The Everyday Mystic

Shattering the Upper Limit: How to Raise Your Internal Set Point for Success w/ Zack Bodenweber

• Corissa Saint Laurent • Episode 94

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We often think we want freedom, wealth, and love, but according to double board-certified coach, certified HeartMath Practitioner, Licensed Social Worker, Writer, and Artist, Zack Bodenweber, our subconscious minds are actually terrified of them. Why? Because to the ego, the "unfamiliar" feels unsafe, even if the familiar is miserable.

In this deep-dive conversation, Zack joins Corissa to deconstruct the mechanics of identity shifting. They explore the profound realization that we are not "self-made," but rather "self-remembered," peeling back the layers of conditioning to reveal the soul that was always there. Zack shares his methodology for raising your internal set point, moving from a life of frantic doing to one of magnetic being.

In this episode, we cover:

  • The Safety Trap: Why we subconsciously choose to be "right" about our unworthiness rather than be free, and how to break that cycle.
  • Frequency vs. Hustle: How to stop chasing external validation and start pre-paving your reality by embodying the frequency of what you want before it arrives.
  • The Self-Made Myth: Why no one succeeds in isolation, and the spiritual power of acknowledging the invisible support systems around us.
  • Consumption as Creation: A radical reframe on how we consume art and information, not as passive observers, but as active co-creators closing the loop of transmission.
  • The Deathbed Realization: Insights from the book Not Fade Away, exploring how we mistakenly identify with our diseases and struggles until it's too late.

Notable Quotes:

  • "The life we want is not about getting everything we desire, it's about becoming who we truly are." — Zack Bodenweber
  • "If I'm responsible for putting myself in this prison cell... then I'm also responsible for taking myself out of it." — Zack Bodenweber
  • "Whatever arises, welcome it. It's here to be seen, felt, and heard. It's here to be freed." — Zack Bodenweber (reading from Notes on Awakening)

Resources & Links:

Connect with Corissa:

If this conversation awoke or inspired something in you, please consider leaving us a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review to help us reach more people.

Thanks for tuning in!

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Hey, beautiful souls. It's wonderful to have you here and be tuning in with you. If you listen to my last podcast episode, you'll know what I mean by that. That we are in this co-creative space of the channeled transmission of information that you're listening to now, but that in your receiving of it, you are part of the communication and that it wouldn't exist without you. So if you want to hear more on that topic, go back to the solo cast that I just put out. I think it's episode 92. And it's called Being the Channel in Your Own Life. So you can look that up. Today's episode is with one of my past guests and one of my future mentors, which I'll tell you more about what that means in a sec. Zach Bodenweber joins us today to sit down and just share. And we converse about a lot of things around the topics of identity, identity creation, the creation of beliefs that then end up becoming who we think we are, and that the process of our own awakening and our spiritual journey is the realizing of who we really are, that we're not those programmed personas and beliefs and identities. And the moment that we start to question that and step away from the belief that that's the only thing that exists or that is who we are, we start to explore what could be. We explore those questions that we're starting to ask and we start to answer them. The whole metaphor of the journey or the path of our own awakening or our own becoming or our own remembering is enter into once we realize that how we've been living is not how we want to live anymore. So it comes through your own choice and your own free will to make that choice. Anyone tuning into this has made that choice. Certainly, we know. And Zach and I talk about the ways in which things that he's discovered with his clients, things that he and I have discovered working both with our own life in ourselves as well as with other people. And how that unfolding of the understanding of who we really are is the most freeing thing we could do and live into. So freedom is one of your top goals, top values, one of the things you're seeking and searching for. This episode is absolutely for you. I mentioned that Zach is also one of our future mentors. So you'll hear about the Everyday Mystic Mentorship, which has just launched. We're so excited. Myself, Zach, and three other mentors are teaming up to provide weekly mentoring sessions and a private community chat discussion area where we'll also drop in to provide support and guidance, as well as some live transmissions through there, too. And this mentorship is meant for people who are exploring this path as a professional. So people who want to, because they've been walking this path and because they've been on this spiritual journey, they're now thinking about doing this work themselves. So the mentorship is inviting and supporting those who are interested in working in this space to join us and get the support, the guidance, the help, the education and the knowledge, sharing, and the inspiration that you may need to bring that beautiful business into fruition. Because the more of us there are, the better off the world will be, we believe. And for those of you who are already working in this space, this mentorship is for you as well because we will be working on frequencies and clearing channels and transmitting energy so that you can come in and spend time in this space to receive so much of what you already spend a lot of your time giving. So it's a beautiful space of reception and collaboration and love. You can go to theeverydaymystic.org slash mentorship to find out more about that. And now to my conversation with Zach Bodenweber. If you're ready to tap into your inner wisdom and the energy of all that is, you're in the right place, and we're so happy you're here. Let's get this party started. Hi, Zach. Here we are.

Zack Bodenweber:

Here we are. Hi, Carissa.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

It's wonderful to see you.

Zack Bodenweber:

It's nice to see you. I'm grateful to be here today.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I always love when I get to speak to artists because they've got their artwork usually around them. Is that one of your pieces behind you?

Zack Bodenweber:

Yeah, yeah, two of them actually. Yeah. Um, they're sort of just stacked side by side. Thank you. Yeah, I'm in I'm in a new place and I haven't hung the art yet. And what was so funny, so I have art throughout my place just sort of on the floor like that, leaning against the wall. And uh what's funny is I had a friend over, he didn't know that I hadn't hung the art yet. He goes, I can't tell if that's where that belongs, or if you know, you just haven't haven't taken the time to hang it yet. Because he goes, it kind of works, you know.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Totally. I know it's the art of decorating that looks like you've not decorated.

