0:27

Take a deep breath in

0:30

through your nose.

0:33

Hold it.

0:36

Now, release slowly

0:43

again deep

0:46

in heale, hold

0:55

release, repeating

1:02

internally to yourself as

1:04

you connect to my voice.

1:08

I am deeply, deeply

1:10

well. I

1:15

I am deeply

1:17

well. I

1:23

am deeply.

1:26

Well.

1:30

I'm Debbie Brown and

1:32

this is the Deeply Well Podcast.

1:41

Welcome to Deeply Well, a soft

1:43

place to land on your journey. A

1:46

podcast for those that are curious, creative,

1:49

and ready to expand in higher

1:51

consciousness and self care.

1:53

I'm Debbie Brown. This is where we

1:56

heal, this is where we

1:58

become. All Right, everyone,

2:00

please buckle up for

2:03

what I know is going to be a very mentally,

2:05

emotionally spiritually adventurous

2:08

episode.

2:09

Really excited to share today's guest with

2:11

you.

2:12

He is a dear friend, a brother, and someone

2:14

I've had the pleasure of having on this show

2:16

before. It's been a couple seasons since

2:18

he joined us. We're still dropping gems at the

2:20

time. But the episode that

2:22

came forward was one that I know has

2:25

meant so much to so many that

2:27

connect with this work, especially

2:30

because of the purity and the

2:32

rawness and the depth of

2:34

the wisdom and where it stems from.

2:37

So today's guest.

2:39

Minaj is one of the world's

2:41

most in demand teachers

2:44

and mindful brand consultants, working

2:46

with athletes, executives, schools,

2:48

and Fortune five hundred companies that include

2:51

Nike, NBA, Lululemon,

2:53

Netflix, Google, and the United Nations.

2:56

He's worked at MoMA, Coachella, Warner

2:59

Music and Art Back Miami. He

3:01

is a co founder of Open, a modern

3:03

mindfulness studio based in Venice, California,

3:06

and he previously co founded a Space,

3:09

Australia's first multidisciplinary

3:12

drop in meditation studio.

3:15

The best selling author of Still Together,

3:18

Minaj currently sits on the faculty

3:20

of Eastlan as well as the Melbourne

3:23

Business School's Executive Leadership

3:25

Program. With a discipline grounded in

3:27

secular mindfulness and Buddhist meditation,

3:30

as well as over five hundred hours of yoga

3:32

training, Minaj's expertise spans

3:34

breathwork, traman for mindfulness,

3:36

and somatic psychology, with

3:38

a practice drawing from both Western science

3:41

and Eastern philosophies. Over

3:43

the course of a decade, he has studied with globally

3:45

renowned teachers including Sharon

3:47

Salzburg, doctor Miles Neil, and

3:50

Matt c Errat.

3:52

As Errat tea.

3:55

Marii Madia is RITTI.

3:56

Madia is ratty.

3:58

Please excuse the mis see

4:01

Welcome back to the show manaj.

4:03

Das nice to be back.

4:05

And I was kind of cringing when I'm hearing

4:08

my whole biobing thread out.

4:10

I'm like, who wrote this?

4:12

Does it offend your humility?

4:13

Yeah, it's kind of weird. It's kind of weird to

4:15

hear all that.

4:16

You know, I was raised primarily in Australia

4:18

and we have this weird thing around hearing

4:21

our accomplishments, like you know, being

4:23

spoken out loud.

4:24

It's actually a disease. It's called tall

4:27

Poppy syndrome.

4:28

It's where, you know, if you start to talk about yourself

4:31

too much, people around you just cut

4:33

you down.

4:33

They're like, who does this guy think he is?

4:35

So you start to you kind of get that ingrained

4:37

in your in your mind as you grow up.

4:39

You're like, I don't talk about your accomplishment and so what

4:41

you do. But then I remember landing in

4:44

La and everyone's like, this is.

4:45

What I do, right, And

4:48

it's also a grandie it is.

4:51

Yeah, it's a very different culture.

4:52

So I'm so happy to be back, Like I

4:55

was thinking, of that on the way here. The

4:57

conversation we had in twenty twenty was so

4:59

special. I've done so many podcasts,

5:01

and that one sticks out because I felt very

5:03

raw personally going through it, and

5:05

you know, you held such beautiful space and we went

5:08

in and I'm excited to see

5:10

you again.

5:10

Thank you so much, my friend. And

5:13

I think just for to set this stage a little

5:15

of our background, you

5:17

know, you were one of the people that I definitely

5:19

made deep connection with in the

5:21

pandemic, and I remember, especially

5:23

more towards the start of the pandemic and especially

5:26

before kind of you know, the quote

5:28

unquote.

5:28

Industry really exploded.

5:31

I think some of us that were teachers

5:34

that were kind of in this space, and we

5:36

were also grappling with our own kind

5:38

of internal wars and chaoses

5:40

and unfoldings,

5:44

but we were put in a position to serve

5:46

in really deep ways. And

5:48

I think something I've shared a little bit on

5:50

the show is I think I've even needed

5:52

to take the last year to come

5:55

down from all of the work that

5:57

I was doing and offering in the pandemic

6:00

and just let myself even look

6:03

back and grieve a little for the

6:05

things I couldn't agrieve in real time because I

6:07

was serving.

6:07

Yeah, yeah, I mean that that definitely

6:09

resonates. And I

6:11

haven't had the moment to step away for a

6:14

year, but I've had moments where I've broken down,

6:16

like I mean really transparently, like my

6:18

health has suffered, and I've

6:20

taken a few months off from work

6:22

and I've gone and kind of decompressed

6:25

a bit. You know that that has left

6:27

lasting effects on me, both on an emotional

6:30

level and I think a mental level,

6:32

and you know, some good things came out

6:34

of it, but also like some things I'm still trying to

6:36

process and understand manage.

6:39

And I had a chance to, you know, get to

6:41

know each other a little bit when you first moved to LA but

6:43

all of us were so restricted, and then

6:46

I had a chance in this last year to come

6:48

into your space. This absolutely

6:51

gorgeous, deeply

6:53

authentic community

6:55

you've created at Open, which you're a co

6:57

founder of, which for those that are not familiar,

7:00

Open has a really powerful app

7:02

where they offer really incredible meditations

7:04

and breath work sessions, but they also have this

7:06

really gorgeous space

7:09

in Venice, California that

7:11

it's very transcendent and transporting.

7:14

When you get to go there and they offer classes

7:17

and a multitude of things, but definitely meditation,

7:20

breath work, And so I joined you there

7:23

and we did, I believe we

7:25

did like a practice centered around love

7:28

and it was really beautiful. And I had some friends

7:30

join me, and we're all live in the flesh and there's

7:32

nothing, you know, as much as we can do things

7:35

on the apps or you know, do things on YouTube

7:37

videos, there's really nothing

7:40

quite as special and invocative

7:43

as going into space

7:45

as a student with other people

7:48

and being able to really be in

7:50

the energy of your teacher

7:53

or whoever's guiding you, because you pick

7:55

up on so much like the nuance

7:57

of the spiritual experience in the bodylaneguage

8:00

and the tone of voice. In being able to witness

8:03

how someone holds space or can respond

8:05

to other people. It's a very very

8:08

important part of

8:10

the healing arts that I think shouldn't

8:12

go unnoticed. But we shared that together,

8:15

which was a really special night. But

8:18

when you know, to

8:20

kind of sink into what you just shared,

8:24

what about the way you

8:28

experience yourself

8:31

your own practice and

8:34

the way that you teach. What shifted

8:37

since the pandemic? How has that

8:39

kind of influenced or changed

8:41

or evolved who you are

8:43

in your spirituality.

8:45

Yeah, such a great question. You

8:48

know.

8:48

In coming up to twenty twenty, I

8:51

had been practicing you know,

8:53

meditation, yoga, breath

8:55

work in culmination

8:57

for around fifteen sixteen years, and with

9:00

my teacher, there were moments I almost went and

9:02

studied and took robes, and

9:04

so I was so steeped in lineage

9:06

and tradition and practice,

9:09

and what I encountered in twenty twenty,

9:11

and as we were talking about before, was

9:15

people that were really suffering. And

9:17

in that moment, I think, you

9:19

know, us as teachers, there's a light bulb. They're like,

9:21

oh, well, we've got something to help you alleviate

9:24

that suffering.

9:25

So we kind of go to work.

9:27

And there were a lot of times

9:29

when I was approaching people that were having

9:31

really high anxiety or grief, stress,

9:35

overwhelmed, and I was presenting these

9:37

traditional teachings which you know, our time

9:39

tested two thousand and five, nine years old.

9:42

But I started to realize not all of it was

9:44

working, you know, and the way I was presenting

9:47

it just wasn't cutting through. And

9:49

in my mind, I'm like, well, how this has worked

9:52

for so long? And you know, they

9:54

absolutely do work, is what I want to

9:56

say. But I realized I had to change how

9:58

it was being presented and people

10:01

needed immediacy. They needed something that

10:03

was going to cut through and just help

10:06

them in that moment. And you know, as you know with meditation

10:08

practice, it's often something that evolves

10:10

beautifully over time. It's like an avocato,

10:13

right, It takes time and then you enjoy

10:15

it at the right moment. But

10:18

I needed to like really switch up how I was teaching.

10:20

And it was my daughter actually that that was the biggest

10:22

teacher here, because she had some social anxiety

10:25

that came through the

10:27

pandemic and then post pandemic, and

10:29

I needed to find a way to give her something

10:31

that was just going to help her in

10:33

that moment and me giving all these long

10:36

damatalks and explaining what the Buddha did

10:38

and how this it just wasn't it just wasn't

10:40

resonating. And so the communication

10:43

style changed. You know, I integrated

10:45

more breathwork into practices. I

10:47

integrated breath work and meditation into

10:49

practices. I started leveraging sound

10:51

and music and went, you know, down the rabbit hole of

10:54

understanding the power of sound, how that

10:56

really transports us into different brainway states,

10:59

and so I had to pull on every single

11:01

court I could to try and find ways to heal.

11:03

So in a way, it made me a

11:06

better teacher, but in a way also

11:08

created a lot of dissonance

11:10

within me because in my mind, I was a Buddhist

11:13

meditation teacher and that was it. I was on

11:15

this track to being, you know, the

11:17

youngest, one of the youngest Buddhist meditation teachers,

11:20

and I was respected and had credibility.

11:22

But then I just had to help people, you

11:25

know, I'm like, well, this helps, and let's

11:27

bring that in.

11:28

But then I was in this.

11:29

Internal conflict of all who am I? And my identity

11:31

starting to shift, And yeah,

11:34

I think there was a point where I was like, I stopped

11:37

trying to impress people. I stopped

11:39

trying to be something to

11:41

anyone else. I

11:43

wanted to always be a

11:45

teacher that was credible, that had respect,

11:49

that was well studied, well versed,

11:53

and that was what was most important.

11:54

It was that I wasn't creating any harm, but I was actually

11:57

being of help and support.

11:59

Wow. Wow, So

12:02

how now is you know, you're kind of we're

12:05

a few years removed. Has

12:07

there have you just noticed that this is

12:09

now kind of the attended path or

12:11

has there been kind of any

12:14

blending and or emerging.

