The Soul's Odyssey: Ania Halama's Quest for Purpose and Spiritual Agency

Ania Halama shares her inspiring journey from struggling Polish immigrant childhood to becoming a globally renowned spiritual leader and entrepreneur.

She opens up about overcoming poverty, family trauma, and a corporate grind through radical self-discovery, ancient healing modalities like ayahuasca, and manifesting an enriched life of freedom and purpose.

 Ania provides insights on subconscious reprogramming, spiritual awakening, marrying business acumen with spiritual principles, and her rebel's guide to personalized spirituality.
Her startup Xpansion Alchemy offers a unique mental wellness solution for employees. Ania embodies resilience, defying limiting beliefs to live authentically.

You can connect with Ania here: https://www.xpansionalchemy.com/
https://www.aniahalama.com

Transcript

PMD: 0:27

I have a guest today who is someone who has walked an extraordinary path from struggling childhood to disillusioned corporate employee to becoming a globally renowned spiritual leader and life changing mentor. Ania Halama's origin story reads like a hero's journey, full of profound challenges and transformations. Born in Poland, she emigrated to the United States with her family at age three, settling in the Polish community of Chicago. Growing up in poverty, Ania witnessed her parents relentless work ethic first hand as they took any job available just to keep the family afloat. Then at age 10, Anya's world was shattered when her father suffered a devastating workplace injury that left him permanently disabled. Forced to take on responsibilities far beyond her years, she spent her childhood translating legal documents, providing massage therapy, and essentially becoming the family's rock, holding everything together. And as if that wasn't tumultuous enough, Ania later discovered that for years, her father had been lying to her and siphoning away money under forced pretenses, an absolute betrayal that ruptured the family even further. And it would have been so easy for Ania to become yet another cycle breaker, mired in negativity and anger and a victim's mindset. But instead, she found the strength to forgive, let go of resentment, and initiate a journey of intense personal growth and spiritual awakening. And today, Ania is a spiritual powerhouse who helps thousands align with prosperity and their highest potential through modalities like plant medicine, facilitation, energy healing, intuitive coaching, and her bestselling books like rebels guide to spirituality. So please join me in welcoming a true inspiration and a beacon of radical self discovery. Ania Halama. Ania welcome to the Transcendent Minds Podcast.

AH: 2:43

Thank you so much, Peter. It's a pleasure to be here.

PMD: 2:46

Now you paint such a vivid picture of your childhood as the daughter of Polish immigrants in Chicago and from the simple daily lunches of pate sandwiches to the embarrassment of having to shop at discount grocery stores due to your family's financial constraints. You provide a window into the struggles and sacrifices made by your hard working parents. How did growing up with such modest means and watching your parents tireless work ethic impact your fundamental values and worldview from an early age? That's the first part of the question. And did it instill a practical resilience or determination in you that laid the groundwork for your entrepreneurial spirit?

AH: 3:38

Yes, and yes to all of that. Growing up a very frugal lots of scarcity like shopping at discount centers like that's all I knew growing up. That's all my parents knew growing up. So once I started learning about manifestation, the law of attraction we can all be abundant, ask, believe, receive. I'm like, yeah. I don't know if this is real. Yes, I'm asking, but it's not happening. It's not working for me. It hasn't been until the last few years where I really started working on the subconscious mind be like, okay, I have to go and do all of this reprogramming that I've been taught for such a long time. Scarcity, lack, like, no one likes their job. Everyone is miserable in their job. Money doesn't grow on trees. We can't afford that. All these things that I heard and so many other people have heard as well for such a long time. I had to do so much reprogramming around that so I can, okay, this is what I actually believe because 90 percent of us is our subconscious mind. We're only 5 10 percent of us is our actual conscious mind and everything from the ages of 0 to 7, 14, if I'm really being generous that is all programming from society, from your parents, from what you learned as a child, and things you might not realize, it's literally in your subconscious, you're like, Okay, yeah, maybe I grew up and my family had a lot of money, and that's what I believe. Okay, it's easy to make money, but maybe it's their relationship with money that you might have not even realized. Something deep in your subconscious, and that's what I really had to start reprogramming. Growing up That caused me lots and lots of like pain of me trying to like be an entrepreneur, be trying to manifest and I was still hustling for a long time. I was still working for a long time. Yes, resilient as heck. I was very resilient, but I was still doing so much more than I should have and we always hear Oh, like money's energy. You can attract it. Yes, it is great, but there's so much more to that. It goes in so deep into like my deep subconscious programming because I grew up very frugal. We didn't have a lot of money and there was a lot of untangling to do, like peeling of that onion, just like deep layers and layers that we had to undo. Because it's all in the subconscious.

