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Who On Earth?
Who On Earth?
From Party Nights to Soul Revolution: Alex Dudgon’s Epic Spiritual Awakening
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From office jobs and wild nights out to becoming a meditation teacher and creating one of the UK’s most heartfelt conscious festivals — this is the inspiring journey of Alex Dudgon.
In this episode, Alex opens up about the profound experiences that shifted his path: a powerful spiritual encounter with a 7-foot black angel that arrived during a deeply tender time in his life, igniting his awakening and setting him on a new course. What followed was a beautiful transformation — trading the grind for inner stillness, stepping into meditation teaching, and eventually founding Soul Revolution Festival.
We explore how these moments led him to create a space where people can come together in unity, honouring both our differences and our shared humanity. With the 2026 festival theme Unity & Oneness fast approaching (22–26 May at Weston Park), Alex shares the heart behind this intimate, community-focused gathering — a weekend designed for deep connection, healing, renewal, and remembering who we truly are.
Expect honest, uplifting reflections on personal evolution, the courage to turn inward, facing life with openness and compassion, and building a movement that nurtures wholeness in a divided world.
If you’ve ever felt called toward something deeper or wondered how one unexpected moment can redirect an entire life, this conversation will leave you inspired.
Come with an open heart and join the Soul Revolution.
Connect with Alex Dudgon & Soul Revolution Festival
Website | https://www.soulrevolutionfestival.com/
Instagram | @alexdudgon & @soul.revolution.festival
Soul Revolution Festival 2026
Weston Park - 22-26 May - Tickets available on website
Connect with Michael Hill
Website | www.meditationwithmichael.co.uk
Linktree | https://linktr.ee/meditationwithmichael
Instagram | @meditationwithmichael
Facebook | MeditationwithMichael
TikTok | @MeditationwithMichael
This episode is sponsored by:
Aether Herbals
Which you can find on the Meditation with Michael store!
That was what triggered my scrubture journey because when when he died two nights before, I woke up in the night and I was like pinned to my bed. I was trying to move my pin.
SPEAKER_04And your arms were out wide like that as well.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but like pinned and it was like a black angel, it was almost like in the corner of my bedroom, like huge, like seven, eight foot being spread out. There wasn't a dry eye in the room, I'd say. It was just like massive people talking about massive breakthroughs I had, like they never felt community like this. A lot of people, it was the first conscious vessel. I actually came through on a mushroom microdo. That day I was like feeling it quite a bit. And I remember it just like was like I was trying to contemplate her name. It almost felt like it went bang, so revolution.
SPEAKER_00I was like, I was like, that's the one, that's the one.
SPEAKER_05My whole body was like energized.
SPEAKER_04Hello, my friend, to episode 14 of season two of Who If. Now I am going slowly well to just recover my health, and uh it's taking a little while, but it's a good one, it's a really good one actually because I went to a festival last year called Soul Revolution to my head of it. It's been growing very quickly. And my friend Evanny um told me how to guy who created it, Alex Dutchon, and that's the guy who got on the show and tweeted out on Instagram story, and it was great to do so. We'll let you know about on the on the episode for US Goodspace, we've got a legend guy, so Alex Dutch being great. And then it's gonna be a normal technique, it's gonna be a wet and path, it's gonna be a twice second twice for me, so we don't have a technique of the guy. The level of the show will be there. So all people from the show with them, automatically automatically, guaranteed well, each module, all the DJs there, and Facebook going on all the time for also what led up to that. And there's some details that I'll talk about, you know, my guests always got there. Before we do that though, um guys, if you are a fan of the show, I can't be asked and tell this thing. I just want to follow beautiful guests and tell the story. So you could do me a favour, give it a little like if you're enjoying it so far with the rest of the episode. If you're not seeing them support the show, that'd be great. Give it a little tap or subscribe if you want to make sure you don't miss anyone else. And I'd like to hear what people are thinking. If something that guests resonate with them, so drop a little comment. Let's let's create a little community, a little Who unearth community. Otherwise, I will leave you with Alex Dudgeon, the legend that created Soul Revolution. Enjoy, peace and love. Well, this is a special one for me. For those who don't know, I uh the last episode I did was before I went to the ancient forest in Galloway to go in there, be with myself for a meditation thesis. You know, to actually be with yourself and convince other people to be with themselves is harder than you think. And um, for full disclosure, that turned into a panic disorder, which I was telling you a bit off camera. Really difficult, panic attacks for 12-13 hours recurring for two or three months on and on and on and on until I learn that panic is being scared of the fit, so to be with it. So, a little tip for you if you're having a panic attack, dive into it, it's scared of you. But the reason I'm bringing it up is it's the first time I've actually recorded an episode since then. And uh you don't know sometimes how your life's gonna look when it's that much in disrepair. And the fact that I'm even doing it now, I appreciate it. It means a lot for me. And the fact that a fellow meditation teacher, I've not actually had a meditation teacher on before.
SPEAKER_05Oh really?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so we'll get into that. But would you mind starting it by just maybe dropping the people in with a little meditation?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, sure. Let's do it. Let's do it.
SPEAKER_04Thank you, Alex.
SPEAKER_06So get seated comfortably if you'd like to join us.
SPEAKER_01Hello are you gays? Hello you are. I'm just gonna keep it super simple.
SPEAKER_05Three deeper breaths. Breathing in deeply into the belly through the nose. Long exhale out of the mouth. In again through the nose. Big exhale out and the last one, we're gonna let out a big sound on the exhale. Really let go. And I just want to do a little prayer actually to finish before we start. Put your hands to your third eye, to your heart, whatever you feel comfortable. And I just want to thank everyone for being present with Michael and I. I want to thank Michael for coming down and giving me a platform to share myself, my story. I really, really appreciate it and how open he's been already and friendly with me. So thank you to God, the divine, for this moment, for this breath, for this meditation together. And yeah, I hope I can provide some kind of value to people today. Big enough.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. No, it's my pleasure as well. I'm Tatsa. It's the reason I've come here is because I went to the Soul Revolution Festival last year, and uh we spoke about a fellow sort of friend at Amani that I know, and I loved um it was the level of acts impressed me. Because straight away I'm like, Marcus Gab. Oh, like the river. And then you got Sam Garrett, and like that was where I met Antama who read on the show, because I took my ex-partner down to see him, I love Sam Garrett, and then it's like, oh yeah, you got Face Hole, and by the way, his energy was just and then some acts that I'd never seen. There was sort of like an African woman, I think. Oh, Sona Jabata, she's incredible. She's mad. And then I've gone and I think it was watching Face Hole, and then it's like, oh by the way, Eferwood are playing at Ignite More. Eferwood, I I must put them in one of my ecstatic dances every time. I love their drum and bass, so it's like this is mint. I need to get to know this guy. Arichai, who we had on uh recently as well. But I want to rewind, I told you at the start, it's Sol Rev's great, we'll get to that. Meditation, love it. But where did Alex start?
SPEAKER_05Okay, cool, four, four, four. So yeah, I was brought up locally to here, at the outskirts of Hampton. So I had a very kind of normal, chartered. Okay, what's normal look like to you? Yeah, just I was very lucky really. I had parents, like very loving parents. It wasn't perfect at home, obviously no homies of course, but generally like very loving parents. Um gave me a lot of freedom, sport. And yeah, I was very much into sport, I was more that was my path.
SPEAKER_06What sport are we talking?
SPEAKER_05Mainly football. Good lad. Uh yeah. Football.
SPEAKER_04For the Americans, that's soccer.
SPEAKER_05Soccer, yeah. Soccer. Uh tennis for a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Uh long distance running. Okay. And then a little bit later we're going to boxing. Well, I play any sport.
SPEAKER_04So don't fuck with you then, yeah. Or watch me weird. Well, what football team, by the way?
SPEAKER_05Villa.
SPEAKER_04Villa. Ah, we're coming for you. We're coming for you. Well, Man United, obviously. I'm not a glory on you.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you are making me uh a bit nervous with kind of. Yeah, we've been doing alright, you know.
SPEAKER_04I'm I'm as a United fan since Fergie. I think that's when all my trauma started, actually, after Man United lost Fergie, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like I've lost my dad, yeah. Don't worry about that. Fergie. Remember. But yeah, we'll go back to Villa fan then. How's that been being a villa? Prince is it Prince Andrew?
SPEAKER_05Uh William.
SPEAKER_04It's William, one of them. Yeah, come on. We're all going down now, we don't want to get cancelled.
SPEAKER_05No Villa fans on the FC list.
SPEAKER_04That we know of. Actually, I think Tom Hanks is even going on.
SPEAKER_05Never mind.
SPEAKER_04Anyway, anyway.
SPEAKER_05Um yeah, because I'm I live in Wolverhampton. Yeah. Everyone now here is Wolves fan. Okay, okay. That was challenging. Black country they call it. Yeah, they say yeah. So Wolves, West Brahm, Birmingham, then they talk about it. Actually, more Wolverhampton and Dublin.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so you you went against it against the trend.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. You know what it was? I my dad and all of his mates were me to be Wolves, not to be for D. I've always been a bit stubborn in single.
SPEAKER_04Well, if you tell me to jump off this not to jump off the mountain, I'm gonna see if I can fly.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, pretty much, pretty much. I've had a little bit of that in there. But um do you remember Dwight York? Obviously, of course.
SPEAKER_04Do you want to remember Dwight York? Oh yeah, this is a shabble-winning player, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so I didn't actually decide for a while and I watched lots a lot of uh Maps of the Day, and we played Arsenal and Dwight York did a Panica penalty and David Seaman.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, cheeky little penicillin.
SPEAKER_05Really cheeky, I'd never seen that before. He must have been one of the first guys that did it, and I was like, mate, that guy's cool man. But obviously he's from Trinidad. The Caribbean feel about him.
SPEAKER_04Always smiling, wasn't it? Always smiling.
SPEAKER_05I love the kit, and it was like the only local team that was in the premiership at the time.
SPEAKER_04So one so Wolves were in the Premier League by then?
SPEAKER_05No, they haven't.
SPEAKER_04They're always yo-yoing up and down, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, they're definitely going down this season, I can tell you that. All the spiritual people right now are like this is a football podcast. A little thing you might your mic might just be poking out. See what you've got a nipple on.
SPEAKER_05It's my third nipple.
SPEAKER_04It's got a third eye and a third nipple, that's how holy he is. So you were a villa fan. Um you go to the games at all?
SPEAKER_05Not really. I was more into playing sports.
SPEAKER_04Right, yeah, I was always like that. I like playing it and I like playing FIFA.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then watching it, and now the older I've got, the more it's just the professionals take care of it. Yeah. So did you ever get into the sports like go further down, or is it more just a pastime?
SPEAKER_05Er, but in adult life.
SPEAKER_04I'm just wondering if you could because obviously you said you're into cross country in tennis, like how into it are we talking?
SPEAKER_05Andy Murray or Nah nah. Tennis I was good at tennis actually. Okay. I was probably better at tennis and cross country. Okay. I was a decent footballer, but probably better at there as preferred football. I think it's just like the team aspect. Um, I really like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Um where did you play?
SPEAKER_05Well, I actually changed a lot. So when I was a kid, first I was like a right winger, then it became like a centre midfielder slash striker.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so you're like a Bruno kind of all.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but then it kind of all changed when it hit 17. Because I was a I was an alright player, but then I hit 17 and playing for this manager, you changed me to a centre half. And that was when I was like, this is weird.