12:16

Yeah, I think there definitely has been blending

12:19

emerging, But it's ways

12:21

of explaining the same thing

12:23

in new ways really is what I found.

12:26

It's like capturing people's imagination in

12:28

fifteen seconds versus or one hour

12:30

talk which I used to give before every meditation.

12:34

It's meeting people where they're

12:36

at, you know. And I think there's a lot more empathy

12:38

and compassion that I have for people

12:40

that don't meditate and don't practice, and

12:43

also don't have time, because before

12:45

I'm like, what do you mean you don't have ten minutes?

12:47

Like what's wrong with you?

12:48

And I think living in LA especially, I'm

12:50

like, oh, people really don't have ten minutes

12:52

and they're navigating all of these other things

12:55

like housing affordability in LA and

12:57

you know, or crime, the

13:00

economy and geopolitical

13:02

chaos. I'm like, Okay, maybe they don't

13:04

have time, So what can I give them that will

13:07

be a gateway to this

13:09

other thing that I teach? And so breath

13:11

work, music and sound has been a big part of

13:13

my practice since twenty twenty.

13:16

Yeah, God, that's so powerful. I think.

13:20

I think for some of us, it's like really

13:22

recognizing the importance of

13:25

speaking to the experience of the complex

13:28

lived experience that we have now that is

13:31

it's just there's no precedent for it, you

13:33

know. It's like, as much as we can point to other moments

13:35

in history that there was you know, strain or

13:37

stress or you know, things happening, We've

13:39

always had wars. There has never been a

13:41

time that there has not been war

13:44

literally ever, there has never been

13:46

a time that there has not been mass

13:48

suffering in a

13:51

handful of countries at the same time

13:53

somewhere, you know, in.

13:55

The history of the world.

13:57

So, you know, I think one something

13:59

that's important to recognized for all of us, for

14:01

everyone, especially viewing on this path that

14:03

is looking for healing and peace.

14:07

We are always dancing between grief and joy.

14:10

We are always navigating that there is not

14:13

a liveness that

14:15

doesn't include grief, that doesn't include

14:18

having to kind of grapple with the paradox

14:20

of it all and the sadness of it all in

14:22

some ways.

14:23

And hold both things at the same time. Yeah,

14:25

which is which is also really

14:27

interesting. I think the one thing that shifted

14:30

is like we've never been we've never had a

14:32

front row seat to the grief, like the geopolitical

14:34

grief in particular, and I think that

14:37

combined with what we have to go through now

14:39

on the back end of two and a half years of a

14:41

pandemic, because I think, you know,

14:44

people are being really traumatized like that. That's

14:46

my perspective on people's people

14:49

that I'm seeing that coming to the studio and that I'm

14:51

speaking to, is that people are genuinely

14:53

overwhelmed, you know. So it's

14:55

a really interesting time and it's

14:57

a really interesting period and

15:00

you know, and it's we chatted about about

15:02

this before we started. You know, you're

15:04

reconciling all of the things that's happening

15:06

in the world with this weird new

15:08

like influencer culture as well, and

15:11

so yeah, it's it's wellness

15:14

is booming, it's a trillion dollar industry

15:16

now, Suffering is

15:18

going up. So I'm like, is anything we're

15:20

doing actually making a genuine difference? And

15:23

so that's something I'm always in conversation

15:25

with with myself, like is what I'm doing genuinely

15:28

helping people or is it giving

15:31

them a temporary antidote to something

15:35

which again, it's deeped in me through the Buddhist

15:37

practice. It's like, you know, we'd rather find freedom

15:39

than temporary relief.

15:42

That is so interesting to hear you

15:44

say that is really

15:46

so interesting to hear you say

15:50

so.

15:51

I don't know.

15:52

Something that's coming forward is kind of posing the

15:54

question of does

15:57

it have to lead to transcendence

15:59

to be bad?

16:00

Hmmm. No.

16:02

I think there's there's stages and there's levels

16:04

to this. I think there's pain relief, like,

16:07

which is like the base level, like

16:09

you're suffering, like what can what can we give

16:11

you to ease that that pain? But

16:14

then there's an inquiry that only the student

16:16

can really decide

16:19

on, which is is that is that okay

16:21

for me? Is that enough to constantly take the pill

16:23

to feel good in that moment? Or is

16:25

there which is like the red pill in the

16:27

matrix, which is like I go down the rabbit

16:30

hole of really working with my

16:32

grief, with my suffering, uprooting

16:34

it from its very source, which

16:36

in the short term can be more pain and more suffering,

16:39

but in the long term, in my experience,

16:42

very limited experience of life anyway, has

16:45

been the one that's been the most transformative.

16:47

Yeah, yeah,

16:50

how do you interact

16:53

with your grief.

16:54

M It's

16:57

an ongoing dialogue, you know, it's an

16:59

ongoing comp and I

17:01

don't think I really had to encounter it till

17:03

twenty twenty one when my mother passed away. And

17:06

then that was, you know, it was very sudden.

17:09

It was still in the middle of COVID. I couldn't you

17:11

know, I traveled back from la to

17:13

to Melbourne, but I couldn't actually see

17:15

it because I had to spend like two weeks in a

17:18

hotel quarantine.

17:19

And you know, again, it

17:22

was beautiful.

17:22

It was that The final two three months I

17:24

had with her was incredible, probably the best three

17:26

months that we've had as as

17:29

adults. And you know, in some respects,

17:32

but it's no one can really prepare

17:34

you for it. Like and I've studied

17:37

grief, I've studied in permanence, I've studied

17:39

death, I've studied at an academic

17:41

level, you know, but when

17:44

it happens, all the conceptual

17:46

understanding of that kind of goes out the door

17:49

and you have to really deal with it.

17:51

On a day by day basis.

17:53

And some days, you know, I could reconcile

17:55

it in my mind, I'm like, this is what happens to all

17:57

of us. You know, she had a great

17:59

life all of that, and other days

18:01

it's just like I am, I'm

18:04

distracting myself from the grief. I'm

18:06

overworking, or I'm on my phone,

18:08

or I'm overeating. And you

18:11

know, it was my brother that had I don't think he's meditated

18:14

more than two days in his whole life. He's just

18:16

like, dude, just take it day by day, you

18:18

know, just take it day by day. Every day is going to be different.

18:21

And I'm like, really, that is the best

18:23

advice I think I've been given when

18:25

it comes to grief, is that take it day by day and

18:28

that we can study all

18:30

of this stuff. But some days he has

18:32

to go out the door and you have to have the

18:34

shakeshack two or three times a day, or

18:37

you have to be on your phone, and that's

18:39

part of it.

18:39

You know. That's really what I gave myself grace

18:41

for.

18:42

Like I'm like, yeah, it's okay, it's okay to

18:44

do this, because what I found was that

18:46

I was crumbling. I was crashing,

18:49

and then there would be the dialogue that would

18:51

be on top of that, going, oh, you should be doing better.

18:53

You're a meditation teacher, like, what's wrong with you? And

18:56

so then there's the grief that I'm avoiding.

18:58

Then there's the you know, in a

19:00

narrative, in a critic that's judging me for

19:02

having this experience, and it was just making

19:05

me feel worse and worse and worse. And

19:08

I don't know, if you know, with the grief of a loved

19:10

one in particular, I don't know if that ever ever

19:14

heals in a way

19:16

that feels linear and clear

19:18

and clean.

19:20

I think, you know, there.

19:21

Are moments where you're like, oh,

19:23

that's beautiful, and moments

19:26

where you're like, oh, I really miss this person, you

19:28

know, But it's a day

19:30

by day thing.

19:32

Yeah. Yeah,

19:35

How do you talk to God?

19:37

M I love this question.

19:42

I pray, And the

19:44

irony of that is is a Buddhist meditation teacher,

19:47

we don't really say that we pray, you

19:49

know, we don't pray to a god necessarily

19:51

because we don't we

19:53

don't worship the Buddha. The Buddha was essentially

19:56

a person like your eye that studied,

19:59

you know, learn to understand his mind, and we

20:01

refer to him more as a psychologist than

20:04

a deity.

20:06

But I think when

20:09

my mom passed away.

20:10

He took me back to when I was a child and I didn't

20:12

really understand Buddhism then,

20:15

you know, I didn't really understand religion spirituality,

20:18

even though like they were in my house, like we live

20:20

right next to it a monastery and right next to

20:22

a temple.

20:23

Wow.

20:25

But I remember back as a child, I would

20:27

just pray and I didn't know who I was praying to. I

20:29

was just like, please look after my mom, Please

20:31

look after my dad, look after my brother, look

20:34

after.

20:35

All these people.

20:36

And then when my mom passed away, I

20:38

found myself doing that again, and I'm like,

20:41

you know I was saying. I would say

20:43

in my mind, like please look after her wherever

20:45

she's gone, you know, bring

20:47

her back to me in a different form. And

20:50

there was again there's speaking to something

20:53

that I don't know if i'd

20:55

defined as God.

20:57

And I believe that there is a God. For

20:59

what it's worth.

21:00

I don't know if the

21:02

God is in the form that I imagine it to

21:04

be, or maybe you imagine to be or people

21:07

imagine it to be. But I

21:09

use God interchangeably with the quality of

21:11

oneness, with the quality of love, with a consciousness,

21:15

and yeah, I believe that there

21:17

is something much greater, And

21:19

even if that is not true,

21:22

I find believing in that just makes

21:24

my life so much better.

21:25

Yeah.

21:27

Yes, life is

21:31

challenging by design, and

21:33

it's like, do we want to bring

21:35

more suffering to ourselves?

21:37

Right?

21:38

Like, what are the ways.

21:39

That if we're going to be here, and

21:41

if we're going to choose to stay here, what

21:44

are the ways that you know, we

21:46

can create pleasure and joy

21:49

and delight within

21:51

this experience?

21:52

Right?

21:52

Because if we have one the other side, we

21:55

deserve to know the other. We deserve to swing

21:57

that pendulum to the other.

21:59

Side, lily. And it's all God right,

22:01

Like, it's all part of the experience. And I

22:04

think again into the Buddhist

22:06

context, it's with

22:08

so much fortune that we get reborn

22:10

into a human birth, because you know,

22:12

we can be born as anything, right, like being sex

22:15

and plants and all of that, And

22:17

the opportunity to be born as a as

22:19

a human again in the Buddhist context is so meaningful

22:22

and powerful. And one of

22:24

the questions that's asked by some of

22:26

the greatest teachers is what

22:28

will you do with the preciousness of this human

22:31

existence? And that's always

22:33

struck me, like the preciousness of this human

22:35

existence. And yeah,

22:38

for me, it always puts things into context like

22:41

why would I go and start

22:43

a fight with someone like on the internet,

22:45

or why would I go and get mad or my girlfriend

22:48

my wife? Now, actually, even though I I

22:51

those things naturally come up. Yeah,

22:53

like what's the point in holding grudges?

22:55

What's the point in being violent and being

22:57

aggressive when there's

23:00

so much more in this existence

23:02

to experience? And life is really

23:04

precious. And I think if you come

23:06

into contact with death, you realize even

23:09

more how precious life is. So

23:11

there's for me there's more of an

23:13

urgency with my life, not

23:15

in a like I need to achieve. It's like, no,

23:18

I need to really

23:20

refine my mind. I need to really open my

23:22

heart because this is like precious.