Zack Bodenweber:

It is, it is, it is an art. Yeah, yeah. The whole uh the whole try to look like you're not trying, right? It's an art, it's a fashion. Yeah. Um so and but this is simply me not uh quite having it up yet. And the reason for that is because I don't know if I want to uh go the go the usual route and just put nails in the wall, but I also hear that there are these there's these really cool like stick-on hooks that can actually carry a lot of weight now, um, which would be cool because I'm renting, so the less the less holes I put places the better. Not that that's an issue really, but uh and then also I don't know if I want to do a frame. Oh you know, so and if I do a frame, it's gotta be big because a lot of my pieces are big and they keep getting bigger. So it's probably something that I even want to make myself. So I'm trying to figure out what I want to do, frame, no frame. So I have a couple things to feel through with the art, but it's here for now and it's good.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I love that the creative process it continues to extend with the how it's displayed, not just within its own frame, but then also how it's displayed in the world, right? In your space, um, moving it around to different spaces. I love that about art, how they'll, you know, art pieces, famous art pieces, usually, right, get moved into different spaces. And, you know, whether that's a museum space or hotel lobby, or you know, someone's got it for six months over here in this gallery, and you get to experience it differently. It the way the light hits it, the way the space feels around it that you're sit in changes how it feels. So it's it's like a living thing.

Zack Bodenweber:

Yeah, yeah. It's right, it's uh it's in relationship to its environment, you know, and then it takes on a sort of a new feel, depending on what's happening. And then also the creation of the relationship with the viewer, right? Somebody comes, somebody comes over in the case of my place, uh, somebody goes to that museum, visits that business, everybody has their own relationship to that artwork, which is also part of the creation, yeah. Which is like the co-creation. It's like that whole like if a tree falls in the woods type of thing, right? Like, is it it like is it R if nobody's observing it? You know, and then somebody observes and what does it become upon that observation?

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Exactly. My last uh solo cast episode, I talked about that regarding the podcast. I said, you know, we're the whole conversation I was having with myself with the audience was about being a channel and not your traditional channel of you know, channeling dead relatives necessarily, but being a channel of communication that both receives and transmits information. And that if you're the transmitter of the information, let's say us right now, talking to a podcast audience, the communication is only complete when there's a receiver and there's a channel on the other side picking up the transmission and receiving it. It's the same thing as the tree in the woods. If no one is listening and actually taking in this information, the the communication is not whole. It's not to me, you know, it's not so much as so far as it doesn't exist, but that it's not complete.

Zack Bodenweber:

Yeah, that's what closes the loop is the reception. And without there's just a kind of an infinite uh potential almost. And I love how you say transmission reminds me of being like a radio, and that's a metaphor I've heard and also I use often is tapping into different frequencies, tapping into different channels and seeing what comes through. So same thing. Somebody to to tune the radio, something coming through that that transmission, but also someone listening to the music. Otherwise, where is that sound going, right? Is it is it is it there? Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah. Which is so important for people to hear who aren't creators. And I use that aren't very lightly because I believe we all are creators. Um, we are creating life in our bodies at every moment. We are creating new cells, if that's at the very basic of how we're creating at the moment, but we're all creators, whether we're living in that creative space or not. Um, but I think there tends to be in our culture a not a prioritization, maybe a hierarchy of the importance of that creation. Creation that gets a lot of notice, creation that then um is pay people pay a lot of money for it. Creation that people pay a lot of attention to ends up being more valued. And then creation that is being made would be next. And then people who don't or aren't actively creating are sort of at the bottom of that hierarchy and often feel lesser than because they're not creating something and they're just consuming. And that to me is uh one of those false narratives. I mean, obviously, there's no hierarchy that's very that's real, it's just a socially constructed hierarchy. But for anyone to not feel like they're contributing when they're the viewer, when they're the listener, when they're the consumer, is is just false to me. You are not just necessary, you're you're necessary for that completion, for that wholeness, for that uh the closing of the loop, as you said. So it's not even that you're like uh secondary, you're uh primary to the creation itself.

Zack Bodenweber:

Yeah. On some level, in multiple ways, you know, in some level you attracted that creation. On some level, you created it, and if we're really kind of going with unified consciousness, you created it and then you created the opportunity to receive it and what have you. In the receiving of it, in the consumption of it, I really agree with you. I think this is neat because uh the idea of a passively consuming something is a bit of a fiction because you're consuming it, but uh one, your own sensory apparatus is part of that consumption, the way you see, the way you hear, the way you feel, and also then the way you think. So the way you perceive it, your interpretation of it, your perception of it, what you do with it, what you take away from it, how you implement it into your life, that is all part of your commentary on it. That is all creation.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Absolutely.

Zack Bodenweber:

That's very interesting. Yeah, and that's new.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

It's being an active participant in the process of that, I think, is where you know the line tends to be drawn of how active are you in that participation? How conscious are you of your participation in that? Because, you know, you can mindlessly consume. I mean, you're never totally mindless, but you can what we would say mindlessly consume content, right? You just like walk through, oh yeah, I see that painting, see that sculpture, see that video, whatever. And maybe you're eating and talking to your friends and not really paying attention. I mean, so there's obviously all different layers of how someone engages with anything, but that's life, right? The our level of engagement with life. How actively are we participating in that engagement? How conscious are we of the fact that we are an active participant in this, and not just that this life is happening to us and that we're just some ragdoll, you know, puppet on the string kind of participant.

Zack Bodenweber:

Yeah. Yeah. It's a nice way to this. I say this is new because this is sort of a new um thread of thought for me, because I know in my own life I do definitely, in terms of the balance of creation versus consumption, which I've often seen as a bit of a bit of a binary, which we're collapsing right now in quite a beautiful way, I've always had an emphasis, and in many ways naturally so, of being more on the creative side, creating far more than I consume. I I write more than I read. I make art more than I witness art, right? Whether that be some sort of media or painting or whatever. So but that's the part that I didn't really think about is the creative process involved in the consumption. That's pretty, that's pretty cool. I'm gonna sit with that.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I would argue though that you probably have whether it's measured in quantity of time spent, you've spent the time, you've taken in the energy of writing, of artwork, of of the world through that creative lens. You've you've opened yourself up to be the muse of creation, to now let it flow through you or to have it flow through you. But it's like it comes with consumption. You you have you have you know, they say like none of us have an original idea, like it's all just floated out here.

Zack Bodenweber:

It all comes from somewhere. Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And so I think the originality comes in how we interpret those ideas, how we put it on the canvas like you do, or in writing as you do.

