131. Kute Blackson on Surrendering To Be Free

On today's episode Colette introduces us to the inspirational Kute Blackson, an acclaimed speaker and bestselling author, who is here to share a profound message about the transformative power of embracing your truth and the magic of surrendering to life's journey.

They delve into discussing the pains of living untruthfully, the healing path of acknowledging the lies we've internalized, and how these untruths manifest in our lives. 

Colette shares her personal revelations from attending one of Kute's eye-opening conferences, bringing to light the profound impact of inner child work.

Kute's insights into surrender, growth, and the profound effects our unresolved issues have on parenting will stir your soul.  His captivating story about how surrendering transformed his life and led to writing his book, "The Magic of Surrender." is so inspirational.

Episode Highlights:

02:10 Kute has a young child and his decision to pave his own path

07:59 Kute's prayer to the universe 

11:00 Truth is the answer for transformation

16:53 Adults are living out the pain from our childhood

20:10 Kute's book on The Magic Of Surrender 

21:06 The seed of the book planted when Kute's mother was diagnosed with cancer

26:03 Creating what you want from the ego based approach will not work 

30:47 Raising children to be their true selves

41:18 Details on Kute's life changing event Boundless Bliss

Kute Blackson Biography:

Kute Blackson is a beloved inspirational speaker and transformational teacher. He speaks at countless events he organizes around the world as well as at outside events including A-Fest, YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization), and EO (Entrepreneurs’ Organization). He is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, a select group of one hundred of the world’s foremost authorities in the personal development industry. Winner of the 2019 Unity New Thought Walden Award, Blackson is widely considered a next generation leader in the field of personal development. His mission is simple: To awaken and inspire people across the planet to access inner freedom, live authentically and fulfill their true life’s purpose.

Website: www.kuteblackson.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kuteblacksonlovenow
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kuteblackson/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kuteblackson
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/kuteblackson09
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kute-blackson-35755519/
Kute’s life changing event: https://www.boundlessblissbali.com

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Website: Wellness by Colette

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In Health,
Colette

Transcript

Colette Brown [00:00:03]:
Welcome. Today we are privileged to host a man who is illuminary in the realm of personal growth and transformation. With his profound teachings and groundbreaking work, he's touched countless lives, guiding individuals worldwide to unlock their true potential and live their authentic lives. I'm excited because he is an author, public speaker, and he's releasing a new book. I'm really honored and excited to welcome Koot Blackson. Welcome, Coot.

Kute Blackson [00:00:38]:
Thanks for having me.

Colette Brown [00:00:39]:
It's great to have you. So what I love to do with my audience is to give them a little peek inside of you. I know a little bit about your personal journey into what you're doing today, but I would love for you to take us back to a childhood memory. Maybe it's five or seven and something that maybe has brought you to where you're at today or something that is a more profound vantage point from the work that you're doing today.

Kute Blackson [00:01:10]:
Yeah, look, I was born in Ghana, West Africa. My father's from Ghana, my mother's Japanese. I grew up in London. And, wow. My first memories, my childhood was a bit unusual, but I didn't think it was that unusual in that my first memory as a young boy was I remember seeing a crippled woman crawling on the floor. She picks up the sand that this man walks on, wipes it on her face and stands up. And so, week after week, I grew up seeing blind people see and deaf people hear. And the same man who Sanchi picked up would look at a woman in a wheelchair and say, hey, why are you in this wheelchair? You're not sick.

Kute Blackson [00:01:53]:
Or he would look at somebody who, let's say, came in with crutches and he would say, hey, throw your crutches away and be healed. And so this man was my father, and he built 300 churches in Ghana, West Africa. A huge church in London was a very mystical, spiritual guy. And I was blessed to grow up in this tradition. And so growing up with the sense of anything was possible. Growing up with the sense of the miraculous, I grew up with just an unlimitedness, a sense that anything was possible. And so that was a huge blessing for me as a boy. And when I was age eight, I began speaking in my father's churches.

Kute Blackson [00:02:32]:
And when I was age 14, I was ordained as a minister. And I was given a mandate to take over my father's organization. And I didn't feel that this was my path. I knew that this was not my path. But I think as a young kid, I was too afraid to speak my truth. I was too afraid that if I really spoke my truth. If I really expressed my voice, then I would be outcast. I'd be left alone.