23:25

Like I'm not going to waste time loving

23:28

people and calling people. So there's

23:30

so much more energy

23:33

behind the things that I might

23:35

have previously put off, you know, like I'll do

23:37

it when I have time. I'll call my daughter,

23:40

you know, on the weekend. Now,

23:42

if I have an idea, I'm like, oh, I wonder how

23:44

that is?

23:44

I call him? You know.

23:46

Now, if I walk past someone on the street and

23:48

there's a desire like I'll go and help

23:50

this person. I just do it, because

23:52

if I sit there and if I think about it, then I'm like, oh,

23:54

well, you know, if I give money to this person,

23:57

and I'll have to give money to the person behind me, and

23:59

I don't really have cash. So I'm

24:01

like, no, if I get this,

24:03

this spit of generosity or

24:06

love, I'm just going to act on it.

24:07

And yeah, I try to live my life

24:10

that way.

24:17

Deeply.

24:18

Well. One

24:21

of the things, especially that I think you

24:23

just spoke to that just so many grapple

24:25

with in this you know, the year of our

24:27

Lord twenty twenty four, where Internet

24:30

is king and perception somehow,

24:33

you know, exceeds reality. I

24:35

think people don't always recognize

24:37

that they have a choice what they

24:40

engage with. Right. So it's like we can

24:42

encounter this experience

24:45

of so called hate on the internet, right,

24:47

or this experience of people being against

24:49

us or feuding with us. But I've just found

24:51

so often it's you know, we're

24:54

in.

24:54

Co creation with that too.

24:55

The moment we give it our attention, the

24:57

moment we let it take over our awareness, and we I

25:00

don't understand always the power of

25:02

letting go of the grip. You know it

25:04

exists because you allow it to to

25:06

a certain extent. Right, there are some things out

25:08

of our control, and there's very often

25:11

things that happen that are without our consent.

25:13

But in the context of

25:15

what is like non violent,

25:18

non harmful, non urgent, we

25:21

are making a choice to kind

25:23

of have those experiences and

25:25

let them create the essence of

25:27

how we feel. But when we let

25:30

go or when we choose to

25:32

disengage, I think so often

25:34

we can be just absolutely shocked at

25:36

how quickly whatever

25:38

that experience of discomfort or

25:41

frustration is the way it can just leave us.

25:43

Yeah, yeah, I mean letting goes really hot.

25:46

Yeah, firstly with

25:49

throwing it out there. Yeah, And like my pet

25:51

peeve is when I go to a yoga class and she's like,

25:53

just let go, I'm like, woman,

25:56

what are you telling me to do?

25:57

Exactly? And you know how how to visits it?

25:59

But no, I think conceptually

26:02

again, letting go is really the

26:05

work, right, It's constantly letting

26:07

go of things that are inherently

26:09

impermanent, things that inherently

26:11

a lot of things that don't even matter at the end

26:13

of our lives. But to get

26:15

to that, to have that awareness and

26:18

then to have the capability

26:21

to take action and let go in that moment

26:23

is tough because you know, like anger,

26:26

for example, like, yeah, let go when you're angry, let

26:28

go.

26:28

I'm like, but it feels so good.

26:30

That anger feels so good, and

26:33

so it's seductive, you know, it's seductive.

26:36

Our habitual responses

26:38

are seductive. And it

26:40

is a delicate balance between using

26:43

our wisdom which we've cultivated through

26:45

practice, and.

26:49

Giving giving voice.

26:50

And giving action and giving our

26:54

selves to a particular feeling

26:56

because sometimes it's great to let go into anger

26:58

and we need it. Right creates

27:01

change sometimes anger creates

27:05

creates revolution at times. And

27:09

also anger creates a lot of hump and it

27:11

creates a lot of pain and creates a lot of suffering.

27:14

And one of my teachers used to say, it's

27:16

like a button knife. A butter knife

27:18

can spread beautiful grass

27:20

fed organic butter on bread, but

27:22

it can also kill someone. And

27:24

it's it's how do you use it, how do you respond

27:27

to it? How do you work with it at that moment?

27:29

Yeah, yeah, absolutely,

27:32

I will encourage everyone though. I found

27:34

that if you choose, if

27:37

you are able to make a choice, that's

27:39

in service to kind of releasing

27:41

your grip around something anything in your

27:43

life. You will cringe

27:46

very often, you will want to scream it out

27:48

inside of your own body. But if you sit with

27:50

it, it creates a new

27:52

pathway that your system

27:55

begins to really like. And

27:57

then you'll be given opportunities quickly

27:59

to do that again. And then

28:01

if you keep saying yes, which

28:03

isn't always possible and is it

28:06

challenging, absolutely, can it be done?

28:08

Absolutely, After

28:11

a couple times, you get the hang of it, and you

28:13

actually realize how

28:16

much power you have inside and how

28:18

powerful of a co creator in your life you can

28:21

be. And you know it depends on

28:23

the experiences. But I also say this as someone who

28:25

chose to get divorced in the beginning of a pandemic

28:28

and had to kind of navigate life

28:31

with a decision that was that

28:33

affecting to the things around me. But

28:35

I found that as soon as you did the thing, you're

28:39

just met with a lot of opportunity to

28:41

make new powerful choices with ease, and

28:43

you won't be met with as much anxiety

28:46

about them.

28:47

Yeah, and you so beautifully said

28:50

I think about it in the context of meditation as

28:53

well, Like you know, when we meditate,

28:55

we really look at ourselves, right, We look at our own

28:57

mind, we look at our own tendencies

28:59

a right, and the more we begin

29:01

to look at ourselves, we can see very

29:04

clearly which actions

29:06

or thoughts lead us towards

29:08

suffering and which actions

29:10

and thoughts lead us towards happiness.

29:13

And then there's a choice that we're presented

29:16

with, like do I choose to go down the

29:18

road of suffering, which could be disdain, a toxic

29:20

relationship, which could be distained, a job that's

29:22

killing you, all of these things?

29:25

Or do I choose.

29:26

To go towards enjoy love

29:28

all of that? And, like you

29:30

said, the more you do it, you start to fall into this

29:33

loop of having seen

29:35

very clearly the choices that are presented to us in

29:37

our life. But to get to that, it

29:39

takes work. It takes the

29:41

faculty of developing awareness

29:44

and intuition and then courage, because

29:47

you know, to leave a relationship or to leave

29:49

a job, or to say yes to a relationship

29:51

or to say yes to a job takes that. Okay,

29:54

I believe in this, and I feel like that's love

29:57

that's motivating me here and not fear

29:59

or or safety or anything else.

30:02

Yeah, thank you beautiful

30:05

talk to me about open So

30:07

what was your inspiration for co founding

30:10

this? And you

30:12

know what did you notice that was

30:14

kind of missing that the bills?

30:17

Yeah, it's I

30:19

mean, it's been such a journey. I was talking to my co

30:22

founder Ride today about it. You know, it's

30:24

been four and a half years since, you know, we decided

30:27

to embark on this journey.

30:29

I started off when I was still in Australia.

30:31

I was trying to get over to America,

30:33

but obviously during the pandemic, the immigration

30:36

was really crazy.

30:39

You know.

30:39

The vision was very simple. It was get

30:42

more people to these practices.

30:44

And you know, we each have different

30:46

interpretations. But when I heard get more people,

30:49

I thought, who is not here, who is not

30:52

practicing meditation, who is not in

30:55

the rooms that I'm going and teaching too?

30:57

And it was very obvious and very clear. It was minorities,

31:00

it was young people, it was old people. And

31:02

then there's this wellness demographic

31:05

that you'd see at most yoga studios.

31:08

And my mission at that point was that, Okay,

31:10

I need to bring more people here. And it's

31:12

not easy because the people that tend

31:14

to go to yoga studios meditation studios,

31:17

especially at place like Venice, are a specific

31:19

demographic that have.

31:20

Money that are located in those places.

31:23

But it was a long play for me.

31:25

It was like, Okay, I know maybe initially

31:27

it's not going to be like that, you know, and it's

31:29

not true, Like it is fairly diverse, it

31:31

open, and we're lucky because it's a

31:34

pretty affluent white demographic of Venice

31:36

Beach, which is ironic in and of itself.

31:39

But that was

31:41

the main mission. I want to get more people here. And

31:44

then as we started to work with these

31:46

techniques and different practices, we thought they

31:48

in and of themselves were inaccessible. A

31:51

lot of my friends, when I say come and do a

31:54

yoga class, were like, nah, Na, yoga's

31:56

not for me. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to live for soon.

31:58

I'd be like that, and

32:01

I'm like, well, you.

32:02

Know, you'd get all these benefits.

32:04

And you know, blah blah. They're like, nah, I've only got

32:06

an hour a day, Like I got to do this. So

32:08

we developed movement classes that

32:10

use the weights that also leveraged

32:13

yoga based movements, and then

32:15

we created another movement.

32:18

I call it movement languages. Because they're not

32:20

used styles another movement language

32:22

that was mobility focused, and that

32:24

use of mobility instead of

32:27

yoga was also important because

32:29

yoga has a connotation that can either

32:31

draw you in or it can freak you out. And

32:34

so blending different styles

32:36

different techniques was

32:39

a way to get more people to really this

32:41

practice. And then finally

32:43

it's this concept that I've been learning

32:46

for three and a half years, which is around somatics

32:49

and somatic psychology, which

32:51

is around really inhabiting the body as a

32:53

way to really navigate,

32:55

deal and overcome complex trauma. And

32:59

them out of twenty twenty and

33:01

teaching again, I realize we're all traumatized

33:05

in various ways. And

33:07

I see this with CEOs that

33:10

I coach on the side, I see this with athletes,

33:13

I see this with the average person that walks in. We

33:16

all have these little fragments

33:18

of experience that take us out of our bodies,

33:21

and we spend a lot of time not in our

33:23

bodies, and that has a ripple

33:25

effect. That has a ripple effect on our relationships

33:27

with the people that we love, our relationship

33:30

to ourselves, to God, to

33:32

the present moment. And so the

33:35

mission then became find ways

33:37

to get people here into their

33:39

bodies and then give them something to help

33:41

them understand their lived experience. And

33:44

so we do that through meditation, through

33:47

breath work, through movement practices.

33:49

We try to do it through our social media.

33:52

You know, Becka has a big, big impact

33:54

on that. Our dear friends.

33:55

Shout out to Becker.

33:56

Yeah, yeah,

34:00

in all of these ways. Is just finding new ways

34:02

to bring people into the present moment.

34:04

Yeah, absolutely, Yeah,

34:06

to that point. And that's something we discuss a lot

34:09

on the show. Is complex

34:11

post traumatic stress and complex

34:14

trauma. And you know what it

34:16

is to navigate with a complex lived experience

34:19

and really want you

34:21

know, so many people I think especially that listen

34:23

to this show, you're navigating what we're

34:25

calling in this moment, you know, kind

34:29

of lineage healing or intergenerational

34:32

trauma. You know, just really having

34:34

this deep desire to

34:36

meet yourself more deeply so that the dynamic

34:39

of everything in your life gets to change.

