey as well, is sometimes we’re like, okay, I [00:20:00] desire to create this. Where is it? Right. It’s sort of that, that immediate gratification, okay, where is it, okay, therefore it not showing up means it’s not there or it’s not happening. And so how do we kind of ignore or not pay attention to that and really pay more attention to our vision in our dream? So what helped you get, keep the journey, especially when you were going to win all of these awards? you know, all of these titles, which, you know, you said obviously is, is like the icing on the cake. But when you’re even gearing up for a competition, what helps you just stay motivated? I think it’s because I really, in my heart, my mission is I really want to inspire people. Greta: Mm. In way, in some small way. So I realize if I, if, if I don’t show up, let’s say I said, well, I have an injury, which I’ve competed with injuries. I’m just gonna pass on this one. It’s not as powerful as if I say I have an [00:21:00] injury, but I’m gonna do what I can do and I’m gonna move through this and I’m gonna, I’m going to do well anyhow, because that’ll inspire other people. So I, I don’t wanna let myself down or other people down. Mm-hmm. So I wanna show them they can keep going. And I think, I think one of the championships that I won, that I was most proud of, you know, in Italy and Florence Italy, was I had my second hip done and the provisions were removed the beginning of December. And it was, it was the middle of February. Oh, wow. And I went into that championship, Definitely had some challenges, but not only did I win, I got the highest score that I’ve ever gotten. And I think that part of it was because it wa, I mean, it wasn’t just about the tricks. I was so into this, and this was one where I was a tree, that it came to life in a forest and all of a sudden was hit by a forest fire. And [00:22:00] so I, I was like down, crawling in the ashes and all of a sudden I, I, you know, go through my routine and I feel, I, I don’t wanna give up, but I’m burnt. I’m ashes, I, I want my life back. And all of a sudden a sprout begins to grow. Mm-hmm. And I say, ah, that’s, you need a forest fire for forest sprouts to go. So every time things don’t go right. I remember that. And so I was so into that, you know, I believed that I. Poured so much of my heart and soul in it, I think that it really connected. Mm-hmm. with the audience. So I believe that you, you have to find that, you have to really find that in, when you, when you practice, when you’re working on it, you are enjoying the moment. You’re definitely in the eternal now. You’re here right now, and you just enjoy the moment. You feel the, the endorphins. You feel the passion for sharing this story in this moment, that’s what moves me. You gotta find [00:23:00] the archetypes. I work a lot with archetypes and finding the muse within, like, there’s archetypes to me. I work a lot with Joseph Campbell, the Heroes Journey. Yeah. You know, I work a lot with, he’s one I really love. I love geology. Rumi, the poets, you know, that says the wound is the place that the light enters. So every time you find a wound or something doesn’t go right, you say, this is where the light enters. you know, you open your heart to that light and it’s there and it arrives. You just have to keep visualizing that. That’s why I say surrounding yourself with, with all kind of positive catalyst is paramount. It’s paramount. And once you’ve done this enough, then that becomes part of your nature. Hmm. you be, it becomes part of your nature because you realize that no matter what happens, that the power exists within you to go after your dreams. Mm-hmm. and make them happen. Gissele: Mm-hmm. [00:24:00] That’s amazing. Did you find that you, when you were ready, your mentors came? Or did you go looking for them? Like, how is it that you actually get got to meet these different people that were helpful in your journey? Greta: I believe, I believe I was, from the time I was very young, particularly in college, I was, there was a kind of part of me that was spiritually seeking. What’s the purpose of life? What’s, why am I here? What’s my mission? And I found that when you open your heart to that, they say, when, when a student is ready, a teacher arrives. And so I started studying with many different teachers. And the more I saw how they enriched my life, I kept casting my net broader and went to Gen H and Scotland, the community that, that really inspired me because they had done some amazing things on the planet and different shamans and people that, that had really lived, [00:25:00] very. Very spiritual lives. I mean, the stories that they tell, the things they have done, being in the Himalayas with rishi’s that were living in the snow and you know, with just a loin cloth, you think this is capable, this is what’s one of the, some of the possibilities within us. they are at a level that most of us can’t even conceive. If, I can’t imagine being out in the snow with basically just something very small . Yeah. I don’t like being cold that much, but Yeah. But you start seeing that they have gone to a level, they have done things, and I have, you know, I’ve met people, they’ve been drawn to me and I’ve been drawn to them all over the planet, who, when I see the things that they have done, it’s just, I know, it’s, it’s incredible. Like I met a lady. She goes to the North Pole in the wintertime in g Greenland. Uh,you know, when it’s, when most people wouldn’t wanna be there, , most people run away. She us on iceberg. I go, what if you fall into the Arctic? [00:26:00] She goes, oh, I jump in. And she said, I spent an hour in there. I said, an hour. I said, what’s it like? She goes for seven minutes. I feel like I’m being boiling alive now. See, I couldn’t take that for seven minutes, Gissele: but she doesn’t. Yeah. And that’s, that’s too many minutes. But she Greta: said, you don’t die of cold, you die of fear. Because when you, when you, when