SPEAKER_04I've like further and further, but you'd be net before you know it, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_05Pretty much, yeah. But then I was like a final position. So were you a decent centre back then? Very natural, yeah. Okay, I've used to read the game.
SPEAKER_04I was like half a second ahead. Have you always been a bit like that, a bit more of an observer? Because you're looking at you you're organising the festival, you're a meditation teacher, and now you're saying that was where you felt you're even paying attention.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think so. I've always been a deep thinker.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Were you into any sort of any of the spiritual practices at a younger age?
SPEAKER_05No.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_04Not not at all. So did we have any connection at all? Was it a religion or was it just strictly atheist?
SPEAKER_05When I look back, I started to have some voices in my head when I was about eight. And it was like it's funny.
SPEAKER_04And then the doctors got rid of them, did they?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, luckily I never shared them with anyone. Because it it only happened like probably two or three times. What was on then? That's interesting. What came up? It was it was say like when you're older, you're gonna do big things, you need to be ready. So it was quite freaky.
SPEAKER_04But I didn't um Did it sound like you or something external?
SPEAKER_05I don't know what you're in there. It's hard to remember because I was a kid.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But I actually almost like forgot about it for years. And I started to remember later on I was having those thoughts. Um, but then once I hit like 14, 15, got massively into drinking. Right. So and that was uh my path for a good ten years, really. But obviously there was other stuff, I wasn't the whole line.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I was a Manchester party boy. I'm uh I don't I know that i i I've had enough to drink, let's just say. Warehouse projects are enough. I was more at the underground stuff. I went to like the illegal raids. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and then just well, I preferred a house party me than going to town. I just I don't have you been out in Manchester.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, for me it was just walking, a lot of walking in the wet and rain, getting told getting told by bouncers, you know, your ten lads can't come in. But then ending up at like usually we'd end up in the canal street, the Gay Village bit, just because they stayed open until like five, six, seven in the morning.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But it it grow it grows, or it it it gets a bit stale, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_05Yeah after a while. No, I was always a house party guy. I used to host house parties.
SPEAKER_04So you've always been that kind of guy pulling the streets.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, yeah. I think that was maybe the start of like me becoming an event. You know, just hosting house parties. Like if my mum and dad were on holiday or away, like, right.
SPEAKER_04Everybody, boys, yeah, girls pile in.
SPEAKER_05But it even let us like if we weren't drinking, we used to just have people staying, but your mum would have the like super call like that and you got any stories for us? Um actually there's one, it's kind of a story that never actually happened, but we booked Hannah once this summer. Yeah, Hannah once, the DJ.
SPEAKER_04I'd probably know it for earder.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so my first ever rave was in Wolverhampton. She was the DJ, she was like not unknown, but like just a local DJ. Yeah. And uh, incredible night. And then me and my mates were like, right, what if we book it for a house party at Maya? So I had a book, and then she'd like released a lineup and it just said house party. We were like buzzy, me and the lads that we're gonna have.
SPEAKER_04That was Joe, uh, well done. I'll give you that.
SPEAKER_05Well, that's good that. I'll finish the butt, we didn't actually do it because as we got rewinded. We track that fist bump. Yeah, as we got closer to it, we were worried because she said that I'm gonna have to watch him on spookies and we're like uh gonna pop the windows in the house. So we butt on it a bit. But now, like 16 years on, but to at the best one, so full circle, eh?
SPEAKER_04How does that feel? Very good. We've got the little boy, and he's like, go on, lad.
SPEAKER_05It's kind of it feels very synchronistic all around. Yeah, because she started a spiritual path.
SPEAKER_04Right, okay, so she's gone on the same sort of journey.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's funny how a lot of people are doing that nowadays. A lot of people won't expect, like, I'll just see a friend from age and you're you're the DJ, like, yeah, you're the dancer. We used to be at the clubs, huh? So you were more of a house party guy. Was there any other sort of stuff that was quite prevalent in when you were younger?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, um like I said, football, drinking, clubbing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Girls, if I'm honest. Which I feel comfortable talking about.
SPEAKER_04It's okay, but I mean like I mean I I I used to just be obsessed with doing obsessed, but the thing that's changed now is I've realised that when you start being in a relationship with yourself, you no longer try to find a woman to fill a hole.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Do you know what I mean? Like for me, I was always looking for I didn't know I wasn't doing that. But if there was something I wasn't comfortable with, I'd want them, so they'd be sort of like doing the hard work, and when they're inevitably have a moment where they can't be perfect, they can't deliver that service. So that sounds wrong. Wasn't that kind of thing? And I d would then resent them because they're not taking away my pain like they would usually. So that was kind of but then also there was just that random lad sort of live where you know what young lads are like, in it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, might say it calls it young, dumb and full of colours. Young, dumb and full of colours.
SPEAKER_04Which is erroneous, but it sums it up to pretty much what we were me and me lads like it's weird now, like you know women have personalities and they have emotions, and you need to take care of them as you take care of your mother, and it's like you just didn't think like that when you were younger.
SPEAKER_05Nah, nah, nah.
SPEAKER_04And that's why I think when sometimes people are so hard on the youth, it's like, do you not remember how it was? You're programmed to be like that.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so the best thing we can do is say, like, look, this is what we were like, we already know why you're doing it, let me show you a better way. Yeah. Let's treat them with a bit of respect. Definitely. Do you know what I mean? But how would you like it if, say, you had a sister and someone was trying to chirp her off? Yeah. Like there's nothing wrong with having fun, but do it with respect. And that sort of comes from learning.
SPEAKER_05100%. Yeah, this path helps a lot the work, yeah, doesn't it? But I think as well, if the alcoholic definitely brings out me at the worst.
SPEAKER_04What were you like when you were drunk?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I was alright. I was just good good so I had a good time. Yeah, see, I was a bit wild. Um wasn't really a fighter occasionally getting in a fight, but yeah, I liked women. Um but I think for me it was just about connection. Like I actually always had a lot of respect for women because you know my mum had a good relationship.
SPEAKER_06Sister.
SPEAKER_05Um but yeah. Sexual side as well.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean look, we're all we're all human.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But I mean, you can already say, like, you've got a sister, you've got a mum, like I've got a lovely relationship with my mum. So there has always been that, like, you some I think a ex-partner said if you want to know how a guy's gonna be with you, look how he treats his mum. And that like that'll be how he treats you to a certain degree. So, what were you doing for work then after this? At some point you must have started trying to earn a few pennies.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I uh to unique um business marketing. How was that?
SPEAKER_05Erybody feel I got anything from it. No. I actually say if there's any period in my life that I enjoyed the least, my uni day. How come? Um I don't know. I just felt like it was a bit of a waste of time. I didn't really foul found myself. It was just it was just dreaming.
SPEAKER_04Were you like me where it was like, oh that'll do? Or did you actually have a passion for this business?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's why that I do, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05I thought it was a safe option, it was probably business. Yeah, business is pretty safe, there's really lots of jobs.
SPEAKER_04Did you enjoy the uni life?
SPEAKER_05And I've always wanted to yeah, a bit of creative within some.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05Uni life, yeah, it was alright, it was alright. The first year was just like very much drinking. Actually, the second year um was when I really got into weed. The first year was like a party, and then the second year was kind of the complete opposite.
SPEAKER_06I don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_05Smoking loads of weed all the time, barely left our house. That was a strange time because like people used to come around and smoke weed at our house.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And I didn't even know the name, and they come around every week. It'll be that high, like.
SPEAKER_04Yep. Another vibe.
SPEAKER_05It was just like uh Pasta Crisps.
SPEAKER_04What did you call it?
SPEAKER_05I said Pasta Crisps. The crisps? Crisps, uh crisps.
SPEAKER_04Is that what you call Bud? No, I'm talking about the snack. Oh shit, mate. I thought you were saying crap, like you had some sort of Wolverhampton's lingo. No, you mean actual crisps? Yeah. Munches. Well known. Well known the munches. For me, I would end up it was cereal for me. I'd be like, I'm just gonna go make a bowl, come back with like three bowls of like cookie crisps. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_05But Golden Graham's ice. Golden Graham.
SPEAKER_04Cinnamon Graham Cinnamon Graham's bloody hell. You're going to think proper uh what's the word I was thinking like niche.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Don't think I've even tried them. Yeah right though yeah. So you were getting higher that did that carry on after uni?
SPEAKER_05So after that, so that was my second year, my third year I did a placement year. That was a big year for me. Okay. So that was my biggest struggle, I'd say. Okay. So I'd gone from like this uni life stoner, and then from this corporate environment, working like a press office.
SPEAKER_04Bit of a change.
SPEAKER_05Big change. And I started to realise like what I've been building up to throughout the school life in uni was this like 95 corporate world.
SPEAKER_04You actually saw what life was gonna be like.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, and I just didn't like it. And also I just didn't feel good in myself.
SPEAKER_06I think the weed of like not the confidence too much and rate each other.
SPEAKER_05So I just felt like a shell of myself, and then not long after all that, when I start playing about two months in, I came down with like full-on depression where like I couldn't string a couple of positive thoughts together, just negative, negative, negative. And some mornings I eat my breakfast, and like 15 minutes later, I'd fight back up.
SPEAKER_06I was anxious about people.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and then I'd come back, I'd fall asleep by like I don't know, half seven eight. I was having like 11 hours sleep. Yeah, I was just so tired from the depression. Um so yeah, that was about I'd say two or three months that period. It was quite scary.
SPEAKER_04But it felt longer than that as well.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, felt longer and I don't know what you were saying about the five let's sort of sat to be like, I'm actually gonna get out of this.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that part just takes you over, doesn't it? Like it's and it feels the problem is when you're having them thoughts they come with feelings, and the feelings feel convincing. Yeah. That's all you can feel in the moment. So a bet meditation, like now you can observe it and you just know like, ah, that's a part of me.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Part of me is depressed. But when someone says I am depressed, they're identifying as depression.
SPEAKER_05That's all you can be. Yeah. Whereas yeah, I didn't I didn't know about it. Any tools, any tools. I went to the I ended up going to the doctor, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I was just testing. Got that bad, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And I didn't I was never very good at opening about the things to anyone.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_05It wasn't really a massive thing that was in the family. So I'd get to adapt that. So it's the first time I really opened up about it and she was just like super cold. Like over a flyer about antidepressants was kind of like underway. Uh when I was telling her about trouble with like weed addiction stuff, she could just tell she was like really judging me about it and looking down at me. Um, but that was the best thing that happened to me. I got back in my car and it sat the engine, I thought, fucking about how she's like treated me.
SPEAKER_04You finally opened up. How did it feel opening up even then if you weren't used to it? Like, was it vulnerable or was it was it like finally a release?
SPEAKER_05It felt good, it felt safe because it was a adapter, which I thought was like a nice safe space, wouldn't we?
SPEAKER_04She's like, yeah, just fucking go with that, you'd have better.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, basically, basically. But it built a fire in me because no, I'm not gonna take the antidepressants, I'm gonna get out of this myself. And then I really like broke down, had to like break down all the areas of my life that actually getting rid of and slowly build out of it. And actually, like by that summer, like six months later, I looked for like my most confident I'd ever be. Okay.
