In this episode, Rachel interviews Augustine Colebrook, her mentor during her 2017 year of enormous change, growth, and awakening. She discusses all the ways mentors can be useful, and also reminds us that we have everything we need inside of us to take the first steps toward sustainable improvements in our everyday life.
If you love this episode or any episode, show the love by rating and reviewing wherever you listen to the podcast.
To Get Connected to the Reconnected To Life community, sign up via www.reconnectedtolife.com to receive our weekly newsletter, Re-Centering Your Wednesday: Because Life Is About Much More Than Getting Over The Hump.
To inquire about Rachel's private coaching services, or to have her as guest on your podcast or for an upcoming speaking engagement, E-mail rachelhart@reconnectedtolife.com
In this episode, Rachel interviews Augustine Colebrook, her mentor during her 2017 year of enormous change, growth, and awakening. She discusses all the ways mentors can be useful, and also reminds us that we have everything we need inside of us to take the first steps toward sustainable improvements in our everyday life.
If you love this episode or any episode, show the love by rating and reviewing wherever you listen to the podcast.
To Get Connected to the Reconnected To Life community, sign up via www.reconnectedtolife.com to receive our weekly newsletter, Re-Centering Your Wednesday: Because Life Is About Much More Than Getting Over The Hump.
To inquire about Rachel's private coaching services, or to have her as guest on your podcast or for an upcoming speaking engagement, E-mail rachelhart@reconnectedtolife.com
Rachel: And welcome to this episode of The Self-Centered Woman Podcast.
00:09
I'm your host, Rachel Hart, and joined today by my lovely guest Augustine Colebrook.
00:15
Welcome, my friend
Augustine: Thanks for having me.
00:21
Rachel: What most people don't know is that Augustine is my mentor of sorts, um, at a time in my life where I really needed it.
00:33
And so this interview itself is very special, because I don't think I've seen you since, and that's been already five years.
00:44
You were here for my fortieth birthday.
00:49
Augustine: Oh, that's right!
Rachel: And here we are, 45.
Augustine: We played in Arkansas the year before.
Rachel: Oh, yes.
00:58
Well we played also in Oregon. So I just wanna go back and kind of explain the relationship basically. Augustine is a fellow midwife and I met Augustine at our annual Midway free conference in Atlanta, and I'll never forget the moment I laid eyes on her, and I say to this day,
01:23
She had the face of the sun, she was so bright, and somebody that you knew instantly that you wanted to know, and you wanted to be gravitating in her atmosphere.
01:44
And so I didn't know what the relationship would be at that time because we met through a mutual friend, and then the call, the invitation came, do you remember what you called that year, but basically, it was a year to spend with Augustine.
02:09
But whatever it was, it was my time and, and I knew.
Augustine: You like woke up.
Rachel: It was an invitation to um, my own self discovery and another friend of mine um, was kind of going through her own things in life.
02:36
And I basically forced her to do this with, because when you have somebody that you're accountable to and working toward a thing together, you're more likely to accomplish it and follow through with it. So um especially because we went on to retreats that year and by the end of it I think we were the last two standing when it came to like being all in but that's it I remember saying I am all in. I was um
03:13
at a really end of my rope time with my marriage and feeling like this can't be all that life has to offer.
03:24
I have four children, I love them, I’m a midwife, I love them.
03:29
On paper, there's nothing to be upset about, right? But there was this inner yearning that life is bigger than the everyday, life is bigger than having a partner that you barely make eye contact with, and I wanted to show my kids that that's not what love is, but that's not what a relationship is.
03:53
That's not what I would wish for their best life, but it, dawned on me that I could not give that information without being the example.
04:04
And so I chose that this year, which was 2017, I am gonna take the whole entire year to work on myself.
04:15
The one thing that I would write down repeatedly is that I'm responsible for my own happiness and that I cannot control anyone except myself.
04:25
And that was the mantra that I took with me through the entire year.
04:31
And in 2018, well, it right before 2018, is when I didn't really even complete the year before I decided I'm gonna end this marriage, this just isn't for me. I remember on one of our calls you saying now I'm just warning you most of the time when this is the situation the marriage does not work out.