there’s that much fear, you are, you can’t, your heart is beaten so fast you can’t catch your breath and you pass out and you go on and you drown. Oh, wow. And I said her, I said, I think you’re a mutation. She goes, no, I’m just using a part of my brain that most people don’t. So you can apply that principle to many different things. I don’t know if that would be my thing, but I, I, that principle, that principle applies to many facets of my life. And, she, she moves me. And when you look at her, there’s so much light in her eyes. Mm-hmm. And look, when [00:27:00] she looks at you, like she’s looking at the Aurora Borealis . Wow. You know, she says, I love icebergs. I love the purity of the snow. You know, she just, you, you can imagine, you know, obviously that’s a crystalline dimension. Yeah, yeah. Of course. That I allow people like that, that I need to influence me. And I look for people, I look for people like this everywhere. That in some way, Can en enrich my life in a way that it wasn’t before I met them. So you have to be open, you have to surrender to learning and growing. Mm-hmm. , you know, and realize that this is an abundant universe. Everything exists, rebound around us, and you start seeing the magnitude of what we can do. Wow. Yeah. It’s, you rekindle that magic within mm-hmm. . Gissele: Yeah. And it’s, it’s so nice to be able to see or hear those stories about people that have overcome this [00:28:00] sort of like, limited thinking, because we kind of have a lots of limited thinking about within what we can or cannot do. And did you f do you find, like, I find this more, it seems to be more and more constraining, right? Like it, we seem to be more and more, we can’t do this and we can’t do that. Or that’ll hurt us. This’ll hurt us, this’ll, and then, so, and we, we kind of box, box ourselves in little cages. and I feel this way about aging. So let’s talk about aging, cuz that’s a huge thing, especially for you in terms of your experience with Ninja Warrior. what are your thoughts on how we manage aging right now and, and how, how we can maybe start Greta: shifting that? I really do think age is just a number. I really do. And it’s not that I’m in denial, but yes, we do age, but I do believe that it’s, a lot of it is mental. Yeah. It’s the way, the way you think. The way you feel. And then there’s not enough talk about wellness and [00:29:00] taking good care of ourself, eating right. And I mean, I know when I had physical therapy after I had my hips, He said, I can’t believe what you’re doing. He says, nobody comes in here and does this. And I go, well, they see, they stop short of the finish line. They thought, okay, I’ve had my hips replaced. I’m old. And they walk in with their walker. And many of them probably would never need that, but they, it’s a mindset. So I believe, you do everything you can to create wellness in your body through exercise, through thinking positive thoughts through eating. Right? I mean, diet is really important to me. I eat pretty much a paleo diet. I use organic as possible. I don’t eat junk food, and I eat what my body means. I, my body tells me when I’m done. So I’ve always been the same weight. I’ve always been the normal weight because I don’t like the feeling about reading. I listen to my body. Mm-hmm. , you know, and so I, [00:30:00] I think that if people listen to their body more, I don’t care if something tastes good, if I, I don’t like that full feeling . So if I have that feeling afterwards, it’s not, it’s not fulfilling to me. And if people just have not been taught to listen, I’ve been so blessed. I haven’t been, I mean, in the last 25 years, I have not gotten sick. I got food poisoning once, but , . But I mean, as far as being sick, I’m, I think maybe I have one cold when my traveling or something, but I’ve just been really blessed that I have, and I really believe a lot of it is just listening to your body when your body says, okay, I need a little more rest right now. Or sometimes there’s food or your body’s telling you you need more water. You know, you can just listen it, we’ll tell you. And I think a lot of us have forgotten that. They just don’t tune into that and see what they need. It’s, I, I’ve been so grateful that I [00:31:00] haven’t had to take any kind of medication. I don’t have problems sleeping at night. Mm-hmm. . and I try to do things that I think will really facilitate me to be wealthy in a W E l l t H y . Yeah. Like being well, right? Yeah. You know what they say, you’re not richuntil you have something that money can’t buy. Mm-hmm. and that is happiness, joy in your life and health. You can’t really buy this. Gissele: Yeah. Peace of mind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you, you said some, a number of really a key things. I just wanna talk about the, the part where I think intuitive eating is so important. I think that’s why, weight loss is so hard, right? Because I think people do what they think they should be doing rather than really listening, like you said, to their body about what feels good or so they, so they get very regimented, they follow certain things and it doesn’t align with their body. And so it’s a really challenging thing to. To do, [00:32:00] and therefore they’re not successful. And so I think intuitive eating and listening to your body is, is a really Greta: important, yes. And it’s, it’s challenging for a lot of people because we’re marketed too all the time for fast food and junk food and whatever. And, it’s not that I’m austere. If I go to a birthday party and they have a cake or sugar, I might have one bite or two bites, but I’m not gonna eat the whole piece. Yeah. I’ll taste, that’s really good. And I like it. That’s all I need. So it’s not like I’m austere. But my, I know that I don’t want the whole piece cuz I don’t want that sugar rush and I know how I’ll feel afterwards. Mm-hmm. . So I think it’s, it’s about that starting to look at, you know, put going to places where