34:41

And it is hard, arduous,

34:45

deeply devotional work.

34:47

Yeah.

34:48

Oh, devotional that is the word, Like

34:50

that is really that is

34:52

really it. It's a relationship

34:55

that never ends to right, because the healing,

34:57

I don't feel like it ever ends

35:00

and it's interesting in a culture

35:02

living in LA. I mean, if.

35:07

I'm born and raised here.

35:08

Still yeah, yeah, I was about to go to La.

35:11

No, like I've really found it challenging.

35:14

Is like me being really vulnerable and honest

35:16

right now. I found it, you

35:19

know. And also it's my own thing, right because

35:21

I've I live in Santa Monica

35:23

and I don't feel like it's my place, and my

35:25

best friends are either in New York or they're in Melbourne,

35:27

and the culture of LA is very different.

35:29

To those two places.

35:31

But it's it's been very interesting when

35:33

you say devotion, because we live,

35:36

especially in LA, in such an immediacy

35:39

of healing. And I use

35:41

healing in quotation marks because

35:44

it can be used flippantly

35:46

as well, like we're healing if we're doing this, we're

35:48

healing if we're doing that. My curiosity

35:51

has always been living in LA, like what is the

35:53

actual work?

35:55

Like what is it actually like?

35:57

Are we just going to hang out of the beach and you

35:59

know, plant medicine and that's healing, right,

36:02

And I'm not judging for what

36:04

it's worth, right, it's we all have our own

36:06

versions of that. But I come

36:09

from a lineage and I come from teachers

36:11

that say healing isn't sexy.

36:13

You don't post about it.

36:14

You know you you actually are in the

36:16

murky depths of darkness

36:19

and you're broken.

36:20

You're broken down many many times.

36:22

And yeah, it's

36:24

that word really resonated when

36:26

you say because it's it takes so much devotion

36:28

to commit to that. It's devotion

36:31

and the ugly times and the messiness

36:33

and the rawness and the broken downness,

36:36

and it's only devotion that gets

36:38

you through at that point.

36:39

It's nothing else.

36:41

God, God.

36:44

I really resonate deeply

36:47

with where you hold healing

36:49

work. You know it

36:51

much like you. That's how I see things. And this

36:53

is not to take away from anyone else, but

36:57

I don't think, especially if you are posting

37:00

about it, talking about it in real time, it

37:02

is possible for you to be transcending

37:04

that experience or quote unquote healing

37:06

it. I think that those are things

37:08

that you have to be in such a devotional

37:12

humility with and that you

37:14

have to allow to unfold,

37:17

like there is so much unknown, and

37:19

I feel that it taints

37:21

some of the process if

37:23

you are trying to quantify it, especially

37:26

too soon, or quantify it for

37:30

audienceship you know, it

37:33

can be challenging. You may not get the

37:35

opportunity to fully let it sink into

37:38

yourself yet because you have to integrate

37:40

and you have to create space to embody

37:43

what it is that you were doing.

37:46

Just to that point, I feel like often

37:48

us being really vocal

37:50

about it is a is a

37:53

coping mechanism, you know. I feel

37:55

like our phones and technology is

37:58

lack of a better word, like addictive, and

38:00

we go to it to cope with stress and overwhelm

38:03

and even in moments when we're doing some deep

38:05

healing work. To your point, if we start

38:08

to go to that, if it's like this thing we broadcast

38:12

consciously or unconsciously, we're not really

38:15

still in it, you know, where we're disconnecting

38:17

from the experience, somewhere connecting

38:19

to something else. And again

38:22

it's it's okay, we all go through our

38:25

cycle of grief, but

38:28

it's important to know that that often the desire

38:30

to even even the moment

38:32

we have a really peak

38:35

experience.

38:35

Right. I see a lot of people these days

38:37

going to South America

38:40

and doing plant medicine ceremonies

38:42

and I'm like, oh, like I did

38:44

this, and this is what happened I'm

38:46

like, Yo, you were just out yesterday and like the

38:49

you're like posting about stuff like

38:51

take the moment to integrate, like you said, take

38:53

the moment to really learn, like what happens, because

38:56

some of these things unfold over time, you

38:58

know, they unfold the later.

39:01

Yes, thank you for saying

39:03

that.

39:04

Yeah, yeah, yes, I

39:06

think, oh

39:08

god, yes, it's you

39:10

know, I've done. I've done a lot of

39:13

work on myself, and very

39:15

gratefully, I have found ways to move

39:17

through a lot of really complicated,

39:21

complex trauma that I've experienced since childhood,

39:24

but so much of it I don't

39:26

share the process. I try to bring the wisdom

39:28

forward, but I don't need to share

39:31

all of the stories of the darkness

39:34

because where I'm holding them and where I'm placing

39:37

them, I have to just be in my own process

39:39

with myself and just allow the wisdom

39:41

to flow forward, but not necessarily

39:44

kind of have tourism of the pain.

39:46

Yeah you know, yeah, yeah, I

39:48

mean one of my favorite teachers back I'm

39:50

in astray, Johnny Chatted. Johnny Paulotte

39:53

once said to me, you know,

39:55

teaches often full victim to sharing

39:58

the wound, right sharing, Like I

40:00

am in this pain and we see that

40:02

with social media, like I'm going through this,

40:05

and I think the really profound teachers

40:08

that have really been able to integrate and

40:10

embody their wisdom, they often

40:12

share from the scar and

40:14

that that ability

40:17

to say that, that ability

40:19

to be with the wound, to tend to

40:21

it, to heal it, and then to be

40:23

able to say this is how I healed

40:26

it is for me the

40:29

wisdom and it's

40:31

kind of lost in social

40:33

media wellness a little bit.

40:36

But I think, you know, there are these incredible

40:39

teachers out there that like you're

40:41

one of them. Like I've seen you teach and I've

40:44

seen you speak, and I

40:46

actually spoke to someone about it today, where

40:48

when you're in the presence of someone that embodies

40:51

what they're teaching, there are no words,

40:53

like you just feel it, right, Like we've been in front of

40:55

teachers where you're like, oh, yeah, they could

40:57

just be saying the simplest thing, but you're

40:59

like this.

41:00

Is yes, that is different,

41:03

right, yeah, no, like you feel it.

41:05

Whereas someone that comes and says

41:08

something that they've just learned from a book or from

41:10

a podcasts,

41:12

it's a different frequency. And

41:14

I'm not someone that's deeply

41:17

into things I don't really understand

41:19

and that are not tangible. But I believe

41:21

in energy, and I believe that there is an energetic

41:23

component to wisdom that

41:26

that can't be articulated with words, words

41:28

words.

41:34

Deeply, well, you

41:39

are such a poet.

41:41

I just I love the way you.

41:44

Yeah, you feel all of

41:46

the deep study and research

41:49

and observing and surgery

41:52

that you have been doing on your

41:55

life and the world around you, mainly overthinking,

41:57

you know, ruminating

41:59

thoughts, right, thank

42:02

you.

42:03

You know, and something that you brought forward when

42:05

and.

42:07

Blessed.

42:08

This is not with any specific

42:11

criticism or judgment, but there

42:13

is some observation that I'm going to share

42:15

that I'm noticing. But when we talk about,

42:17

for instance, some of the communities that

42:20

feel.

42:20

Very bypassy, right, it feels very

42:23

like I.

42:23

Am into the festival of it all, I

42:25

am into the ayahuasca of it all.

42:27

I am into the kind of what

42:31

I observe as more performative

42:34

experience of

42:36

spirituality. You know, something that I

42:38

think is so important to remember is that absolutely

42:42

anything can be used as

42:44

a tool of avoidance, like

42:47

anything, including God, right,

42:49

which is how very often and a lot of

42:52

and we've talked about this on the show quite a bit. There's

42:54

a lot of religious trauma in the world, especially

42:57

in the black community. There is a lot of religious

42:59

trauma.

43:00

You know.

43:01

It's easy to just spiritually

43:03

bypass while talking about

43:05

spirit you

43:07

know, and it's like, are

43:11

is ayahuasca or any of the things

43:13

that one can do? And I've done ayahuasca,

43:16

But are those any of the things? You know?

43:20

Are you avoiding yourself by

43:23

saying that you're doing something? You

43:25

know? Are you avoiding yourself by

43:28

taking pictures of what you're doing so you can

43:30

be perceived as healed whole, or

43:32

you know, a little more courageous or

43:35

much to your point, are you sitting with all the

43:37

things?

43:39

Yeah, I mean, I appreciate you

43:41

bringing this up.

43:42

I think it's something that people

43:44

in minority communities especially, we

43:46

don't really talk about because you know, I came from the Buddhist

43:49

world, which was very much the same as you know,

43:52

other religions. I

43:54

think two things can exist at the same time. I've

43:57

always believed that I think that we

43:59

can about what we're eating and what we're

44:01

doing and what we're practicing and be doing the work.

44:04

But I don't feel like it's fully complete

44:07

and integrated at the same time, you

44:09

know, I feel like we can be seduced

44:12

by what we see by the influencers

44:14

that we follow. I fall victims

44:16

to the influencers that I follow, and I'm

44:19

like, is this person influencing me?

44:20

Yeah?

44:21

And you influenced me the

44:24

other day. You posted some honey and I

44:26

ordered it right okay, and I've started taking

44:28

it every morning.

44:30

I'm not even joking.

44:31

It's honey, like Manuka, Honey's change

44:34

my digestion in my life. I ain't even paid

44:36

by them. Don't like, give me a sponsorship

44:38

if you're watching this, because I don't

44:40

want to be paid like ninety dollars for this shit.

44:43

But no, I was just taking a

44:45

moment to really I want to answer this really

44:47

honestly and transparently. And

44:51

I think people have to realize they have agency

44:54

in their life. Even if you are

44:56

going through the most

44:58

suffering, even if you are

45:00

struggling right now with everything going on

45:02

in life, you still have a choice.

45:05

And I think it's really important.

45:08

One of the biggest choices we make is who we follow,

45:11

you know, And I mean that in

45:13

life in general, whether it's God, whether

45:15

it's our friends, whether it's people

45:17

we admire on social media. You have

45:19

a choice, and you have to be discerning,

45:23

Like, you have to be discerning, and you.

45:25

Have to really.

45:28

Critique everything that people are

45:30

talking about, and you have to really

45:32

test it.

45:33

And I learned this from my teacher

45:37

who shared with me. It's

45:40

kind of debated at the moment,

45:42

but he the way when he.

45:43

Presented to me, He's like, this was the final

45:45

sermon the buddh gave and he sat

45:47

down his disciples, which was around fifty two at

45:49

the time, fifty two of his best students,

45:52

and he said, don't believe anything

45:56

I'm paraphrasing. You don't believe anything

45:58

that I have said, anything that I've taught you unless

46:01

you test it, unless it resonates with

46:03

your own wisdom and intelligence.

46:06

And that always struck me if like, someone

46:08

like the Buddha, who has been quoted so many

46:10

times over the years, is saying, don't believe anything

46:12

I'm saying, and I'm like, yeah, like, we have

46:14

to we have to critique things.