SPEAKER_04So easy rather than just skipping over that, because like I said, who and earth's about who on earth you are, not just the pretty bits. You said you realised some of the things that were causing it, what were some of the insights that you had?
SPEAKER_05I think yeah, letting my kind of shyness take over. So I wasn't really being myself in the office and just working, so I'd just kind of like keep myself too much. I didn't really talk at all, I was kind of like borderline root, scaring my shelves in my work, yeah. So just little things like that starting to talk to people at work. And then it was funny, like I say, how much it flipped because six months later I was probably like the loudest, biggest coach in the room. I was always like having fun and bantering people, and uh even like the top councillors there that people were scared to were laughing, and I was like laughing joke with them. Um I think part of that was just because I can't have to fuck, I was like, I've got fucking nothing to lose it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, who gives a fuck?
SPEAKER_06Who gives a fuck?
SPEAKER_04Because here's the thing, me and Echo, you know, I don't know if it met Echo, but she was on the show and we were saying there's two ways of looking at it, what will we think? Oh, no, no, what is it? No one gives a shit, or no one gives a shit. And it's like, which one? Like, no one gives a shit. I'm like, seriously, we don't care. Yeah, they've got their own shit going on, haven't they? And if they do, so what? Yeah, like nine billion of us, you'll find another mate.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, 100%. Um, yeah, that there was that kind of mentality. Uh that was actually when I started going to raise more. Okay. That helped. That helped a bit.
SPEAKER_04Um still drinking though, and I did it for this time.
SPEAKER_05Still drinking. I used to like MDMA, some other big things. I think that obviously it's not a sustainable long-term option, but that helped my confidence because obviously you didn't.
SPEAKER_02I'm not condoning it, children.
SPEAKER_05You know, you have that you felt feeling chatty, and it just got me out of this shell. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Well, they do MDMA therapy.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_04Where it's actually done, you know, with reverence, with somebody who's professional, and that's because it does open you up. Yeah, it brings all those love um chemicals and you everything's like, alright, safe.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04When you feel safe, that's when you start like hopefully that's the sort of talent I have. Someone knows I'm being authentic and I'm I'm not here to judge, and they feel safer to open up. Yeah, that's what MDMA did.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, no, definitely. It's it's powerful. I've watched the documentary actually about that. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. It's called maps and what they're doing in America. And we even do like ketamine or they'll use psychedelics where it's like say LSD or psilocybin, and then because they all they're doing is shifting certain stuff, because we're in default mode right now. We can't live on MDMA. Yeah. We weren't programmed to do that, it's not optimal, but it does help shift a few blocks we might have had here, and like you said, like that shyness. Oh, we'll just put that over there and oh this oh it is safe, right?
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, no, it's good, it's powerful. Um so yeah, that was that was the start of that. And then from there, because like I say, I didn't really feel like I fully fitted in in that environment, and I didn't feel like I you know found myself fully. So then every penny I could, I was like so stingy with money that year because like I want to go travelling. So I saved up, I set to finish my last year of uni, and after that, literally as soon as I finished my last year uni, I went out to Australia.
SPEAKER_06Hey, whereabouts?
SPEAKER_05Um started off like Northern Territory, North Queensland, lived there for quite a while, and we did all the East Coast and Camperburn, so and then I set up in Melbourne. Okay. And then I did a the year after, I did a whole year in Melbourne.
SPEAKER_04That's cool. I lived in Gold Coast for a year.
SPEAKER_05Ah, okay, yeah, we did stuff off at the Gold Coast a couple of years.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's like Byron Bay and all, it's like that dead idyllic.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I wish I'd done what you did where you went travelling across it. How was that?
SPEAKER_05That was cool.
SPEAKER_04You got any stories?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, lots of stories to go on, give us so first thing like we went to buy a van. Yeah. And I found that I was like, that's the van, that's the van, because it had something outrageous on the side. It was bright pink, with electrophic on the side of like this moment, like this. It's something like is it pussy power? I don't know. It was something outrageous.
SPEAKER_04Something in between a style.
SPEAKER_05Exactly. A far, that's funny. So like everywhere we go, everyone would like the honking, uh, like nobody. And there'll be like You've grown so much, have it. Still got a bit of that still.
SPEAKER_04I usually says monsoon game, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05So you'd have like it was four of us, so there'd be one driving, uh, one on music, and two in the back, and just be getting high in the way.
SPEAKER_04So it was free mates, was it then?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's even better. Yeah, alright.
SPEAKER_05Well we got our van taken off us only after a few days.
SPEAKER_04Because it's what it said on it.
SPEAKER_05It wasn't registered. So the guy someone had sold it to me, wasn't registered. So it just literally dunked this van on the side of the road. Ah. And then we had to like find inventive ways on the coast.
SPEAKER_04Probably made it. It did. Go on then, what were some of the inventive ways?
SPEAKER_05It was just there was like nothing that excited, it was just like there's this website where you can relocate a van for them.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_05So the only cost like way less it would hire a van. They need to move certain vans around the country. So like when we went to go from Sydney to Melbourne, which is like a ten-hour drive, we got this massive six-birth camper, awesome and dancing and kitchen. You're laughing. Yeah, and it was like cheapest cheap, so it was really, really good.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right. Did we have any learnings on the way?
SPEAKER_05Well, that was one straight away. That was another bit of a drama because I crashed that into a tree. And uh luckily the damage, the final match of damage wasn't that bad, but I I was literally having a panic attack because obviously, like travelling, it's all that stream type budget, and I thought this could wipe me out and then I don't know what I'm gonna do. Luckily it wasn't as bad as a thought, which we got in there.
SPEAKER_04Sweat has been wiped from the brow, we can carry on, and you said you ended up in Melbourne, and then Melbourne. How's that? What were we doing?
SPEAKER_05Um what is I didn't even know, but at the start. We just used to like pick up really random jobs, all sorts, really. Um but yeah, I was so into the ray scene, so I was like doing a lot of MDMA. I've never actually talked about this on the podcast, but I forgot. Um so I sell a bit of that, which is just fun, and uh people used to call me like, oh you're the nicest uh drug dealer.
SPEAKER_02I can imagine you'll be like, this guy's so cheerful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Because I um yeah, I used to like because it opened you up, some people, especially when we did it for the first time, they ended up like divulging all this stuff to me in the smoking area. So again, when you look back and you think actually uh can I have those healer qualities there because let people be safe, have a look for me and uh stuff. And um like if I felt like someone would do too much, I was like, there you go.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, okay, so you weren't just about the pennies.
SPEAKER_05Nah, no, it wasn't like that. I was like I embodied the scene because I was always there. And there was a club called Revolver, it was called that Revolving Door Kendall, it was like open up on a Thursday night, it wouldn't close till like Monday morning. Going hard.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, I didn't do the whole thing, I just go for like one. See, I know I would have done my superpower was getting very drunk, very drugged up, and then just continuing. I couldn't remember it. People would be like, I've got what did I do? Some of the stories, man, fuck it up. It's about you, go on, what else was going on?
SPEAKER_05Um yeah, so that and then when I came back the next year, I had some corporate jobs and some sales, I did accounts, which I hated.
SPEAKER_04Not an office guy.
SPEAKER_05No, but I've seen to have ended up there quite away.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, um I I mean every time I've ended in the office, I just feel like torture. Yeah. I don't know if you've got that energy, I've I've got quite high energy, quite creative. Don't really like that monotony of the same thing, and I I don't know about you, but I like to believe in what I'm doing. So if I'm just selling somewhere.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like I've got a business now selling products. Oh, that was a point. May I put them on show? So there'll be an advert, guys. Eva Herbals. I've got some with me actually if you want if we do um where it's like uh dream, dream herb. You take if with uh Mugwalp, Blue Lotus Flower and Bob and Sarner, you take it before bed. They're like Lucid David Dreams. I don't know if you do anything in the dream up at all.
SPEAKER_05No, no, I'd like to, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Anyway, let's that wasn't meant to be a plug. There'll be an advert somewhere, go on, use it now.
SPEAKER_06Um what was I saying?
SPEAKER_04You were talking about you were in Melbourne and you were finding that you were obviously you would you would be in the revolver door and then you didn't you had some office jobs you weren't really into.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean that was just the way I could have been put up, getting red five and I ended up in a lot of corporate jobs over the years. And like you say, it's it's more just you know, the the purpose isn't there. Like now, I'm doing marketing, but it's for solving, so it's like it's just natural. Yeah, you you'd be like, It's so easy to talk about it because I love it, like I know how much benefit it has to be, etc.
SPEAKER_04So it's just Well, Jesus was selling peace. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_05Mohammed was selling love, and Buddha's selling relaxation, like it's but that was it with MDMA in a way, it was almost like you're selling love because like people's hearts obviously open a lot and uh people are dancing, they wouldn't normally dance. So yeah, now it's not uh holistic. But yeah, when you were Well you were how young were you?
SPEAKER_04How young were you when you were doing that?
SPEAKER_05Um I was 23.
SPEAKER_04A while ago. Yeah, yeah. We've learned a different way about doing it, but the point is you were you had this sort of passion behind helping people just find who they really were and let go of all these inhibitions and actually hey, human being. I'm a human being. What's going on with you? Exactly. What do we do after Melbourne?
SPEAKER_05Uh so yeah, then another very difficult part of my life came. Okay. So yeah, I was loving life in Australia. I was actually kind of like considering moving out there because it's like that it was an outdoor lifestyle.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean all English speaking already.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so it's very easy that way. Uh I love the sun, I love outdoor living, and yeah, it wasn't just partying, like when I lived in North Queensland, I loved that was probably the best place for really because we had this beach, it was stunning, it's quite tropical up there, it was awesome. There was loads of international like backpackers in the town. We used to like organise football tournaments, like beach football tournaments. Yeah. Um play cricket and just swim in the sea, and then we used to hire little boats and go down the creek and you'd find crocodiles. That was probably my favourite.
SPEAKER_04See, I never found the crocs. I went looking for snakes in the bush. You're like, you went looking for them. Well, I wanted to find some, like I thought they were meant to be everywhere. Did find a koala though, do the little jump from tree to tree and whales. We had we had like dolphins in the back because my back garden basically was a canal that linked to the sea. So we just had dolphins and stingrays. Where were you in Australia? Um the Gold Coast, so it was do you know Surfers Paradise? Yeah. So just down from there at Cool and Gatta. And then yeah, I'd just be there in a spliff at the back, just watching dolphins. Is this real? Well, I wasn't having as much fun as you because I ended up managing my jewelry stores and me and my partner working out. I didn't have any other friends, so should have brought a few boys over with me.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, that that started because I can say I decided to go out. At one point, there were like ten of my schoolmates over there because it just inspired this knock and effect. Um, so yeah, we had a lot of amazing, amazing levels and times.
SPEAKER_04And then you said it went into more of a depressing Yeah, so what happened?
SPEAKER_05I was out there and I got a call from my mum. Uh she sounded worried. It was like I think it was like 3am, because obviously there's a time difference. And I wouldn't know in a group of that time at all, but she said, Oh, was it ill? I don't know, she sounded like not really herself and her body. And I thought she was gonna say her dad was ill at a certain age. And then she was like, It's your dad, and I was like, I didn't believe it. Um die days of cancer because he was always very healthy, like quite a health conscious person. Um yeah, yeah, emotional, broken, yeah. But she did say I've given him seven years. That relaxed me a little bit. So I didn't like panic and wash home straight away. It was obviously a big part of the money too, but only uh you've only got this once-in-lifetime opportunity. Yeah, yeah, and that was it because then uh after when I moved down to Melbourne, and like I didn't really know why I was doing that at the time, but that was when I was like moving to the base and it was an escape. As much as I got some benefits from it and menu, etc. I think it was an escape, so yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's understandable, it's a lot for someone to process.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04He was on the other side of the world. Yeah, and you think you're like, you know, a man at twenty-four.