04:57
I wasn't going into it seeking a divorce, I was going into it seeking a way that I could thrive in the situation that I'm in, and even when you said that I said impossible I can't even imagine a life where I've walked away from this family because of all of the hopes and dreams and ideals that I've created for my kids after coming from a broken home and um a child of an alcoholic and moving to tons of different schools, always being the new kid.
05:34
I spent a lot of years be not being my mom and not enough years being myself.
Augustine: Oh, that’s a mic drop!
Rachel: That was what you taught me and since then you know my whole career where Reconnected to Life is concerned was based on that year of 2017.
06:04
Once we got back from that, I had a friend who was my business partner, and said, can you meet with me once a week I really wanna be accountable to my hopes and dreams and goals, and we would meet and, and our goals would really center around self-care.
06:20
Because I think we knew that without that foundation, without those underlying behaviors of eating well, sleeping well, meditation, prayer and exercise, that nothing else can truly, authentically jump off from there.
06:37
And so we created, Reconnected to Life with that in mind, doing workshops and retreats and coaching, and then recently we parted ways amicably, and now I'm doing what I've always wanted to do, which was this podcast, and I am loving it, and it's just more and more an evolution of things.
07:01
And maybe I won't love it in five years, but it's okay, you know what, as long as right now we're working on what we love most, as much as possible, that's the gift that we're giving to our family and to the world.
07:16
And so again, I thank you so much for that.
07:22
Augustine. My honor, my friend.
Rachel: I wonder though, because I know that your, um, life, you didn't wake up being the face of the sun.
(Laughter)
07:35
I think it wasn't without a lot of midnights and sunsets.
07:50
So I wonder if you'll speak about your own process and tell me.
Augustine: Light is definitely born out of darkness, you know.
08:00
Um, I mean you know we all go through it, I went through it. Something happened for me in the midst of um some of the the pain was like first of all, I can't be alone in this others must experiences, and then sort of this shifting to to share space.
08:29
Like, like, um, midwifery to midwife others, but kind of like soul midwifery and not exactly baby midwifery, you know not not catching babies but what can people catch themselves, and that that kind of has evolved over the years. I think you were in the the third year long master mind that I did um, and it's been a really amazing process.
Rachel: Since that time I only
09:06
To follow you on social media because you're never in one place for very long tell me all the places you've been since 2018.
Augustine: I have traveled pretty extensively, I've been to 48 states I guess um I still need to visit the Dakotas, but I left the US
09:42
in 2018 I guess for Hawaii, and then I left Hawaii for Central America, I backpacked Central America for some time, and um sailed the Caribbean for a little bit. I went to Indonesia, and I spent some time in in Bali um Singapore I took a boat from Singapore to Jakarta once, a really interesting trip I um helped open another clinic in Papua New Guinea.
10:19
The clinic was mostly open, but I helped organize the midwives, protocols and equipment and do more gentle birth training um.
10:28
I got stuck in Australia during the pandemic. I lived in Perth for a while.
Rachel: Talk about the um pandemic for you because you are pretty much a solo traveler correct?
Augustine: I'm a solo traveler and um I was into more less day at the time I had just helped um a European couple have a baby um.
11:11
And I was beginning the process of trying to establish connections to open another clinic and um, the Australian doctors that I knew
11:23
I ran into one of them and she was like I'm leaving tomorrow and I was like really?
11:26
I thought you had six more months on your contract, why are you leaving?
11:29
She was like the pandemic, and I was like, what's this I hadn't really been paying attention um, I mean, island life is like a different kind of a reality, you know.
11:42
So I got on New York Times and I was like oh, this is real. I couldn't, I was mostly a guest um in that country. I didn't have a long term visa, I couldn't really stay and I didn't speak the language and I kind of assumed like if the shit hit the fan you have to be able to speak the language like that's kind of a requirement and um I couldn't go back to to Papau New Guinea because that's even more dangerous like I have to have guards to you know I mean it's a
12:11
People carry machetes in the street, you can't really walk alone, like it's a whole other thing. and I was supposed to go back to Bali but the Indonesia had already closed and anyway I was like, okay English Speaking country so the closest was Australia, so I booked a flight and I actually was the very last plane to land in Australia before they closed the border and and then I was stuck.
Rachel: Where did you stay?
12:38
Augustine: Well, I had made plans to meet up with this traveling doctor friend um who we we had done some work together and had sort of met up in Bali once, and he was like yeah, it’s cool! Perth is great, we'll make do for the two weeks while things settle down you know.