Zack Bodenweber:

So it's a great example. I have I have moments to this day, just to illuminate what you're saying. I have moments to this day where I kind of go back and read something that maybe I read six years ago, and I actually recognize the way in which that showed up in my book or in an article I wrote or in a coaching session I had. Not even recognizing that it had an origin in this source. And by the way, of course, the origin was not in that book, it was some from someplace before. Right. So it's just this this sort of uh this sort of chain of this thread of what happens to these ideas and how they take different shape and form and means of expression. So, but that's the thing, like what you just said. The my expression of that idea is unique. Not the idea itself, not the concept itself, my expression of it, my interpretation of it, the way that I choose to put it out into the world. Yeah, I'm cognizant of that. Even with with painting, regardless of any visual inspiration I've had from other things I see, I didn't create the canvas, I didn't create the materials for the canvas, I didn't create the colors, I didn't create the paints, I didn't create the brushes. You know, it's my but my expression of utilizing those things ends up being something original at the intersection of all of them through channeled through my expression.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I saw this post the other day from an entrepreneur, a quote unquote self-made millionaire, who said, I hate the term self-made. I was helped in and similarly to what you just said of like, I didn't make the brushes that I'm using to paint this canvas. I didn't mentor myself, I didn't teach myself this information, that information came and I consumed it. So it's not, you know, that term self-made gets thrown around a lot in the business world because there's a lot of, I guess, ego behind that. Of like, oh, look what I did, a lot of pride. Like I came from poverty, right? That's often a lot of people's story. I came from nothing and now I'm, you know, an eight-figure entrepreneur. And beautiful for them, amazing for them. Um, not to discount the what anybody did to get there. However, it's it's not a journey that you do alone. Doesn't matter whether or not you are a solopreneur individual in your business. So much conspired for that to happen.

Zack Bodenweber:

Yeah. Yeah. We don't exist in isolation. And everything conspires to support our very existence, you know, let alone our success and whatever, whatever else happens in our life. You know, there's a there's there's an infinite myriad of factors that come together to support our every breath we take.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

That's the most beautiful gift I've received from. This spiritual path of not feeling alone because humans can let you down and can leave you alone, you know, whether that's physically or emotionally, mentally. We all have our stories of how that might have occurred. And for me, it was abandonment, and then in my adopted family neglect, and then I carried those patterns. So then I was just doing it all to myself. So I was the perpetrator for many years.

Zack Bodenweber:

And you took the torch. You go, I got it from here.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I did. Like, thanks for those lessons, guys. I'm gonna go do that really well. I'm gonna do that better than you did it. And for me, that's a bit of a big pattern in my human existence of feeling so alone and isolated, and in then in within the spiritual path and in this acceptance of this world as so much more than just our human experience here, accepting God or create a creator, accepting that there's infinite dimensions and realities that we can be in that, and that we're all connected energetically. So whether or not we're in the same room or in the same lifetime, we can communicate with each other and be connected through that type of energetic connection. That has been the most beautiful gift because I never feel alone, I always feel supported. I'm comfortable. My human is comfortable and loves being by myself because I can have all these different conversations or you receive transmissions or just have these connections with a tree or with an energy that I an energetic being. I don't even know where it may not be coming from necessarily, but opening up on these totally different levels of connection and not just solely relying on the human-to-human connection.

Zack Bodenweber:

Nice. Right. So what I'm hearing is you have a broader understanding of connection. And that trans that and deeper, yeah, as is always the case, right? Beneath and beyond. And the whereas a lot of pe for a lot of people, the connection involves other people, other living beings, even like a pet, you are able to experience connection with plants, with other energies, with the world. Everybody has that ability, you know. But I like how you're understanding that as connection. And with there's there is no true aloneness. And that's what you're really understanding.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah. It's awesome because I think that's one of the things that plagues a lot of people. They feel alone in their ex, right? Alone in my disease, alone in my problem, alone in my issue, alone in my situation. And even though maybe consciously they know there's other people that go through this, it's hard not to feel alone in that problem when you're coming at it from that victim, for lack of a better term, standpoint, because it feels like it's all happening to you. And so then, therefore, you are isolated and sort of trapped with your problem, trapped with that issue or that energy.

Zack Bodenweber:

Rather, even that ownership of my problem. Yes, this is identifying with it. Yeah, totally.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I'm reading, rereading. So my family and I, my husband and son and I have taken on for a while, it was, of course, children's books with my son, you know, reading books together. But now we read books together that are books that my husband and I are choosing now, because my son's 13. So far, they've all been books we've read before. So we know it's a message that we want to share with our son in some way. But I don't know if you run into this before, you'll pick up a book, read a book. Well, you just said it yourself that you'll remember and go, oh yeah, that's kind of where I got that idea. Like, I'll read, read something and go, I don't remember any of this. I remember it like cellularly, but I don't remember the book, the words, the you know, maybe it's an overall feeling about it. So, anyway, we've been reading this book called Not Fade Away. And this book is about a guy who died in his mid late 40s, early 50s of cancer, and he lived a very full life, and he tells of his life, but he tells of his process of dying and what this, what he's realized, what he's seen, what he's come to understand about life. And it's been really interesting to read it because he's talking about when you were saying, Oh, the identifying of the problem. You know, he's he in the writing, and when he's writing this, it's too late. At this point, he's so far, he is in the last weeks, months, I think, of his life during the writing of this. It's the last, the because it's co-written. And so the co-author, there's a whole beginning part where the co-author writes about this experience of meeting this guy and then writing a book with him because the person dying wanted the book out there. So all of it happened within a few months' span, and then he died. So it was just it's very visceral writing.

Zack Bodenweber:

Okay.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

He's realizing in it that he identified with his cancer, that his the cancer became his cancer because he called it his cancer, that he owned it, and that he also gave up his power to the medical treatments.