SPEAKER_05I was still a kid in a little age.
SPEAKER_04You ain't a man at twenty-four, no.
SPEAKER_05There's probably some people there, but I wasn't.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well fucking hell, it wasn't me either, none of my mates either.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um but yeah, anyway, eventually we met up a couple of times, which is really nice. We met up in Vietnam, in India, back in a halfway. And some amazing memories of my dad then.
SPEAKER_04Mmm. How was it meeting up with him in those places, knowing what you knew then?
SPEAKER_05It was alright, like I say, it was still chill, because he just was completely fine with himself.
SPEAKER_04So you didn't have this sort of like in the background, sort of the grim reaper over the sort of the shoulder. Because I I've always had a tendency to always look like not be able to enjoy the moment because I was thinking of oh but this. But you you were you weren't struggling with that.
SPEAKER_06No, I wasn't really I wasn't really thinking about that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, that was impressive. I was just kind of enjoying it. Um you seemed in good spirit, you seemed in good health, etc. Um and then went back to ours, and then we met up once more, which ended up being our last family holiday to Sri Lanka. Incredible holiday. And that started really badly, so the first day was in bad health. Okay. He said, Look, look now, we got Segria Rock because it's like this big rock, an old 10 pound cover. And uh I think before he went somewhere else, we said, ah, I'm just gonna have to sit in the cafe.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, because we're like, So was he not having treatment at all?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I decided there was some treatment. So then we were having the other the three of us, my sister and my mom and myself, I was like, Hey dad, yeah, I don't miss two-week holiday and two week holiday. And then it was just like a miracle next day is fine, and then the rest of the holiday. He wasn't like a hundred percent, but he was near near enough.
SPEAKER_04But compared to that, you're like, we'll take it. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_05Um good spirits, we had a great time. And then not long after that, I decided to go back home and I was surprised and people. Yeah, well, it was it was good, but then in that time, I'd gone downhill a lot, and I think I was prepared for it. Right and then I just like overwhelmed. I was like, yeah, just so he lost a lot of weight and chemo just and um but the positive suit was that I'd come back to my strain and say I wasn't really playing my system and all I got a job. So then the last kind of four months of his life I was caring for him like day and day, which was intense, but it was actually the first time in my life like I felt like I had a real purpose.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_05It was really intense, sad to see him in that way. I almost felt like I could have a great relationship with him, like honoured to see him out in that way, and I had like this purpose every day to make him feel comfortable and safe, happy, etc. So it was beautiful sweet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was some like really tough moments, but I can imagine. And then that was what triggered my sprue journey, because when he died two nights before, I woke up in the night and I was like pinged in my bed. And it was like a black angel somewhere in the corner of my bedroom, like huge, like seven, eight foot thing spread out, and just staring down.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's because I've told this this story.
SPEAKER_02Oh no, I'm intrigued now. You guys just it just wasn't expected. Go on. Yeah, I just couldn't move it.
SPEAKER_05I was just I was trying to move them up.
SPEAKER_04And your arms were outwide like that as well. But like pinned. Because when it's like sleep paralysis, usually you might you're down like that. So yeah, because that's where my mind went straight away.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's what some people said it was, but I don't feel like it was. I've never had sleep paralysis before.
SPEAKER_04Well with sleep paralysis, it's not quite like that either. Like it's more like you can't move and you and you you're sort of stuck as as you fell asleep.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and it's normally more of like a kind of nightmare, isn't it? Yeah. Whereas this, like there was a little part of me that was scared, but it almost had like this peaceful energy around it. So when I look back, I feel like it was a spiritual experience of kind of saying you need to be prepared because you need to back to use your dad's kind of. It didn't feel like you know how long did it last? So about a minute. Obviously, when it's something like that, it kind of feels longer.
SPEAKER_04And so what was it in the corner of the room and it was what did could you tell features, or is it just sort of like a shadow?
SPEAKER_05It was shadowy.
SPEAKER_04Okay, but it didn't feel scary because I was gonna say sleep palaces, she terrified.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, no, I didn't really feel scary.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, mine was aliens were coming for me.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04And I was like, hell. I couldn't speak or anything to my part. I'm like, hell that doesn't sound like what you had, and with it being so close to what you said with that passing, yeah. That sort of synchronicity as well.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and then then and then a massive synchronicity which kind of ties it all up. Is then exact because that was two nights before he died, and exactly two nights after. Same thing happened, I couldn't move, but this time it's like I always feel ridiculous telling this story, but it's just the truth.
SPEAKER_04What I've experienced, I'm open. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_05It was uh like a skeleton figure. Okay. Only about play that big, and it was actually on the bed at the end of my Bed, it walked.
SPEAKER_04It was when you said that then.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And he sat cross-legged almost like exactly how you are now. And um just was staring to my eyes, smiling at me. And it f it felt like the spirit of my dad. Didn't look like the energy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And uh it felt like it was him just communicating somehow. Somehow. He's in this next round of existence, he's happy, he's at peace. And I just felt a lot more at peace about the whole thing. And then I've gone from being I don't somewhere in between atheist and agnostic. Like knowing that there's more things.
SPEAKER_04That's the thing, it's like someone telling you something. Like someone could hear you say that and be like, nah, yes or no.
SPEAKER_05Or some people would be like, yeah, but you Yeah, it would have been the same if someone had said, but you who's experienced it, you know it then.
SPEAKER_04You can't experience it. It's happened. It's happened. I've felt it. You can't pull I've had some stuff which we would not go into, but I get it. The difference between some you could hear all the stories in the world, yeah, and you have something bizarre like that, and you're like, well, uh, can't really pull the wool over that one.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That was a weird experience, but it it gave you this inner peace.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And now you've got this door's been opened to maybe there is something else.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Well, I almost like it was like a knowing, I know there's more.
SPEAKER_04So not even a maybe foot than a maybe because that out there is something else.
SPEAKER_05Straight from like yeah, zero to a hundred. And then uh got really into meditation because more script trying to.
SPEAKER_04So, what was the first thing that you looked at for meditation then?
SPEAKER_05Um guided meditation timer.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but mine was uh I'm on that by the way. Me too. Check out Alex Dose in the Michael Meditation Michael, but um mine was uh car map. I was trying to get to sleep, and it was like just take a breath in, and I you know that I don't I don't know, you did I liked it, you didn't do the meditation voice.
SPEAKER_05Hi everyone.
SPEAKER_04My name's Alex, and I'm here to like nah, you just said it as you, and I think that's how it should be. I'm always curious, especially considering you're the first meditation teacher. What is meditation to you?
SPEAKER_05Hmm. What just came through straight away, because I never actually pondered on that was the practice of the present, I'd say.
SPEAKER_04I would agree. I think meditation is actually not something you do, it's something you are. It's your present state of experience rather than thoughts of the future or the past, rather than getting caught up in the identity. Because if I had called you Bob instead of Alex, you're no less you. Yeah, well you can't be Bob, but you can't you can't be Alex. Like if I chopped off that hand, you'd be no less you. Like if I chopped my hair off, no less me, so I can't be the body either. Career, whatever, I changed career, I'm not that. Son, no, my dad also died, and I can't so I'm not that, so what am I? I'm the presence, and that's why I think not you don't feel your age, but you're not, your body is. But you you're just in this eternal presence, this flavour of whatever is you, and that's where home is. And I think basically when you're meditating, you're being present, you're basically inviting all those parts of you that have been lost to come back home.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I'd agree with you.
SPEAKER_04That makes sense.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and obviously, it doesn't just have to be cross-legged, is it? Exactly. We can meditate, and it's like I'm feeling very present right now.
SPEAKER_04That's why I say we're doing a chat meditation, yeah. Because we're not thinking about all the other stuff going on, we're just present with each other, you can present walk. So you could do a you could do a meditation walk, or you can do chanting, or you could do psychedelics, you could there's so many ways. Meditation is being present, that literally doesn't have a limit. And yet it seems to be one of the hardest things. So, this is what I wanted to bring in. Not selling, it's the wrong word, but convincing other people it's worth their time. They want the the breath work, they want the spirit journeys, they want the ayahuasca's, they want the the music, dances, they want all the even cacao or ceremony. But when you say I teach meditation, I find that's a lot harder to get people to get really invested with.
SPEAKER_05So I was gonna say 100% agree.
SPEAKER_04So before we ask on your get to your experience of trying to get people interested being a meditation teacher, how were you like when you were getting interested? So when you being new to it yourself.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I just loved it straight away. Straight away. Um got like not addicted, but yeah, I was just doing it every morning. I was like nothing, like, right, I'm gonna commit to this, go on in, and uh was just feeling a lot of benefit in all areas of my life. And then because of that, because my energy was shifting because of it, other things in my life were just changing, like uh eight, less partying.
SPEAKER_04The more you're present, the more you start to notice.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Like how noticing how yeah, exactly how food makes you.
SPEAKER_04How it feels, oh I feel shit after that. Or after being with that person, I felt drained. After doing that particular activity, I felt better. Yeah. Like cold water dipping per se.
SPEAKER_05It makes you much more aware, isn't it, of your mind, body, spirit.
SPEAKER_04I find that's a double-edged sword. Because you're also more aware of the pain. Because anyone who wants to anyone who wants to feel pleasure has to be open to the balancing factor of pain, but discomfort. If you want to feel elation, you have to understand depression. If you want to feel peaceful, you have to feel chaos. And I was saying in funny enough, in the last episode to uh Marjorie ran Amazonic, Zen isn't you with birds tweeting, waterfalls, everything. No, it's Zen is you being in the fire and you just smile back.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And how you must have had moments where you've come up against parts of yourself that you found uncomfortable. How was it when because you said benefits, what benefits were you finding from doing that?
SPEAKER_05So maybe it's just like really basic stuff. I think that's the beauty of meditation, is it is the simplicity.
SPEAKER_04It's too simple.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_04People No, no, just be with it. But no, just be with it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly. And I think with what you were saying earlier, I think the reason a lot of people are turned off it is like because of the way the world is, you know, it's quite nice, colours and speed of it. People's nervous systems don't really match to it because it's just so different. Yeah. It's like you're something like no, still, gentle, soft, quiet. I think it's quite jolting for people. So like when you're having these big experiences like IL, WEC or whatever it is, it's kind of like matching that nervous system.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I like the way that you put that, yeah. It's it's keeping them on the same track.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's like, oh, you're used to big lights and flashy stuff, and well here's a spirit with black wings. Yeah, here's a little skeleton man at the end of the bed. Yeah. But you're doing it sober. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's it. And I think I do think there's a lot of value in all those things. Yeah, like medicine.
SPEAKER_04Well, medit being in the meditation thing helps you to actually go into those and get more benefits from them.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, and it helps you integrate after and most people just go hopping. Be grounded with it as well. So I feel like that is a big issue on I've noticed more and more in the space.
SPEAKER_04You've got hope that's open up about that.