PMD: 6:02

When you start on that journey by having a conversation with your subconscious mind and start to look at the deep programming that in there, most people go through life like a ball of string with knots at it and they untie one knot and they find another knot and then they search for someone to help them figure out what tied the knot in the first place, because that's what they need to understand for themselves. They need to understand instead of trying to undo one knot and then you find another knot what tied that knot in the first place? I think when you understand that, you are able to understand things come into your conscious mind and we know the brain either deletes, distorts, or generalizes because you can't take on 000 impressions every day. But if you don't neutralize them in the semi conscious, which is like your filing cabinet, it gets expedited into the unconscious. And your unconscious, as you alluded to, is really powerful, and it's running the show 95 percent of the time. I want to delve more into your younger years because the accidental injury left your father permanently disabled when you were just 10 years old forced you to take an overwhelming responsibilities far too soon from the massage therapy to translating legal documents, and you powerfully recount having your childhood robbed from you overnight. Can you vividly walk me through the tempest of emotions you grappled with in these first few years after the accident?

AH: 7:45

Yeah, of course. I was 10 years old. I didn't know what emotions really were at that time. I remember just seeing my father's pain, which caused me so much pain, countless nights like he was in so much pain and so much agony. He used to be a welder and he was lifting a sheet of metal and the sheet of metal fell and it ripped his tendons in his arm, which completely ripped and he has no tendons in his arm. Like he has an arm. It's not amputated, but he has no movement in it. And it's really painful. I remember nights on nights on end, just seeing so much pain and so much agony in him and that caused me so much pain and agony because we can't help it if someone's in pain, you're like, I feel for you. I feel the pain in you, especially if it's someone that we love and we're connected with, like I felt all of his pain and me having to massage his arm, me having to give him medicine whenever he needed some like antibiotics or whatever he needed. I just felt so much pain and sorrow in myself. And then moving on, I felt okay. All of my friends are outside playing and I'm here translating legal documents, or all of my friends are going to a sleepover and I can't because my father's in pain and I need to take care of him. I started getting a little bit of resentment towards him a little bit later on. This lasted 20 years and he's still not better. It's been,, 20 years at this point. Now, I'm in my 30s and he's still not fully better, but he decided to take the victim road and just play the victim, like instead of going down, okay, I can maybe look at holistic paths, like I'm a holistic healer now, I can help him in so many different ways, but he chooses to still be the victim and let that accident ruin his life and continue to ruin his life versus trying different modalities and doing different things. After a couple of years, I fell into resentment feeling like my childhood got taken away from me, got robbed from me, as you were saying, Peter, because I saw all of my friends doing all of these things. Again, I was 10 years old. I had no mind to think okay, yes, this is me actually helping. This is a good thing. I was 10 years old. I just wanted to be a child and watch cartoons and play.

PMD: 9:57

How did you persevere through that psychological turmoil while still just a child

AH: 10:05

When it all happened, I knew that I needed to be quote unquote, the man of the house, I was the oldest child, I have a younger sister and I needed to be quote unquote, exactly the man of the house. One of our incomes got robbed from us. We didn't have an income. It was only my mom's income that was being brought and she worked at a factory. She didn't make a lot of money either. So I knew that I had to start doing something to help support the family and bond it together as much as I could. Once I got into high school, my sophomore year of high school, I was like, okay, I'm really artsy, I know that I like art, I took a graphic design class, I was like, okay, I really enjoy this, and I was like 14 at this time, 14, 15, which is a couple years after it's happened and I was like, okay, graphic design, this is what I want to do. So I'm in high school, I go to my counselor. Okay, what can I do to graduate or as early as possible? I ended up graduating my junior year of high school. I didn't have a senior year. I graduated early, went to university right away. I graduated with my first bachelor's at 19 years old because I needed to be making money and to help my family as much as I could because money was the big thing in our family that was ripping our family apart. We didn't have money for my dad's medical stuff. We didn't have money to feed our family, and especially now that it was only my mother that was making money. Like I had a ton of wounds around money, especially because I had to step into that father figure role as another caretaker in my family and be the man of the house of sorts, like I had to bring in a lot of money. There was lots of wounds around that lots of unprogramming that had to be done.