Zack Bodenweber:

Oh, that's so fascinating. Yeah, that's so that takes so much courage for in his dying days to not only to really admit that to himself, right? And let alone share it with the world, but really to admit that to himself that, oh wow, look at the ways in which I took, yeah, I took ownership of this, or you know, may have perpetuated it.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

It's beautifully written, too, because it's not preachy. It's not like, okay, like I'm gonna stand on my soapbox and tell you what I've realized in this. He's just very humble and vulnerable about it. As you read it, it's like you're reading his realization, you know, as it unfolds. It's it's a great book. It's a it's fairly short but powerful. One of those ones I've started doing on the Everyday Mystic Instagram, starting doing books that that we're recommending. And your book's on there, by the way. I have a post already created for it, and it's it's in the schedule. And uh that book, Not Fade Away, will definitely be one of those because it's not a spiritual book. He actually wasn't a spiritual man, but he realized in his dying that he was. And he's like, I don't know what a soul is, but I know I have one.

Zack Bodenweber:

I know I have one. Wow, that's beautiful. In a way, that probably makes it even more impactful and and and probably contributes to that tone of it not being preachy, which I always really respect and admire. And I love seeing the different inroads to spirituality that people develop. And dying is one of them. You know, it's certainly one of them. So thank you. I'm gonna have to read that. Yeah, but when people take that ownership, I always used to look out for that uh primarily when I was in the mental health, clinical mental health space, when people would say, my anxiety, my depression, I'm anxious, I'm depressed. Look at that language. I am this thing. You're really stacking the odds against yourself, you know, because one of the strongest things has been coming up a lot in my work with clients is one of the strongest forces in our lives is who we believe ourselves to be. Which is why, which is another reason why when you get into spirituality and you you are able to tap into a self-concept that is greater than your ego and recognize this expanded version of the truth of who you are, life transforms before your eyes. But even playing on the level of the ego, the story about who you tell yourself you are shapes everything. It shapes your thoughts, your emotions, your actions, which then ultimately reflects it back to you in your external reality through the outcomes you experience and also through the way you experience them, the way you perceive them, because you will look at them through the lens of your own beliefs about yourself. So that whole thing, this just came up. We had I had a big breakthrough with a client uh a few days ago around this uh belief about herself that she is unlovable. And because of that, all this sort of intention to love herself and take care of herself and honor herself and create this life she enjoys, she's been sabotaging all of it. Because that's you know what she wants, but on a deeper level, what she wants even more than that is to maintain familiarity and maintain a life that's in alignment with her own self-belief. And if that's being unlovable, going to create situations in which you feel unlovable, whether that's pushing people away who love you, or whether that's interpreting things, everyday interactions through the lens of you being unlovable, right? Because your own perception is one of the most important tools in the creative process, right? Everything is going to be filtered through I am unlovable. And that's what your life's going to look like. So then to achieve this experience of being lovable, there's this compensation that happens. I need to work extra hard. I need to try extra. I need to please people, I need to do all this stuff to be lovable because I'm compensating for this false belief that I am unlovable.

unknown:

Right?

Zack Bodenweber:

So there's this inner conflict which blocks the manifestation of being lovable. And as we discovered in the session, which was so beautiful, it's not about becoming lovable. It's about realizing you already are. That's the difference, right? It's you don't need to become lovable. You already are. So it's just about recognizing that, which all which is also getting rid of everything that stands in the way of that. So it's this process of dissolving. We're tapping into a channel here.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Seriously.

Zack Bodenweber:

It's this process of dissolving what's standing in the way. Because the life we want is not about getting everything we desire, it's about becoming who we truly are. Because everything we desire is so that we can feel a certain way. But those ways, abundance, freedom, peace, all the stuff that people want, which can be boiled down to a handful of words and even fewer frequencies, I would say, are all just the truth of who we are.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah.

Zack Bodenweber:

So spending all this time trying to achieve them through things in the world when the ultimate path is connecting with the essence and the truth of who you are and becoming that truth, realizing that. And again, when I say becoming, it's just realizing that you already are.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I love that word dissolving. And I think of that too when it comes to the identities, like a dissolving the identities that we've comfortably created. Just like you were saying, this woman, your client, has created an identity that she's unlovable. Um, and there's an identity of people pleaser that then gets layered in there, and the identities of all of then workaholic people pleaser, all the compensation. It's like the scaffolding of those identities are the beliefs, right? You have to, as you said, have those beliefs in place for your identity to be intact, for then you for you to feel like a real person when that's not even who we really are. We're the soul beneath that person. We are the we are the essence before all of that identity construction. It's like, let's just take all the raw materials, scatter them about, and create something new out of all of that. And we have the power to do that.

Zack Bodenweber:

Because it's all the identity, you know, you mentioned like the creation of the identity. For for many people, the that creation is not a matter of choice. It's a matter of conditioning. It's a matter of them being told and shown that throughout their life experience. And then I love it's a full circle moment because you brought this up earlier in your own experience, me too, how at some point then we we don't need our caregivers, our society, people we rely on, we don't need them to tell us. We then start to tell ourselves, right? That voice, that self-talk becomes the talk that we experienced from such a young age. And then we do it and then we perpetuate it. So a lot for a lot of us, the stories that essentially make up our identity, which I truly believe is a series of stories. Um those stories are simply the stories that were told to us repeatedly and shown to us repeatedly to the point that they became so constant that they feel solid, they appear solid, they're they're unquestioned. Right. Well, this is this is who I am. And they become so uh incessant that we don't even question them anymore. And we take them on as truth, right? Which is just a story we believe.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

So that is that telltale sign of someone's awakening or someone's uh opening the door to the portal of their spiritual life, or this path that we talk about is the questioning. If you start to question reality, yourself, life as it is, when you start to actually put those questions down, those questions, maybe some of them seem to come from nowhere. They just kind of enter and you have this question and you go, Whew, that's a I've never thought of that before. When we start to have these big questions show up and arise, it's just the clear sign, okay, you're getting on the train. We're going, we're going now on in a new direction. And that direction is in discovering those answers. And the answers end up being in pointing to often what you're saying of that what you seek is and always has been within you, right? It's all we are exactly what we need and want. We are that.