SPEAKER_05Well, I just feel like these things like mushrooms and ask is amazing, but like you are opening yourself up in a big way.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And then I feel like people who haven't got you know grounding past even if it's just really the basis stuff, like I don't know, that's a nature or meditation, I think it's incredible for all that kind of thing, but you can just start to like egos out of control, start believing white wild things and it's not a lot of people.
SPEAKER_06Too much all of us, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05And that's just my perception, like they might be right with some of these things that we've got.
SPEAKER_04Well, the e what is the ego to you? Because the ego to me is just a construct from fragmentations of the past to help you navigate this 34 years that I've experienced, and it's attaching to those identities and beliefs. What what is the ego to you when you mean a meditation teacher?
SPEAKER_05Uh I just see it as kind of the individual self- Yeah. Okay. Maybe not self, is it the word for that? With a small s. With a small s, exactly.
SPEAKER_04So the big S is the presence, yeah. And the small S is sort of like I would say small S is there's there's there's a happy Michael, there's sad Michael, there's Son Michael, there's Man United Michael, all these different characters. Everyone always thinks ego is just one thing. I go, I don't think you are just one thing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, that's a sub personality.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and then like under that, under that, under that, under that, under that, fucking hell, it's a it's a can of worms, mate.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I don't know, like associate ego with necessarily being negative.
SPEAKER_04Good, good. It's important to have an ego. Don't walk in front of that car. It's a good part to have.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly. And I think we're here as much as we're here to have a spooch, which we're it's also here to have a container experience.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, good that you say that, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And Alex and his file that's embrace the character. Exactly. Yeah, embrace that character.
SPEAKER_04But you just you're not Mario.
SPEAKER_05You say to marry the character, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean have you found there's parts of you going through these experiences that you pulled up where it was quite difficult to do? Or are you quite easy to let go?
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think generally quite good. There's been parts of me, it still comes up now, because I started being a lot more active on like my first uh Instagram thing talking about spirituality. And this is a part of like, oh I saw you doing friends again.
SPEAKER_04You were doing a little thing where you're pretending to be different characters. That was in here. It was like I thought I thought I recognised this place. We're in the little dome in there. If it's echoey, I do apologise, but it's in there this cool dome called Little Earth, right?
SPEAKER_06Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah, so you you you starting to step out and do things that make you uncomfortable there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well I'll I always do that anyway, but this is just like the mixing step stage of it. But when I was a teenager, I would make comedy videos and that and videos.
SPEAKER_06Like what?
SPEAKER_05Just awesome. It's gonna be like a song playing, almost random, just like film ourselves having a pillow for really random stuff. Okay. Stuff out in the street, like pretending to fight each other in the streets and people come over to break it off.
SPEAKER_04Okay, just pissing about.
SPEAKER_05Pranks. Yeah, man. Really daft stuff. Um but yeah, I want you to kind of like tap back into that playful side of myself in a different slightly different way.
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna take a moment from the episode to just tell you about something that's really important to me. It's one of my main passions right now. So for starters, anyone who's seen Breaking Bad, I want you to imagine Walter White, the chemist genius. But he went into the wellness centre. Well, that's Bobby the Forager, who is actually my genius, who brings us not only Agw the Florida spray, oh, it's so nice as well. Oh, struggle in the bottle. There we go. If you could smell it, you'd know I like it. And then also the dream healer. Now, the dream healer, if anyone's interested in the dream world, we do it for eight hours a day if you're lucky. This has got blue lotus flower, it's got bobbin stana, it's got rose petals, and it's also got from our land mugwater, and then it's mixed with apple cider vinegar, so that there's no, Bobby likes to say no poison with the medicine, yeah? And you take that before you go to bed, and it really helps with bringing in the lucidity of the dreams, the vividness of the dreams, more restful. And if you work with it steadily, I promise you, you're gonna it's gonna have some interesting experiences, especially when I was in the ancient forest. And then the spray, you spray in that, not to clean, you can't cleanse your aura from outside, that's ridiculous. It's got stuff that we've worked on that we know will have um the fragrance will have an emotive reaction, the chemicals get released, therefore the emotions are more positive and your aura gets cleansed from within. Yeah, you know, like uh the fresh um smell of um the beach, you know, you straight away you just calm down because you remember those nice beach holidays you had, stuff like that. I'm not, I told you, I'm not on the phone now. Don't you judge me? So if you want to get an either of them, you go down to the Meditation with Michael store and you can get them. And then we've also got a beautiful morning. Now, this one I'm really excited for. I can do a bit with the chronic fatigue that I've got right now. I need a little pick me up. I don't know about you. But the mornings can be difficult, especially if it's Monday morning and you've got like nine to five and you have this beautiful morning, just give you that big pick me up. So I'll delve more into that one when it comes. We'll get a fresh advocate for you for that one as well. Otherwise, guys, if you want to support a local company for two guys in mean well, I want nothing but to help you heal your dreams and cleanse your aura, go check out ETHA herbal's, one of my be one of my passion projects, really. I really do love this. And now that I've done the little sales bit, I'll let you carry on with the episode. Peace and love. Alright, guys, you're back in the room. We had a little break. Um I've remembered to get the ether drops and the ether sprays. If you do want them, there'll be an advert telling you as how to get hold of them. But we were in the middle of talking about meditation. So I think I will go into the bit where how's it been for you to when you started becoming a teacher? At some point you go from enthusiast to I want to share this with people.
SPEAKER_05This is quite an interesting story, which I don't think I'll share with that. So it was kind of like that in-between stage where I started my spiritual path, wasn't like all in. So I went to this quite mainstream festival called Last Village. Um one day we took LSD about early in the morning, maybe about 11. Like I said, I've been doing meditation for about a year, and we met this group of people, we got friendly, and mental health was just a big topic. Some of them were opening up and shrugging at the moment, etc. And I kept telling all that meditation all day. So as it got into the evening, I'm like literally high on LST, took about 15 of us to the lake, and I hosted my first ever Guardian meditation.
SPEAKER_02I love that seeing fractals through people's faces.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean it must have been. I don't think everyone was on LSD, but people are on LSD.
SPEAKER_03It was just you. Everyone else is sober, like what's this dude doing?
SPEAKER_05Come with me, children. And um, yeah, it was just really cool. Yeah, it was cool.
SPEAKER_04How was he doing it on LSD? Was it did it help or did it make it harder? It helped, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I was like deep in the zone.
SPEAKER_04Present as fuck.
SPEAKER_05It's funny I got this one, because I remember like bringing in a lion and it got a visual synchronicity. Yeah, before before there in the space. And then my friend who I was with, who's not into any of this stuff at all, looked at you like I was really curty, he was like, you should do that, Dudge. That's my name when I was younger. Dud. Dudge Dudge like short for Dudge. That's your name now, Dudge. Dudge, yeah. Um, yeah, maybe I will. And then literally a month later, I handed him my notice at work.
SPEAKER_04And uh what were we working as by this point?
SPEAKER_05It was operations and marketing.
SPEAKER_04Sounds thrilling.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, like a big corporation. They like own loads of spa stores, yeah. Not influenced.
SPEAKER_04Not the stuff of dreams.
SPEAKER_05Nah. To be fair, there were a lot of nice people there. I enjoyed the office environment there more than anywhere. Okay. But still. Still.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, still. Still still appreciate it.
SPEAKER_05Still pretty shit. Got out of there and then uh flew up to India and did a meditation teach train course. Okay. And I I loved it.
SPEAKER_04Whereabouts in India?
SPEAKER_05In Gala. So I had the option to go to the sky, where I really like resonated with, but when I did his course, did it in Rishikesh and Goa. And obviously, Rishikesh is in all like the traditional sponsor area. It was February, and I was like, ah, I've got the soil on there to go.
SPEAKER_04I've had enough from England.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. That was nice because on the brakes it's like jumping on the sea, and there was like stat dance parties that were done there. And Aramball and Goa, I never heard of it at the time, but it's like split trapping. Recommend going go get the chance.
SPEAKER_04There you go, from from Dudge himself. So yeah. How was that then? Was it was it the actual teachings themselves? Would it quite helpful?
SPEAKER_05Yes. Yeah, they're the ones I still teach now. So active meditations, a lot of them come from like Hindu background. So you start by like shaking or dancing, breathing, whatever it is, there'd always be like an active part first. Well that's what I teach.
SPEAKER_04I say shake, make the sounds because you're giving that sort of surplus energy just chance to get out before you go into the stillness, the silence.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think that's really important, especially like the way we live now. Because when times were a bit more slow and electrical devices, cars was pay attention, pay attention, pay attention, pay attention.
SPEAKER_04Exactly.
SPEAKER_05I can imagine it was a lot easier to get into that meditative spectral thing now. I think having movement first, it gives you that stage where you can get into the meditation deeper. So yeah, that I'd never um I don't think I've ever even danced sober, are we?
SPEAKER_04Weird, right, when you first do it. Yeah, really well when you redo it, because when you were a kid you definitely did it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly. So it'd been probably 15, 20 years, whatever, since you dance sober. And he brought us into the room, we didn't introduce himself or say hello. You just started playing music as we walked into the room, and we were like right, close your eyes and dance. It was like it must have been about an hour, we had us dancing.
SPEAKER_06But I really about after about 10 minutes actually felt quite relaxed and got into it and flowing.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, love that. And I remember we did like a graduation thing and we went to the beach. I remember looking after this yeah, I was like, fucking hell, I'm gonna have to go back to Wolverhampton now and try and teach this. Like everyone's gonna be laughing at me and I'm having all this vulnerability stuff going up.
SPEAKER_04Imposter syndrome.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, imposter, like I'm trying to be the guru. No one's gonna want to do this.
SPEAKER_03I've had them all, mate.
unknownExactly.
SPEAKER_05All the imposter personalities are coming out. I agree.
SPEAKER_04I at first I always leave it, but you have to sort of you've got to start somewhere.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04I mean, and yeah, like yeah, I the way I had it, mate, was yeah, I'm not a guru, not a master, I'm not gonna claim to be. But I know more than the average person, and I know it's helped me. So I'll just share that. And it's just snowballed since then.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. No, I've say I'm like very relaxed now most of the time. Maybe a little bit nervous as I think um a new environment, but generally it's chilled. I remember like the first one I did, I did like a medit full meditation day retreat. Um, like 10-12 people. I was so nervous. Like I got up early in the morning for a run because I was trying to get all my nerves out. And like all the class was there, and I had to go like sit on the toilet. I was like, okay, breathe, people. So nervous.
SPEAKER_02What was it I was gonna teach? Use it myself.
SPEAKER_05Is that well yeah, yeah. Um it's like anything life, isn't it? Like it's always gonna be nervous in the first end again in the street.
SPEAKER_04So it should be. If you're doing if you're doing something and you you're not even bothered, what's the point?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but that was it, my heart was running into it. I wanted them to have a good experience, and like I was so passionate about meditation, like the last thing I want to do is like give it a bad impression.
SPEAKER_04Ruin it for everyone else, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So they think oh, this is that.
SPEAKER_04I completely understand. It's one of them where like it's ridiculous to claim responsibility for other people's experience, but it's hard for the ego to not make it about them in that moment. It's like I want them to think I'm amazing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well that's it. Did you see God? Yeah, and I've always thought you did it. Yeah, I did it. Which I was proud of because I'd never liked public speaking, I've always been like naturally quite shy. So just having like ten people staring at you, ten, twelve people staring at you expectingly, you know, they're they're there to get to it from the um, yeah.