Kute Blackson [00:02:59]:
I would be abandoned. It took me about four years to muster up the courage to really speak my truth and confront my father. And as I looked when I turned 18, I looked into my future, and I saw that I could follow the expected path and take over. I could follow the expected path and be successful by everyone else's standards. But if I didn't have myself, and if I didn't have my soul, and if I didn't have my integrity, what kind of success is this? And so when I was 18, when I was 17 and a half, I felt this strong calling to come to America, specifically Los Angeles, because this is where, as a young boy, I would sneak into my father's office, and in his office were 1000 books and everyone from Wayne Dyer, Louise Hay, Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, to Marianne Williamson, to Deepak Chopra, to the eastern mystics, Krishna Murthy and Osho. And so as an 8910 year old kid, I devoured these books. These books became my best friends, that I would go to school, come home from school, do my homework, read for four or 5 hours, meditate. I was just so curious about life and just trying to understand the purpose of all of this existence.

Kute Blackson [00:04:10]:
And so when I was 18, I felt this strong calling in my soul that said, go to America. Go to Los Angeles, because this is where all of the authors. This is where all of the authors were. This is where all of the authors lived. And I wanted to go into this field. And sometimes I think what your soul guides you to do doesn't make sense to your conscious mind. What your soul guides you to do doesn't make sense to your logic. And so we often question it, we often doubt it, we often don't follow it.

Kute Blackson [00:04:43]:
But I really believe that when you follow your soul and when you follow the guidance that you are given, you will always end up in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. And this is what I did. I knew what I had to do in that moment. I knew that I had to leave my father's church, renounce everything, leave everything behind, which was terrifying and scary. Took me four years.

Colette Brown [00:05:07]:
Yeah. Do you think that maybe, in a sense, your dad understood, he was preparing you for going out on your own?

Kute Blackson [00:05:19]:
My dad didn't understand shit he did. My dad wanted what he wanted. My dad was an old school. I love him, God bless him, a great man. But he was also old school in that it was, like, my way or my way. You choose which way you like. Yeah, you choose which way. And so maybe on a soul level, right? Okay, just say on that soul level, his soul was preparing me to stand up in my own shoes, to stand up in my own power, to confront and make my own choice and overcome my fear on that soul level.

Kute Blackson [00:05:52]:
But on a human level, he just wanted what he wanted. And so I had to face that. And when I was 18, I had the conversation with my father, and it was very difficult, very challenging. Like, we didn't speak for two years because he was so kind of upset. It was definitely.

Colette Brown [00:06:09]:
Where did that tenacity and that clarity come from?

Kute Blackson [00:06:14]:
I felt like I didn't have a choice.

Colette Brown [00:06:16]:
Okay?

Kute Blackson [00:06:17]:
I knew. And I felt if I didn't follow my soul, this impulse that I would die, I projected into my future, and I saw that I could take over. And age 20, age 30, age 40, age 50, age 60. But if I didn't have myself, if I didn't have my own soul, this is not living, this is not success. This is death. And so I just felt like I would die otherwise, at least emotionally and mentally. Like my soul would die. And this is what made me feel like I didn't have a choice.

Kute Blackson [00:06:49]:
And so when I had that conversation with my father, and he now knew there was no turning back, and that's when I felt as though I was just alone. I was just by myself. I felt like God had dropped me into the middle of an ocean, an abyss, and I was floating by myself with no help. And that's when I said, okay. I said a prayer to the universe. I said, God, if the vision that you've put in my heart is real, if the vision that I feel in my soul is true, I need some help. I need confirmation. Long story short, someone hands me a magazine called the Economist.

Kute Blackson [00:07:28]:
I look at the back of this magazine. It says the american government is giving away 55,000 green cards in the green card lottery. And that's when I knew. That's when I knew that I was destined to win again. Long story short, I ended up winning a green card in the green card lottery, literally lottery. And that's how I came to the US with two suitcases, knew no one in the country, landed in LA at 18, and just started following my dream, following my soul, guiding me to meet people and connect them. So that's a good.

Colette Brown [00:08:01]:
It's amazing, because some people, as adults, don't even know what their soul calling is, right?

Kute Blackson [00:08:06]:
Yes.

Colette Brown [00:08:07]:
And so what advice would you give someone who, maybe they're 30, 50, 70, and they have shoved it down so far because they don't want to disappoint their dad, their mom, their partners, what advice would you give them to start digging into their truth and to living that authentic life?

Kute Blackson [00:08:29]:
I think that you first have to many times when you're not living your truth. It is painful.

