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Who On Earth?
Who On Earth?
Becoming No One: Leo Oppenheim on Ego Death, India & the Quiet Shift into Fatherhood
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Somewhere between India, stepping away from facilitating, and facing himself without the usual roles to hide behind, something loosened. Not a dramatic reinvention—more like parts of him quietly fell off that were never really his to begin with.
We circle ego death (more than once), what it actually feels like when identity starts slipping through your fingers, and the strange calm that can follow. There’s a shift here—from doing the work to living it—and it’s not as polished or performative as you might expect.
At the time of this conversation, Leo was also on the edge of becoming a father. There’s something subtle but weighty in that—like life asking, “Right, who are you really now then?”
As always, we wander. India, masculinity, truth, illusion, presence… the kind of tangents that don’t feel like tangents once you’re in them.
A small note—this was recorded before my own run-in with chronic pain, fatigue, and panic disorder. Life’s moved since then, for both of us. Still, this one felt worth sharing exactly as it is.
Connect with Leo Oppenheim
Instagram | @leo_oppenheim
LinkTree | https://linktr.ee/leooppenheim
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:
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Which you can find on the Meditation with Michael store!
What happens with me, for instance, is I'll be doing a breath work session, and then I'll put my hand on somebody's shin, and then after the practice, they'll tell me that they broke their shin seven months ago. And how did I know that? Actually, a few of them started bringing their other friends with fibromyalgia specifically to the breath work sessions because they'd come to these sessions and for sometimes two weeks afterwards, no pain. Came out of the breath session. She was speaking normally, completely normally, and it shocked her. And she said she had the least pain she'd had in her left shoulder in nine years.
SPEAKER_04Hello, my friend. Welcome to episode 15 of season two of Who Unearth, and this one's a friend of the show. So, Leo Oppenheim from season one, we did a beautiful one and two part that used to split him in the third season. I was doing the whole shang now. And we always have such a good conversation, and he's very talented at what he does. Everything he does, he's always put it all into it. He's that kind of guy, and I thought, well, now we've told your story, we'll sum it a Leo. Let's just have a chat, let's just see where it flows, let's see what comes up. You know, you're about to have a child, you just went to your partner, and you've been to India now, and all these cool stuff will have happened, and your life will have changed, I can tell you different already. So I recorded it last year. This this was like last summer. And I then had my um health issues which arose, which I didn't know what was going on with the sensitized nervous system, which then transit transitioned into a panic disorder, and chronic fatigue and chronic pain were prevalent, lots of trauma that hadn't been released and processed. So eventually I went to the forest in October. It's already a big time really want to release this episode, and then oh shit, the fan basically. Now I've worked through a lot of that, and I've still a lot of the pain and the fatigue, but we're we're slowly rebuilding, and I wanted to start the show as you already know from some of the episodes we've seen. And I thought, hey Leo, I know this was fucking ages ago. I mean you've had a child and God knows what's happened since, but I remember it being a really good conversation. Would you mind if I still released it? While I'm building my way up to the next guest, and that's like Leo being the other, yeah, go for it, go for it. And then I re-listened to it and I was like, this is a good conversation. So I'm gonna get pretty much into it. If you do wanna check out the store on Meditation with Michael, remember we've got the dream healer, which has got the well I'll tell you what, there'll be an advert coming up to it, but if you like lucid dreaming, vivid dreaming, restful dreaming, hello. And then the Agora Florida or a cleanser as well, lovely little spray. So they're on the Meditation with Michael store, but we'll do an advert and we'll put it in the links. Also, I'm really like I used to be a salesman, so I've got a bit of PTSD and I don't like selling stuff anymore. I like just telling you about something. So this is who on earth. The show is about sharing people who just their passions, their obstacles that they've overcome, the the characters that I meet are, in my opinion, beautiful and wonderful. And if you agree, just give it a like, share it with a friend, and maybe subscribe so you don't miss others. I'd appreciate it. It'd mean a lot to me because I really I'm done with that nine to five. I'm committed to this. We'll see where it takes us. We get more cool people like Leo on the show where I've got more time to do it. Anyway, enough of that. Anything else, Michael? Alright. Enjoy the conversation. Peace and love. So thank you for coming back on the show. A friend of the show, Leo Oppenheim. If you all remember him from uh season one, if you haven't seen them, we did we split it into two parts because we went deep, but this one's just gonna be a full sh. Let's see. We'll see. How long have you got audience? If we like to talk. But before we do talk, could you um just give us a little something to drop in with, maybe?