12:57
Two weeks That was what we thought was gonna be.
12:59
And then he wasn't there, he randomly had left without telling me. So I rented an Air BNB and at the end of the week, I was like can I extend and they were like no definitely not you have to leave so um.
13:15
I started booking Air BNBs and I would like.. there's this like delay, and then I would be refused and then they would take a week to get the money back so I spent like $2000 trying to find a place to stay and I couldn’t find one, so I ended up sleeping at the beach for a night um or two and then um I got to use the wifi an outdoor plug because I didn't have a SIM card. I couldn't call anyone you know sorry I was sitting on the outside of this closed cafe but I could see the inside writing of their code to use wifi.
13:53
I was able to get on wifi and I messaged um my community on facebook and I was like do I know anyone in Perth? I can really use some connections, and the first message I got was from a girl I had come to boarding school with in Connecticut in like 1993.
14:11
Or something like that, and she was like, my, like, sister in law, ex, I don't remember exactly the connection but somebody that she knew was in Perth so she connected me, and they were really sweet, and they're like school and you know work is closed so we have two cars. Do you want one? And I was like definitely, yes, that would be a step in the right direction.
14:33
So I took their instructions and boarded up a train that was still running empty.
14:40
And no one on the train going through the center of a big city, it was really eerie, the roads are all empty, um, this would have been like right in the middle of like total chaos and, and I got out at the exit that she described.
14:57
You know, as as this dusk, you know, in the sun had set, and I like, it was just like a parking lot that was empty, there was no buildings, there was no people, and I just sort of like, walked in circles, I was like, this will be an interesting.
15:10
Like, I don't have a plan here. And then, and then two cars came in, and one of them got out of the blue part and jumped in the orange part, and she waved, keys are in it, good luck and they drove away so like, you know, because no one was interacting because it's a crazy COVID.
15:24
So I was like, oh steering wheel’s on the other side, okay let's figure this out. I randomly, it took me several hours because I had no Wifi, but I had, like, taken screen shots of, how to get home from there you get back to the the area where I had any kind of a connection so I drove around and I stayed at like um I stayed at the beach one night.
15:51
I slept in a parking lot one night in this car and then finally I was able to get back into Wifi and that um, back into that area of the city where I don't know why but I just felt like I it was near the beach and I knew where I was kind of and um.
16:07
It was near the Air BNB that I had stayed in so I guess that's why I felt familiar, so I got back, on wifi and someone else had messaged me and then, like, knew a friend in New York who knew someone in California, knew someone in Melbourne who knew someone in Sydney.
16:21
Like I knew someone in Perth who was going to school with someone who had to, you know, like this really love winded conversation or connection.
16:28
And so this random lady message me, um, and she was like, the state borders are closing next week and I have to go be with my kids. I can't be away from them if this is gonna be months of lockdown.
16:40
So she was like anyway will you feed my cat, will you stay in my house? And it’s like yes, yes I will! She’s like the key is under the mat, like good luck. I made my way over there and then you know within about ten days of landing in this foreign land.
17:00
I had a car, and a house, and cat and had a regular life where I stayed for six months well, there was literally not a single flight out so um all the advertisements on the Tv's were like stay home and it's like um I don't have a home to stay in so that's kind of hard.
17:23
Rachel: Did you get the vaccine?
17:25
Augustine: No, I did not. I'm not for experimental pharmaceutical medications.
Rachel: I am just so curious because of the travel stuff, right?
Augustine: It depends on where you travel, so in Australia um in like, September of 2020 actually this is kind of interesting..
17:50
I got an email from the government of Australia, a cease and desist email letter that said um you need to stop using the word midwife on your private Facebook profile because you are not registered with the Government of of Australia and I was like, and I need to leave.
18:09
This is not okay, like, that's the level of police surveillance that I'm not really comfortable with, right?
18:16
So, um, when the opportunity to go to India came up, I-I jumped on it and I left.
Rachel: Okay so you went straight from Australia to India?
Augustine: Yep.
Rachel: You know what I was doing in 2020?
Augustine: No?
Rachel: I was having my fifth baby.
Augustine: That’s right.