Colette Brown [00:08:36]:
Yeah.

Kute Blackson [00:08:37]:
And so you will feel pain. That is a sign. The pain will manifest as emotional pain, as in depression, as in lack of aliveness, as in sadness, as in resentment, as in anger, as in jealousy of other people who are living their truth or living their vision. So there's an emotional component to the pain. Then there's a physical ailment, like it might manifest in your body as a physical pain, a heartache, backache, headache, some physical pain. Or it might manifest as a physical disease, an ongoing ailment that your body is trying to communicate to you. Or it might manifest as life doesn't flow and there's blockages in the energy of your life. Or it might manifest as you will start attracting to you, people in your life.

Kute Blackson [00:09:20]:
People in your life that reflect to you your suppressed emotion. Reflect to you. Like, why do I keep attracting angry people? Why do I keep attracting people that are frustrated? Why do I keep attracting people that are depressed? Because this is reflecting to your own suppressed emotion. So when you start getting these signs, pain is a signal or a messenger trying to communicate to you that a part of you needs your attention. A part of you is out of alignment. And so one of the first places that we can start is really looking at all of the ways that we lie to ourselves. I think as human beings, for reasons which we can get into, we lie to ourselves. We stay in relationships that we know are not aligned.

Kute Blackson [00:10:03]:
We work jobs that we hate. We say yes when we mean no and betray our truth. And it leads to pain. It's meant to be painful. It's not meant to feel good. So if you really want to start and make a beginning to shift your life, you have to begin with, okay, what lies am I telling myself? What lies am I telling myself? Just starting there and actually acknowledging that and feeling that you can even take the pressure off of yourself of having to take any action. Because sometimes when the fear of the consequence of taking action, the fear of the consequence of acknowledging the truth and taking action can block your clarity, the ego kicks in and creates a smokescreen of confusion. The sense of.

Kute Blackson [00:10:47]:
I don't know. I'm not clear. I'm confused. And it's a protection mechanism, but if you take the pressure off, you don't have to take action. And you just start with acknowledging the truth. What is the truth? And the truth might sound like, yeah, I am in pain. Yeah, I am dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction can be a sign of growth, but we're often afraid of acknowledging it because, oh, what will happen if I acknowledge I'm dissatisfied.

Kute Blackson [00:11:12]:
So it might just start with, yeah, I am dissatisfied. It might start with, you know, I have an alcohol problem. I'm not going to deny it anymore. It might start with, you know, I have not been in love with my partner for the last two years. It's scary. You don't have to take action, but just acknowledge the truth. That begins a process inside that can open up something else. And so I think if people can start there, there is a beginning.

Kute Blackson [00:11:45]:
There is no transformation without truth. There is no breakthrough without truth. There is no next level without truth.

Colette Brown [00:11:56]:
Yeah. And I think that's something that people are always seeking is truth. Right. That's at the soul level. And I think the first step in being able to even get to that point is being quiet. Right. We have to be able to sit with ourselves because there's so many things around us, like the addictions and the distractions. There's all kinds of things.

Colette Brown [00:12:22]:
We can distract ourselves to mask the pain, but it will be there. And until we confront it, then we're really lost. And that's where I believe you come in to help with that massive transformation. And can I just share my experience? So I first met Coot through a friend of mine, probably eleven years ago, before I got divorced.

Kute Blackson [00:12:48]:
Wow.

Colette Brown [00:12:49]:
And I was seeking answers, and I haven't spoken about this publicly at all, but I was really in pain because the relationship was over and it had been over for a long time, and I didn't want to let go. And I was trying to figure out, is it him? Is it me? Is it us? Is it, like, what's going on here? And I went to your conference. It was called the man breakthrough experience.

Kute Blackson [00:13:11]:
For women.

Colette Brown [00:13:11]:
Yes, for women. And it wasn't about the men, it was about the woman. And you revealed that at the conference. But what I took away, which I had never seen or experienced at the time, was the inner child work. And that was such a profound experience when you had us in a meditative state where we went. And it almost brings tears to my eyes thinking about it, because it was the first time I really connected with the inner child. So can you just share a little bit about that for people that have never heard about it as well.

Kute Blackson [00:13:49]:
Yeah. I don't really focus on inner child work as a theme, but all I would say is, look, when we're born, let me back up just so I could maybe explain from a bigger context. When we're born as children, we're born free. We're born in touch with the aliveness. We're born in touch with our essence. We're joyful. We'll jump on the table, we'll sing, we'll dance. We don't care if we have a little belly.