you can get like farmer’s markets or wherever you can get the best foods and just don’t have those things around you. Then when you do that, you cut down on sugar and the extra salt they put in everything. When you taste something that has a lot, it’s either too sweet or too salty because you’ve learned to like the taste of natural foods. Mm-hmm. . [00:33:00] Gissele: Yeah. That’s, that’s really, really good. the, the other part that I wanted to mention was I, you know, I, as you were talking, you know, I’ve been thinking a lot about my parents’ journey and I love my parents very much. They’re, they’re wonderful people. When I talk to them though, it’s usually about them, them saying, How hard aging is, how difficult it is. Don’t get old. It sucks to get old. You know, people that live for doctor’s appointments and I’m like, that’s not living, that’s surviving. and so what helped you kind of get beyond that image of aging? Cuz that’s the image that people project that over time things start to decline and you have to abide by the, so, so to some extent you’re almost like, okay, pe most people are going this way. I’m going that way. . What helped you make that choice for yourself Greta: beginnings of I guess because I don’t buy into victimhood, I think it can be a victim or you can be victorious. Everything in life, so many people, it’s like, poor me, or I’ve been a victim, I had an abuse childhood, [00:34:00] or somebody did whatever. It’s, they carry that with them and we’ve all gone through stuff. Yeah, we’ve all gone lost people that we love deep. We’ve all been hurt in ways and gone through things in our life. But there again, did that, did those challenges make us stronger? Did we grow from them or did we become a victim? So I don’t buy into victimhood, and I think victimhood ages you tremendously because it mitigates your ability to use your gifts because it pushes them under. As soon as you say, I can’t do this, or you want somebody else to do something for you, you’re not developing the skills to do it for yourself. So I have been taught to be self-reliant, not to count on anybody, to do anything for me, and to find a way to do it for myself, whatever it is. I try to in any way that I can to, to a point of course. But, so I think that’s part of it. I think that they become victims. I’m older, this is what happens. I. [00:35:00] I found that yes, I’ve gone through aches and pains and all that, mostly before I had my hips done. Sometimes I had trouble sleeping at night because, yeah, they would get cramped or I’d feel the pain, but then you do what you have to do and then you get back to normal again. And if I had those challenges today, I would say, okay, I would research. What can I do? Do I need to, maybe there’s some minerals that I need. Mm-hmm. , maybe I’m not drinking enough water. Maybe I need to do some exercises or whatever the kind of. Allows this message to relax. So I would find, I would research and find what I could do to, to overcome that challenge. So it would challenge me to say, okay, I’m gonna overcome this. I’m gonna make this happen. I’m not taking drugs to go to sleep, whatever it is. And that’s what I did back then. Now it did get to the point where it was pretty painful, then Yes. Then I said, okay, I’m ready. I’ve tried all the natural things for my hips. I tried p r p autologous stem cell, transplants, which gave me some [00:36:00] time. Mm. But they’ve all said, this is a temporary fix. Yeah. You know, long term you’re gonna need this because we’re not at a point yet where we can develop the bone. You know, I mean, they’re working on it, they guess they have done in a test tube in a lab, but they don’t have the scaffolding. There has to be an architecture within your body for it to take place, and, and you’re young, so you’ll see it in your lifetime. Wow. Okay. But, you know, I don’t, don’t know if I’ll see it in mine. Depends how long I live. But it’s, you know, around the corner from all those things. And, so to me, I think everything that I go through in my life, I always think that a challenge is there for a reason. I really believe a challenge is there for a reason. I just, my brain thinks that way. I think you can rewire your brain. Yeah. I think you can, you can wire it in a way to maximize your success in life. Mm-hmm. , you know, I mean, things happen. If something, if something [00:37:00] happens, like I have let’s, I have a, a business appointment that, that I thought was really going to be lucrative in some way and it cancels and doesn’t move forward, I’ll think, oh, something better’s gonna happen. Yeah. You know, I wasn’t supposed to waste my time there, so I’m gonna this. Yay. You know, I, you just, if you think that way, you’ll manifest it because it’s law of attraction. Mm-hmm. , you know, It’s an, it’s an abundant universe. You start attracting that. So if I, let’s say that I got on the phone and started calling and somebody that I connected with felt that enthusiasm there, there would be, there’d be a resonance there between us that would allow that to manifest. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So I, I can’t tell you how many I’ve been through challenges. I’ve been through a lot of challenges. You know, my husband almost died 20 some years ago. He had a very serious form of leukemia. Oh, no. And yeah, and he’s, he’s, he’s fine now, but it, he was in the hospital for six months and, I thought, okay, how am I gonna, I’ve got kids at [00:38:00] home and how am I gonna do this? And I thought I’m going to, you know, mm-hmm. . And it was, it was a huge challenge, you know, and I had to run to the hospital, which was about 90 miles away. I was three or four times a week up to Los Angeles and take care of kids and business and all kinds of things. And yet, I know the universe doesn’t give you more than you can handle. I know that somehow I could get through that. And it’s kind of like, you know, when you have a child, nobody likes to wake