46:17

We have to reconcile within ourselves.

46:19

We can't just accept this person because they

46:21

have a million followers and they

46:23

have, you know, good looks and beautiful

46:26

eyes. We're like oh yeah, I believe you, Like

46:29

I'll do what you tell me, but like, no,

46:31

like that's how we fall into cults.

46:32

And we all are in various cults, whether

46:35

it's you know.

46:36

What we're wearing or cults of you

46:38

know, we're all wrapped up into shit.

46:41

We're like no, like does this make sense?

46:43

And this sit with it? Sit with it.

46:45

The answer might not come immediately. And I

46:47

had to sit with with my

46:50

teacher for a while. I'm like, am I in a cult?

46:53

And that was a big that was a big thing for me. And

46:55

I'm like, am I wrapped up in this?

46:57

Because he's a very charismatic, very

46:59

enigmatic, but you know, controversial

47:01

for sure.

47:02

Like people were like, you know, you were you were walking

47:04

up.

47:04

With students and I was like whoa, Like

47:06

this is this is you know, intense

47:09

for me, But it's

47:11

your own choice and you have to be able to trust

47:13

yourself. Yeah, And you have to be able

47:15

to make a choice, you know, because sometimes

47:18

we can just be paralyzed.

47:19

We're like, oh, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

47:21

But just and I'm going to sway just fucking do

47:23

it, and only in retrospect, well, you know,

47:25

if it's the right choice or not, but just

47:27

do it, you know. And that's what I'm learning

47:29

is I'm a liberal and I can be just so

47:32

indecisive in my life, but life

47:35

really demands you to take

47:37

control of it at certain points. You know,

47:40

Ultimately, we don't have much control of life, you

47:42

know, life is just something that happens. But

47:44

there are moments that we do have complete control

47:47

over, and that is choice. And so when

47:49

you're presented with those, use

47:51

your intelligence, use your wisdom, use your

47:54

love, use your compassion, use your

47:56

faith, and make the choice.

48:00

Everyone listening right now, I want you to take a second

48:02

and just take a deep breath. That

48:04

was That's really powerful,

48:06

and I want you to let it as you

48:08

hear this and as you connect to his voice, to really

48:11

really see where that is landing

48:14

with you.

48:15

Choice is, I believe, God's.

48:17

Greatest gift to this planet, and

48:19

it's how we're meant to navigate the world. And

48:22

sometimes we're only as good as the choices that are

48:24

in front of us, you know, depending on your community,

48:26

your environment, your experiences. But the

48:30

only answer is personal choice to

48:33

all the questions.

48:34

Yeah, yeah, wow, I

48:37

think I think that you know, like I

48:40

came from a lot of suffering.

48:41

I wasn't born with.

48:43

A lot of access to things, and there

48:46

were choices I made when I was a

48:48

teenager that could have sent me down a very very

48:50

different path. And by the grace

48:53

of God, by the grace of my parents,

48:57

I somehow found a way back. But

49:00

that doesn't mean every day I'm not presented with choices.

49:02

Right Like we're public figures

49:05

right now, like we can go down the dark side

49:07

very quickly. You know, someone offers

49:10

us a bag to do to say some shit.

49:12

Okay, I'm talking about this

49:15

right.

49:16

And I'm like, oh shit, Like that would

49:18

make my life and my family's life really easy,

49:21

And that is a choice that

49:25

you know, I don't begrudge people that go down that road

49:27

as well, by the way, you know, secure your bag.

49:29

I tell people, like, do things for

49:32

your wellbeing, But then you have to also

49:34

live with those consequences. You can't blame

49:37

people for it. You can't blame society with certain

49:39

choices that you make. But

49:41

there are tough choices, and I'm

49:43

sure you and I have to face these choices

49:46

at a level, and people listening will have to

49:48

face it at a different level.

49:49

But ultimately, there are

49:52

choices that we have to make.

49:55

Ooh, talk that talks.

49:58

As you're talking, I just want to pay this thing. There's

50:00

something really beautiful happening around us. We're

50:02

recording this episode in a studio in Hollywood,

50:05

but we're also in a very rare and strange

50:07

LA storm and

50:10

the sound of the rain is pouring into the

50:12

room right now, and it's really

50:15

special.

50:15

And I'm just kind of appreciating that as

50:18

I'm hearing you speak really profound

50:20

truth in very expansive

50:24

and digestible ways.

50:27

Yeah.

50:28

No, it's very healing in my tradition whenever

50:30

you hear rain, especially on retreats and things

50:32

like that. But like, you know, shout out to you,

50:34

like whenever I'm with you, like

50:36

I feel like I have space to speak and

50:38

you somehow get the best of me.

50:40

So just do all of my podcasts from

50:42

now a lot time.

50:44

Let's go on a tour. I

50:46

love that, you know.

50:48

So there's something happening in the industry

50:50

right now, and I don't necessarily

50:52

feel called directly to call

50:54

it out, but things are searchable and you'll find the

50:56

things. But there's someone who

50:59

occupied a very large

51:01

platform that has been I guess

51:03

in some ways the language that I would use

51:05

is called out for some of their business

51:08

practices in terms

51:10

of having a spirituality business

51:12

and having a coaching business. And we've

51:15

really kind of been overtaken by this coaching

51:18

culture and it hasn't really made sense

51:20

to me in a lot of ways. I know phenomenal

51:22

coaches and I myself have a lot of personal

51:25

clients in a lot of different

51:27

worlds and spaces, but I've

51:30

been seeing a lot of models of

51:33

people selling courses

51:37

about how to coach other people,

51:40

or like coaches selling courses about

51:42

how to be two other coaches

51:44

about how to make more money, and it just it feels

51:46

so multi level marketing. And

51:53

I just I've always kind of the last few years

51:57

because I believe in this work, because

51:59

I've believe in humanity, and I believe

52:02

in doing this work in servant leadership

52:04

personally that does not have to be everyone else's

52:06

choice or path. Again, secure

52:09

your bag, whatever you need. But

52:13

I have not seen enough people position

52:16

what they offer the world as

52:18

being service with a desire

52:20

to really inform, uplift

52:23

and give people an education

52:26

that is useful

52:28

to other people, that is freeing

52:31

to other people. The way I keep seeing certain

52:34

businesses positioned. It's always along the

52:36

lines of earn six figures,

52:38

earn seven figures. I make

52:41

money by showing people how to do this. And

52:43

whenever I've looked at for my own curiosity,

52:46

the way things are structured, it's

52:49

always like I don't ever actually see anyone

52:51

giving anyone meaningful advice on how

52:54

to be an integral,

52:56

supportive, deemed

53:01

coach or teacher. It's always saying, double

53:03

your prices, ask for more,

53:06

triple your prices, believe in yourself,

53:08

don't have imposter syndrome. And

53:10

it's like, what are we talking about

53:12

and what are we selling and what are we actually

53:14

doing? And it is harmful. It

53:17

is harmful, it is disingenuous,

53:21

it is out of integrity. It

53:23

is hurtful to people

53:26

who have experienced real

53:29

trauma and are in pain. And

53:31

I find it to be incredibly predatory,

53:34

and I reject predatory

53:36

practices within the spiritual

53:38

and wellness community.

53:41

Yeah, Debby, just David some and y'all

53:43

got you that there

53:46

rain't a real.

53:47

Rough, But no, I felt every

53:49

word. I really felt every word.

53:51

And let

53:54

me just take a moment to like let it, let

53:56

it wash over me. I

53:59

think we live in times that are really tough,

54:02

you know. I think that we are all

54:04

looking to make our lives easier

54:07

and people are looking for healing and

54:10

those two things at a time

54:12

where people are trying to be hyper

54:14

individualistic. Financial

54:18

systems are crumbling and making it harder.

54:21

Life is not easy.

54:22

It's a confluence of things that are just blowing

54:24

up. And yeah, people are looking to make

54:26

a bag. Absolutely, Like, I don't think we can

54:29

doubt the fact that wellness

54:32

is an industry. Yeah, and for

54:35

rightly or wrongly, there are don't

54:37

I don't begrudge people making money. I

54:39

think that you know, you know, we've invested

54:42

so much money in studying and

54:44

traveling and buying books

54:46

and all that, and yeah, I don't think people

54:49

should feel bad about it.

54:51

My issue is with the

54:54

fuck do you know? Like? What

54:56

do you know? Like?

54:57

If you if you if you know stuff

54:59

like I'll pay as much as I

55:01

can, but teach me

55:03

something that I don't know, right and

55:06

I'm if I'm going to go in on this

55:08

with you. My criticism

55:12

is that I have very

55:14

rarely heard a coach say something that

55:16

you cannot google for free, you

55:18

know, that's not available on YouTube or

55:21

a podcast or in books that

55:23

I've been written twenty thirty, forty fifty years

55:26

ago. Much of it

55:28

these days is people regurgitating the

55:30

same thing, and yeah,

55:32

having clever marketing schemes and all

55:34

of that. And look, if it

55:36

helps someone, then I'm who

55:38

am I to really judge?

55:39

Right?

55:40

Cynical, bitter old man? Perhaps maybe that's

55:42

what it is. But I

55:45

feel my life's work and I

55:47

say this actually every Friday morning in

55:49

my meditation class, I offer

55:51

this to you for you to really criticize, for

55:54

you to really analyze if what I'm saying is

55:56

of any value to you, and if it's not,

55:58

just sit here and look at taking the vibes.

56:00

You know, we have a beautiful oculus and

56:02

like there's music like take that in. But people

56:06

that are listening to this, you have to really

56:09

be more critical with who you follow, like

56:11

you really do, because it

56:14

can take you down a worse place. And

56:16

that's like what people don't talk about in the

56:18

spiritual world, right, Like, if

56:21

people can it can take you down

56:23

a worse place than where you began. Because

56:26

this is bypassing. This is

56:28

exactly what we're talking about. You

56:30

wanting to be a coach and wanting to help someone,

56:34

first do the work and I and

56:36

I have. My main criticism is like, and

56:39

I'm sorry if this hits you in between your

56:41

eyes, but you know, like a twenty two

56:43

to twenty three year old life coach, I'm

56:45

like, son, what are you going to tell me about

56:47

life?

56:48

Like you haven't even experienced life just yet,

56:50

right, So go and learn about life.

56:52

Go and really alchemize

56:54

your pain, Go and overcome suffering.

56:57

Go and help people for free, work

56:59

in prisons, work in hospice care,

57:01

you know, experience grief and

57:03

like, then talk about it and don't

57:06

yell it, don't jump on social media

57:08

and pay for these ads and do all

57:10

of that that she ain't gonna impress me. Like

57:13

you know, my teacher, sonya Rimbaschet,

57:16

my main teacher right now.

57:17

He doesn't really post anything.

57:19

His brother is posts a lot, but

57:22

like he doesn't need to because people talk

57:24

about him, you know, they talk about him.

57:26

All over the world.

57:27

And yeah, the same

57:29

way we come across healers, right, the same

57:31

way we come across heelers.

57:32

It's not through googling them or

57:34

even Instagram.