18:37
Rachel. And you know what's crazy is that she was due April 5 and we went into lockdown basically Friday, March 13 and we still had people due. you know of course, um but my partners like just stay home do any of the consultations over the phone and you know check on the people who are only like 20 weeks pregnant or something because we don't wouldn't do very much in a prenatal visit anyway so just talk to them. I did that and I did one more birth on March 15, and then um I stayed home and all of the kids were out of school um I-I was able to clean my whole entire house in preparation, nest. That was my longest birth ever but it had been twelve years you know between.
19:46
Augustine: Like prime up again.
Rachel: I had wondered is that what is gonna happen, you know?
Augustine: They say after ten years it's almost like you’re starting.
Rachel: It was the worst kind too because it was like prodromal, you know.
20:00
It was like every 10 to 20 min and here I'm about to have a fit and then I'm like okay what would you tell your client? You know you would just tell her it's not time yet, to just keep doing what you're doing! But basically my water broke and she was born 3 hours later exactly.
Augustine: Marley, right?
20:27
Rachel. Marley. Her dad caught her, and I gave him a quick lesson in midwifery.
(Laughter)
20:36
But the six week postpartum you know if it wasn't called COVID, I would think was designed just for me. It was the most glorious, magical nobody had to go anywhere, all of the children were home and we were just together.
Augustine: That’s a beautiful reframe of it.
21:01
Rachel. It is a beautiful reframe of it, but it's also just a wild reminder of how many realities exist on this plane at any, given time, and just just how kind we ought to be, because while I was going through that, there were people with not enough food, there were people going through abuse and
21:31
Augustine: Um the abuse in Australia was crazy, every night there was just this crazy shrieking and screaming in my neighborhood. breaking things.
Rachel: Sitting still, and it’s like a large scale um experiment of meditation, of being still and people really having to come up against themselves and against this reality that they've created because most of the time we're too busy to face it.
22:11
Augustine: It was a tremendous reset in some ways, mhm, afterwards I was like, I don't, I don't ever wanna hear the excuse that, like, it's hard to get anywhere because if the entire globe can move as one on this issue we can move as one on many issues.
22:32
That was like my take away.
Rachel: The other thing um when I think about your travels, I knew um that you had been on Maui for quite some time, and I visited Maui June 13 through the 23 this year. And actually the one place where um Maurice and I were able to leave the children and go have lunch and the one place where we got on our snorkeling tour was downtown Hainan.
23:06
Augustine: It’s a beautiful place.
Rachel: We went to the Christmas tree store there and bought a Christmas ornaments.
23:12
And the guy that worked there loved that store so much. He was all about his ornaments and just how profound is that you know, that's another just reality that in an instant, in an instant..
Augustine: Yeah, they said the fire was moving
23:36
I mean that's literally an instant, right?
Augustine: And that's the whole town. I mean it's pretty much all gone. I do know a few houses up on the hill that made it and obviously in the fringe of the town but the downtown is gone.
23:57
Augustine: And the big banyan tree is gone..
That tree functioned as like a town center like almost no other on the planet, you know it's a very special place. it it delivered a lot of babies.
Rachel: It feels very special to have been able to walk under that tree huh just right before.. and I knew how special it was when I was in its presence.
Augustine: It’s a special place and now of course then the real worry is them corporate and government seizure of the land.
Rachel: Going back to India whenever whenever I there are so many things I wanna tell you and saying.
24:47
Oh, it's like we're actually able to talk um, going back to India, every time I would see that you were there I-I would always sing Alanis Morissette’s song, “Thank you, India..
25:01
25:05
Rachel: Tell me about tell me about your time there and the first time, I mean that was one of your first times like really practicing yoga too, right?
Augustine: I've got to be steeped in the arts of India, some yoga and some Ayurvedic’s, some homeopathics.
25:32
Homeopathics are very common there, and naturopathy is very common there. I've enjoyed India um for its extreme
26:00
Indianness. but I've also enjoyed India for its just rich humanity and and community like I maybe haven't found anywhere else.
26:09
The reason I keep going back is because the people know, so, people are so extraordinary what about that.
26:21
Rachel: What about the people make them so extraordinary?
26:25
Augustine: Well, I had an opportunity to compare and contrast really well because you know I'm back in the US, um, this month and for the next couple, and as you know, like, I have a lot of history of trauma, and I also have some pretty intense physical, invisible disability that I deal with on a regular basis.