up in the middle of the night, really, you know, for a full call, . But when a baby cries in the middle of the light, there’s so much love for that baby, you don’t mind it. Mm-hmm. , you really don’t, you say, oh, it needs me, this child needs me. And there’s so much joy that, you know, and I kind of say that kind of transforms to a lot of areas of my life. So for people that have had children, they can relate to that. If you haven’t, there’s, you can develop empathy to somebody that has, you can still, you don’t have to go through everything. You can do it vicariously and still learn [00:39:00] from it and grow from it. Gissele: Yeah. It really is about like the mindset, right? You, you were mentioning before about that victim consciousness, and I don’t think we realize how much power we give to these other things. We give power to those thoughts that aging has to look a specific way. We give power to the thoughts that we are limited, that we are smaller than we think we are, right? and so it, it takes, it takes vision and takes courage and it takes determination to hold onto that vision regardless of what’s happening out there. Greta: I know you really, you have to, you can’t let in our lives, you know, there’s a lot of tumultuous things going on in the world, but you, you wanna know about it, you wanna be aware, but you can’t let it live rent free in your head. Mm-hmm. , you can’t let it get you down. You say, okay, so I’m gonna do the, you start with yourself. I’m gonna do the best that I can, and you. [00:40:00] Try to do it one by one with people. I think the more that we share, love, compassion, and peace in our lives with other people, it starts to grow. Mm-hmm. , you know, and help other people go through their challenges. So I just, I feel that Yeah. You know, people are paramount to me. Yeah. I mean, people have enriched my life so much. They, they really have. And I think, I believe that that is a big part of what just keeps me going. Mm-hmm. is, I, I want, I want to become the best I can become so I can be a good model for those people, like you said, that, that are younger to kind of given up on their dreams or give it up, you know, health-wise on things. But I hear so many miraculous stories of people that just have overcome things and it just touches my heart and mm-hmm. lets me know that I can. Continue on my journey and overcome my obstacles because I look at them and they have [00:41:00] catapulting me to another level where I see the whole my life through a different lens. Mm-hmm. , there you go. It’s like one of those epi aha moments you see, see them do something you thought that wasn’t possible and they’re doing it. And, I embrace that. I embrace that it enriches my life. Mm-hmm. . Gissele: Yeah. It’s so inspirational. Like you are, like in your, your life. It’s an inspiration to other people as well. And so, what a gift to be able to love people. Greta: Sorry. Good. It just seems normal to me because people deserve so much love. Right? Yeah. It’s, so to me it just, it, it seems normal and in every moment, you know, trying to take challenges we go through in life. Like I said something to somebody today actually, I said, you know, nothing offends me. Because, you know, people get so offended by things, and that’s the impact that’s victimhood. And I go nothing against me. If somebody said something that offended me, that was unkind to me, I would, instead of me being angry [00:42:00] about that, I’d say, oh, it speaks volumes about what they’re going through. They’re probably really hurting inside. They, they my love, they need my compassion. I’d wanna give them a big hug or embrace them. Because to me, that’s how the, that’s how the world changes. That’s how it changes. It has to be loving compassion. Yeah. It really has to be like the religion of kindness. It really has to be them. So how can words possibly offending if you, if you, if you know who you are, you can’t be, you can’t be offended when you are in your heart center, which the heart is light, how can you offend light? Right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. How can you offend the sun? Cause so to me, the heart center, which is, you know, this is the center of our universe, like the sun’s, the center of the universe. It can’t be offended. And so that gives you a lot of power in a, in a way, because people and energy, I have no problem with energy because people give up their energy all day long. As soon as [00:43:00] you become offended by something, now you are upset. You’ve , you’re, you’ve contracted, you’ve contracted your body in a way where the venous gland does not flow back to the heart and remove the toxins. And so there’s toxic, you become toxic in a way. and it’s, and now you are upset . Yeah. And in that moment you have a choice. You could be a victorious, you could, when you leave, if you take that person and transmute them, let’s say they were really upset and said something really unkind, and you transmute them and give ’em a hug, and then they, you feel their heart and they give you a hug back. That’s empowering. That’s, that’s, that’s the true alchemist, that’s the true alchemist of turning base metal onto gold. Taking some, something like that. Something that is hurtful and transmuting and into love, like compassion. That’s new what it’s all about in my world. Yeah. Yeah. Completely agree with that. Be able to do that. Cause that’s a, that’s a challenge when I [00:44:00] see somebody upset. I, I, I’m really challenged to Hilton. Mm-hmm. , why would I waste my energy getting offended when I can use that energy to come make a difference in some way? Gissele: When, when you are offended for me, like I find that everyone’s a mirror of me, and so if I get triggered by something, there’s something within me that I need to heal that is being mirrored back to me because why would I give that person more power to determine my worth or how I feel about myself. And so for me it’s more like