Zack Bodenweber:

It's about yeah, we're exactly what we're looking for.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yes. And it's about meeting that frequency because our actions are powerful, whether it's the act of a thought or the action, you know, physical action, those are powerful things to continue to reinforce an identity or a belief or a program that came in elsewhere, you know, from society, from parents, from that repetition you were talking about. So we have to be as active in our dismantling of that program and be as active in that discovery of that self, right? The the who we are beneath it all, the who we truly are. And instead of being like, oh, I need to get rid of this, I need to become that, it is that realization, oh, I get to now vibrate in the frequency of who I really am. Because I do believe we have to do certain things, right? We have to actively, or we get to actively choose new thoughts, actively take different types of actions because that stuff carries a ton of weight. It's not just going to happen because we think it, like we really do need to put those thoughts into action or change our thoughts actively, or work on feeling different things.

Zack Bodenweber:

We need to like exercise our will, is what I'm hearing.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Absolutely. And in doing that, we're meeting the frequency of who we really like, really are the soul self. And then it all aligns. Rather than saying, oh, we've got to get rid of this thing, or we've got to let go of the ego as a as a big one, right? The ego and our soul-self are are often pitted against each other.

Zack Bodenweber:

They are.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

The ego's so bad, we gotta get rid of our ego and dissolve the ego. Well, I do love that word dissolving, but I feel like it's dissolving a meaning versus dissolving the thing itself.

Zack Bodenweber:

Yeah, agreed. Because there's a lot of purpose. There's a reason evolution created the ego, there's a reason we have one, there's a reason that it allows us to operate in this material world. Yeah. Do you do you find that anytime we make something bad or an enemy, or it just always is fueling, it's never quite the way, you know, it's fueling conflict, it's fueling resistance, which is the core ingredient of suffering. So think about the ego. If we make it bad, then all of a sudden now we're like resisting this ego, we're against this ego, which is more ego. So now you just have a layer cake of ego, and then it's just this recipe for suffering. It's like, it's like, no, release all of that. And you're right, we are an active participant in the process. I often say to clients about these discoveries that it's not your fault, but it's your responsibility. You know, these identities that we take on, they're not our fault, but they're our responsibility. And the more we can take responsibility for every aspect of our lives, including who we believe ourselves to be, the greater our lives become, the greater the potential for our lives become. The more limited. Limitless the possibilities become. They're always limitless. We just get to realize that limitlessness.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

It's so exhilarating, too, to be able to step into that and see that. It's also a shit ton of work, which I think is scary for people to take that on. And also to because they're of the fear that exists of what they might find.

Zack Bodenweber:

Right. I was just going to say it requires courage, which is that action in the in you know the presence of fear. And it does. It requires courage because it is scary because it shakes a lot of the foundation that you've built your life on, you know, and that can be a scary thing. But who is it scary to? It's scary to the ego. Again, that's okay. Not, oh, it's just the ego. So who cares? No, like that's okay. We need to acknowledge that. That's that's absolutely fine. Right. And it's the ego. And we can reassure the ego in this process. But it's still the ego. You know, that's the only thing that's afraid. All right. Because the ego is the only thing that's been built on this house of cards that it thinks is like a rock solid foundation, you know. And then you start to shake that up. Yeah, wow. I didn't there's a lot less certainty than I thought. Yes.

unknown:

Right.

Zack Bodenweber:

Which is again beautiful, but it's not a beautiful, ever, not every part of ourselves really views it as something that's so beautiful. Oh, hell no.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

You know, I think that most people end up getting really shooken in their life through a life experience that will slap them upside the head with this understanding or this realization because we are, we get, you know, we're safe in that discomfort, we're safe in those personas, we're safe in the identities we've constructed, we've created a prison of safety through whatever we've had to construct to be okay and be safe with whatever was coming at us from the outside. So then it ends up, depending on how intense that was, ends up creating a prison of your own safety. So you feel safe in this little cell, but you are completely locked in and not free. Yes. You've got the keys to get out. So that's the first thing to realize, right? Just like, oh yeah, I'm holding those keys right here. I now I've got to have the courage, as you said, to use them, unlock the door, see what's on that other side.

Zack Bodenweber:

Right. Because there is something safe about the cell. And this, so this came up. I'm gonna go back to the client I was working with, just as one example, upholding confidentiality for this client. This, but this comes up all the time. And this is an exercise I love to do. In fact, I'd like to do it in the mentorship community we're we're doing. Great. It's okay, there's you want to, you want to be lovable. You want to realize you already are lovable, uh, but there's resistance to it because your identity has been built on being unlovable. So we do this exercise of that sort of illuminates the ways in which we are resisting the things we consciously want. Because subconsciously, unconsciously, we are we actually want the opposite. And otherwise we would have exactly what those conscious wants are. There's got to be some sort of inner conflict. So we illuminate them. And uh this was interesting. So just to paraphrase it, it's goes sort of like, I absolutely refuse to be lovable because and you drop into a meditative state and you see what comes up. And there was a lot that came up. There was a lot that came up, but one of the tr trends in what came up was this idea of, well, then I would be wrong about who uh who I am. I'd be wrong about who I've been. I'd be wrong about what's happened to me and what it means for me. And so a lot of it was this idea of I'd be wrong and essentially I wouldn't know who I am anymore. And uh that is kind of amazing because then what that shows is that there was there's and this obviously is something we dissolved, but it's really interesting because it shows that she parts of her that are running the show would rather be right than be free.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Because that rightness feels safe to her, right?

Zack Bodenweber:

Yes. Yes. The rightness is safe, it's secure, and uh in the safety, you know, another word that goes hand in hand with that is familiarity. It's familiar. So the there is, and this is when we become aware of this, then we can make a different choice. And that's one of the most exciting things. And usually this ends in laughter, and I'll I look for the laughter because we have to laugh at ourselves when we realize that we are actually choosing to be right, we're choosing a familiar prison cell, you know, then an unfamiliar freedom. And that, I mean, what's more egoic than that? You know? Um, so so it's funny because, and that's oftentimes why we don't actually manifest the things we want, because by nature of us wanting them, that means they're unfamiliar. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't want them, right? We want if we want it, it means we don't have it typically. Right. If we don't have it, it means that it's unfamiliar. And unfamiliar is in some ways unsafe. So even the amount of money you want, the relationship you want, the job you want, all these things externally, right, are are sort of unsafe, no matter how great they might be, because they're unfamiliar. So people will repeatedly choose, again, not not this is not always a conscious process, but we make it conscious, which is where the freedom comes in, where the choice comes in. They're choosing, they're choosing limitation, they're choosing familiarity, even when it's painful.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah, what a massive realization to know how responsible we are for that, but equally responsible for the change. To just simply put the key in the lock and unlock it.