PMD: 11:38

It's interesting because now I see you as a lady who is not speaking from your wounds. You're speaking from your gifts. When you encounter people especially clients, I know from a coaching context, when you're listening to them, they're usually speaking from their wounds. And that is part of the victim mentality because people get a lot of mileage out of being a victim and we all know the antidote to being a victim is to be a creator and not a victim. So you become a victor, not a victim, but it is a recruitment agency because this is where sympathy comes in. It wants to corral people to go, Oh, poor you. That's terrible, but things will get better. No, they won't.

AH: 12:24

I played the victim for a long time as well. Of course, like when it all happened, I did play the victim. I was like, I, to a point, like I hated my dad. I didn't talk to my dad for five years. I didn't believe in God. Like God, if you are real, why did all this crap happen? Why did all this stuff happen into my life. To a point, like the reason that I started traveling and left America, left corporate America is I wanted to be as far away from my dad and I was so sick, just wanted to be as far away from him and his energy and just toxic environment. I was playing the victim in that role. Get me as far away as possible. I'm going to go on the other side of the world, go to Thailand, and maybe things will get better. I was looking for that outside validation oh, I'll be happy when I leave. I'll be happy when. I'll be happy when. Instead It was all came down to me healing my inner work and it wasn't until yes, when I actually left and took myself out of the toxic environment, then I started healing. I was started looking at the wounds and be like, you know what? It's not actually them. It's actually me. I'm the problem here. I need to work on me. I need to fix myself first. And then my anxiety went away. My depression went away. I was so depressed and then slowly and slowly I started fixing the relationship with my father as well. I forgave him and I forgave myself as well because I played a big role in this. I ended up forgiving myself.

PMD: 13:45

That's beautiful. When you do get away from it you're not really getting away from it because you're killing it within yourself. When people say, I want to get away from it all you can't really get away from it all. But what you can do is by changing the environment that you're in, the heart of the matter can be seen more clearly from afar than, when you're in it. You moved out of blame and avoidance victim into truth and responsibility. That's a huge distinction to make and obviously that means you have to take action. You have to do something about it. You became trapped in the conventional corporate grind, living from paycheck to paycheck despite having this steady job, but something inside of you yearned for more freedom, more purpose, more fulfillment and this hunger for an enriched life ultimately drove you to take what can be a terrifying leap into entrepreneurship? Can you vividly paint a picture of where you were in your life at that pivotal moment when you decided to go, that's it, I've had enough, I'm quitting this job. What were the fears and doubts swirling in your mind and what was the catalyst that finally gave you the courage to walk away from security towards uncertainty?

AH: 15:14

For me, it was my health, mostly. For an entire decade, I was very sick anxiety, depression, insomnia. I was going blind. Doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I couldn't eat any food. I was allergic to everything. I was going to the bathroom once a month. I was very sick for an entire decade. And I was doing everything western medicine. Trying different aspects, going to different specialists and nothing was working. And I was dating a guy at the time and he's like, all right if Western medicine is not working, his dad was an Eastern medicine practitioner. He's like, why don't you go to my dad, see if anything like helps if it works. So I go to him and did a bunch of tests, was put on a bunch of supplements. And of course it didn't work. I didn't have that mind body connection. Yes, this is going to work. That belief in it and I came to a point in my job where I was butting heads with my manager at the time a lot and there was no more room for me to climb the corporate ladder in that position. So I can either look for a new job or do something crazy. My health was horrible. I couldn't climb this corporate ladder here anymore. I was like, you know what? Screw it. Let's do something crazy like I am in my early twenties right now. I don't have any kids. If I don't do it now, when am I going to do it? I choose me for the first time, like I choose me not helping my father, not climbing the ladder, not whatever. I'm choosing me. And I've always wanted to travel. That's something that I I wanted to see the world. I wanted freedom. I wanted just to see what else is out there. So I chose me. One day I woke up and I'm like, you know what? I'm done. Walked into my manager's office, quit my job. Within two weeks of me putting in my two weeks notice, I sold my car, put everything in storage, sold my apartment and bought a one way ticket to Thailand and just left. And I've been on that one way ticket ever since. It's been like eight and a half, almost nine years, and I'm still traveling. Granted, I do have a home base now. I live in Medellín, Colombia. This is home for me. But I would have never found this place if I didn't take that leap of faith.

PMD: 17:11

That's fascinating. Your path has been one of intense personal transformation and spiritual awakening from learning ancient healing modalities to facilitating sacred plant medicine ceremonies. You've immersed yourself in realms that many people can scarcely fathom, yet you somehow remain so remarkably grounded and relatable. How have these personal experiences shaped your agency and your philosophy on life and your perspective on your human existence? What insights from your spiritual explorations have been most meaningful to you in your evolution on your journey?