SPEAKER_01A little meditation, maybe. Absolutely. Yeah, why not? So we can just drop into a really simple meditation, and this meditation is just to draw your awareness to the different layers of yourself and bring all of your presence into this space. So you can just begin by grounding into a seated position that suits and serves you. Just taking a soft and full breath in through the nose and a clearing sigh out. Quite simply here, just bringing awareness first to the physical body scanning the physical body from the tips of the toes to the tip of your nose to the crown of the head and to the extremities of the fingers. Just bringing all parts of your physical self into presence. Shifting your awareness to your energetic layer Perhaps first without judgment noticing how your energy levels are in this moment And then maybe just maybe drawing awareness to the subtle energetic layer on the skin and within this energetic layer that you send focus to the mind and the thoughts of the mind these thoughts merely like passing clouds drifting in and out of your periphery. Rather than trying to judge these thoughts or trying to control them, let them do their thing.
SPEAKER_00And if you drift off and away with them just without judgment once again, draw yourself back to your center. This thinking mind that you hear And finally just noticing what emotions sit within you in this moment No emotion good or bad here, every part of you welcome here. This emotional layer like water This emotional layer that you feel the physical body you move the energetic layer you send the intellectual layer you hear, and the emotional layer you feel that these are all just layers Just right now can you be the winner all parts of his physical self to this moment in all of the elements of the earth, angering you from below Ephesus calling the intuition from above the element of water, your emotions fluid flowing of the air of your life cultivate and throw yourself into the space You can allow the eyes to open if they're not already open.
SPEAKER_04Do I have to? See you didn't want to, you're like, I'm ready, keep me there. Well, thank you very much for that. That was a nice way to offend him, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just a simple, just a simple thing. Just a simple thing to bring awareness to the different layers. And I've started, I mean, just then I wasn't calling in the directions so much, but definitely in a lot of the practices that I'm facilitating now, especially the breath, cacao, the sound. Um, but often in the yoga, if I'm in a more sort of commercial environment like the festival I've just been in, I probably won't articulate it in the same way, but I've started definitely calling in all the elements to support, calling in the guides, calling in my ancestors. Yeah, and I've found, you know, this is working a lot with Rachel and working. Rachel is my wonderful, beautiful partner, and um yeah, we have a child on his last time you were talking to the audience, you were what was it, ethically ethically non-monogamous. Yeah, yeah, big, big shift, big change.
SPEAKER_04Definitely before we get into all that, you were about to say anything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, so no, it's perfect. We will get into that for sure. But um, she's really, you know, my background's within yoga, and she her background is deep within shamanism. She's on a Peruvian medicine wheel, and it's really interesting because since she's highlighted my awareness to calling in protection, um, I've had a lot less illnesses and a lot less issues that I believe I was having through energy transference from breath sessions.
SPEAKER_04So rather than letting it say fall upon you like water on a duck's back and it just falls off, yeah. You're taking it in. There's something I've been very aware of.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah. And and what's really interesting actually within shamanism, they talk about how you can only really absorb the energy from someone else if there's a mirror there. So if there's a mirror of their trauma somehow then energetic match. Energetic match, yeah. And then you can take it on. I mean, I had a I'll tell you a little story actually from while I was in India because that's where you were about to go, and we just squeezed you in. Yeah, yeah, just before I went away to India. But one of the things that happened in India, I had a um, I met this beautiful mother and daughter. They were so lovely, and they kind of like almost adopted me like a stray dog. They were like, oh, like, because I was just like barefoot, hoofing around, like really like literally staying in um rooms that kind of look like prison cells. But I was so happy, so blissful to be completely liberated of my identity, of my facilitator identity by all of these things. Oh, yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_04That liberation, that that that butterfly looks pretty, but the caterfly- the caterfly, that's not a word. Have you seen the caterfly? The caterpillar had to dissolve its literal bones to become that butterfly and break its way out. Oh, 100%. Oh, look at the pretty butterfly. So it's not look at the pretty Leo.