26:45
Um, through to Soddenomia and um, it hurts to be upright sometimes, um, and I was in a grocery store, just trying to like live my life get shit done so I could leave, and I was crying because I've found that it's better to let it out and keep it in and I no longer give a shit what anyone thinks.
27:16
And that's happened to me in India, too and here in the US people visibly steer their carts away.
27:24
at least three people saw me..
27:35
I mean, I wasn't like sobbing, I was just like obviously in distress you know and um, like go away from her, like three times I saw people do that. But in India when that happens, like people actually rush you like, i've had, like, opportunities to be in public and be very unwell.
27:55
And there is no less than seven hands touching you at any time when you are unwell in India, and they don't wait for you to give any feedback, like they, they're bringing you things to drink, and they're, they're moving your clothes, and they're moving your arms, and they're like you know..
28:12
Assessing you all on their own. There's like this commitment and love for others, even strangers, that there is a understanding that translates in action, that we are all there for each other in Indian society that does not exist in American society, and there are other Asian cultures that are
28:36
You know, similarly oriented, but I feel like, of the places I've been in Asia, India is the most striking example of like we've got your back.
Rachel: Why do you think it is in America that we're so lacking?
Augustine: Well we have this secular reality you know it's like um we got divided up into single family dwellings many decades ago. That still has never happened in India. Now certainly there are a few families where adult children with their children live separately than adult parents but that is the rare like occurrence. There’s still um by and large intergenerational families in all directions everywhere so they don't live separate from each other they.
29:33
They are not separate from each other. I would say you can see this manifest um this consciousness manifest in the way that um of the way that traffic happens, and this is a weird combination of thoughts but follow me on this one um Americans, and all of the Western world um depend on external information to move in traffic. So in an airplane you know you have the guy with the lights around the wheels.
30:09
In driving you have like stop lights and you know, like it's it's external.
Rachel: In midwifery, in obstetrics you have a machine that tells you..
Augustine: Exactly. In Indian society it it never has been external, they've never lost what I guess would be called limbic resonance um where we can connect to a fabric of reality that that does connect us all.
30:41
They have this “group think process” that you can see manifest in traffic, it exists all the time.
30:50
They are always connected to each other, but in traffic you can see it because it's happening at such a faster pace. There’s no stoplight or if they are, they don't they're like they don't mean what they mean here. There are sometimes lines on the road, but they don't really mean what they mean here. And instead these giant intersections or roads like there's just this this move like birds
31:19
The way birds move in the sky together it looks like they all have the same message.
31:25
And the same is true of Indian traffic. I mean, i've lived there off and on for three years now, and mostly been there, and I would say I can't remember ever seeing an accident like at all. And the first day I was back in the US I was driving in Houston traffic and I saw five major highway accidents in the span of an hour. It’s just it's really it's really striking the connectedness there's still a thread that connects them that they are aware of. And being in that kind of a space inadvertently connects you to yourself and to your humanity and to all the people you're around and that's why I keep going back it's it's it's a tremendous experience of belonging.
Rachel: Do you plan to go back then?
Augustine: Yes, I will be back in December.
Rachel: Is that what you consider if anywhere a home?
Augustine: I have a home there, it doesn't match when I used to think of as home um so I have a house there um I'm not sure. I mean I'm not sure somebody asked me the other day, “Where do you live?”. Are you asking where I pay taxes, are you asking where I have a dwelling, are you asking where I have residency?
Rachel: Where do you pay taxes?
Augustine: I pay taxes in the US because I have a US company that makes money in the US so I-I pay taxes in the US. I also pay taxes in India because I also make money in India and have a residency in India um but I have like part.
33:27
Of my heart is in other places, too. Part of my heart is is on Bali with Robin and Papua with the midwives there.
Rachel: I think that’s another great point is that um when I think of my kids and I think of their experience, their life experience, their shaping, their coming up
33:56
I find it.
34:00
to be highly lacking to think that I am the only one that provides resources on a successful life, because all I have to show is what I know.
34:15
And that goes back to the extended family, when you have your grandmother and your aunts and your uncles and cousins, and they're all caring for this one life.