Zack Bodenweber:

That's it. If I'm responsible for putting myself in this prison cell and building it, then I'm also responsible for taking myself out of it. It's beautiful. I, you know, that's another thing I say all the time is that when you were when you take responsibility for the problems, quote unquote, problems that you're experiencing, then you also take responsibility for the solutions. It's the most, it's the greatest gift you can give yourself is to take responsibility for your life and everything in it.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

I love the the whole concept of the familiar, unfamiliar, and how that ties into safety. Um, that's big. And I'm gonna explore that more personally. How would you suggest that they become more familiar with something that they're unfamiliar with in a way that, I mean, I know that would be pretty individual depending on how scared or you know, how fearful someone is in their life. But what would be, you know, some basic easy steps for people to get more familiar with, let's say, having all the money they ever wanted to have or the relationship that they desire?

Zack Bodenweber:

You take whatever it is that you desire, money, relationship, whatever it may be, and you envision what it would be like to already have that. And in that process, you actually tap into what you really want. I know we've talked about this, you know, what you really want is the feeling that you believe those things will give you. So everything we want is a frequency. A lot about this is in my book, too, that came through for me when I was having these realizations. Everything we want is a frequency, it's a way of being, it's a feeling. So you envision whatever it is you want, identify the feeling that you think it will give you, and then now you have what you really want. Then you sort of take away that little roadmap you think to getting what it's going to be, and you expand your thinking and you begin to consider ways in which you can facilitate those feelings, you can tap into those frequencies right now. Right now. Because that one path that that relationship or that job, that one path you saw, that's one path in an infinite amount of paths. And that's a path that's based on your past conditioning, which shapes your the future sort of plans and possibilities that you see. So we open that up. How can you actually tap into that right now? Well, it could be doing that exact same visualization exercise, right? That you already have it, living from the end state, feeling those feelings. It could be, as a partner of mine and myself used to do, jumping on a mini trampoline, right? To feel fun and free and playful, if that's the frequency you want to tap into. It could be being in nature, it could be meditating, it could be writing, it could be dancing. You find things that help you tap into that frequency. And ultimately it's all internal. So when you start to do this more and more, you can just tap into it yourself without needing to go through, jump through these uh loopholes, you know. Or on trampolines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or yeah, exactly. Without having to jump on a trampoline. So um, it could be a certain song, right? Anyway, there's an infinite amount of things it could be, but you find what those things are for you and you bring those into your days because now what's happening is you're starting to raise the set point on your frequency. If you acknowledge that the way your default way of thinking and feeling is something that's been conditioned. If you acknowledge that, then you also acknowledge, well, great, I can condition something else. I can recondition my default. I can recondition my default way of thinking. We know that through neuroplasticity. I can recondition my default way of feeling on a daily basis. And we do that through repetition. So you build these practices into your daily life. So each day, throughout the day, especially in the morning, you're anchoring into the frequency of whatever your desired outcomes are. You're doing that every day. You're experiencing that right now, and you do that more and more, starts to become more naturally the way you feel, becomes more naturally the way you think. And then everything elevates from there. Because again, by nature of however you want to understand manifestation, I think one of the most accessible ways to understand it is that your frequency shapes the way you think, feel, and act. And the way you think, feel, and act creates outcomes in the world, right? So those outcomes are ultimately an extension of your frequency, right? What you're seeing. So, and of course, the way you perceive it. Because you and I both know if you're down in the dumps, low energy, sick, whatever it may be, it's hard to perceive things as great, right? You're feeling great. Anything, almost anything can happen. You're like, I got this, no problem. You know, so it shapes the way we're our frequency shapes our perception as well of the events in our lives. So in essence, it is making the unfamiliar familiar. And that is so much of my work, whether it's an unfamiliar action, an unfamiliar habit, in this case, my favorite work to do, what I do more and more, an unfamiliar frequency. Trying that on, trying that on more and more and more until it becomes familiar. It's like I've it's, you know, I've done, I wrote an article about this called the Abundance Vortex, essentially about this process. So if anybody wants to read that, it's on my Substack and we can talk more about it in the community. But I want to really emphasize that this is not, this is within your ability, within anybody's ability to do with conscious attention consistently applied. Who do you want to be in this world? How do you want to feel and making those choices more regularly? One of my favorite coaching questions is what's the opportunity here? It's one of my favorite things to ask people. Just to give you an example, I've asked myself that question so many times that I don't even have to ask it anymore. My brain just looks for the opportunity in everything. No matter what happens, I don't even have to ask myself. My brain just looks for the opportunity. That's not because I was born with a special, you know, brain that thinks that way. That's because I've programmed it to and conditioned it to by that question, by asking that question so many times. It's the same thing here.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And that's what is, I think, in that in that beginning of the awakening, in that beginning of the questions coming in from seemingly nowhere, that we're starting to question our lives and our happiness and our fulfillment, etc., when that begins to happen and we start to move into this place of, well, now things are now. I feel like I want to do something about this. I want to feel, I want to actually, I don't know what yet. I don't know exactly where I go from here. But when you step into what you were just talking about, you know, having the consciousness around shifting the programs, then it's about just taking those baby steps of making those shifts happen. But know that you've been programmed. So, like I that I love the term awakening because you are awakening to your true self, to truth itself out from the programs that were implanted in you. So the programming that happened to you runs deep. And to counteract it takes a lot of counteracting. You have to actively do it.