57:35

It's I get like, you're the

57:38

actually will never forget the what's

57:40

her name? The medium that you told

57:42

me about Kerry, Like you told

57:44

me about that and I'm like, oh, this is amazing, and she

57:46

was incredible, But I don't think she

57:49

has an Instagram or any of that sort of stuff.

57:51

So a

57:53

long way of really answering that

57:56

everyone listening just really be more more

57:58

discerning with who you follow, really

58:00

be more discerning. I don't feel the

58:02

need to criticize

58:04

them, to be honest, because I feel like, at the end

58:07

of the day, I believe the truth will

58:09

always be found, and you can go

58:11

to someone and you might have three,

58:13

four years, five years with them, and

58:16

if you're meant to be on this path, the truth

58:18

will find you. The truth will

58:20

not miss you if you keep digging, if you keep

58:22

looking like this I

58:24

know to be true beyond anything else in my life,

58:27

is that if you are dedicated to finding

58:29

the truth, to finding love, to

58:31

finding God, like you will

58:33

not miss you. And

58:36

maybe you have to go through a couple of wrong doors

58:38

in order to find your way there. But

58:41

I believe that to be true in my life, and you

58:44

know, people can I've

58:46

gone to so many different yoga studios

58:49

before I found the truth, but

58:51

I had to go. I had to keep asking

58:54

myself where am

58:56

I going to find healing? Where am I going to find healing?

58:58

And I would go and I'm like, maybe this is it,

59:00

but there are lots of cute girls here. I'm like, Nope.

59:03

Six months later, that's not it for me because that

59:05

gets tiring and I'm like this is just kind

59:08

of fluffy. And then I

59:10

get another studio and it became about the body

59:12

and I was like, oh, yeah, I'm getting abs.

59:14

And this is great, but am I free?

59:16

Like no, So there's this innate

59:19

desire that keeps like yanking

59:21

you. And you know my tradition that will

59:23

say, first the voice

59:25

whispers, then the voice

59:28

yells, and eventually the voice

59:31

takes something of you. And that taking something could

59:33

be a nervous breakdown, It could be an

59:35

anxiety attack, could be an injury

59:38

when you have to be like the fuck

59:40

have I been doing? Like

59:42

like what have I been doing? I

59:45

don't know if any of that makes sense, but like that was I'm

59:48

speaking Like as I was saying it, I'm like, that's my teacher

59:51

that's actually speaking through me. At the moment where

59:53

you have to believe that

59:56

what is meant for you won't

59:58

miss you.

1:00:01

Oh what a gift,

1:00:03

What a gift, What a gift, What a gift?

1:00:06

Gift, gift

1:00:13

deeply.

1:00:14

Well, something

1:00:17

that I'm really gleaning from what you're saying, that

1:00:20

I really believe in, and I really

1:00:22

want to land with those listening because

1:00:24

I have. There are so many amazing

1:00:28

souls that listen to this show that

1:00:30

are not just doing and committed

1:00:32

to deeply doing their own work.

1:00:35

I hear you and I see you.

1:00:38

But we also have so many

1:00:41

teachers listening to us now,

1:00:43

real teachers, real people

1:00:45

in service, from psychologists to therapists.

1:00:48

There are so many people that tell me they found my show

1:00:50

because their therapists recommended

1:00:53

it to them, which brings me immense gratitude

1:00:56

and pride.

1:00:56

But and you deserve that too, by

1:00:58

the way, you deserve the.

1:01:00

Thank you, thank

1:01:02

you it.

1:01:06

But I think you know, and I feel really grateful

1:01:08

that the community

1:01:10

of this show, the listenership, there's

1:01:14

just so much integrity in this community,

1:01:16

and there's so much desire

1:01:19

for wisdom, deep

1:01:21

lived experience that is ready to be alchemized

1:01:24

as wisdom and every person listening. But

1:01:27

I think you know on this path that

1:01:29

we've been on, and you have shared really beautifully,

1:01:32

and you have been so

1:01:35

beautifully present and your humility

1:01:37

of paying homage to those

1:01:39

who have taught you. That is

1:01:41

a piece that is really missing right now,

1:01:44

right the pride in being a student.

1:01:46

Yes, and I remember when I first

1:01:48

started studying and

1:01:52

doing some of the harder work on

1:01:54

myself, because my God is at hard my

1:01:56

God. Have I wept for myself on my

1:01:58

knees over the years, and you

1:02:01

know, grieved

1:02:04

myself and others over the years. But it

1:02:09

felt so sacred to learn. It

1:02:12

felt so sacred to learn the

1:02:14

work and to learn it slowly and

1:02:16

to kind of build devotion.

1:02:19

Like to me, the building of the devotion

1:02:22

was one of the things that taught me how to have

1:02:24

worth in myself, that taught

1:02:26

me how to accept

1:02:29

myself, to see the world as beautiful.

1:02:31

You know, it's that kind of slow

1:02:34

unfolding and I know we want

1:02:36

to rush through it because of how much it hurts, or

1:02:38

because we're in a circumstance where we do need to earn

1:02:40

and we want.

1:02:40

To care for ourselves.

1:02:41

But that is a piece that doesn't

1:02:44

get spoken to with the level of depth

1:02:46

and romance that I think you've been sharing it

1:02:48

with On this show. There is

1:02:50

so much divine beauty

1:02:53

in being a student in apprenticeship,

1:02:57

in slow observation. I

1:02:59

remember I was in this for three years

1:03:01

with two of my teachers, and we

1:03:03

would be in class for three days out

1:03:05

of every month, and they would

1:03:07

be twelve hours each day. Could

1:03:10

not leave the room for nearly twelve hours

1:03:12

every day, three days in a row for three years.

1:03:15

And I remember the old school

1:03:17

study that she.

1:03:20

Was immersed.

1:03:22

But and that you know, that's one of the programs

1:03:24

I've done to Ben. I'm I'm

1:03:27

a brain. I love, I love to study

1:03:29

and learn. But I

1:03:31

remember even allowing myself

1:03:34

to walk through the phases of rejecting

1:03:36

my teachers, loving my teachers, getting

1:03:38

angry at my teachers, feeling

1:03:41

grateful.

1:03:41

For my teachers. But it was the ability

1:03:44

to slowly observe the mastery.

1:03:46

And both of these teachers were in their early eighties

1:03:48

when I was in class with them.

1:03:51

To this day, it will bring me to tears

1:03:53

at how much I realized I learned

1:03:56

merely from watching

1:03:59

their body life language, you

1:04:01

know, like noticing the tone of voice,

1:04:04

noticing the shifts, noticing them

1:04:06

really see other people and decide

1:04:08

for themselves.

1:04:09

Will I give you what you want or what you need.

1:04:12

Yeah, you know, and it's like that's

1:04:14

what builds the discipline

1:04:17

and the compassion that

1:04:19

is so necessary to embody the

1:04:21

work and then to share the work, and

1:04:23

so to let yourself take the time,

1:04:26

you know, if you're called to teach, you

1:04:28

know, if you're called to share this with the world, and

1:04:30

the way that you're meant to share.

1:04:32

It at a choice at that point, yeah, yeah, right,

1:04:35

yeah.

1:04:35

But it's like it's it's the beauty.

1:04:42

Everyone wants it to be fast and

1:04:44

they want to be an expert. And the second

1:04:46

you know, I've noticed, for some for a certain

1:04:49

kind of demographic of people, the second you read

1:04:51

a book about a modality,

1:04:53

you now are convinced, not that you need

1:04:55

to go to the certification, not that you need to

1:04:58

study it, not that you need to witness it, that

1:05:00

now you're ready to teach it because you enjoyed

1:05:02

it and the way it worked in you. But

1:05:05

this work is also not just

1:05:07

about what it does for you and your

1:05:09

expertise of yourself. It's

1:05:12

space for others. It's space for humanity.

1:05:14

And I just I really have to

1:05:17

say to you, I'm

1:05:20

so grateful you exist. I'm so grateful

1:05:22

for the way you teach and the way you share

1:05:24

yourself, and the way you

1:05:27

are able to

1:05:29

so eloquently impart

1:05:31

these deep truths that are so necessary

1:05:34

for the people that are ready to receive them.

1:05:38

I'm going to take a moment and receive that. Thank

1:05:41

you, Thank you.

1:05:43

I think it's so beautiful to actually be with

1:05:45

someone in presence of someone that is

1:05:47

also being in the presence of masters,

1:05:50

and realize how fortunate

1:05:52

we've been to have experienced that, you

1:05:55

know, and if you ever

1:05:57

get the chance, you know, for those of you that are

1:05:59

listening to be with a master, like

1:06:02

someone that has put in the work, like hours

1:06:04

and hours and hours, and that

1:06:06

you don't even have to initially anyway

1:06:09

question like are they legit? You

1:06:11

know, like and if they're from Instagram, I would

1:06:13

probably you know, steer clear of them,

1:06:15

to be really honest with you, like being their

1:06:17

presence. Being their presence, then you know that

1:06:20

so much of what you learn from them is not what they

1:06:22

say, you know. And my

1:06:24

teacher I witnessed like he

1:06:27

taught out of he had

1:06:29

like a converted milk bar, like a little

1:06:31

corner store, and he turned it into

1:06:34

a yoga studio, which had twelve mats

1:06:36

my first class. Everyone

1:06:39

was over the age of seventy five. And

1:06:42

I saw people that were coming in there that were

1:06:44

suicidal, people that came in

1:06:47

there that had so much trauma

1:06:49

and pain and suffering, and

1:06:51

he would just take them out to coffee and

1:06:54

in his like, come, come and invite a few of us,

1:06:56

and he would sit there and he would listen

1:06:58

to them, and he would look at them in certain

1:07:00

ways, and I was like, oh, wow,

1:07:02

Like, there's something that you can't teach

1:07:05

that's here. You know, there's there's

1:07:07

This is compassion. It's

1:07:09

not talking about compassion. This

1:07:12

is compassion. It's like giving his last

1:07:14

few hundred, you know, dollars to someone

1:07:17

that needed it even though he had no money.

1:07:19

And I was that forever. Has changed

1:07:21

my life.

1:07:22

And the reason I'm so devoted

1:07:24

to my teachers is because I

1:07:26

know for sure I would be nothing without them one

1:07:29

hundred percent.

1:07:30

It is through karma, through the.

1:07:32

Grace of God, that in this life that I

1:07:35

had the good fortune to be exposed to them,

1:07:37

and nothing, I

1:07:40

honestly don't think anything is my think. Everything I've

1:07:42

learned is through them, and I have found

1:07:44

my way of disseminating their

1:07:46

words, you know.

1:07:47

In my language.

1:07:49

But that protection, it's

1:07:51

like this, we call it, you know, the Guruz protection,

1:07:53

the Gurus field. That

1:07:57

protection I've always been so grateful

1:07:59

for because acknowledging my teacher

1:08:01

has meant that there's this

1:08:03

force field around you where he's

1:08:07

like, whenever I talk about him, I feel his energy

1:08:09

first of all, and there's

1:08:12

a graciousness and his humility to know

1:08:15

that his words

1:08:17

came from his teacher, and his words

1:08:20

came from her teacher.

1:08:21

And there's this long lineage.