AH: 18:00

Ah, I love that question. So I'm jumping around a little bit. So astrology wise I have a lot of Leo, I have a Leo sun, Leo rising, and then a Virgo moon. So my friends always make fun of me. They're like, Oh, fire and earth, like two very different, like you have so much fire. You have all this energy, but you're so grounded. It makes no sense. Which I love. Fire and earth. Yes, I'm very grounded into who I am as a person, but a lot of that is because of all of these ancient teachings sitting with the medicine for so long. For me, ayahuasca is my number one medicine. It is my all time favorite, and it's completely changed the trajectory of my life and the person that I am today. It has completely saved my life and there's been many of experiences where I've learned so much, where I've healed so much, where I give literally just everything to having me sat with this medicine because it is completely changing who I am and my beliefs what I trust in what I believe in what I know my potential is what I can see much further. So much healing and ever since, like the first time that I drank Ayahuasca and I recently just came back from the jungle maybe three months ago, where I was getting initiated into an Ayahuasca tribe, I was telling Peter right before this call getting initiated into a tribe so I can facilitate and serve the medicine as well, because I want to help other people heal. Ayahuasca is not for everyone. Do your due diligence like reach out to me if you have any questions it is definitely not for everyone and i've seen so many cases where it's not for everyone but it is such a beautiful healer in ways that we say that it's like sitting with ayahuasca in one session is 20 years of therapy you really going into kind of what you were saying like what is the root cause of that knot in the yarn instead of just like putting a band aid over something like really getting into the what is the root cause of everything. Ever since I sat with the medicine for the first time, like my intention was clarity. The first time clarity around why things happened with my father, why I'm so sick, why my life turned out the way that it turned out just clarity. And she, and I say she, as the spirit of this plant there's no gender to it. Plants are plants. But for me, it always comes in as a female spirit.

PMD: 20:26

The earth is our mother.

AH: 20:28

Correct.

PMD: 20:29

She can become importantly pregnant with things because you can put a seed in the ground and It blooms, it flowers it yields. There is the feminine dynamic to that planetary influence.

AH: 20:43

I agree. For me, ayahuasca always comes in as a female spirit. There's other plants that come in for me as masculine spirits, but also some tribes like ayahuasca to them is masculine and other tribes ayahuasca to them is feminine. For me, it's always been a female spirit.

PMD: 20:58

You've got two forces at play because your two thirds feminine, but one third masculine. I'm two thirds masculine and one third feminine. Because do we not look for the higher parts of each other, my feminine is looking for the masculine and is a completion that starts to happen. I'm not talking about soulmates I'm talking about the masculine, feminine dynamics and they're both inside of those plants because one is more gravitational and may ground you and the other is radiational. The gravitational aspect is more of the feminine because it's grounding but the radiational aspect is more masculine because it's laser like it's outward it's an emanating force.

AH: 21:47

And we all have masculine feminine within ourselves, like the masculine, and we need both of them. The point is to find that balance between all of that. I can't be an entrepreneur and be like, la di da. I'm just going to float around all day and allow things to come to me. No, like I need to go out there and talk to people and that's the masculine. The masculine is the go getter. Like I need that. But I also need the feminine. I need the flow and allow things to come to me as well and we all have it within ourselves. The point is to find that balance within yourself and know when each one of them has to come out in what situations, if you're buying a house, you might need your masculine. If you're like drawing a picture, you might need your feminine.

PMD: 22:31

It's embodying and embracing both of those dynamics because to me they're not opposite, their adjacent right there in adjacency the masculine and feminine, because the way we are inculcated in our cultures that's an opposite. If you look at the yin and yang they intertwine. For me it's more about an adjacency and understanding the dynamics of that adjacency in oneself. I am much more feminine in my application to things like podcasting or writing. But I'm much more masculine if I'm negotiating something in business, I'm strategic. For me as a man, it's about understanding more about my intuition. What is that voice that's whispering in my ear and making a vibration in my mind, and then how can I caress it and invite it so that I actually start to listen to it? How do I, feel about my body? How do I feel about my mind? It's all those things. Anyway.

AH: 23:34

We went off on a tangent. I don't even remember what we were talking about.

PMD: 23:37

As an entrepreneur, and founder of Xpansion Alchemy and we'll talk about that a bit later on, but you've had to marry your spiritual mission with sound business acumen. And building a company, especially in the personal growth space requires equal parts of heart and hustle. You've managed to maintain a high level of success while staying true to your values. What has been some of the biggest challenges you faced in scaling your vision into a viable business model and how do you remain centered and resist compromising your integrity when profit motives could so easily derail an endeavor like yours?