Zack Bodenweber:

Quote of the podcast. Come on, let's put that on the put that on the thumbnail. You're exactly right. That's exactly it. Yeah. But it is active. It is though, in a way. Yeah. You know, yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

It's just like, oh, you want love, then be loving, right? It's it's get into the verb state of life rather than in some nice, oh, magically wanting that noun or concept or thing to drop in. It's like, no, you gotta get into the verb phase of that thing. In it, vibrating in it, creating the frequency of it, allowing it to flow through you so that you can be in the S the in the essence of it.

Zack Bodenweber:

And the beautiful, beautiful paradox of that is that when you're doing that, all of a sudden, whatever it is you thought you wanted becomes less important. Not saying you don't want it anymore. Sometimes you don't even want it anymore, but it becomes you don't need it anymore. And that to me is actually when the cloth the closest you are to getting something is when you no longer need it, because you already, you already have exactly what you had hoped that it would give you, right? Because that's what actually means you're a match for it.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

You know?

Zack Bodenweber:

Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Totally. Yeah. When we're not looking for it is when the perfect opening is created for it to arrive. And all and allow and the allowing, allowing to receive rather than the working so hard at the because we're taught we did, we did, we talked about the work that goes into this, and it does. Um, it does take work, it takes attention, it takes specific actions, it takes work. But where the work doesn't need to be applied is in the grasping of that thing that you want. The work is in the the dissolution, yeah, right? The work is in the unlearning, it's in the just allowing. And there's a lot of work that goes into allowing, right? And and certainly there's nothing to be, you know, it's not like you don't just lay around and just like allow it to happen. We have to deconstruct so much that has been constructed to allow those other types of just to allow the idea that life doesn't have to be hard. I mean, that could be a person's lifetime work to just allow that one idea to be cool.

Zack Bodenweber:

Absolutely. Especially if somebody's been their identity's been based on being a hard worker, then the the last thing they want is for the lives to be easy because that would threaten their very identity. You know, um, just as one example to go back to the identity thing. But but you're right, it's the it's the undoing. You can almost imagine that it's like a cork. Imagine a cork being held underwater. The cork naturally wants to rise, right? But imagine just being held underwater by all these little like, you know, strings that are holding it to the bottom of a vessel. And you go through and you dissolve those strings, that cork just naturally rises. So it is the the work is not in trying to rise the cork, right? Or raise your frequency in this case. It's right against that. It's about getting rid of everything standing in the way, getting everything that's keeping it lowered. You know, I think that that's that's a very because these things are all our natural state. These things really are our natural state of being. That's definitely a belief that that I have, that's absolutely truth I've experienced is that every single thing we want is who we are, is the truth of who we are, the essence of who we are. So that's not you don't need to try to be who you are. You just have to get rid of the other stuff. Get rid of who you're not, gets rid of, yeah, gets rid get rid of what's covering it up, what's blocking it.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And I know that in the writing of your book, Notes on Awakening, you were uncovering your own truth that you were diving into and do essentially living this process of what we're talking about, living it and then writing it. And and then you put it into a book to share it, which I think is beautiful, and why you are such a wonderful teacher, mentor, guide, coach to people, because you've taken your own life's experience, filtered it through, you know, the ideas and the work and the illuminations, and you've filtered it through you, and then you've poured it back out to others so that it will hopefully help illuminate them as well. So I have your book here. I wanted to open it up to just a page because I love doing this with books. Um, I read a lot of books this way, of where I don't necessarily read them from. to back, I will use them as a divinatory in a divinatory way and just open them up in whatever feels right for me. And then whatever words are on that page are the ones meant for the moment. So I wanted to do that and then read out what I opened to and and have you reflect on that.

Zack Bodenweber:

Yeah, let's do it.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Ooh, it's a short, it's a short passage. I don't know if this is a separate thing from it might be part of a bigger thing the page of four, but I want to read this this one piece of it because that's what like immediately hit me.

unknown:

Okay.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Okay. Whatever arises, welcome it. Yeah. It's here to be seen, felt, and heard. It's here to be freed. Oh, how perfect is that with what we were talking about. I want to read that again for the audience. I know you know it probably in your bones, but whatever arises, welcome it. It's here to be seen, felt, and heard. It's here to be freed.

Zack Bodenweber:

Whatever arises within you. It's the integration of that internal experience and a way of living in which you are welcoming life itself and you are welcoming all parts of you. And not only is that one of the most freeing ways to live, but that actually in and of itself facilitates freedom. Because a lot of these emotions that we struggle with or thought patterns that we struggle with represent parts of ourselves that we have not integrated and represent energies, energetic patterns and frequencies that we have not integrated and integration is simply the welcoming of it into our present moment awareness into our unconditional present moment awareness. In which it stops being separate. That's the integration it's the opposite of fragmentation fragmentation. It becomes part of the whole part of the whole the whole of who we are which is that present moment awareness. So that little bit there really speaks to this experience of welcoming everything that arises within you as part of your experience rather than no, I don't want to feel that yes and that last bit to be free.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Yeah. Right? To welcome it and then free it because we don't need to hold on to past identities and uh beliefs that we do not that aren't of our of our highest and best and we don't need to hold on to these things. So we can essentially let them go but we're there's a recognition process in that it's kind of like okay I see you I love you even and now you're free. You want to hang out here and like be and be in this different place with us great but you're free to come and go and it's cool. You're not trapped any longer within my set of controls.

Zack Bodenweber:

Right. You're welcome here and you're welcome elsewhere you know like yeah yeah yeah yeah you may be needed elsewhere that's so good. What a beautiful full circle moment because I've never interpreted on some level probably but I've never really quite interpreted it the way that you just said it. And that speaks to that co-creation right you're you were literally creating that passage through your perception of it based on what you just shared. Yeah. Yeah yeah I love that.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And that's why I love books like yours because they're with shorter passages there's a profound what's the profoundness? Is that the right word a profound I wanna I don't know why that doesn't sound right but I don't know profound but there's something profound about the brevity and the choice of words and and to then have those be able to speak so much volume but in such a small amount of uh words. So brevity is a beautiful art as well. The link of course to your book will be in the show notes as well as to what did you mention earlier that we want to make sure oh your Substack article I want to put that link in the show notes too so send that to me.