Kute Blackson [00:14:24]:
We don't care if we can't sing or not. We don't know we're free.

Colette Brown [00:14:29]:
If you don't like someone, we say it.

Kute Blackson [00:14:31]:
Yeah, you look into a child's eyes. They're so pure, like every child. I'm sure if you looked into Hitler's eyes when he was three months old, you would have seen the divine, you would have seen something pure. Pablo Escobar, you would have seen something pure at three months old. Because at that age, we're all so innocent and we're just wide open. And so what happens, what happens to us is we incarnate into this human experience and we meet our parents, and God bless them, they're doing the best that they can do, based on their childhood and their programming and their wounds and their parents and their dysfunction. And so now we're born into a preset pattern of dysfunction, so to speak. And maybe dad is an alcoholic, maybe mom is crazy, maybe they're both crazy.

Kute Blackson [00:15:18]:
Maybe there's instability in the household, maybe they just don't know how to. Maybe they're good people, but they don't know how to meet our emotional needs as children. And so what starts happening is two things. The first thing is as children, because it's painful to be this vulnerable and not have your needs met. And so rather than just stay and feel that because it's so painful, we end up creating all sorts of strategies to shut down, suppress and disconnect so that we don't have to feel the pain. And because it's painful, because maybe mum and dad fighting all the time is painful, we shut down, disconnect so that we don't have to feel the pain around us. And in doing that, we close our hearts. Layers and layers and layers and layers and layers and layers and layers of unprocessed feeling build up, covering up our essence, covering up our light.

Kute Blackson [00:16:04]:
And we also develop a way of being in the world of who do I need to be in order to get love and validation and approval from mum and dad. So we develop a role, we develop a mask, we develop a Persona. We become the nice person, the nice goal, the good boy, the caretaker, being over responsible for everybody at the expense of ourselves. And that becomes reinforced by those around us. And we hold so tightly to that way of being because we've become conditioned to become this version of ourselves, to avoid pain and get love. That we end up thinking that this is who we are. And the version of ourselves that we become is not who we really are, is just who we end up becoming conditioned to be. And the degree to which we hold on to that is the degree to which we're not free.

Kute Blackson [00:16:52]:
And so now we go into our adulthood. And so what worked for us when we were five? This way of let me disconnect, let me not feel like my needs aren't met as a scenario. My needs aren't met by my parents. That's painful. We close our hearts, suppress, shut down, disconnect. Like, screw this. I don't need anybody. I need nobody.

Kute Blackson [00:17:14]:
Because when I need, it's too painful to need and be left in this state of, like, my needs not being met. So I'll just do everything myself, close my heart, become independent, push people away. I don't need anyone. It definitely is hard to be open in an intimate relationship or even manifest an intimate relationship from this place. And so now we become adults, living out the programming of pain in reaction to things that have happened so many times. We're now 2535-4555 not realizing that our reactions is really based on our conditioning, which is rooted in our childhood as strategies of survival, to avoid pain and stay safe and get love. And so now we're 55, but when we're triggered in our relationship with our husband or wife, we're acting like we were five, or we're acting like we were five and we don't even know it because it's the ego's way of protecting us. And so for me, some of the work I do is helping people become aware of their conditioning and bringing loving and healing to those parts of themselves that are hurting.

Kute Blackson [00:18:22]:
And sometimes those parts of yourselves are five year old parts or younger parts or teenage parts. It's not just inner child, it's just aspects of yourselves that are hurting. Because real healing is being able to bring loving to parts of yourselves that are hurting. And so what we have to start doing is bringing compassion, bringing kindness to those parts of ourselves that are hurting. And that's where the healing happens. And that's part of what you experienced in that moment and why it was so healing. Because until we acknowledge we can't heal because we're not in touch with. But once we get in touch with, if we don't bring loving, those parts of us that are hurt will keep acting out in certain ways or reacting in certain ways to get love, to get needs met or to avoid pain.

Kute Blackson [00:19:11]:
And so underlying every behavior, why do we sabotage? Why do we self sabotage? Because we're maybe afraid of certain things. Why do we procrastinate? Why do we hold back our light? Because we're afraid of. If I shine my light fully, I might be rejected. If I put myself out there, I might not be accepted. And sometimes it's more painful to really put yourself out there vulnerably and be rejected for showing who you really are versus if I hold back, you can't really reject me, and it won't hurt so much. And so many unconscious, conditioned strategies that we are living out. And so the degree to which we are conditioned as human beings is the degree to which we're not free. Not free to choose our relationships, not free to choose what we even want in life.