AH: 24:24

Knowing my worth and also living fully in my authenticity. Knowing what our values are, what we stand for and fully embodying those. So I'm not like tested pretty much of sorts and to like to settle of sorts. I know fully what my authenticity is. I know fully what Xpansion Alchemy stands for, what we believe in, and I'm not going to give into something crazy that we don't fully need or deserve because the money is there. That's not why we're doing this. We're here to truly help people in a way that they might not have the tools. So with Xpansion Alchemy, we reach out to corporations as a mental wellness benefit for employees and the reason we're doing that is because I've been there. If I had the tools when I was I'm so stressed in corporate America, I would still probably be in corporate America. Thankfully, that's not my path anymore. My path is to help corporate America in that way now. But I know so many people still struggle with mental health issues and personal development and growth because they don't have the tools in corporate America. They don't know where to even start looking for the tools. So why not provide them tools? Okay. I'm stressed at work. How can I fix this? I'm stressed at home. What you're working on at work translates directly back at home into your relationships with your partners, with your children, with your teammates, with your co workers and you can use all of these tools in the same exact way. So we want to help them with all of these tools and we have 12 different teachers on staff, each giving one live class a month in personal development, health, relationships, spirituality, and financial wealth, because one is linked to the other. I think of this as the wheel of life, and I'm sure most of you have seen the wheel of life. It's a circle with five different quadrants and different angles and it's rate yourself on a scale of one to ten. Which one is off? That's the one you have to work on. They all should be balanced in one way or another. Your health is directly related to your relationship, directly related to your spirituality, your life at home, directly related to your financial wealth. So how can we balance all of them and we have the right amount of teachers to evenly distribute all of that so we can create this beautiful quadrant of life.

PMD: 26:47

It's being in right relationship to all those things because I know many people talk about a work life balance and I tend to have a bit of an issue with that and I prefer to reframe it to work life relationship because everything is a relationship whether it's finance, personal growth or intra relationships. All of those is about how you relate because balance is quite hard to achieve. When I look at things in nature, nothing's in total balance. It's a chaotic balance in a way. It's so beautiful, yeah. But there's coherence that comes out of chaos. That gives a balance because everything is in right relationship to each other, the soil, the plant, the sun, the moon, the planet, they're all in right relationship. Whereas we're not in right relationship with ourselves and we've got to strike that balance and have the ability to be self directed, which is what part of personal growth is about. I was reading your book, I was intrigued by the title and the opening lines immediately plunged me into profound existential questions, feelings of being lost, not belonging, a deep yearning for more from life and you make it very clear that your book rebel spirituality is not just another self help tome, but a guide to actively manifesting the life you truly want through spiritual awakening. What was the catalyst or turning point in your own life that sparked you to seriously pursue this path of self discovery and conscious manifestation? Was there a particular rock bottom moment where you realized that your life needed a seismic shift?

AH: 28:43

My book came about during COVID actually, and it's not that I needed like a cosmic shift at that moment. It's just some people decided to spend COVID like going deep into the work and some people decided to play video games all day. For me, it was like I deep dove, like I was meditating six, seven times a day and one of my awakenings that I had was during COVID because I was constantly up leveling, doing meditation, sitting in meditation, learning. I did my Reiki certificate during COVID. I learned angel healing. I learned so many different things because I was like I have all day to do stuff. Might as well be productive. And the way that the book came about actually was, I just kept meditating, and every time I meditated, I kept hearing the message write. I was like, what do you want me to write universe, I was getting frustrated with God, the universe, I was like, I don't understand, what do you want me to write? Share your story, tell us a little share more I'm not a writer, social media posts, like a blog post, maybe I don't know. Finally, I was on a massage table, in pleasure, in my feminine, in receiving, and I heard Rebel's Guide to Spirituality, and I was like, Okay, I know what I'm doing. I'm writing a book. All right! That message came to me, I was also going through an awakening. So It came through so strong that this is exactly what I needed to do. It's not that it was a rock bottom for me, but the message came in so strong. I know that I can help people with this message. It's a guide and that's the way that I look at the work that I do right now as well. I don't consider myself as a coach. I consider myself as a mentor. I am teaching from experiences, from what I've been through. At the end of each chapter, I have practical tools that you can start implementing into your own life. There's an EFT tapping, there's meditations, there's a Reiki healing at the end of every single chapter. So yes, this are my lessons. This is what I learned from my life and here's how you can implement it into your life as well. Like the beautiful, masculine, feminine, like balance of that as well. Like here are the tools and then here are the lessons. Now it's up to you because I can't make that decision for you. I can't change your life for you. You have to decide to do it for yourself.