SPEAKER_04How were you afterwards?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, doesn't it? Because I I always end my day retreats with like dancing. Really? So everyone would be on a massive party.
SPEAKER_04Well, you know, I'm a DJ, I'm always about bringing the dance and music, music meditation, dance meditation, movement meditation, it's all it's all being present, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, 100%, 100%. And it was interesting seeing not just my own journey, but other people's journey became very shy themselves. And then when I asked them to start dancing, but I think when I do it, I always have to like give them a nudge. You're like, come on, move this part.
SPEAKER_04Close your eyes, man, close your eyes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and uh and then by the end of it they're like arms in the air and getting people to come in the middle of the room and lead a dance. Yeah. You're gonna copy that person.
SPEAKER_04I'm glad to hear that you're bringing the full element fun full. That's not what I meant. Fun element fun element. We get that in the end. The full fun of elements. Because I feel like some people get put off by the serious nature of it. They see monks sitting in stillness for years, just sacrificing every every element that they once enjoyed, and it's like that's that's you don't have that's that's the extreme version, and that's good for them. But like you just said, I can have people dancing. I can have people actually discovering oh, there's versions of me I forgot that I could be, or I didn't even know when I discovered this new I like doing this or what have you.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, that's it. I think don't underestimate because like there's a woman that came, for example, and we did the shaking which led into a dance, and then we did the sharing after she was crying all that. She was like, I haven't danced sover since I was a child. Meant so much to me. I was like, I could actually feel my body, because obviously when you're drunk, you're not really like all mate.
SPEAKER_04Then you're the opposite.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You're trying not to feel nervous, you're trying to get rid of all those uncomfortable feelings. And you think you're being more yourself, you're not.
SPEAKER_06No.
SPEAKER_04It's like be more yourself and drive and go on.
SPEAKER_05And you like there's always that part of you as well, if you're in a cloud area, you're like
SPEAKER_04At least that small part of yourself, it's like trying to try to either look cultural, trying to look sexy, trying to be funny, yeah. Doing the mankank and gum.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly. Yeah. In those spaces, it's just so live like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well that's why I do it, man. That's why I do it. It's why like to give people like you think oh it's just a DJ, nah. I I'll do an event and that's great, but when it's an ecstatic dance, the people are being brought to use movement as medicine to discover what was trapped and express it and be present with it. That's that's that's how we can make this a movement. It's hard to make sitting with your shit 24-7 in in a in a cave or I don't know why I'm trying to make it sound horrible, but do you know what I mean? Like, if that's the image they've got, it's like, oh, we've got to try and not have thoughts.
SPEAKER_05That that's a big thing that puts people off, like, oh, trying it, I can do it. That's it as well. How are you just gonna turn your brain off like that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, on the first time as well. I mean, even now I can't do that. Well, to me, your mind is racing because it's trying to figure something out. Why would it try and figure something out? Because I don't think it's safe. So all you've got to do is show yourself you're safe. How'd you do that? You parent yourself, and to me, presence, meditation, is the father element, it holds and contains the moment, and that then means that love the feminine quality of existence can come in and sue those parts of yourself. Just parenting yourself that first comes presence, you need the container of the masculine energy to then allow that soft loving energy to go to one of the little kids that didn't receive it. I'm reading a book right now that actually says we'll give up food and water and everything else for love because as a baby we we are fucking incapable of taking care of ourselves, quite wonderful. So no wonder we need that care and that love from the parents, but being an adult is learning to do it for yourself.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And that's where I think meditation, holding space for yourself, means you can do it for others. So it's no shock. You've done it for yourself, you've done it for yourself, and now I want to do it for others.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, 100%. And that first the first year took up meditation. That was so so much healing. So how old were you by the way? Uh so my dad died when I was 25. I'm 34 now. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so you've been doing it for a while. Sorry, carry on, I just was trying to get a bit of a Yeah, I like that.
SPEAKER_05I like to know time. Um So yeah, like sometimes sat there being like hours of tears because things will be coming up and I'd be like noticing about myself. Obviously, you still have little bits of that here and there now, but nothing like that. So yeah, it's such a powerful tool, like it's so accessible, it's free, anyone can do it no matter what in the background. You don't need to depend on anyone else, you just gotta turn it for yourself. There's so many huge benefits to learn.
SPEAKER_04There's no limit to where it can be. You can be in a prison cell. Yeah. Do a prison meditation.
SPEAKER_05They're coming soon. Get all the boys together.
SPEAKER_04Oh.
SPEAKER_05What's a really good documentary actually? It wasn't meditation, but kind of like do family constellations.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. I actually um I've got a guy that reminds me of the Wild Tribe Festival. Not Wild Tribe, but into the Wild One. He did Family Constellations. Weird. I'm not gonna hijack it, but Yeah, it's deep, isn't it? I was one of the people in it, and I was like, I became someone's dad, and it was like, what the fuck? I I told you, I'm quite like you've got to prove it to me. Oh loves me. But it's weird, like it absolutely takes you over. Yeah. So go on, you tell me. Did you guys kinda like channel the somehow personality? Which is trust me, when you hear me saying that, like I hear it.
SPEAKER_05No, I I can vouch because I I was the same, I was sceptical.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05They came in, and same as you, the first one. I had to play a dad, he was quite abusive, and it was it was really weird. Like my felt it like.
SPEAKER_04You're becoming a body, and you've just got to stand aside.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and I was I was trying to like fight it at first. I could feel certain words like coming through me. I was like, alright, resistance. And then it's turned and I was like, what do you know anyway? Nothing. And then the guy who was like the main sort of um person journey through it was just crying because it reminded him so much of his brother.
SPEAKER_04That's what the guy said to me, like it came up to me afterwards because I I something came through me and it was for the guy, so I'm not gonna say it. And I whispered it to him at the end. I'm not gonna ruin the episode with the guy who did it actually, but he was like, thank you, that was exactly what I needed to hear. I was like, I'm not taking credit for those words, like that wasn't me, but it's a strange one, right?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, really strange.
SPEAKER_04But that meditation ability to be able to observe a part of me was why I think I was good at allowing it to happen.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Because I had the sceptical part and I was like, that's not for me. Like just to let the energy come out.
SPEAKER_05Obviously, the mind's always there, but impart take the mind alone. Yeah, we're just gonna play. It's interesting. It's very interesting.
SPEAKER_04Stay tuned for that one. I'm gonna reach out to him and think he's called Richard.
SPEAKER_05How did I go on to Family Constellations then? I was going somewhere.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I got it.
SPEAKER_05It's okay, it's okay. Uh if I pause too long, you have to edit.
SPEAKER_04Ah, fuck it. This is this is un uncensored.
SPEAKER_05Uncensored.
SPEAKER_04It's alright. In that case, naked. Listen, like what? So go on, dude. Anyway, we were going past that. It was mainly more, it'd been your first year, you were finding out, you were discovering that like these emotions you hadn't been in touch with before, and the first year was the more transformational one because you didn't even know what he's yeah, and just generally love meditation, which we've definitely uh put across over the last 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_02Does anyone know if he likes meditation or not?
SPEAKER_04I've not a meditation. I've not had a meditation teacher, it's meditation with Michael, meditation with Dutch. So we've done that, um you started teaching. Are you working alongside teaching and holding retreats?
SPEAKER_05So yeah, I started just teaching meditation for a little bit. Um realised that like just that I didn't really live up. So I ended up back in the corporate world. Luckily, Richard for the final time. Um went back to the corporate world for about nine months, and I was just teaching that on the side.
SPEAKER_04That's how long a baby takes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, there is it. And at the same time, I started to organise my first event. Okay. It was veganism. I was a passionate vegan at the time, which I'm not I'm not even at the time that was my thing as well as the meditation. Um friend that was mine myself, and whatever.
SPEAKER_04Okay, how did that go?
SPEAKER_05Funny actually, you say really well. The first event, we just charged like two pounds on the dog, it was really cheap. It was kind of like half of it was on a car park. We had like live music on the car park. Um so like the actual setup was very sort of amateur, but the vibe, like it was a sunny day, everyone was looking. Again, I was just happy because like at this event the live music was two pounds to get in. Two pounds? Yeah, in that. Just a two pound entry, lots of good food. So yeah, it's great. I think we had like 900 people, which we didn't expect. That's decent now.
SPEAKER_04You must have a natural talent for it then.
SPEAKER_05Well, social media was like easier then, like organic. So if you put an event on Facebook events, this was 2019, it would just blow up when you could reach thousands of people like that.
SPEAKER_04I can't stand social media, mate. Like it's like I just don't like me!
SPEAKER_06Please come to my stuff!
SPEAKER_04It's just like hard whereas back in the day it was easier, was it?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Have you noticed that that's become a thing where you had to turn how to start working with the algorithms and learning how to play with it better?
SPEAKER_05Uh a little bit, yeah. I don't mind solved it's all the music it's more just like even.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I try and just see it in a fun way, but yeah, it can be a bit of a dragon.
SPEAKER_04I just decided in the end I thought, okay, I'm just gonna be I think I'm more of a YouTube guy. I like more that long format where we can really get into knowing each other rather than pay attention, pay attention. Me, me, me, me, but it's good to it's good for events, you can't when I'm trying to do an ecstatic dance, I can't really be like, here's a two-hour conversation of why you should come to my ecstatic dance.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So we've got what other events did you do?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, just to finish that book, because I was actually talking to this. Yes, yeah, the day before. Okay. I was saying I say, yeah, it's a game, but you can like invite new people into the space and that's something you've got to spy essentially mentality. Uh without selling yourself.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so sorry people, we had a great end in there for you, and my phone ran out of storage. So that's enough of you now. But um Alex has been gracious enough just to give us a few a few more minutes of his time. So, from what I saw, we were talking about the events that you'd been doing. I was saying, Oh, I didn't like doing the social media. So, should we just drop into how those events transformed into Soul Revolution then?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, so uh lockdown obviously happened.
SPEAKER_04I'd already talked about the so when lockdown happened, you um you had you had done of an event by then?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I'd done uh V a vegan event because that was my thing at the time. And that was the one where yeah, it was like two-pound entry, we had like 900 people coming. It was like a car park, a bit of a budge job in a lot of ways. It was a great vibe, everyone loved it, and yeah. And then lockdown happens, obviously couldn't do events, and in that time I got back to eating meat, so the whole vegan thing was kind of out the window.
SPEAKER_02But why was that by the way?
SPEAKER_05Um, mainly health. So I had to have some health issues, didn't agree with my body, like I was eating pretty clean, vegan. Um, but I struggle with um legumes like beans, chickpeas, kitty bees, all that stuff, and because I like to go to the gym, so I need like a reasonable amount of protein, it was like that's pretty much the only option when you're vegan with a protein source.
SPEAKER_03So you have it's just for your health then, because exactly.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, my gut was really struggling. Um the thing that really told me that I needed to change something, like I've completely lost my sex drive for a year. That's not true. But yeah, it's just a really bad sign for your body, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, I mean I the reason I asked was just because I was curious, because I've recently started having meat again after being vegetarian for almost five years. Because my body was just it was getting to the point where I was like, I'm not healthy, I'm really struggling. So I just decided to get the ethically sourced meats and have it less often than I would have done in the past, but not be so just dogmatic, it has to be that or nothing. The reason I stopped was because of the factory farming.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's that's the same with me. Uh so yeah, I try and eat as yeah, ethically sourced meat as I can. Not always, to be honest, I'd like to be better 100%.