Zack Bodenweber:

Great yeah the abundance vortex I'll get that to you.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And Zach, I'm so excited that you're joining the Everyday Mystic joining me in this mentorship journey. This is going to be so powerful and fun. I I'm I'm really leaning into the fun part because this mentorship is going to be for people like us people who are working in this space but who like all humans get caught up in their own shit. So I find with other healers spiritual teachers coaches mentors guides people who are serving from their heart doing this work for humanity often can lose a sense of what they need for themselves in the process of that giving and in the process of that giving they end up giving it all away because they're not spending time filling up their own cup reflecting back on in for them for themselves on um and using the work for themselves. For example when I did um mostly body work and energy work so I worked in the physical energy realm um for the the beginning part of my career and it was a beautiful time because I would trade with this masterful acupuncturist acupressurist body worker he was incredible a Mexican guy who was just fully lived Chinese medicine and understood it at its very core and he also was trained in all these bodywork modalities and had a beautiful studio. So we would trade and do being in that kind of space of where you are giving on you know to make money for your career for your profession you give to others you give out these your heart your energy you are giving more than and I mean yeah okay people in a corporate job are giving energy too absolutely they also need to be have their cup full filled as well of course but the entrepreneur who works in this space tends to to be oftentimes they put themselves last they give out because they've been helped by the therapies the work that they've been trained in they've been helped by it at a time and now they're like now it's my time to give it out to the world but forgetting that they need to give it back to themselves. And so I brought up that story about myself and that was a beautiful time period because I was in this cycle of where I was giving that out but also receiving it. And things were so energized. They were they I know I never felt out of energy I never felt uninspired. I was just like buzzing in this space of both the giving and the receiving and the mentorship is going to be so much about the people that come in receiving their own medicine receiving what they so beautifully gift out to others and being in a space to receive that and in a space where they can come and re-energize regenerate their own giving muscles and be able to let go into that and so I see it as a beautiful space for that as well as a beautiful space to mentor up people who are just starting to explore this world because you mentioned it earlier. It's like those who start to awaken and explore this path for themselves often are called to do the work and to change their profession often or even you know they might start with a side hustle but then they're like I've got to do this.

Zack Bodenweber:

This is my calling yeah yeah because they recognize the profound need for it on this planet and they want to bring their life into alignment with that truth. And so it's harder for them to tolerate paradigms that are rooted in scarcity and lack and ego. And the other thing I want to say about the entrepreneurs in this space is that what I've found, because I I work with a lot of coaches myself is that a lot of times they have a hard time practicing and integrating what they know to be true and the essence of their work with the way they do business. So a lot of times it becomes because there's not a lot of the business uh advice and frameworks and modalities and ways of operating that we see are again rooted in scarcity, lack ego. They're antiquated they're but part of more of a hustle paradigm or they're very mechanical very mechanical hypermasculine they lack any sort of sense of uh this this deeper world in which we operate all right oftentimes so because of that sometimes uh entrepreneurs in this space experience a fragmentation where their work is one way but then the way they run their business is another way and it doesn't need to be like that. You can run your business using the same exact principles that you live by and that you do your work by.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

And that's something I love, love, love helping people with too yes I'm so excited for us to help people in that way the people that we are attracting to this mentorship are those that just like you said they they have the knowledge they've got the skill sets it's about being in a space of remembrance of it and being able to just let take off your practitioner hat take off the professional hat and be able to be in that receptive state of primordial creation of where you go okay I'm I can just allow now and allow this understanding to come through and also you know there's a a bit of mystical strategy that we will offer to people around how to go about building and running a business that's in a more we could use the word feminine a more flow way a more mystical way that's opening you up to the resources of source consciousness and the resources of our higher guidance and tapping into much deeper resources than the the traditional knowledge that you've received. So it's a different way of working opening yourself up to that flow.

Zack Bodenweber:

Yeah it's the same it's very similar to what we were saying earlier because a lot of times people go into business because they want to experience freedom abundance right those types of things and similar to what we were talking about they can forget to actually run their business from those frequencies right instead it's the business as a vehicle to experience those things rather than the vehicle the business as a vehicle to express those things. Yes and that then just again everything elevates from there.

Corissa Saint Laurent:

So beautifully said so for anyone listening who is either interested in the healing spiritual consciousness professions are already working in the space as a spiritual healer, coach, mentor, teacher or practitioner, this mentorship is built for you designed to be that space to receive those frequencies to get in resonance with the higher consciousness that can help guide the business get really powerful types of strategy from us is very practical but it's also mystical so the mystic mentorship can be accessed through the Everyday Mystic website. You go to theeverdaymysticorgslash mentorship Zach among myself and three other powerful mentors will be guiding weekly sessions and offering you these types of transmissions and activations and coaching and guidance and support and the space the container to connect and collaborate with each other as well because you're all powerful beings that are going to come into this space to bring your own energy essence and genius as well theeverdaymystic.org slash mentorship for that and you get access to those live weekly sessions as well as this private online community where we'll all be in as well conversing and discussing and supporting and collaborating. So Zach, this has been such a beautiful collab today and conversation I uh could go on and on with you all day but any final words thoughts feelings you want to share before we say goodbye?

Zack Bodenweber:

The only one that's coming to my mind right now is uh is how much I love how your brand embodies exactly what you said even just the everyday mystic you know the everyday is the practical right it's kind of in this world and the mystic is not of this world right the mystic is the energy the energetics of it the invisible realm right the frequencies and we are both and you know that makes up our experience here. So I love what you're doing. That's my that's my final thought and I love what you're doing with bringing this group of mentors together. It's going to be really fun to see uh what this becomes and one of my favorite things to do is drop in with people and to have a container in which we can do that. And again I'm not the only one. We have this amazing group including yourself. It'll just be fun to see what be what becomes of that and what happens and how that serves people and what community it attracts and generates because you know you talk about grounding yourself in these frequencies something we talked about earlier a community is one of the best ways to do that. Being around people who are embodying that themselves is one of the single best ways to make that a consistent part of your life to raise that default like we said. So it's a it's um it's just a beautiful opportunity and I'm looking forward to being a part of it.