PMD: 31:03

Were there any crashes or near death experiences your startup experienced at all?

AH: 31:12

I was doing spiritual business coaching at the time, and I had a very successful spiritual business coaching business called Rebel Entrepreneur. And I had tons of cohorts, tons of clients, and I wrote my second book. And during my second book launch, I was traveling a lot, Vegas, LA, New York, Costa Rica, all for the book launch. I had 80 foot timesquare billboards with my face on them with the book title and like I felt like I was on top of the world but during book launch I decided to take the entire month off because I was traveling like I was in different time zones I didn't know what time zone i'll be in like networking events. I just didn't want to have any calls with my clients. So I closed out all of my client contracts like closed doors for my business for an entire month. I'll return after book tour I came back from book tour and my business got hacked. I lost my entire business. I lost my website. I lost a 30 000 email subscribers. I lost 300 pieces of video content I've ever created like going from such a high like being on eight times square billboards launching a book like traveling the world to like losing everything I had a complete breakdown. I spent the next two months trying to get, retrieve everything back. It's followed by the next two months of having a complete breakdown. Like why did this happen? What is the purpose of this? Should I even be coaching? Should I even be mentoring? Is this my path? Questioning myself, doubting myself, going into my self worth. Should I maybe go back to corporate America? What should I be doing right now? And so I did what I knew how to do best, and that's meditate. I did a four hour long meditation, and during that meditation, Xpansion Alchemy came to me. The name, the color, the branding, what teachers, what partners I want on it, the payment structure, like the website copy, literally everything came to me. And I spent the next months like building up Xpansion Alchemy. But the message that came coming through for me was collaboration, not competition. We don't have to do things on our own anymore. We don't have to build businesses because I was a solopreneur at the time. I don't have to build a business by myself anymore. Why not collaborate with people and reach more people? I can't reach everyone just being one person, but together we can reach more people. We can't reach everyone, but we can reach more people. The way I teach might resonate with Peter. The way Peter teaches might resonate with Albert over here. Different people resonate with different people, so why not put all of our powers together and reach the masses in a much more beautiful way versus me trying to hustle and do it all by myself. No, collaboration versus competition. And now I don't believe there's such a thing as competition because like, why not collaborate?

PMD: 33:58

How did your leadership style evolve as the company grew? What were some of the hardest calls you had to make and how did you navigate keeping your team aligned during those inflection points?

AH: 34:13

Yes, that's the whole thing that what we do at Xpansion Alchemy. We help companies like keep up their work ethics, stay on a positive environment keep building relationships. That's all we do. That's all we teach. So all of my employees, I give them access to Xpansion Alchemy. They come to the classes, keep positive team morale and really preach what we teach like really fully embody everything that we're teaching within the internal teams as well

PMD: 34:40

Many entrepreneurs dream of the success that you've tasted but the reality is that sustaining a high growth business is challenging. What are some of the biggest struggles you're facing currently and how do you manage your psychology during a phase of adversity?

AH: 35:02

Reaching corporations is a very tough sale. That's still our biggest struggle right now. Like the gestation period of corporations going after B2B is much longer than B2C. Like B2C, you're just talking to one person, but talking to a corporation, you're talking to the HR managers, talking to the vice presidents, talking to the presidents and the gestation period is anywhere from six to nine months, whereas one person, you send them two emails, and they're like, okay, I like you. I'm gonna buy from you. So just having that sanity within myself it is okay. This takes time. Everything in divine timing. I have so much faith in this mission. I know what we're doing is going to help so much people. It doesn't matter how long it's going to take. I have full faith that this is what I'm supposed to be doing. It'll all get figured out and then everything just snowballs at that point.

PMD: 35:54

When I was reading your book, The Rebel's Guide to Spirituality, it felt to me like a defiant, rallying cry against conventional spiritual dogma because there's a lot of that around. From what I've read, there are suggestions within it, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, because I haven't read the whole book that rejects prescriptive rules and rigid belief systems in favor of a more liberating and personalized approach to one's spirituality. Am I on track here?