SPEAKER_04We can always get better, can't we?
SPEAKER_05We can always get better, yeah. But yeah, that that's what led me into veganism originally. Um so yeah, I still feel that this needs to be a massive change in all that because factory is not evil, man, it's horrible.
SPEAKER_04And so um before obviously just because I'm mindful of time, it's my fault, guys. Hands up, hands up. But um you you were doing the events, you said you got furloughed for um the last one, and that was a good thing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, furlough is great, forced me to go on my own path, and I really focused in. And yeah, I actually feel really grateful when I reflect to it now, because it's been six years, and I haven't been in these office jobs working for other people, which was soul destroying for me a lot of the time.
SPEAKER_03Um, I needed a soul revolution.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so I needed my own soul revolution, which was yeah, just being brave and going for things and so how did that start then? So, yeah, come out of lockdown, and I've been on a spiritual holistic path for about five years, but I didn't really know that many people in the space. And obviously, I think out of lockdown, a lot of people are already craving community, especially people who've had spiritual shifts or shifts about the way they think the world works because it can be very isolating if you don't know people on a similar path. People think you've lost the flat and you're a dickhead or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_04Oh mate, I told you, and people are like I was talking stuff and like fucking hell, sure, mate. Yeah, I had to leave friends groups because they just we just it's not that I weren't friends with them, it was just that we just weren't very nourishing about the stuff that mattered to my core beliefs, and it was like it's tough though, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's it. It is, it is, it's challenging. Um so yeah, I had all that, and then thought, well, it'd be great to give people in the local area access to these tools in like a fun way that's accessible for anyone to just come along and check it out. So we kept ticket prices really low, it was a local thing, a lot of local practitioners. I met so many amazing people at that first event in 2022, still do the festival with me now, and yeah, it's just great to get everyone together. Year after we did our first weekend festival, which was just amazing. Yeah, like 300 people, uh basically my mates back garden. We still do events there now, the hay barn. Shout out to Dan and Mel.
SPEAKER_02There we go. We didn't do that, that's why. That's why this happened. Shout out to the Haybarn, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Big shout out to the Hay Barn. We still do like retreats there. Nice, and it's just special. I think it's on the ley line, actually. The land special, the barn itself. At the end of the weekend, because I still at that point wasn't sure it was what I wanted to do. Yeah. Festivals, like I was enjoying it, but I just wasn't sure because obviously it's early stages, you feel yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's just not an easy thing to just take on that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and it was a lot of hard work, so it's like, you know, you need to have some kind of reward to make you want to carry on. And that rule was we had a closing ceremony, there's about 70, 80 people in a room, and there wasn't a dry eye in the room, I'd say. It was just like massive people talking about massive breakthroughs I had, like the never felt community like this. A lot of people it was the first conscious festival. It's actually my first conscious festival without hosting it. Which people don't actually, some people don't even believe me.
SPEAKER_04That's why when you're saying that, I'm like, nah, that doesn't even make sense, but how can you do that so well? But it's just but you must obviously have because you're living it, I guess. You already live in it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think the the benefit to that was I feel like yeah, every festival is unique, but I felt like I was able to create something quite unique because I've never really been to many festivals at all full stuff.
SPEAKER_04Well, you said about the soul medicine, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Ah, yeah, I'd have to bring that in. So yeah, it's just funny because obviously, medicine, a lot of you will have heard of it or know it. It's like the biggest punch festival in the country. And we were originally called Soul Medicine, which is just strange because you had no idea though, right? Uh no, I'd I'd never heard of it, I had no idea about it, or any of the other festivals uh in that genre. It was really funny, actually, that we say that. Obviously, I changed it because of that. Yeah. Because then when we started doing weekend festivals, they're like, I gotta have like too much to say.
SPEAKER_04They're getting a bit big now, like, come on. I think Soul Revolution sounds better, personally.
SPEAKER_05I I'm glad it happened, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04All things do, don't it?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I actually came through on a mushroom microdose.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_05That's something we didn't talk about before. Yeah, it's good.
SPEAKER_04It's all these little bits, there's a reason.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you know, when someone just like kind of like you feel like it literally just hits you in the third eye. Add a mushroom microdose, and sometimes have you done microdoses?
SPEAKER_04Um, I haven't done, I've done a little bit, but you generally I would have bit big ceremonies, but I'm I'm more open to it um in the future.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04From a legal source in the legal country.
SPEAKER_05Of course, yeah. Um but yeah, sometimes because it's a small quantity, obviously, so you don't even know you've had it, and then other times are there what it is, you're more sensitive that day. That day I was like feeling it quite a bit, and I remember it just like was like I was trying to contemplate a name, it almost like it just felt like it went bang, it's all revolution.
SPEAKER_00I was like, I was like, that's the one, that's the one.
SPEAKER_05My whole body was like energized. Uh it just felt like alive and excited.
SPEAKER_04I know what you mean when that happens. Yeah, it's like something, it's like you don't think of it. Something goes, it's this, if there's never gonna be anything but this, here you go.
SPEAKER_05You go, yes, yeah, yeah. It just felt so good. And then, like, I was looking online because I thought, oh, who is that clashing with another one? Because it almost feels like there's got to be another festival out there called Soul Revolution, but there's not in the whole world. I don't think anyway, not like a fun.
SPEAKER_03It'll do.
SPEAKER_05It's hard to find, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing anywhere, anywhere near here, anyway. Um, so yeah, where was I? Well, that yeah, very very emotional close. So I mean, and that was when I was like, okay, I can see how much benefit this is giving people. Like, I can't definitely can't give this up now. And that was actually when I already committed and then we rebranded to Saw Revolution, got a much better looking website, and like started to be more professional with the things we're doing. Because I wanted to like, yeah, learning on the job, isn't it? Exactly. Yeah, the whole thing's a process of learning as you go. I just been winged the whole way because I other than that small vegan fair dude, like I got no events experience, so I just kind of like to teach myself. Do a fucking good job, mate. Considering, yeah. Thanks, man. Thanks, lad. I think it's just the love for it. It's helped me.
SPEAKER_04It's like well, we spoke about that, didn't we? Like the purpose that you'd had, that was what made it so it wasn't a burden, it was it was worth doing because it meant something to you. But these jobs that you keep saying, touch water, don't fucking go back to. Yeah, there's just not the purpose there.
SPEAKER_05Exactly, exactly. And that's driven me through a lot of hard times as soon as obviously people see like uh what my show, shiny festival, having an amazing time. But there's so many, there's been so many hard times as well, ups and downs.
SPEAKER_04Well go on because you did you did divulves last time, go let the people know they want to hear a bit behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_05Uh oh, yeah, that's uh yeah, it was just full on because we jumped, then we went from yeah, 300 to about a thousand people. Still felt intimate, cozy, nice, and then it felt like you know, we're a proper festival they're after because like three three.
SPEAKER_03Those people listening, you did finger quotes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, 3,000 people are coming, and we got to Sam Garrett, we're gonna like yeah, get a professional sound to you, up-level everything, like the deck orbit actually make it look nice, and everything's gonna function. Um, but we still weren't quite there, like we didn't have a big enough management team, you have quite enough volunteers. So there's so much pressure on our management team. We were having to do everything like up first thing in the morning. Honestly, like that festival players having four or five hours sleep a night for the three or four weeks and the buildup to it during it. Because, like you like you were saying, you're a bit of a perfectionist in what you do, yeah, to get things done. I was like that because it felt like pressure because so.
SPEAKER_04Well, you could tell though, like, yeah, there were a little things. I know you said about the shower and the first yeah, showers and that wasn't what you could smell on the first day, yeah. But it it's like I think that's more adhering, like that somebody would still would still be able to do such a good job. Yeah, there was this and that, but altogether, those wake, sleepless nights, all leading up to it, being there, involved, and caring. And you said to me in the the first ending, which I'm sorry, I'm not I'm not gonna keep saying sorry now, it's these things happening. What was one of the what how would you what was the word that would come to you? For me, it was family. It was like it wasn't just because for me, like I've got two half brothers I don't even speak to. We've got the same blood, you would call them family. I'll do finger quotes for those as well. But when I was at that festival, I'm I'm either with my chosen family already, like the people I've gone with, but then I've got people that I still see now I never would have met if you hadn't have put it on. Then you throw on top of it, you've got Sam Garrett, you've got Face Soul leading into Etherwood, you've got Marcus Gard. I'm just like, fucking hell, you've got Arichai, you got that on the show, you got the Blue Lions who you had on the show, and it's like, yeah, man. Yeah, man. I think we were lucky, you were asking me about the different festivals that I'd been to, and none were better or or whatever in different ways, but like, so the philosophy festival was a bit more bougie, but more there was more drinking there. They thought they knew stuff because they're all philosophizing, which I do love that side of thing being up in the mind, but where that was up in the mind, you always was more being in the heart. It felt like you were more feeling, and then you had that community, which I think is one of the main things we're missing in society. We've been we've been torn apart from the brothers and sisters that we share the world with, made everyone seem like they're the enemy, they're the foot, they're what's wrong, let's attack them. No, they're what's wrong. No, it's the rich people, no, it's the poor people, no, it's the foreign, no, it's the women, no, it's the gays. It's like we're all just the same being playing out different characters, and if we just connect with each other, and you give, like you said, if you can try and do the full experience of the festival. Yeah, if you can't come for the Saturday, but it takes you that day to shake off the fucking life that you've been living to actually then drop in and you're like, then you get to know people.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and you can connect to the five years.
SPEAKER_04It's a very grounded space that you created, I felt.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's the word you've probably hear most and people talk about the festival and I compare it with others, I said. Yeah, it's got that very grounding feel, and I think a big part of that is like yeah, a my meditation background feels great for Granion, and B, like being brought up in this area because people are very sort of the earth, we'll help them, we don't take ourselves too seriously, and it is just quite like a down-to-earth grounded place. It's obviously got its faults, and it's not never been the prettiest place, and it gets a bit of a I'm from Manchester, I can't say anything. But I I do have a lot of love for the area. I think that kind of vibration, as well as obviously your the spruit journey I've had together, kind of and the team, obviously, and the people you bring in, it all kind of creates the energy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. But it it it it's it spills into it. So if you want to know who Alex Dudson is, come down to Soul Revolution. When is it?
SPEAKER_05Uh 22nd to the 26th of May.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right. Can you maybe give people an idea of some of the new guests? Can we? We've got the lineups.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, lineups actually been released.
SPEAKER_04Do some of the main people. We have Arichai again.
SPEAKER_05Arichai.
SPEAKER_04Some people know that from the show. Antama.
SPEAKER_05Antama again.
SPEAKER_04Did you see it? So you've seen a kawa, but did not this is um people from the same tribe, but not a kawa Hunikuin, and then do you have Blue Lions again?
SPEAKER_05Blue Lions, and then some of the new and then the the big headliners we've got Hannah Wants, we talked about earlier. He's like a big mainstream DJ, there's like the big stages at Glastonbury.
SPEAKER_03House parties.