SPEAKER_01No, no, I had I had I for sure had an ego death when I was in India based on that like of identification, of identity, the identity that I had, I was working within while I was in Manchester, let's say, you know, in while I was in Manchester before I went to India, I was, you know, head of yoga and wellness at Bloch. I was managing the four studios at the time, one in Manchester, one in London, all of the yoga wellness team, working with them, mentoring with them, you know, was teaching 14 classes a week there, was teaching festivals and events every weekend, was really very active as a facilitator and very much in the community. And then, you know, actually, one of the main reasons for me going to India was to uh learn how to receive. So we can we can definitely talk about that a little bit more, but back to this experience. So this uh mum and daughter, they're really lovely, lovely people. And they said, Oh, look, you know, we'd love you to come for dinner with us, come for some breakfast. And I started hanging out with them a bit. The daughter was a yoga teacher as well, she's based down south, lovely lady, and we were practicing together a little bit, and basically the mum had fibromyalgia, and she talked with a bit of a stutter, and a lot of it was radiating from her left shoulder, and it was that severe that she could, like at some points when it was very painful, she could barely speak because the stuttering got so intense. And anyway, you know, they'd been really, really lovely and really accommodating with me, super, super friendly. I said, Look, you know, I'd love to offer you a breath session because I knew from when I was at block we had a few people coming that had fibromyalgia. And this style of people who don't know what that is. Fibromyalgia is like a nervous system condition. So it's like real, like deep pockets of pain in the nervous system. Kind of quite difficult sometimes to diagnose and explain, almost a bit like ME, where some people, where people would almost go, oh, is it even a real condition? But like deep pain in the nervous system and some days like inability to have mobility because the pain's that bad. You know, this is my understanding of fibromyalgia. Obviously, you know, I'm not a doctor, but from my experience that's what you told me, that's bad. Yeah, but from my experience of working with the um with with the people at Block, it's amazing. And actually, a few of them started bringing their other friends with fibromyalgia specifically to the breath work sessions because they'd come to these sessions and for sometimes two weeks afterwards, no pain. And so I knew I was like, this is really good for nervous system. And then when she said that to me, I said, look, let me see, you know, let's do a session. We'll do a breath session. Did a breath session with her. She came out of the breath session, she was speaking normally, completely normally, and it shocked her. And she said she had the least pain she'd had in her left shoulder in nine years, right? And it was like, wow, this is amazing, brilliant. I woke up the next day and I had a frozen shoulder for three days. That's mad agony and a frozen shoulder, and it was the same left shoulder. So some some kind of transparency.
SPEAKER_04It's a coincidence, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01A bit of a quince, especially as well. I wasn't like doing loads of like physical activity that day. There was no, you know, normally you go. No, normally you'd go, okay, well, oh well, maybe you've slept on your left. No, I sleep on my right side. Okay, well, maybe you did a really strong. No, nothing on that day could link it apart from that breath session. So that gave me a bit of awareness with that. And then I think definitely um, you know, working, doing some workshops in India with the breath and kind of getting a bit of a deeper insight with energy, because I was collaborating with a woman who was a sound therapist that had quite good awareness of energy. And then being with Rachel and her background has really, really shown me um that it's super important. That's super important. And it isn't even from a place of scarcity, it's from a place of like, you know, how do you be that conduit in that space where you're neither above or below, but you are supporting everyone in that space, feeling held enough where they can drop into the practices. Like, I don't believe I am fixing or healing anyone, I don't believe anyone else is fixing or healing, right? And I believe that that is a um a misconception of the spiritual path and the wellness journey.
SPEAKER_04Oh you go. Yeah, yeah. That's no, but it's supported to I have now got an ability to become worthy of your love. Yeah. Let me give you this ability and heal you, is something that is I've even had it where like because I've started being able to meditate to the point where I can feel your energy. And yeah, look, I hate Manchester Party Boy's still in here somewhere, and he hears me saying that. So I want to I'm not that guy who isn't aware. Like when I'm saying I can feel your energy, yeah, that's mad for me to say, but that hasn't come from me doing any energy training, no, it's only meditation training. Yeah, I've become so sensitive, so attuned to my own frequency, yeah, well, I can t I can tell when something else is there, but then if you're also sensitive and they both meet, like I can I can't believe the sort of like people are crying in my arms, and I'm like, Whoa, I didn't I just meditated with you. Like, no, I felt your qualities, and rather than it being like me and you, I'm over here dealing with my stuff, you're over there, we deal with it together. Yeah, I literally feel your energetic situation, but as you said, it can only be felt if it's mirrored. Yeah, so I feel it mirrored back to me as I would feel it in my body, and how I have habitually trained my body to react to that, they feel that quality, but it's not hierarchical. I feel theirs as well. So they think I've done something, I did nothing. We did it together by just being present and letting goddessence touch it, letting awareness, conscious awareness, because I believe presence is the divine masculine qu masculine masculine quality, yeah. And presence is actually the container for the moment.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_04Once the moment is contained, there's no absent father, but also not like the prison guard trying to find a naughty sensation, it's also not the strict father, it's just the father that holds a child when it cries. But then the mother feels safe to come in, which is unconditional, divine feminine quality. That unconditional love goes to the fractured, fragmented childlike parts that we have, which happened because we didn't learn how to feel a feeling, yeah, and therefore we parent ourselves. Divine masculine turned up, the father presence, the mother turned up divine feminine, yeah, and therefore unconditional love went, and all you had to do was pay attention objectively. Yeah, but that doing that whilst you're doing the energy work with people, yeah, but that has to be a habit. You can't keep remembering to protect your energy.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, and it's energy's fluid, it's constant, so the second you forget, will it start? It's interesting though. I feel like it's becoming habitual about that energetic awareness and just starting and ending the sessions in the same way, opening the directions, closing the directions. And and like literally, as I mean, the thing is, uh, you know, I and I'm not someone that has like big visuals, like big visions, like deep intuition. People have these big downloads. Oh, I see these colours, these shapes. I've never been there.