34:28
It's why I've been able to turn my childhood from really being angry at what I didn't have with this nuclear family, to really being grateful, because I was always loved. I was always taken care of. I lived with an aunt, I lived with my granddad. I lived with my granny. and I can say for sure where I got each of these personality traits, and I'm so grateful that it came from all of these places I'm just as I am grateful for the year long experience with you um but another point when we talk about um examples and mentorship. Like if we come from a traumatic background it colors the rest of our life and yet we get to a point where it can't be an excuse because we have to be healthy we want to.
35:41
We thrive to be healthy, and going backwards is not conducive to that kind of health um, and also, like, we have different examples that we look up to.
35:54
You are one for me. Right now I'm reading, um, Robin Sharma is like my man right now. I am loving him.
36:08
The 5AM Club is like changing my whole entire life right now.
36:13
And, um, I’m gonna tell you something very crazy at the end of this, but that goes back to, even mentors are human.
36:25
We are flawed, we are traumatized, we are imperfect. I have to say that in 2017, I judged you for your choice to leave your children behind to go do these things.
36:51
And my mother in law, my ex mother in law did something similar.
36:56
She left my ex husband to go move to Canada, knowing that with citizenship and that kind of thing, it would be really hard to get back, but something stirred her life needed to be there.
37:14
And so I wonder if you can just speak about, you know, you are, you are a mother, but you are not living under those social conditions that in America we judge to be what a good mother is if if you understand my question.
Augustine: Yeah, I think so.
37:43
I definitely have non traditional reality um, I guess I would make one distinction, and I didn't talk about it really publicly, so I would understand why there was, um, that understanding, but I did not, I did not leave my kids they left me um one by one for different reasons um they had their own path to follow and
38:13
Um they tend to go live with their dad at various stages in their teen years um and each time it was well thought out and well communicated to me. I could have fought, I could have been that um you know tight clinging kind of a parent. But I didn't um I respected their wishes and um.
38:58
My my son was was in with the wrong crowd and was smoking weed every day.
39:06
And not going to school and I couldn't I couldn't reach him I couldn't help him like choose to live the life that I hoped for him and I couldn't do nothing and so he was the first to to go I-I had um had some conversations with his father and with him and ultimately he decided to go be with his dad at 15 for the rest of high school.
39:35
Um, my daughter moved out at 18 with her new baby, um, and her new boyfriend and then she eventually moved up to be near her dad as well, and my youngest was the last, and she was, she was 14 and starting high school, and she came to me with very clear
39:58
well-reasoned thoughts and she said, I wanna, I wanna spend high school, um, in a very normal high school experience, I don't wanna travel, I don't wanna move, I wanna be near my siblings. I wanna know my dad You guys got divorced when he I was four, and I don't really know him. I want to know him.
I’m ready.
40:24
I don't think you're ready, I think there's more that you could get from me. But at the same time, like it is your life and you, you get to make your own choices and this is not a dangerous choice, wasn't going to join the circus or something, just going to spent high school living in her dad's house instead of
40:44
You know, being with me and I'm certain that at least for my last daughter part of her decision was impacted by the fact that I was uncoupling from um the mainstream picket fence suburban lifestyle that I had been living um I didn't have an exact plan yet um but I was pretty clear that I-I was not going to continue to maintain a large house in the suburbs for years on end. We had talked about traveling and we had talked about different opportunities for her and I wish
41:22
she would have taken me up on it I wish that she would have spent high school unschooling on the road and learning things she couldn't learn in an American high school.
41:32
I wish all of my kids, I wish I had try I had taken them out of the US. I never did when they were I never did when um that's maybe my one major regret is they they don't know what they're missing because they never experienced it. But I didn't I didn't leave them they all very consciously left me and then and that was in 2016. So in 2017
42:04
I didn't have any ties. I didn't have any reason to hang around.
42:10
I suppose somebody who was trying to make the past be their reality would have stayed and would have gotten a house across the street and mothered and smothered and made the thing happen the way that they envisioned, but I didn't, I let go, I let go. I suppose none of us were quite ready for that what that did or how that felt um and we'll never know what other options there were cause you can only live one life but um I-I was also simultaneously going through a massive business implosion.
43:05
Payer sources changed and I held on longer than I should have. I went from a big suburban house and big birth center and the big car and the children at home, and juggling patients and students and life much the way I'm sure many midwives relate to.
43:36
I went from that to, um, homeless and bankrupt without my children in the span of a few months, and maybe they saw the writing on the wall.
43:50
Maybe they got undue influence from fear mongering other parents, or maybe they just knew that their path was different than mine.