if I’m triggered by something, I’m like, okay, so thank you for this lesson. There’s something there for me to heal. It really has nothing to do with this other person. it really has to do with how, what’s going on for me. and I love what you said about love because one of the questions that we’re asking in this new season of our show is really, we’re looking for people’s definition of unconditional love, which is what we’re hoping to get. Like, you know, from my perspective, unconditional love is without conditions. I don’t need the other person to change or to be more loving. They [00:45:00] just, they’re worthy of love. So I was wondering what you could share, if you could share your definition of what you think unconditional love Greta: is. To me, unconditional love is the antithesis of, I will love you if, if you do this, if you behave the way I want you to do, or if you unconditional love. That doesn’t exist. You just love them because they are mm-hmm. , you just love them. Just love If they disappoint you, you still love them, let you down. You still love them. If they hurt you, you still love them. There’s no conditions and it’s, it is funny. That sweet spot in your heart is really, it’s just such a pristine place to be because when you, when you get into that center, I mean, all of life becomes a living miracle to you because life is all about love. I mean, [00:46:00] that’s what it’s about. And, and people that have conditions, they’re only hurting themselves. They’re taking a love away. They’re mitigating the love within them for themselves because they may be in that moment that they would interacted with that person and they thought it, but they’re gonna carry that with them. So, it’s something, it’s a journey. I mean, as I’ve grown older, it becomes easier to do. I think it’s harder when you’re younger, but then you get to the point in life where you go through things that really are life changing and you do not sweat the small stuff you say about like, really, you know? So I think it, part of it’s, I think it’s a maturity at a, at a spiritual awakening, self realization. It’s a combination. And, when you go through challenges of life, like losing somebody very close to you that you love, something very traumatic happens, you start really seeing life through a whole [00:47:00] different vantage point. And, and you realize that all those things that you got upset about before, or. They don’t matter. So to me that’s what it’s, you just have to take the IFF at it. I love you. I love you. If you remove the, if I love you unconditionally, no matter what you do, I love you because that love eternal and there’s no conditions on that love and it’s easier than people think, you know? And really, cuz in that moment you have a choice. Mm-hmm. , you have a choice. You have a choice at that moment to say, am I gonna choose peace or am I going to to write or am I going to tell them what I think? ? Yeah. And like peace is a lot easier. Just let it go. , Gissele: I love the gift for yourself, right? Like that piece. Greta: Mm-hmm. peace is so important in my life. I mean it really, I love that inner peace.[00:48:00] So I really aspire all the time. That’s why I like, To always try to be transmuting things because I don’t want anything to take away that, that inner peace within me. And so I, so it’s my responsibility, it’s not theirs. I mean, no matter what they do, if I allow it to affect me, then I buy into it. But if I, if I maintain that center, nothing can take it away from Gissele: you. Yeah. And I think that’s true power because you don’t need the external to be a specific way in order for you to feel a specific way. You don’t need people to behave a certain way or circumstances to be right. It is being in your own power, in your own authority, right, of like, I choose peace and nobody can impact that choice unless I choose different. Greta: So that’s, exactly. And that’s why I really connect with these internal archetypes and muse that really affect all of us. So if you connect with that, you can, people call it different names, but you know, it’s. [00:49:00] Something that is, is affects everybody. All of us have that. Like there’s really, at some level, there’s really one mind, so to speak, where we all become omnipotent. And when you see this within yourself, when you, when you get to that place where you see those archetypes, those archetypes have a, they become an elixir or a power. If you tune into that, you know, it kind of means you threw things. Some people call it like an eternal spirit or a guardian angel, whatever it is. And then those archetypes take different forms. Like I really love the archetype of transformation. I think that’s the one I connect most with, because you’re always transforming things and that manifests inspiration and manifests healing because you’re transforming. It kind of permeates how your entire life, always transforming things and. I think that, you know, relates a lot to like [00:50:00] Jungian philosophy. You know, that’s about the archetypes. There’s, that’s something that really has influenced me a lot. Like studying, studying philosophers that had saw life through a, a lens that really enriched my life. Like I said, this is their vision. I’m going to try to see like the way they see it. Mm-hmm. , you know, an as maybe just an aspect. Maybe it’s the whole thing. But, I mean, just to see things like Joel Rumi or Joseph Campbell, just to see like that way mm-hmm. , you know, and just see that, you know, when you follow your bliss, you will find those doorways when you want saw walls, really, you will find them and you’ll open those and you’ll find a whole universe await you. Where before you were just looking at the wall. You know, and it’s kind of like when a bird flies in your house and you open all the windows and it keeps hitting the wall, and you go, the windows are open, fly away, but it keeps hitting the [00:51:00] wall, right? Mm-hmm. , and that’s what people are. And yet you, you try to coax it to the, see, how can I coax it to the window? And I think that’s, that’s a metaphor for our lives. I really believe that a lot of people keep see that wall. And if they just looked around, they would see that doorway is wide open. It awaits them. Oh, universe awaits them if they only allow it. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. . so it’s so funny because when you’re in fear, like your vision narrows , so you don’t see the opportunities, what do you think helps people be in allowance? Gissele: Because I’ve heard that my husband and I have lots of conversations about allowing, about allowing, you know, you good to come to you, allowing yourself to follow your bliss instead of what you think you should be doing instead of, you know, like, oh, I should follow my bliss. Well, my bliss right now may be just sitting in meditation for three days. Well, I still, should I be doing something? Should I have bills to pay? So, how, what, what helps us with allowance? I think ev it’s [00:52:00] very individual. I think it’s very individual. For some people, maybe for that period, three days might be exactly what they needed to, to, dial their life down in certain ways and to, to flourish. I mean, there’s people that do that, they get away. But I think for, for people that the average person, They didn’t, they wouldn’t need, they wouldn’t need that much. Greta: So you have to like, in that moment say, okay, I love sitting a meditation and I’m gonna try to get what I should get in three days, in 10 minutes. , right. , you know? Right. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna let my mind wander. I’m just gonna get in there and I’m gonna decompress and I’m gonna really experience, I’m gonna take that magic with me into my life. So you have to, we all have things that we have to do, and you can take it into a moving meditation to pay in your bills or working whatever you’re doing. So you carry that with you. So you say, how can I optimize what I’m doing? How can I take what, take this, you know, whatever it is. I don’t have a problem with, personally, with, some [00:53:00] people do, they get stuck on TV or that sort of thing. I don’t watch TV or any of this. People say, you haven’t seen this movie. How much a show again? No, I was too busy creating. . Mm. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, lots of people get a lot of enjoyment out of that, but I’m just saying that. But there’s a point where that becomes too much, too, you know, where they have things that they need to be doing and they don’t join because they’re playing computer games or whatever. And so you have to like discipline yourself and say, okay, I’m gonna accomplish what I need to do and then I’ll reward myself with this. So I think it has to do more with a reward system that I give myself challenges and then when I’m done, I work hard first, then I play hard. Mm-hmm. . So I think if you play hard first, you might keep playing So I think you kinda have to you some psychology on yourself. Sometimes you gotta find out. That’s why I say it’s so personal. You have to find out what works for you. Mm. What works for you. And for some people they work really well with [00:54:00] positive affirmations about things. Mm-hmm. , some people, they just create. They create a, a structure, you know, they create bar, they pay perimeters for certain things. Okay, I’m gonna work for this amount of time, time and then I’m going to do this for this amount of time. They’re very structured. everybody is so, all unique individuals, but I think if you explore, get to know yourself, you’ll know what works for you and you’ll know what you need to do. I mean, I, everybody needs to make a living. Life makes, you know, money makes you comfortable. I don’t know if it really makes you happier, but it makes you comfortable and everybody needs to take care of that because if you don’t go do that, then that stress, you don’t have money to pay the bills. It’s very stressful. So I do everything. I can’t avoid stress, but there again, I don’t wanna create more money than I need. Mm-hmm. , I know what I need. I know what I enjoy. My time and my time with people enjoy my art form is very important to me. So if, if I try to create a lot more [00:55:00] money and really grow my business more, and it takes away from that, then I’ve lost some of my purpose. So it’s all balance. You have to always seek equilibrium and say, where’s the balance from me? And like I said, everybody’s a little different, so you have to really get to know yourself. But when you find that it’s not a problem, if you have trouble finding it, then you see mentors that can help you find it, because there’s a lot of people that, that, that is their gift to be able to see things that you don’t see and then mirror them back to you. Then you go, okay, this is great. I’m, I’m, I’m the kind of person that would work well. This way. You create something, you create a, a structure that works for you, right? Gissele: Yeah, absolutely. Absolut. so just a couple more final questions. I, I, I had heard, and I heard you mention it, and I think I’ve also read this in Joseph Campbell, it’s follow your bliss. Like you’re the master of your destiny. Follow your bliss. Have you find in your life that by following your bliss, it led to more bliss? Greta: It [00:56:00] does. It’s like, it’s like gratitude. The more grateful you are to people, the more they wanna do for you, and then you have more gratitude. Right? Nobody likes to keep doing things for people that aren’t grateful. Yeah. right? And so is kinda the same way. When you follow it, it magnifies, it just keeps magnify. Yeah. And, and so I tell people like, just, you just, you gotta start somewhere. Wherever you are, start somewhere and it’s going to magnify and it’s going to grow. the people, people are unique individuals. Mm-hmm. , I find some people it’s a little bit at a time. Some people are