SPEAKER_04I I I was I found I was searching for the machine help. I used to. I love what it was turned up, and all I got was sensation. Yeah. Like, what the fuck? This is what I signed up for. I wanted to see I used to see a film it.
SPEAKER_01I used to be, I used to get like that, and then I realized that we're all just operating in different layers and different cultures. But what happens with me, for instance, is I'll be doing a breath work session, and then I'll put my hand on somebody's shin, and then after the practice, they'll tell me that they broke their shin seven months ago, and how did I know that? And it's not that it's my consciousness having intuition and going, okay, well, I've seen this vision and I see all these lights. There's an unconscious that just moves there and does things, and it's felt without me even really being aware of it. And I am trying to like I I um I was initiated with Hape, um, an amazing woman actually based up north. She initiated me about eight months ago.
SPEAKER_04People who haven't seen Kawahuni Kuhn's episode, what's Hape?
SPEAKER_01Uh Hape is uh well, it is a uh ceremonial shamanic tobacco, and it is in powder form, and then it has different plants in it, um, depending on where it's come from, and also the different tribes that work with it plant or place different intentions into it. And so the medicine can have completely different effect depending on it.
SPEAKER_04Different barks, different herbs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly, which can have different effects, and again, each different person will have it will have a different effect with them, just like what we were talking about with the mirroring. I believe is like some people will be like, This Hapay is incredible, other people it might not resonate with them so much. But I the mint one. Oh, yeah, well, that's I'm not saying it's mint, like I'm oh that's mint.
SPEAKER_04The one with mint literal with mint in it, that's the one which is just for me.
SPEAKER_01That's the one, yeah. I mean about doing it with the mint, it was that fresh Yeah, it's quite the the thing is it's interesting with Happe, right? Because it's a very, very masculine process, it's a very sort of penetrative process, and it goes up your nose.
SPEAKER_04That's a good word, actually. It's like ah penetrate, yeah. It's been cleared and brought back into your body. But I think what it does is it stretches the body.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then you relax into this new comfort zone. Yeah. But you have to do the stretching, and some people get discombobulated by the stretching. You know, oh no, not for me. But it's it's it does discombobulate. You have to let go of control. You have to, or you'll be sick.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. But then in being sick, maybe, because when I had my initiation, I was really, really Okay, and you're back in the room.
SPEAKER_04We were experiencing technical difficulties, gremlins and the machines, but we've figured it out and we can get back. So I think we were talking about happy, weren't we?
SPEAKER_01We were, yeah. And it's a really interesting plant for me, actually, experientially. So I've been working to try and like cultivate more intuition, but without being too attached to the idea of it actually occurring, you know. I'm manifesting that, but I'm not having expectation of it. And also it's not coming from a place of me needing to cultivate that intuition. Intuition to facilitate or to know more of all of the stuff that we were talking about previously, how the ego, when you're working in these uh these realms, can kind of push you towards being like, Oh, I really want to be more intuitive, I want to have these dreams and these visions. And but really interestingly for me, I mean, I've facilitated Hap A a bit and worked with a fair few people, and I've found that it's a really beautiful way of clearing blockages or narratives. So when I've been with friends or colleagues and they've been really struggling with something, so a big life occurrence has happened, and they're stuck in it. Uh, something's happened and they can't let go of it, and there's a story around that where they are somehow either mistreated or something's un unfair.