44:00
I'm not sure.
44:01
Um, but so, in 2017, I was, I was free to choose, because I was not going to trying to fit.
Rachel: And that is been a mantra right?
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Freedom is a feeling, joy is a state of mind and that's been an offering um for me.
Augustine: Balance is a choice, balance is a choice, adventure every day is another one.
Rachel: And also that when you make these huge decisions that go against a major grain that the belief will be that when you let go you will be held, you will be caught. That there is a safety net.
Augustine: I talk about that all the time, leap and the net will appear. I've been in I've been in lots of really non traditional situations um living in my car and I did that for almost a year and um pain literally penniless and bankrupt homeless and hungry I've been all those things and I've also been homeless by choice I've been what they call home free um or houseless where I am a digital nomad and I get to continue to travel.
45:24
And so what started as this like compress and be conservative and spiral in and figure out what you're doing because I was right on that same retreat with you. That has become a lifestyle and um I got sick in 21 and and and stopped traveling by necessity and um and set up this house in India that I still have that I'm going back to and so um.
46:00
This will be the first time I-I go home in almost eight years.
Rachel: I guess um why I brought that up up to about you know the mentor and putting you know your entire
46:22
faith in, or you know who you look up to, but it's also to know that the greatest teacher is right here all the time, that all of these things are available, and they are magnificent sources of energy and inspiration and courage, and at the end of the day, it means nothing if we are not the most authentic and the truest to our own person.
46:59
And that is what it means for me to Be “Self-Centered”. Because when we are our most authentic then guess what then we're doing our best work and then we are affecting the biggest change and the biggest positive examples and expressions of love and so for me, um, you're such an example of a “Self-Centered Woman”.
47:25
And I just wanted people to meet you, and I wanted an excuse to see you and for you to just know how much you've impacted my life and how grateful I am, and how much I love you.
47:41
In 2017, there was another Rachel in the, um, in the group, and I'm gonna end it at this, because this is just always, from the beginning of that group, you, one of the lessons was, what is it I may not be using the right words but what is like your spirit animal if you will to know I'm going
48:11
true north right and, always it would be the things that I would read we would have a conversation and then I would read something about it and so back to um it's how I always or it comes up in conversation or you know you see a flash of something on TV. Just, just yesterday, I'm rereading the 5am Club,
48:36
okay because that's how much I love it I don't reread books. And they're visiting the Taj Mahal, I’m literally reading about it out in the patio, and then I come inside and you know, the little box of baby books that have the big cardboard pages, you know.
48:56
There's, like four of them in a set, well, that set was called, like Places of the World and staring me straight in the face was a cartoon picture of the Taj Mahal after it had just been referenced there, but even greater.
49:13
So then I ordered the Everyday Hero Manifesto that's his, another of his books, and he was telling the story, this is more like, about his experiences, and he was telling the story about, um, his parents and how, you know, they didn't have much, but, um, his dad posted the words of a poem or song on the refrigerator.
49:40
And he would stare at them every day, and they were the words of this song that Rachel sang at the retreat, and it just happened to me two days ago, and so I need to tell you them.
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And it's, “When you were born you cried. The world rejoiced. Live your life, so when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.”
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I don't know if you remember that.
Augustine: You singing it brought it back.
50:27
Rachel: And to see those on the pages is the thing, one of the things, that lets me know that I am still headed in the right direction.
50:40
Augustine: Those synchronicities.. they line the path.
Rachel: The path, the right path.
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But thank you for teaching me to pay attention to the synchronicities.
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Thank you for teaching me to believe that they are real.
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And thank you for teaching me that we can access it at any time. Another thing that happened on that retreat was doing the um the massage, the water the water floating. I let that girl float me, and I just surrendered to that.
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And that was what I said when I came up, we just stopped, sat there and I cried, and I said, it's always here.
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We can access at any time this power, this flow, this courage.
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Augustine: I just went to Iceland to have that moment in the Blue Lagoon, and I spent 5 h being floated, had a real god moment, surrendering to the water.
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It's always there.
Rachel: It’s always there. And it's like our relationship.
52:00
Thank you. I know that you're always there.
Augustine: My honor, my friend. Thank you for having me.
Rachel: Thank you for being on.
52:09
And, thank you for being “Self-Centered”.