farmers. It’s like tilling the soil, getting ready and some people are like hunters just, you know, yeah. They don’t wanna, you know, but, but you have to find out what works for you. Every person is different and you’ve got to find out, you know what, that’s why I say it’s so important to read cuz you read things or you are [00:57:00] around mentors or work with, with life coaches who, whoever enriches your life, you work with those people and they, they do become a catalyst for those things. And it’s, it’s an abundant universe. They can manifest those in their own way, and that’s the beauty of it. And we all work together and empower the lives of each other. I, like I said, people have enriched my life so much. Mm-hmm. I tell people like, if you could own, if I could only give back a portion of what you’ve given to me with what you’ve just said to me or what you’ve, or just watching your life mm-hmm. Right. I said that it’s, you know, it’s, it, my heart will be full because it’s, it’s, there is, the journey is endless. An extraordinary have you have to love it. And every day I do. I wake up and I said, let’s see, gonna send me today? Mm-hmm. , you know what’s, [00:58:00] there’s always something. Mm-hmm. in some way, you know, moves me to a different level of self realization. Like, who am I going to meet or what am I better read or what? And it always happens. Mm-hmm. and sometimes in many different ways, but there’s always something there. I think as you start looking for that, you find it because thoughts become things. Mm-hmm. , you know, it’s one of the laws of manifestation. So just understanding the law of manifestation and understanding, you know, how things manifest in the. And how things start out, like in the, in the realm of idea and come the whole way down and manifest sort of like the tree of life. Mm-hmm. down into the physical reality. And you start seeing that and you start realizing that you are the master of your universe. Yeah. You know, God, you know, and if you’re not happy with your [00:59:00] universe, change it. Like I guess there’s a zen cone where a student comes to a teacher and the teacher, they had a couple of said, you likes straights, pour the tea and the tea runs over the cup and starts going down the steps. Greta: And he goes, what are you doing? He said, the tea’s running down the steps. He says, that’s how you come to me with a full cup. I can’t add anything to come with an open cup. You have to open your heart and you’re being to want to learn and do hope. If you don’t surrender to that, you come with a full cup. Nothing can be added. So when you open that natures a vacuum, right? Is filled with with treasures. Hmm. You know, the treasures, like inner treasures. Mm-hmm. , you know, like the treasures that are priceless, the treasures that [01:00:00] enrich our life. But like we said, the love, the compassion, the inner peace, the wellness that, well, you want in our hearts, if you want that we have the ability to manifest. We just have to believe it. Yeah. Yeah. Gissele: And then we have to choose it and, and commit to it. Because I think that’s where the commitment, people just wave around the commitment. They choose it, they think that they’re choosing it, but then as soon as things don’t align or they don’t see it, then they’re like, oh, well that, that didn’t work. And so I think you have to believe in it more than you believe what you see. So, Greta: yeah. And sometimes when it doesn’t work, it’s really that aha moment. I talked about in the last seminar that at one point I really was kinda fascinated about going to Mount Everest, maybe in a base camp, maybe climbing it. and I was just fascinated about people that had admission to tell a story and they wanted to give visibility. So they went through all that training and [01:01:00] hardship to go to the pick Mount Everest to tell the story. And then my hip started going. I go, okay, this is not going to happen for me. So I wanna get, tell my story. Greta: I wanna do something that has a, a planetary influence. And then the Pole came. And when I first started working out, I never thought that that was gonna be the platform, but as I look back at it now, in retrospect, I was climbing to new heights. You know, I was climbing, I was filling the ecstasy of the heights, and being able to share that message on a world’s stage and give visibility to my mission. Oh. Manifested through it. And at that time I would’ve never seen it. But the universe said, there’s a shift coming. There’s a shift coming. So the Pole became my Everest. Yeah. And everybody has an Everest within them. There’s something within them and you just have to keep going. And, and I said when I [01:02:00] started doing that, I never thought I was gonna compete. I’d never did. Cuz I, my competition is in the mirror and when I go to still compete, I call it I’m going to perform or I’m going to a championship. I’m not competing with my friends or all my friends. Mm. I look at it really as I’m there to share a message. So I never thought I was gonna keep it. But you know, universe had different plans for me. I realized that it, I, to give visibility to my message, I had to go out and do something that was going to create interest on a world stage. And it wouldn’t happen if I just. Have a good time training at home. Yeah. You know, you had, I had to like get outta my comfort zone. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Gissele: You have to be, we had to be willing to get outta your comfort zone. You also were willing, the, you have a great flexibility, which I think, because sometimes we have a vision of something and then we’re like, no, this is the vision. But [01:03:00] sometimes, as you say, the universe or higher self or source or God is saying, no, no. The, the vision is there. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s foundationally the same. You’re, you’re climbing the pole instead of climbing Mount Everest. if you were willing to see it, but sometimes we’re so stuck in how the vision should look, that we miss our, our opportunity like that we may not, that it’s not gonna come, it couldn’t come back. But sometimes that we miss the gifts that are being offered to us in different ways. And so you seem to have this incredible flexibility to be able to say, okay, maybe not this then what? right. Than, than this or this or this or Greta: this. It’s, yes. It’s kinda like, and you, it kinda like, you’re always improvising . It’s like, make mistake kinda sounds like, oh, that was interesting. So it’s kind like you’re always improvising, so when something doesn’t work out that way, I, I know it’s, something else is gonna work out even better. If you believe that you’ll [01:04:00] manifest it, you’ll, I mean, and something will be better about it. I mean maybe, maybe it’s not the exact, maybe you thought this was the apex right here and maybe it’s really something over here and maybe it doesn’t seem as high to you, but it’s just as fulfilling. Yeah. It’s just as fulfilling. I mean, what I, if you find you can find fulfillment in the little things. Mm-hmm. the tiny things in life, you know, sometimes the simplest things give you the fulfillment. So you’re not doing it for this, this big climax here. You’re doing it. For this, this inner feeling that you have within this sense of wellbeing that somehow that you’re living life to its fullest. Mm-hmm. and sharing in it. Sometimes it’s very small things, sometimes it, you know, bigger things, but it’s, it’s, it’s really the, it’s the quality of what you feel. It’s, there’s something within you that is just priceless and it’s just a sweet spot [01:05:00] within all of us that all of us could live there more. I mean, this would be a different world people lived in that, you know, that center spot, like the Dai Lama says, you know, practicing kindness. That’s, that’s the message. It’s all about kindness. If we all had kindness in this planet for each other, imagine the kind of world that we would live in. Mm-hmm. It’s all about kindness, and we have to think in every moment, how can I be kinder to myself, to my friends, to the people I come in contact with? How can I have more compassion? We can never have too much compassion. We can never have too much love. We just, you just have to allow it to keep blossoming and blossoming and blossom. So it contains the entire universe. Mm-hmm. , I guess that’s what Rumi talks a lot about that in his poetry. Yeah. About it just containing the universe. And he says, you’re not a drop in the ocean. You are the, you are the [01:06:00] ocean, you are the, but we think we’re just this little tiny person in this world. We’re the magnitude of what we can become. It’s just, it’s unlimited. Mm-hmm. . And I believe that people just have to open their hearts to that vision. And the more you open that heart, the little pieces at a time, Some, sometimes you have, there’s a quantum leap, an epiphany or something just, it just changes overnight. You know, you just feel this effervescence within you and that becomes life enhancing. So to me that I try to make choices that keep maintaining that, that’s, that’s the goal. And if you don’t, you don’t beat yourself up and. You know, I’ve learned something from this and I’m going to grow from it, right? Gissele: Yeah. You choose again. Yeah. Greta: Oh, yes, yes. Go ahead. Moments . It’s ok. . thank you Greta, you’re such an inspiration. I wanted to give you an opportunity to share with people where they can find you. So name your [01:07:00] Instagram, your website, anything that you wanted or anything that you’re working on that you want people to, to know. thank you. Thank you. And you’re such an inspiration. thank you on Yes, youre on Facebook. and YouTube. It is under my name Greta, g r e t a. Pontarelli, P as in Paul, o N as in Nancy, T as in Tom, A r e l l I. I have a handle on Instagram. It’s Ariel Zen, like Ariel, A e r i a l z E N. Because when I first did it, I thought, this is my meditation, you know, you know my aerial zen, like zen being something that takes you to another plane or level, you know, that, that defines words. Greta: You say you can’t define zen in words because it’s just, just is. And so that aerial zen and follow me on all of ’em. I’d love to connect with people if you don’t hear from me. Reach out again. Sometimes things go into these [01:08:00] folders, you know, that, you know, and I go, wait, there’s a folder here that I didn’t know was there, and I haven’t looked there for a month. I don’t mean to ignore anybody. Just find, just keep looking. You’ll find me. Because sometimes I don’t check those. I think you have to approve somebody first before you can visually see it. But then the Fuller’s still there. But, I love hearing success stories. I love people that reach out. people ask me a lot of questions about things. and I really believe in my heart. I love, love, love serving people, because I find that it allows my mission to grow. And it’s all about manifesting that of an abundant life. Mm-hmm. and abundance is within Right. . But, so I love your message and I thank you so much for sharing. Thank you so much for being on the show and, and creating a platform of people to, to know that that life is truly a, a miracle and they can create those [01:09:00] miracles. Greta: These like everyday miracles, everyday omens, they’re all around us. And the more grateful you are for everyone that comes in your life, like we talked about earlier, they magnify and they keep growing. Mm-hmm. . And, I’m just so grateful for people like you that enriched my life beyond measure. Thank you. Gissele: Thank you, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. To everyone at Tune in as well. Please go check, Greta’s website, Greta’s, Instagram as well as get in touch with her. and please join us again for another episode of the Love and Compassion podcast. So Thank you Greta: for sharing the love. Namaste.