Kute Blackson [00:19:56]:
We are offered in reaction to unmet needs from childhood that is driving our dreams, our goals, our desires, and even our choice in partner. Sometimes we're seeking our dad in a partner to give us what we didn't get. Sometimes we're seeking, like, wow, if I can get that car, that house, that body, that fame, then I'm going to feel enough. Like, I didn't feel enough when I was a child. So when we can heal that child or that young part of us, then we can free ourselves, so to speak.

Colette Brown [00:20:25]:
Yeah. And understanding that you're the source that heals, that it's nothing else. Yes. It's all connected, and it's beautiful that you can look at it from a different vantage point and you can take ownership with the deepest compassion and understanding. Okay, I see why I made those choices. Because there's these experiences that didn't heal. And so when you can acknowledge that and you create a beautiful space and work around that to let people understand how they can do it. So can you talk a little bit about your new book? I believe the magic of surrender and what inspired that.

Kute Blackson [00:21:11]:
Yeah. This was not the book I wanted to write. This was not the book I planned to write. To be honest, I wanted to write every other book but this. So I resisted.

Colette Brown [00:21:20]:
Interesting.

Kute Blackson [00:21:21]:
And I had to surrender to the book about surrender, which is funny. Wow. I had all of these ideas of the books I thought would be bestsellers, the books I thought my publishers would want. And as I wrote these books, as I came up with, I brainstormed ideas. The only word that really authentically resonated for me was the word surrender. That's when I thought, oh shit, that's the book.

Colette Brown [00:21:45]:
Oh no.

Kute Blackson [00:21:47]:
Why do I have to write about that? Because we have all of these misconceptions about surrender. We know we should, but we don't. And so when I surrendered to the book about surrender, I felt that there was a book, the book had a soul of its own, and it was a book that was seeking to be written. And so when I let go, all of these ideas started to flow.

Colette Brown [00:22:05]:
When you surrendered?

Kute Blackson [00:22:06]:
Yeah. When I surrendered, all of these ideas started to flow. And I would say the seed of the book was planted a few years before I wrote the book. Because in 2016, 1716 end of 16, my mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer. And it was tough. My mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer and it was really difficult. She was the person I loved the most. And to hear this news was heartbreaking for me.

Kute Blackson [00:22:36]:
And so I was living in LA, my mother's in London. I started flying back and forth from LA to London literally every month for a year. So one week in London, three weeks in LA, you're traveling, one week in London. And this was my life for about a year. Started off as the worst year of my life. Turned out to be the best year of my life because I got to just be with my mom and sit with her for 8 hours in her chemo session and just be together and just talk together and do nothing together. And it was beautiful and heartbreaking.

Colette Brown [00:23:12]:
What did you learn about yourself during that time?

Kute Blackson [00:23:14]:
If there's one thing I got was, well, first I went into this process intent on healing her, and I soon realized that she was on her own journey. I took all these green powders and supplements, and she just wasn't cooperating. That was making me more frustrated because I'm like, mom, I want you to live. And sometimes she'd take them, sometimes she wouldn't. And so I had to let go. And what I also realized was the only regret I had in my life was not spending more time with my mom. And I thought to myself, why did I wait till she was dying to spend time with her? Because I was too busy running around saving the world and too busy to just hang out doing nothing with my mom. And in that moment, I really saw like, wow, there's so many more things I wanted to do with her that I'll never get to do with her.

Kute Blackson [00:24:06]:
And that really made me sad. And so it really was a wake up call for me to prioritize what is important. And it broke my heart open to really focus on what's important, which is the loving, which is connection, which is relationships, which I knew. But this drove it home. And so about six months, seven months into the process, the doctors finally said, there's nothing that we can do for you. Get your affairs in order. Basically, you're going to die. It's a challenging moment.

Kute Blackson [00:24:40]:
I had been preparing for this moment, but it's still challenging. And I remember looking my mother on the way home, looked my mother in the eyes, and I said, mom, are you afraid? And my mother says to me, you know, I'm not afraid, because I know I'm not. This body, this body is just a temporary vehicle for my soul. When this body is gone, which it will go for all of us, what I am is beyond birth and beyond death. I will be with you from the other side. Like, she knew who she was. And then I looked her in the eyes, and I said, look my mother in the eyes, and I said, what can I do for you? I want to be a good son. Like in your final days.