SPEAKER_05It's really cool. That's just gonna be like when we release that, all the comments of people like, oh, I used to get to raise back in the day and see Hannah. Like, this is gonna be, you know, back to the back to the future. Is that the right thing?
SPEAKER_03Now back to the past, back to the past isn't the future. Probably we've been talking for a long time.
unknownYeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Who else have we got?
SPEAKER_05Brain powers really low. Um, got a guy called Sat Sang coming over from America.
SPEAKER_03That sounds so good.
SPEAKER_05He's insane. Like, he's one that a lot of people haven't heard of.
SPEAKER_03Oh no, I know him. He's bloody good.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he's really cool. Uh face all again, Kurowaka, who musically Nokamana. Yeah, they're the ones I'm looking forward to most musically alone. Like, I love their music. Yeah, they've got loads of good music. And then Ljubljana, who's like someone who's just blown up massive over the last year, she's got a very unique vibe, plays the Korra, which is uh African, traditional African instrument. So she's really fun as well. Yeah, there's loads. Check out.
SPEAKER_04It's not just that, there's like workshops, there's different the stalls, the food, mate, at these conscious festivals is banging. Like, you know, when I went to the philosophy one and I was like, nah. The rest of them, it was just like you vegans, you vegans, that's not a word, you vegans, no, because you got you ain't got meat to make up for it, have you? So you've got a properly tasty food where the the ingredients are to nourish you, not just to make a penny. Yeah, and you had all that, you've got the cacao stands, and it's such a beautiful, it's the same venue then as last time. Yeah. So the venue guys, I'm telling you, with that tree with the lights and the main stage, it's just yeah, that's the other thing.
SPEAKER_05Like, people always comment about the energy of the festival, just like the people there and the family, like you said, and the other biggest compliment we get is the land. That's up there as well. Because he's got like big grandfather oaks and like trees are all character. Because some festivals you go to, especially mainstream festivals, it's just a flat field, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, this one is hard to connect to the land. This one's really good, and it's got levels as well. You go up to the rave bit and that. Um, one thing as well, if you've forgotten, you were speaking about being a father as well. Yeah, and I don't want to miss that. That is important, yeah. So, one of the questions I remember asking you was, what have you found out about yourself?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I a lot, it's hard to yeah, put it down to certain things. I was saying, like, it's hard, I feel I find it really hard to word how much being a dad means to me, what it's taught me, everything. I don't know why, there seems to be a bit of a blockage there, but um yes, it gives you a lot of purpose, going back to what I was saying with my dad, because they are dependent on you to live, to breathe, to learn everything. So you've got that purpose. You are their god, you are basically their god, yeah. So you got that purpose day in day out, the unconditional love you have for each other is obviously very precious, and there's just loads of stuff like the the playfulness to bring out, yeah.
SPEAKER_04We're talking about kids have a genius for that because they're experts, yeah, and we could learn a lot because after the issues, and we're too serious, we're too rigid, we're too tight, we're too stressed. We're taking this game called the human experience, and they remember the truth. Yeah, exactly. The game we're meant to be playing, yeah, just don't discourage the play.
SPEAKER_05You can see why so many kids hate school, because like my kids now two and four, they're still like pre-school match. He bunnies just started, but it's just like play, play, play. And that's how they learn, they learn so quickly through play. And then score it's like no, serious now, you're gonna sit straight.
SPEAKER_04And it's always looking to the future. Yeah, if you do this, you'll get this, and if you do that, you'll get that, and then you figured it out, you finally got it, and you were like, What the fuck is this?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, if they made it more playful, like the teachers would enjoy it a lot more as well.
SPEAKER_04It shouldn't be a punishment to go. Nah, definitely not.
SPEAKER_05Should be should be fun. I really do believe, yeah, learning should be fun. Not obviously, all the times times you need to be a bit more serious.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but especially for a kid, yeah.
SPEAKER_05It's like especially like kids in this country starting school at four, so it's like they're not ready to just sit uh.
SPEAKER_04Just be serious people, so vital serious. Yeah, um, and where can people find you? Where can people find Soul Revolution?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, Instagram is where we're most active, and our website you can get a ticket to find out more about the festival, that's some like stuff about our like values and the philosophy side, more like you know, functional information, important things you need to know at the festival what you need to bring, all that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_04And what's yours, what's your personal Instagram people or check out these funny videos that you're making?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I do a bit of comedy as well as some philosophical videos. I'm stepping into a lot more comedy than Alex Diggen and obviously Soul Revolution Festival.
SPEAKER_04Okay, brilliant. Um, sir, obviously, I know you've already done this once, so but I um always like to ask the guests if there was something you wanted to leave the people with. Obviously, we'd love to get you back on the show. Maybe me and you could do one on meditation and then deep dive.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_04But is there something you'd like to leave the people? I think I remember. Do you remember?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I remember, I remember. It's just all around the one word, courage. And what I didn't mention before was I'm reading a book at the moment called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Okay. It's a book I read right at the start of my spiritual path like eight, nine years ago. It helped me a lot. Uh so yeah, I'm revisiting it, which is interesting because you're seeing it through a slightly different lens. I think there's so so much wisdom in that, it's so simple, but there's all things that we want to do or are curious about, and we kind of like we can talk ourselves out of it. Uh if it's in the film, Yes Man, with Jim Carey.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, with Jim Carey, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Having that is actually like I know it's daft, everything, but there's so much wisdom in that. It's just saying yes to life and just going for things, and it can snowball so quickly and create such beauty and magic in our lives. So I feel like just being courageous, especially if you find yourself, which a lot of people can in the winter time, in your shell. Just like take that first step, man. Reach out to a friend, go to a meditation workshop with Michael or whatever it is, just that one step, and the infinite possibilities that can evolve from that.
SPEAKER_04But you said your friends know you as the nudger.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like a little smile and went, go on, do it, do it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You've got one of them to do a speech in front of a thousand people.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, Savannah, who's like my co-director. Beautiful person, she's amazing.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, a bit of courage, man.
SPEAKER_05Got her out of her comfort zone a few times, and she's always laughing about it.
SPEAKER_04Well, I mean, we were we didn't come here to stay the same. And if you stay in the comfort zone, that's what you'll do. Yeah. And yeah, it will feel familiar, but then water that doesn't move becomes stagnant.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And that's why we're meant to keep moving with the flow. And it's just getting more skillful at surfing that wave, I guess, innit? Yeah. Sometimes we fucking oh right, get back on the surfboard. And sometimes we're just there we go. Um, I did promise, uh, I don't know if I don't know if it was in this cut, but I did promise a poem at the end. Yes. This is my audition for Soul Revolution people. So if you want to just um follow Alex, I'll put the links in the description. Um, Soul Revolution, I know I loved it last time, would love to be there this time. And uh if you can't even make it for the whole festival, go for at least a day. Just get a taste of that family, that grounded vibe that he brings. The axe alone should get you there. But otherwise, guys, if you're not driving or operating heavy vehicle, I'll I don't mind doing this poem every moment of my day, man. I love it. It's called The Enlightened Ladybird. So if you just want to take a few deep breaths, we'll drop in, we'll go on meditation with Mike on, you know. So let's just take a breath in. Just let go of any heaviness we might be holding. Anything we've been pushing away, I invite you to bring it closer into the nose. And let it fall. On the in-breath, we expand creating space. On the outbreath, we just let that go where it needs to go. Just also let them go. This one's called the enlightened lady there. That was enlightened. I think just one powerful word. A whisper from the ancestors had been impressed upon her. And so the little lady decided now should be impressed upon her. But the truth of it all had been remembered on this fresh morning of September. The powerful word that had helped her to finally see relaxing the little ladybird. Was the word be stretched with a smile across her face, said she was meant to be here right now. This exactly. She no longer needed to be scared of it all running all the time, and you know what, for good reason. It was incredibly small. She could be in this moment without any more fear. Brothers and sisters, all we can do is be. For to be is to accept that we're always free. And that's what an enlightened little ladybird just reminded me. She do appreciate you staying till the end. And to you, I mean, just so you know as well, I didn't say this in the last one. I actually was meant to come for Tuesday, and that he's holding he'd sent a message saying, any day except Thursday afternoon, which I took for, I'll come Thursday afternoons. Bring to me, Michael, where are you? And you've come back, and then it's gone, and iPhone storage as well. So now if you if you can't take it from me, come and meet him yourselves at Soul Revolution with the guys in gym.
SPEAKER_05Oh, thank you, man. Thank you. You too, really enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_04Peace and love, guys.
SPEAKER_03Very good at what you do.
SPEAKER_05Big love. Peace to all the crowders off.
SPEAKER_04Well, a legend, eh? And he was so accommodating. The fact that I didn't even come on the right day. And then when I did the iPhone storage full, I've been going through all my photos and my videos and music that I don't listen to, delete, delete, delete. We need to get rid of the old so we can bring in the new. Very uh, very poignant for the moment I'm in as well. But no, he was great, he stuck till the end. So the guy behind Tull Revolution is well, hopefully he'd stay till the end for a reason you think he's as much of a legend as I do. But then if you do want to actually come down and check out the revolution for yourself, 20 seconds and 26 of May, there should still be tickets for you. And that's gonna be Western um not super math. Yeah, it's western super math. Anyway, I think it's western part, the actual place, such a beautiful land, and the tree, like this big ancient tree just where the main stage is, and it's just you just get lost in the the beauty of the place, the beauty of the people, and the art special. It's one of my favourite art flashes. So I'll put all the links for Alex, all the links to Soul Revolution in the description while I'll come and see Alex, and you might get to see um an exclusive Soul Revolution poem if you stay until the close of ceremony by your truly. Yeah, do poetry her. And if you want to check out Ether Herbal, we've got the dream healer, we've got the ether spray, and coming soon we have the beautiful morning. So, what else do you need? You've got your nighttime sorted, you've got your aura sorted, and you'll have your morning sorted. So I'll put the meditation on Michael website, and anywhere you want to get in touch with me, you want to reach out. Maybe you want some DJing doing, maybe you want some meditation. I'm starting to get back on my feet, so do feel free to get in touch. Now, the next episode is one that's coming straight from the archive. I did this last year, and then everything started going a bit south for me, the health, and we won't go into that right now. Maybe I will release that at some point, but it's not all this uh podcast about other people. So I did one with do you remember Leo Oppenheim from uh from season one? Well, I thought we had such a beautiful conversation, let's do it again. And um, yeah, I think he's had a baby now on everything, totally a different person. But I did message him say, hey, look, I know this is a bit of a blast from the past, but you mind if I release episode 15 as that conversation we had. So you'll get to see Leo Oppenheim all again. If you've not seen him yet, go check out episode one. I did it in a two-parter. Otherwise, guys, come on, get down to Soul Revolution, join the revolution with me. Till then, peace and love. Oh, and I did just forget, so I've had to just record again. See, that's how much I just don't like trying to sell. I used to be a salesman and I think I've got PTSD from it. If you could give us a like, did you like the episode? Help me out, give us a like, subscribe so you don't miss people like Leo and all the other beautiful guests that we're gonna be getting coming up. I do know a lot of legendary people, and they keep just serendipitously falling into my lap. It's like, how could I not find out the story? So you don't want to miss any of them. Make sure you subscribe and go on, drop a comment. What's one thing that Alex said that you resonate with? You want to come and join the revolution, maybe even just comment and joining the revolution. All right, there's the the plug. Peace and love, guys, you take it easy.
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