AH: 36:25

Yeah, so spirituality isn't a one size fits all. One person doesn't work for everyone, and for me, I truly believe with pretty much anything there's tons of tools out there. Try them all and see which one you like and which one you resonate with because what works for me might not work for Peter, might not work for the next person. Try them all and stick to something. Find one, two, three that you like, that you love, that truly resonate with who you are as a person and stick to those. Don't be jumping around all the time. Find what works for you and just get really good at those things that work for you. For me, it's meditation, plant medicines, ayahuasca specifically. EFT tapping and breathwork. Those are my go to tools that I love so much because a lot of them hit into that subconscious mind as well. All of that reprogramming that we have to go through.

PMD: 37:19

Were there any limiting beliefs or structures that you see within mainstream spirituality, that you were hoping to disrupt and rebel against?

AH: 37:30

So a lot of that has to go to spiritual bypassing for me, personally, because I've seen this in someone that's a very close to me, like high vibes all the time, love and light all the time. It's yes, but there's such deep wounds that I see in you that and they just wanted to like spiritually bypass it's no, I only look at the light. I don't look at my shadows. I don't look at the darkness. We have to go through the darkness to get to the light. We have to look at all of those things that are in your subconscious in order to get through them, to heal them and then you can be all the love and light that you want to be. But we have to look at those. You can't just be spiritually bypassing and be like, love and light all the time. I'm not going to look at my ancestral trauma or something that my mother did when I was three years old. That doesn't matter. No, that's exactly when it matters.

PMD: 38:20

When I look at your journey, it's been quite an experiential, nonlinear process of unfolding and self discovery so the question that comes up in me is how do you strike the balance between providing guidance based on your own experiences while still encouraging an individualized spiritual quest.

AH: 38:42

This goes back to what I was saying a little bit earlier, like mentor versus coach and as a mentor I much preferred the word mentor because I like guiding based off of my own experiences. This is what I learned and here are the tools. You pick those tools that work for you. These are the tools that work for me in these circumstances. Okay let's say I am trying to manifest a relationship and I'm working through like subconscious beliefs around previous relationships that I had. The relationship that I saw my parents growing up as them getting a divorce, subconsciously, I'm afraid of getting a divorce. This is what I'm working through. Not saying that's real. I'm just giving an example. Yeah. And, okay, here are the tools. For subconscious reprogramming, I'm going to use EFT tapping, I'm going to use breathwork. These are the tools that work for me. Here they are. You figure out which ones work for you. And let's do all of them. Maybe you need an EFT tapping. Maybe you need a deep subconscious programming versus via breathwork. Maybe you need plant medicines. Maybe you need X, Y, and Z, whatever. I'm guiding you. Here is what worked for me. You figure out which ones resonate with your soul that ring true to your authentic code within yourself and this is how we'll work through it within yourself.

PMD: 39:58

It's like food, isn't it? Everybody has a very different. propensity towards certain foods. Your soul is organized and propelled to the nutrition that you actually need at the time that you need it. I think the thing with tools there is a thing called the tool shed analogy. I don't know if you're aware of it. And the tool shed analogy is you've got your shed your workshop with your tools in the backyard or in the garage or wherever it may be. You pick the tool up and you use the tool and you put it back. That is very different from embodiment of a tool, because when you embody something, it means your cognition has processed what you've embodied. And if you embody it, that's not a pick up and put down. That's something that you can utilize as and when needed. So it's always there. One of the issues I see when people talk about tools, have they embodied those tools? Like you alluded to, are they practicing it? Are they building the consistency, the density? Because it's density, that gives them their trajectory. It's the density gives them their destiny. When you practice something over and over, it becomes a living part of you. You embody it. Exactly. You process it. You embody it. So that can come forward as a natural radiation from you because you've got the gravitational, the grounding of it. In a sense you get on the frequency of it because frequency will beat chemistry every time. Spirituality often demands some degree of surrender to what we may call a higher power or universal intelligence. How does your book reconcile this seeming paradox of ambitious individualism with a spiritual surrender and transcendence of the ego. What boundaries do you draw between healthy self empowerment and unhealthy egotistical entrapment?

AH: 42:09

I have such a beautiful and deep connection to many higher powers, to my higher self, to God, to spirits, to angels, to my dietas from the jungle, like many higher powers. I have such a deep belief, core deep belief in me that it isn't just me at the end of the day. It isn't just humans. Having that belief like there is something much higher than me, whether God, universe, love, whatever you want to call it. For me, it's God. I believe in God. That rules my entire day. Every single day, I have full faith that I am guided and I am supported by these higher spiritual beings, that everything is going to be okay. But because I know that I am guided, I am supported. I can fully step into who I am as a person because I am guided and I am supported. I can fully be myself. I can live in my authentic self because God wants me to succeed. God wants me to have everything that I want. And that's not coming from an egotistical way because I fully surrender everything that I do to God. But I can fully be myself because he wants me to be successful. Why not? He wants all of his children to be successful. I know that because I fully believe it, and I fully embody that.