Kute Blackson [00:25:20]:
Can I take you somewhere? Can I buy you something? What can I do for you? My mother said, there's nothing that I need, and there's nothing that I want. The only thing I want is what God wants for my life. And that's when I knew she was free. She wasn't attached to living. She wasn't attached to dying. She was free. And that's when I knew she was surrendered. In the midst of not just on a mountaintop in the Himalayas, but in life facing her mortality, she was fully surrendered.

Kute Blackson [00:25:57]:
And that's when I saw the power of surrender. And that's when I started to think about the book, and that's when I started thinking about the great ones. Whether it's a Jesus, whether it's a Buddha, whether it's a Gandhi, whether it's a mother Teresa, whether it's Bruce Lee, whether it's a mandela, whether it's a Martin Luther king. At some point, they all surrender themselves to their soul. They all surrender themselves to their mission. They all surrender themselves to that deeper purpose. They surrendered themselves. And in that surrender, they transcended their human limitations, and they tapped into another dimension of life.

Kute Blackson [00:26:31]:
And that's when life began to manifest through them and create miracles through them. And that, to me, is the magic and that, to me, is the power of surrender. And so, yes, surrender. We have so many misconceptions about surrender in our culture today. This idea that surrender is weak, that surrender is passive, that surrender is giving up, that if you surrender, it's waving the white flag, you're going to get left behind, you're going to be a doormat. You won't manifest your goals, your dreams, or your desires. But I'm actually saying, yeah, if you surrender, what if you didn't get less, but you got more? More than you could have imagined, more than you could have planned, more than you could have wished for. Maybe not what you expected, but more what if that was the real magic of surrender.

Kute Blackson [00:27:16]:
And we all want magic in our lives, but we don't want to surrender. We want to hold on to who we were. We want to hold on to what was. And so surrender is a letting go. It is a letting go of control, or I would say the illusion that we are even in control in the first place. Surrender is a letting go of. It is a letting go of the life that you think you should be living and who you think you should be. It is when you stop trying to force and manipulate life to fit your limited idea of how you think it should be so that you can be open and available to allowing life to show you to allowing life to show you.

Kute Blackson [00:27:56]:
To me, this is surrender. The old paradigm of how we're taught to live is all about. And you hear this in self help, you have to know what you want, get clear on what you want. And I'm not saying it's not helpful to get clear on what you want. To me, this is the ego based model of living life. The challenge is sometimes you get clear on what you want or what you think you want, only to realize that what you thought you wanted was only what you thought you wanted based on who you thought you were. If you're not in touch with who you really are because of your conditioning, then your goals will be projections of unmet needs. And you might get what you thought you wanted and go, this is not what I really wanted.

Kute Blackson [00:28:34]:
And so for me, you can create from the ego, but it will be limited. The real question then becomes, what is it that life is seeking to express through me? What is it that the universe is seeking to express through me? And allowing yourself to attune, to align, to sync with that. Then you can align your ego, your personality, your mind, with the deeper impulse of what life is seeking to express through you. Then you can set your goals and strategies around that and take action around that. So surrender doesn't mean sitting there and doing nothing. It means you go into action 100% in alignment with your soul without attachment to the outcome. And to me, that's the essence of surrender.

Colette Brown [00:29:17]:
And how does one start to surrender?

Kute Blackson [00:29:19]:
Start with the truth. You have to start with the truth. Because if you start looking at where you're holding on and where you're stuck and where you're lying to yourself, to me, that is a beginning. That is a beginning. We got to start with. Laugh. Wow, I am afraid I am stuck. I am not happy.

Kute Blackson [00:29:40]:
Rather than being like, well, let me shop it away, drink it away, sex it away, smoke it away, social media it away. Start with the truth. You can't shift something and let go of something if you're not acknowledging that you're even holding on. So if you can start with the truth and then you can feel the pain that starts moving you in the process of surrendering.

Colette Brown [00:30:04]:
That's beautiful. I don't know if you have children or not. You do. You have a son. So our children, when you have them, they teach us so much. It's almost like a mirror that we see things in them that could trigger us or we could notice ourselves in them. And they're such a gift because we can either try to change them our way or we can give them the freedom to express and to be who they are. And I think that's a beautiful paradigm that is happening more today.

Colette Brown [00:30:45]:
Yes, and it's that balance. So how do you as a parent balance that when you're parenting of allowing that freedom with healthy boundaries?