1:08:23

Of people that have critiqued

1:08:26

and practiced and analyzed, and

1:08:28

they've also paid homage to their teachers,

1:08:30

you know, and so forth. And

1:08:32

for me, that just cuts down this burning

1:08:34

desire to be individual, this

1:08:37

ego that's like, oh, you are someone.

1:08:39

You are the co founder of.

1:08:41

This cool meditation studio.

1:08:43

You wear this and you know what, Like my

1:08:45

teacher warned me sixteen years ago,

1:08:48

and I'm sorry this sounds a

1:08:50

little conceited, He's like, you're a good

1:08:53

looking guy, You've got a great

1:08:55

voice.

1:08:55

You are going to have people like all over

1:08:58

you.

1:08:58

I guarantee you the moment

1:09:00

you take that to be who you are, that

1:09:03

will be the end. And that struck the

1:09:05

fear of God in me because early

1:09:07

on, like I was teaching and I

1:09:10

had women like literally after a class

1:09:12

like and I my insecureself

1:09:15

didn't.

1:09:15

Know what to do with myself.

1:09:16

I was like, oh shit, Like but I'd

1:09:19

go home and I talk to my teacher about it. I'm like,

1:09:21

hey, like I think, and he's like, it's

1:09:25

part of your practice, like witness

1:09:27

it. Like witness it, witness it, witness

1:09:29

it, but know that there is there

1:09:32

is a gift that you have been given, but don't

1:09:34

take advantage of that.

1:09:35

And I think, I

1:09:38

thank.

1:09:39

Life and God that I've never dated

1:09:41

a student and I've never you know, fallen

1:09:43

victim to that. And yes, my ego sometimes

1:09:46

gets really inflated with you know, certain things

1:09:48

that I do. But then I come back

1:09:50

to my practice. Every morning, I lad a candle

1:09:52

for my teacher, I give I put water in front of

1:09:54

his photo, and I'm like, it's

1:09:57

not for me, it's not because of me, It's because

1:09:59

of what I learned. And

1:10:02

yeah, I mean, if you haven't caught

1:10:04

already, Like, my ego pops up at times

1:10:06

and I have to actively work at it because

1:10:08

society and culture loves to

1:10:11

idolize you just enough to

1:10:13

break you back down. Right, they'll they'll

1:10:16

worship you one day and they'll cut you down the next day.

1:10:18

And the best way to not fall into that

1:10:20

loop is to not worship yourself right,

1:10:23

to be grateful for yourself, to be devoted

1:10:25

to the students, and to

1:10:27

be more importantly devoted to the practice.

1:10:30

Because it's that that's healing people. It's

1:10:32

nothing I'm really saying that's original

1:10:34

on new It's these words that are just

1:10:36

coming from these vocal cords

1:10:39

and somehow, if it's landing, it's

1:10:41

meant to be at that person, it's

1:10:43

meant to be at that time. But your

1:10:46

hyperindividualism in society

1:10:48

these days is a thing, and it seduces

1:10:50

so many teachers, so many coaches because

1:10:53

we think that, you know, we have to be someone

1:10:55

in order to make a living

1:10:57

or to make change, and.

1:10:59

Then everything has to be a brand, right Yeah,

1:11:02

yeah, how about let it.

1:11:03

Be your gift.

1:11:04

Let it just be yeah, let it be something

1:11:06

that you share that heals people, which is if

1:11:08

you're really about this life, that should

1:11:10

be it. Like you should be like

1:11:13

you should be just sharing because it helps

1:11:15

people. It shouldn't be behind

1:11:17

a paywall, like just give that shit out

1:11:19

and yeah, you know, I.

1:11:23

It's just a weird, crazy world that we live

1:11:25

in.

1:11:25

And you know, I'm so grateful for people

1:11:27

like you to actually call you a friend

1:11:30

and know how much you care about

1:11:32

these things, because I do feel

1:11:34

like the older I get, the

1:11:36

more like those teachers are only at

1:11:38

certain places, you know, like at certain communities,

1:11:41

and we need people like you that

1:11:43

have credibility

1:11:46

and authority and that have a following to

1:11:48

really hold true.

1:11:50

To these things.

1:11:51

That yeah, because

1:11:54

I mean, this is what I've learned living in LA And again, no

1:11:56

more shade to LA after this, living

1:11:58

in America, actually just living in America?

1:12:01

Is it?

1:12:01

The government doesn't isn't

1:12:03

going to protect you? Right, the systems

1:12:06

of health care isn't going to protect you. We

1:12:08

have to look after ourselves. We have

1:12:11

to look after each other like that much I know

1:12:13

for true and if we are relying

1:12:16

on that, if it has to be about this communal

1:12:18

living, this communal way of existence,

1:12:21

then we need people actually

1:12:23

testing people and being like are you

1:12:26

telling the truth?

1:12:27

Like am I doing this for

1:12:29

money?

1:12:30

Because more and more people

1:12:32

are going to look for holistic healing the

1:12:34

older we get and the more we go in future,

1:12:36

because health care is so expensive, and

1:12:38

if we then have like this

1:12:40

holistic healing program that we're creating

1:12:43

that's behind this paywall that we've learned

1:12:45

in a weekend seminar, you

1:12:47

know, two years ago, then

1:12:50

people are going to fall victim to that.

1:12:52

And that's sad.

1:12:53

And I pray

1:12:55

and I hope that you know, we all have

1:12:58

the integrity within ourselves to

1:13:00

know how much power we have. And

1:13:02

I think you and I know as teachers, like what

1:13:04

I say really matters because there are

1:13:07

thousands of people that listen to me every day

1:13:09

on the app. So I'll never

1:13:11

say anything that I don't believe

1:13:13

in myself ever, ever,

1:13:15

ever, ever, ever, And I've said no to

1:13:17

brand partnerships that have come

1:13:21

at times where I really needed money

1:13:23

because I just know that

1:13:26

this is going to cause harm.

1:13:28

And if I doubt it, then it's a note

1:13:30

for me.

1:13:31

Thank you for being this archetype, thank

1:13:33

you for this embodiment. This is so powerful,

1:13:37

minage like it is just so powerful.

1:13:46

Deeply well, I

1:13:51

want to share two quotes

1:13:53

from my teacher that I think could be useful for

1:13:55

what we have just been expressing. So

1:13:58

one of them actually comes from deeper and

1:14:00

It's one of my favorite things that he would

1:14:02

say when we'd be at retreats

1:14:04

and someone would say, like we'd

1:14:07

started getting some questions out there the pandemic

1:14:09

at retreats, or would be like, but how do

1:14:11

I make money? How do I make this my

1:14:13

life? And you know, he would just look

1:14:15

and say, the money will come from

1:14:18

wherever it is at the moment.

1:14:20

And I remember the first time you said that, it

1:14:23

caught me solf guard. I was like what,

1:14:26

and I.

1:14:26

Said, I said, Oh God, that's so

1:14:30

powerful and true.

1:14:32

You don't have to worry about

1:14:34

it. Like everything,

1:14:37

when you lock into an alignment,

1:14:39

when you were in your personal integrity

1:14:42

and really kind of standing

1:14:44

openly in your dharma and your purpose,

1:14:48

the universe always conspires

1:14:51

to uplift your work,

1:14:53

to uplift you and to meet your

1:14:56

needs.

1:14:57

Pause, Can I just

1:14:59

to illustrate you point? Can I share a story

1:15:01

maybe someone can resonate with this. So I

1:15:04

had a career in marketing and advertising

1:15:06

and I got really sick, like physically, very

1:15:08

very sick, and I couldn't work because

1:15:11

I had a really big panic attack one day at work. And

1:15:14

there was about two years that I didn't work. My

1:15:16

mother was looking after me. And it

1:15:19

was in that period that I found my teacher and

1:15:22

I started practicing with him every day, and I was getting

1:15:24

better. I was getting healed,

1:15:27

and my mental health was coming back.

1:15:29

My physical health had come back. I was pretty

1:15:31

much like an

1:15:33

eating disorder and I had really bad panic

1:15:36

attacks and things like that.

1:15:38

Anyway, after the two years,

1:15:40

I got a job.

1:15:41

I was back at you know, working in this fancy

1:15:43

financial institution in marketing and advertising.

1:15:46

And then he asked me to teach

1:15:49

a class and he did it in a

1:15:51

way that was not expected. I rocked

1:15:53

up to take his class and he said, I

1:15:55

don't feel well today, can

1:15:57

you teach it?

1:15:58

And I'm like, oh, oh okay, like

1:16:00

I'd never taught before.

1:16:01

And so I went there and I just you know, took in

1:16:04

all of what he said, and I started teaching. And

1:16:06

then he came and sat in the class and he wasn't

1:16:08

sick right, And I was like strange,

1:16:10

Like my teacher's coming and doing this. Anyway,

1:16:14

I went back to work, and then every now and again

1:16:16

i'd teach this one class, you know, whenever

1:16:18

he was sick. And then he

1:16:21

said to me one day, eventually, life film,

1:16:24

you'll teach. And this was seventeen years

1:16:26

ago where I was like and I was like,

1:16:28

I don't want to be a meditation teacher, like you

1:16:31

don't make money. And it was like frowned upon,

1:16:33

right, And I was in a circle of very cool

1:16:36

people going to parties or that anyway,

1:16:39

but there was this little flicker within

1:16:42

me that's like I feel really happy every time

1:16:44

I'm teaching, Like I just feel like

1:16:46

I'm in alignment to what you said. I feel

1:16:48

like like I don't have to struggle

1:16:50

when I'm doing this one thing, which is teaching.

1:16:53

And so there was a

1:16:55

moment where I

1:16:57

was like, fuck it, I'm going to go all in. I'm

1:17:00

just going to teach and mind you. I'm taking

1:17:02

you back like sixteen

1:17:04

fifteen years now, and I had

1:17:07

a daughter. I have a daughter, Sill, but

1:17:09

at the point at that time she was very young. I

1:17:12

had a six figure salary, was making one

1:17:14

hundred and fifty K. I was in my late twenties, and

1:17:17

I'm like, oh, I just feel like this is it. It just feels

1:17:19

so true. So I quit my job

1:17:22

and I started teaching at any studio

1:17:24

that would take me.

1:17:25

And for the first year, I made.

1:17:27

Thirty five thousand dollars, like you

1:17:29

couldn't even barely exist on that. And

1:17:31

I kept on borrowing money from my mom and dad, obviously,

1:17:33

but not much because they didn't have much either.

1:17:37

But every time I did it, I was just so

1:17:40

happy.

1:17:41

And since that year, I've

1:17:43

never like, I've never felt like I could live

1:17:46

off you know, nothing again,

1:17:48

but like I never wanted anything. I never wanted

1:17:50

fancy clothes and dinners or anything. I was

1:17:52

so happy the second year, this

1:17:56

the biggest studio in Australia, is like, we

1:17:59

want you to teach for us, and we're going to give

1:18:01

you a full time job, and we're going to make you this

1:18:03

fancy title of performance coach. And

1:18:05

from that moment on, every decision

1:18:07

I made which was in alignment with

1:18:09

what I was feeling at the time, and my intuition

1:18:12

took me down the path that I'm on now. The

1:18:16

money came to your point, like the money came,

1:18:18

like the job came, the courier came.