PMD: 43:27

Beautiful. That's so well said, and I really feel that from you. I feel that beaconing out of you, that transmission and the fact that you are authentic as an agency of amplification for those things. And this has been a really powerful and inspiring conversation. And I just feel we've scratched the surface of your life. From your humble beginnings as a Polish immigrant to the immense challenges of poverty and family turmoil and profound betrayal, your story is one of remarkable resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity yet you refuse to let those experiences embitter you and instead you forge the path of radical self discovery, drawing wisdom from ancient modalities and plant medicine traditions to become a true spiritual leader. That's how I see you for our modern age and your ability to alchemize pain into purpose and marry an entrepreneurial mindset with authentic spiritual principles is incredibly inspiring. To me, you're a living testament that no matter how dire the circumstances are your message is we all possess the inner fortitude to transcend the cycles of negativity and trauma to manifest the life that we aspire to. But as with any aspiration, It needs to be operationalized as well. Do you have any parting words and where can people find you?

AH: 45:15

Yeah. Thank you so much for all of that, Peter. Ooh, that was great. You guys can find me at Ania Halama pretty much everywhere on social media. My website AniaHalama. com and then Xpansion Alchemy and that's expansion with an X and not an EX and I'm sure everything will be linked in the show notes.

PMD: 45:33

Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your vulnerability and your insights and your contagious zest for awakening humanity to its highest potential. I feel the living fire in you. And I think for those listening who resonated with any of his messages. I highly encourage you to pick up her book rebels guide to spirituality and explore her offerings at expansionalchemy. com. Ania is a living embodiment that it's possible to blend spiritual principles with pragmatic business sense in a deeply impactful way. But before we close out, I just want to bring you back for one last segment, which I call Soul Spotlight. And so we're just going to ask you a few fun, insightful questions that can sometimes reveal an unexpected window into your essence. Are you game?

AH: 46:35

Yes, let's do it.

PMD: 46:37

So if you could infinitely stretch one moment from your life to make it last forever, which moment would it be and why?

AH: 46:45

The first moment that I drank ayahuasca because that forever changed the trajectory of my life. It made me who I am today and I have infinite amount of gratitude for that exact moment.

PMD: 46:57

What's a simple everyday activity like washing dishes or folding laundry, where you find yourself most easily slipping into a state of presence and mindfulness.

AH: 47:10

Going on walks. I really enjoy walking. There's a meme where it's okay, we all have that one friend that walks from Texas to New York and that's me. I love walking. I don't care how far I'm going. I see a whole bunch of different stuff and I put myself in that like presence in that meditation state for like meditation is not sitting on top of a mountain going home for hours for me like sometimes meditation is going on a walk and just clearing the mind and being present.

PMD: 47:35

If you had to nominate one quality about yourself to be permanently emblazoned on your logo or coat of arms, what would that quality be and why?

AH: 47:46

Happiness, because we can all shine a little bit more happiness and I feel like happiness fully exudes me. I am embodiment of happiness. And they would exude from my logo as well. And people would see the radiation of happiness.

PMD: 48:02

Beautiful. And do you have any parting messages at all?

AH: 48:05

There is no one size fits all to spirituality, as we talked about, find what works for you, find what rings with your soul, what resonates with your soul, and try them all, whether it's plant medicines, breathwork, EFT, tapping, Reiki, meditation, whatever. Find the tools that work for you because there's something out there for everyone.

PMD: 48:26

Beautiful. What's been your experience today on the podcast?

AH: 48:29

It has been great, so much fun diving into I've changed the way that I present myself because my book is just one part of me, my childhood is one part of me, that is not who I am anymore, and I really loved the questions that really made me think in a way that I haven't been asked before, which I had a lot of fun with.

PMD: 48:50

Excellent. That's the whole idea. I do appreciate that early years is not who you are now, but I just thought it was important to draw out your origin story so that we can see where you are today because history is important if you can learn from it and you can align to what your present is and then what the trajectory is of your future. And that only comes about through consistency as we've talked about. And I really salute what you're doing in the world. I think you're going to go really far. To me, you're a visionary and you're a pioneer. And like I say is that if you want to spot a pioneer, look for the arrows in their back.

AH: 49:35

There's tons of them. Thank you so much, Peter. This was so much fun.

PMD: 49:40

You're most welcome. Have a wonderful day.

AH: 49:42

You as well. Ciao.