Kute Blackson [00:30:57]:
I think really, your children are not your children. Your children are souls. We are all souls. And I think we have to shift our paradigm from a one dimensional perspective of living to start seeing ourselves as souls. When we see ourselves as souls, we see that we are also multidimensional beings. And when we see ourselves as souls, then we can see our children as souls. And life is like a university for our souls. Evolution.

Kute Blackson [00:31:22]:
Everything is your curriculum and everything and everyone is your teacher, including your teachers. The only process and purpose of life is to learn the lessons for why you incarnated to evolve, to grow and to realize and become more of who you really are. To me, this is the real evolutionary process. And when you understand that, then you see that your children are souls and they have their own lessons. Your children are souls and they have their own growth process. Your children are souls and they have their own journey. You don't have to agree with their journey. So their souls have their own curriculum, and their curriculum is not your curriculum.

Kute Blackson [00:31:59]:
And here's the challenge. The degree to which you and I, we are conditioned with our own pain trauma, unresolved stuff from our childhood, is a degree to which, as parents, we will project our fears onto our children and we will then try to enforce and condition our children based on our programming and our fears and our identities and our egos as a strategy of control. The ego thinks that if I can control everything, then I'm going to be safe and I won't get hurt because I don't have to go out of the unknown. The challenge is the ego's job is to protect you and reinforce its existence. So if we don't deal with our shit, if we don't deal with our stuff, then we're going to parent our kids in ways that we won't be able to help based on our unresolved stuff. I think if you're a parent, so you could say life is a process of surrender, but parenting itself is an ultimate process of surrender because to a degree, you don't have ultimate control over this child. Okay, you have a level of control when they're little babies and you can put them to sleep, but you can't force them to sleep. You can kind of put them to sleep, get them on a routine, get them on a schedule, but you can't force feed them certain things.

Kute Blackson [00:33:13]:
So there's degrees of control that you can set up, but you can't make them cry on schedule. You can't make them poop on schedule. You're not going to poop at 07:00 p.m. But you're going to poop at nine. It just kind of happens when it happens. And so we have to focus on what we can control, what we can't control. See them as souls with their own journey. The thing is, as they grow up and become older, you can't walk around with your kids every day.

Kute Blackson [00:33:40]:
Twenty four seven, at college, in university, on their job. They're going to go on their own journey more than anything. I think if we can see our children as souls with their own journey and their own curriculum, then we realize our job is not to control them. Our job is to obviously set certain boundaries and keep them safe and keep them protected inside of certain boundaries when they're young. But we can't dictate every move. And our job is not to make them into versions of ourselves that we want them to be, because that's the danger, which is what some of us try to do our job is to provide the space so that the authentic seed of their own soul can blossom into what they're meant to be, not what we want to project onto them to be. And I think that's the blessing. So, like with me and my father, I did not sort of follow the path that he wanted me to follow, and he had to learn that.

Kute Blackson [00:34:38]:
So in a certain way, I give, I think, his soul a gift to evolve and grow and surrender and let go. And so in that sense, we're always serving each other and blessing each other. Life is a process of surrender. There is so much about life that you cannot control. Life happens. And if we really look at the best things in our lives that happen, much of it we didn't control. It just happened in the process of living. It just happened in the process of unfolding.

Kute Blackson [00:35:10]:
Like meeting yourself, meeting my wife, I'm like, I didn't plan it. It just kind of happened. Meeting the soulmate, meeting the best friend. These things just happen as we're living life as authentically as we can. And so I think, yeah, to me, that's why I say surrender is the password to freedom. And I think parenting is an ultimate process of surrender.

Colette Brown [00:35:33]:
It is. And I love that you're sharing this, and I know whoever this message is meant to hit their ears and receive because I've seen so many times just the helicoptering, and it makes my soul sad when I see parents not allowing their kids to really just. My youngest daughter in preschool would strip down to her underwear and paint her body with paint. And it was great. There's people that are like, why would you let her do that? I'm like, well, why not? It's great. I've got a college student and a high schooler now, and they're so different, and I embrace and love, and there.

Kute Blackson [00:36:20]:
Is that little, I think when you can raise your kids without the judgment, right? Yeah, that's the key thing. Like, okay, look, there might be some things that you can't do in the street, right? You might have to guide your kid. Like, well, right, we don't do that in the street, but that doesn't mean we have to judge them as, oh, you're bad, or that's bad. It's just not appropriate to do in the street. But when we can correct them and guide them without our judgment, there's a difference. Like, hey, maybe not here, maybe like, can't do that in the street because we have other people to consider. But you're not bad. And the behavior is not bad.