1:18:21

But I was just in alignment.

1:18:22

I was doing what I knew to be true, what

1:18:24

I knew to be of benefit to the

1:18:26

world, and I wasn't thinking about how

1:18:29

much money I was going to make. I was like

1:18:31

this just feels good, Like this just feels right.

1:18:34

And I think to your point, if you put

1:18:36

the money thing out of which is really

1:18:38

paradoxical because we need money

1:18:40

and I'm not saying just forget money and do it,

1:18:43

but if you genuinely approach

1:18:45

your life through the perspective of

1:18:48

I am going to be of benefit to others, there

1:18:50

is something and you might have better

1:18:52

language for it. There is something that

1:18:54

conspires to make sure

1:18:57

that you are taken care of. And it might not look

1:18:59

the way that it looks now. And

1:19:01

I went through fifteen years of not making

1:19:03

any money to eventually feeling

1:19:05

like, oh I've got something. And

1:19:09

it's a long road, but like I promise you, if

1:19:11

you follow your heart and you be of benefit to the

1:19:13

world, then something happens

1:19:16

something I don't know, maybe DEBI has the

1:19:18

words for a bit, there's something that happens.

1:19:21

I mean, that's a mic drop, like that is

1:19:23

just it, and your personal testimony

1:19:26

of it is just.

1:19:29

So.

1:19:29

I think so much of people's

1:19:32

those leading desires for this quote unquote like

1:19:35

abundance culture is like it's

1:19:37

the zeitgeist of this time, right,

1:19:40

Like yes, there are kind of we're

1:19:43

in this millionaire culture right now,

1:19:45

this multi millionaire culture, and everything

1:19:47

keeps being shaped around it, and it's about.

1:19:50

Because it's so accessible. Yeah, it's

1:19:52

never been this accessible in a lifetime.

1:19:55

Like could you imagine being a multimillion

1:19:58

dollar meditation teacher? Yeah, like

1:20:00

that blows my mind in the

1:20:02

history of life, that has a

1:20:04

never happened. But also going from

1:20:06

zero to one hundred has never been as easy without

1:20:09

like a social media brand,

1:20:11

partnerships, talent managers, TikTok.

1:20:14

So it's to your point, it is, it's it's

1:20:16

speaking to our times, but.

1:20:19

It's you know, and this is kind of my my

1:20:22

thing with internet

1:20:24

culture. I believe

1:20:26

that we have been investing so much

1:20:29

in perception these last ten years,

1:20:31

and so much in these quote unquote soft

1:20:34

skills, right, Like we've been bouncing through

1:20:36

all of these different kind of ideologies of

1:20:38

what makes something worse, what makes someone worthy

1:20:41

in life or makes their work worthy, And so

1:20:43

it's like we just got out of the like, you

1:20:46

know, the founder culture where everyone

1:20:48

was I'm a founder, I'm a founder of this.

1:20:50

I'm like, well, what is it? Right?

1:20:51

And it's like anything that if you bought a

1:20:54

URL that you didn't even do anything with

1:20:56

there was this expectation of celebration

1:20:58

because you announced it, or expectation

1:21:01

of celebration and kind of what

1:21:04

to me feels like false valor for

1:21:07

giving yourself the title and kind of

1:21:09

faking it till you make it, but not leaning

1:21:12

into the work and the work of whatever

1:21:14

it is that we do is important because

1:21:16

the work of our life is important and

1:21:19

something that actually another one of my

1:21:21

teachers, one of my coaches, actually

1:21:23

Vish he shares. He

1:21:26

said to me once like, Debbie, it's

1:21:29

your life's work. It's

1:21:31

going to take your whole life.

1:21:34

Boss.

1:21:35

Him saying that to me so radically

1:21:38

changed me and the way because for

1:21:40

me, I put a lot of pressure on myself of

1:21:42

having ideas or having a way that I

1:21:45

know I want to serve and then

1:21:47

feeling like it has like I have to make

1:21:49

I have to get all the pieces now and I have to give

1:21:51

it now, and you know, and he was like,

1:21:53

and even when I think of the work on myself, I'm never

1:21:55

not working on myself. He's

1:21:58

just like, all of it is the work of your life. It's

1:22:00

supposed to take your whole life. And it's really

1:22:02

only now in this moment that

1:22:04

we want everything to be so

1:22:07

immediate, and we want to

1:22:09

be able to claim expertise about

1:22:11

anything immediately or claim

1:22:14

completion about anything

1:22:16

immediately, and I think

1:22:18

it's really long term going

1:22:20

to cause quite a bit of suffering. We have a

1:22:22

lot of soft skills present which

1:22:24

we needed to exist in our workplaces. We needed

1:22:27

to have better more empathy, more communication,

1:22:29

more compassion, better

1:22:31

understanding of self. But I

1:22:34

feel like we've been leaning so hard on the soft skills

1:22:36

the last ten years that people actually don't

1:22:38

have hard skills. You

1:22:40

have to actually do the work you say you do. You

1:22:43

actually have to know how to do the work that you say

1:22:45

that you do, and it's honorable. It's

1:22:47

honorable to know how to do your

1:22:49

work.

1:22:50

And that was the second Simon de drop you off.

1:22:54

No, I mean when you say those things,

1:22:56

I feel it because it's true, Like

1:22:58

it's it's really true. But I

1:23:00

was going to say one of the reasons I kind of really loved

1:23:02

teaching in New York because that feels

1:23:05

like home to me for many reasons. But

1:23:07

one of the reasons I love teaching in New York is

1:23:10

that people will interrupt you mid

1:23:12

conversation and they're like, how

1:23:15

can you explain that to me.

1:23:17

And I'm like, that.

1:23:18

Level of cynicism,

1:23:20

that level of critique really

1:23:23

makes you a good teacher. So I have a lot of respect

1:23:25

for like teachers that have been teaching for a long time

1:23:27

in New York City.

1:23:29

But I always think of you know, if you're.

1:23:31

A coach, if you're a meditation teacher, breath

1:23:33

work, yog or whatever, you

1:23:35

have to be able to a embody what you're teaching,

1:23:39

and you have to be able to be up

1:23:41

there and answer questions and justify

1:23:43

why you're saying what you're saying, like

1:23:45

you're.

1:23:46

Telling me to let go, like why, like

1:23:48

explain to me.

1:23:49

Then explain to me how, because

1:23:51

otherwise it's just a superfluous word like just

1:23:53

let go right, Like, no, explain

1:23:55

it to me, because I want to learn.

1:23:58

I just don't want to feel good.

1:23:59

I don't want to hear this nice sounding word

1:24:02

in your beautifully articulated voice.

1:24:04

I want the tools to take with

1:24:06

me and embody.

1:24:07

And so this integrity

1:24:10

which you are speaking of is going

1:24:12

to be so valuable because never

1:24:14

in the history of wellness has there

1:24:16

been so many teacher trainings. So I refuse

1:24:19

to do one I've been asked for like fifteen years. What

1:24:21

are you going to I refuse to do one because

1:24:23

I don't know enough yet to be honest, Like I don't know

1:24:25

nowhere near enough to give a training.

1:24:28

But what the work you're doing here?

1:24:30

We just sit of that for a second, that you,

1:24:33

with your pedigree, with

1:24:35

your extensive, extensive,

1:24:38

extensive amount of

1:24:41

learning and devotion to yourself and

1:24:43

your practice, are saying.

1:24:47

No to that.

1:24:50

It's bad business move, but it's

1:24:53

honestly, I.

1:24:54

Know money will come from wherever it's.

1:24:56

At exactly, but I know it in my heart.

1:24:58

I know I don't know enough and

1:25:00

I'm still learning and I'm working on it. But

1:25:03

I genuinely feel with the influx of

1:25:05

all these trainings and certifications and things like that

1:25:07

are happening, like we're going to be

1:25:09

so overwhelmed that a period of time it's going

1:25:11

to be like fuck all of this, like

1:25:14

forget all of this, Like there's too many fake

1:25:16

things. And I see it now, like people

1:25:18

don't know who to go for because everyone

1:25:21

is a wellness coach, everyone is an influencer,

1:25:23

are doing that and that, and there are new

1:25:25

things with psychedelics happening, and then it's

1:25:28

going to be so overwhelming. So the work that

1:25:30

you're doing right now, people

1:25:32

are going to look back and be like, oh wow, this person's

1:25:34

study for fifteen years. They

1:25:37

can like they know this

1:25:39

particular text or this practice,

1:25:42

and they're articulating in a way that

1:25:45

feels so true. Like

1:25:48

people aren't going to forget that because I guarantee

1:25:50

you in five years we're going to have so

1:25:52

many coaches that it's going to be so overwhelming

1:25:55

for people, and the ones that have studied

1:25:57

will rise to the top. The truth, like I said

1:25:59

before, will be found and

1:26:02

everything else people will be able to see through

1:26:04

that, but the truth will

1:26:06

be able to be found. So my advice to you, if

1:26:08

you're listening and you're a coach, be the truth.

1:26:16

Be the truth. God, that's good.

1:26:19

This might have been my longest recorded show

1:26:21

I've ever done. Shout out to Denisha

1:26:24

and thank

1:26:26

you so much for the grace. I

1:26:31

we end every show offering a little

1:26:33

bit of soul work to the community, and that can

1:26:35

be an inquiry, that can be a practice,

1:26:38

that can just be a thought,

1:26:40

but something that can be savored past this

1:26:43

episode to kind of sit with for the

1:26:45

week. So I'd like to ask if you have anything

1:26:47

in this moment that you can share.

1:26:50

Yeah, it's so simple. After this conversation.

1:26:53

What is the work that you're avoiding doing?

1:27:00

Wow?

1:27:00

Yes, just do it.

1:27:05

What is the work you're voting doing? Yeah, and

1:27:07

thank you for prompting this

1:27:09

whole conversation before we even started.

1:27:11

Chatting my

1:27:14

friend. What an honor, what

1:27:17

a privilege to have you on this show.

1:27:19

Thank you so much for saying

1:27:22

yes. And thank you.

1:27:26

You are a masterful, masterful,

1:27:29

masterful, master teacher. And

1:27:31

thank you for the work you've done to cultivate

1:27:34

that within yourself so that you can

1:27:36

serve and lead with it.

1:27:37

Thank you for being here.

1:27:38

Thank you so much, and thank you my dear

1:27:40

friend. Thank you.

1:27:44

Please download the app and study

1:27:47

with Minage in person. Open Open,

1:27:49

open the open app, and

1:27:51

open studios in venice.

1:27:53

Until next time.

1:27:54

Oh wait, I can't leave the show without saying this. Make

1:27:57

sure to check me out at the annual Black

1:27:59

Effect Podcast to Festival. I

1:28:01

will be in Atlanta Saturday, April twenty

1:28:03

seven. I'll be doing a live show from

1:28:06

the festival stage on the Black Effect Network

1:28:08

and tickets are available now. I really hope to see you

1:28:10

there. Hit me on the ground. Black Effect dot

1:28:12

Com Backslash Podcast

1:28:14

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1:28:16

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1:28:21

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1:28:24

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1:28:26

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1:28:28

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1:28:31

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1:28:33

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1:28:35

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1:28:37

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