Kute Blackson [00:37:04]:
It's just not appropriate for this moment in the middle of the church, in the middle of a temple, the middle of the street. And so there is a way, I think we sometimes need to provide feedback and correction to our children, but without laced with judgment or charge, there's the difference. The challenge is, many times our children will often act out unresolved issues within ourselves. And so when our kids does something, they're loud, they cry. We're like, no, don't do that. And that's not really guidance or correction. It's our inability to be with that part of ourselves, within ourselves that they're playing out, that we're trying to stifle. And now we're stifling them, thinking, we're guiding them and protecting them, but we're really unable to be with that part of ourselves.

Kute Blackson [00:37:49]:
And there's the difference.

Colette Brown [00:37:50]:
Yeah. And I think this all ties into the power of surrender, because that surrendering in the moment to allowing them to be and recognizing within us. Koot one of the questions I like to ask all my guests at the end is, if this was the last message that you had to broadcast out to the world, what would it be?

Kute Blackson [00:38:11]:
Wow. Last message. I don't know if it's the last message, but it's a message that emerges now. And so I would say, you are going to die. You're going to die. Feel that. Feel your death. You're going to die.

Kute Blackson [00:38:25]:
There's no way out of this human experience. Jesus died. Buddha died. Mother Teresa died. Mandela died. Bruce Lee died. Martin Luther King died. You're going to die.

Kute Blackson [00:38:36]:
Feel that question is not if, it's just when. And so if death came right now, would you be ready? And if not, why not? What's ungiven? What's unsaid? What's uncommunicated, what's unexpressed? Feel it. And if you knew the date and time of your death, would that change how you're living now? And if that's the case, then what do you need to say? Who do you need to forgive? What do you need to give? What do you need to do so that if death came, you could die complete? Because when that moment comes, because it will for us all, we kind of live like we have forever. We hold on to pain. They should get over it. They should apologize. We hold on to grudges more, sometimes attached to being right. We stay in jobs we hate.

Kute Blackson [00:39:26]:
We don't have forever. Tomorrow is not a right. It's just a privilege. And so I would say, feel your death because there's no refunds in this process or this game of life. You're going to die.

Colette Brown [00:39:43]:
That's powerful and meditative and it's such a beautiful question to reflect on because that's the truth. And it might wake you up if you're not living your authentic self to what do I need to do to change? So thank you for that beautiful message. Cute. And tell me how people can find you. Let's tell everyone your website. I'll put everything in the show notes.

Kute Blackson [00:40:08]:
A couple of things I would say. Get the book the magic of surrender. It's a really beautiful book. A beautiful read, a powerful book. I wrote it very simply. Get the paperback on Amazon. That's one. Number two, if you've been inspired by this conversation, I do a very special event that is designed to help you people really transform.

Kute Blackson [00:40:32]:
I've done this for the last 13 years. Last year was going to be the final year, but I'm doing one more year in 2024. If you're listening and you're someone who you feel are calling to make a difference in people's lives, if you feel that you've been put on the planet for a purpose that's bigger than yourself and you're ready to heal, you're ready to transform, you're ready to let go, you're ready to connect to your power and your voice and your creativity, you're ready to share your gifts with the world. The event I do is called boundless bliss, the Bali breakthrough experience. It's twelve days. I think it will be the most powerful experience of your life. If you're ready. Boundless bliss, the Bali breakthrough experience.

Kute Blackson [00:41:18]:
It's a twelve day experiential seminar, training without wolves, where I use Bali as the backdrop to facilitate deep transformations. I think it's unlike anything on the planet. You can find out more www.boundlessblissbali.com. That's boundlessblissbali.com. The next event is July the 20th through 31st. The 20th through the 31st.

Colette Brown [00:41:43]:
Amazing. And you're a gift. You're a blessing. I'm happy that our paths crossed again and I encourage everyone to check out your work. It comes from the heart. You are showing up and surrendering yourself for your life's calling, which is helping others. And you're an inspiration. So thank you so much for taking the time to come on today.

Kute Blackson [00:42:13]:
Thank you. Really appreciate you.

Colette Brown [00:42:15]:
Thank you. And everyone else, until next time, be well. Bye.