SPEAKER_04And there's so the gremlins were in the machines again, and as we were talking about the spirit of Happe wanted us to get this right clearly. So fair time of trying, we're gonna go back. Leo, please do expand on your knowledge of Happe once more.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so my knowledge of Hapay is not massively expansive, but I've been working with it. Uh I was initiated about seven or eight months ago with it, and that was a really big process. And when you're initiated with Hapay, you have seven doses over a period of a few hours in quite close succession, and it's very large doses. No wonder you were sick. Yeah, so I was, and often when you're working with these initiations with the plants, you do have a very intense dose, or you're working with it in a very intense way, so that you form a deeper connection with that plant and with the spirit of that plant. And um, each time um this amazing, incredible facilitator, um, she asked me to set an intention with each dose with the medicine. And I think on the third one, I set the intention to work into the wounding on my masculine side, my masculine lineage, um, you know, knowing that my partner's pregnant, knowing that my partner's pregnant with our boy, um, really wanting to kind of clear that line. And I was so sick, I was so ill for a good 15-20 minutes. And it showed me that I think in a lot of the yogic path that I've taken, a lot of the process I've done within myself has been working into the feminine and the feminine wounding, you know, and the wounding from my mother's side, the wounding that lies within me that is reflected out of me. And I feel the masculine side has been neglected, so that's been the path I've been taking. And yeah, recently, um I think hape is hape or rape, depending on where you are in the world, because people call it a different thing.
SPEAKER_04It's a spelling, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's different, it's different, it has an unfortunate spelling, yeah. It does, but basically, I think I see it a lot where people are abusing that plant and they don't realise it.
SPEAKER_04I did. Yes, I was speaking about it with you, and I think it was my old habit. I always have an addiction, and I know I've got I have an addictive personality. ADHD traits, is it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_04And uh and uh for me, I I found this ceremonial way of doing it, non-abusive way of doing it. Brilliant, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Let's do it again. Let's do it again. And of course, and I see it a lot. I saw it in India actually. I saw a lot, I met a lot of beautiful men, like really, really lovely guys, but they were in this thing of thinking it was their meditation and their daily meditation. And actually, I think even in the indigenous tribes, quite a few people I've spoken to who are have been a parts of those tribes have talked, yeah, but they've also talked about it being a problem there as well, where it's like, okay, you know, I'm using it for hunting now, now I'm using it to relax at the end of the day. If you give it that oh, and it's the same with ceremonial cacao, you know.
SPEAKER_04We'll go on because we were talking about that before.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So I'm doing a lot of um work now because my partner, she's a cacao ceremonialist and she trains other people. What's your partner's name? My partner's name is Rachel. Call her Rachel for the Sasha Mama Medicina on Instagram if you want to call her Sasha Mama. And we'll call her we'll call her Rachel. And she's uh I want to get on the show, by the way. She'd be let's have a should we let her have a baby first, maybe? Yeah, and then I think and then I can look after the baby and she can come on, but she'll she's got beautiful insight with all of this. But you know, she trains. I was actually working. Um I she allowed me to jump on one of the trainings that she's done. She's done two trainings now where she's taken people through the process of connecting them to the plant. So she's facilitating. She's facilitating teacher trainings now, and um, yeah, the the cohort that just came out. Um, I went down to London with her for the final initiation with her London team. And then we also did the one in Manchester, and it's amazing the process that everybody's been on and the conversations and the community that's been built. But I really have this belief with these plants that you honour them, that you really honour them, and you're not getting into a process of using them as a mechanism or a tool. Like, I am gonna use this.
SPEAKER_04It's the new mum and dad, the new religion, the new government, the new partner, something outside of myself that's gonna fix it for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and also like I'm gonna use this plan, I'm gonna use this medicine. No, you are working connecting with that spirit, and that spirit gives you the insight, and you are blessed to be being given the insight from that spirit. And interestingly, with the Happe, I definitely would say at the moment I've been working with it. Um, uh, yeah, one of Rachel's teachers, I spoke to him about the masculine side of my lineage, had a bit of a healing session with him and some deep conversations about my family line. Because I could see things in the masculine side of my family are very interesting at the minute. Since I started doing this clearing work, a lot of crazy things have been happening. Do tell. Well, like things like um businesses suddenly getting pulled away, things like my father having like really difficult, like big difficulties, things now where we're we're working through a process of selling the old family home.
SPEAKER_04And Lisa was telling me that um yeah, and your dad like really loves uh you know is it Lisa from um down at Lowry? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was really attached to the really attached to the house, and um and and actually it was a real block where we me and my brothers have been trying to finally get him out of that house that he's been in for 60 years, he doesn't want to leave, but so much of the energy and emotion of the last 60 years and his trauma is literally energetically in that house. You know, when I came back from India, me and Rachel were there for you know a couple of months, and it was for her really hard. Nothing to do with him and his physical presence because it's a big, tall, thin house. The energetics in that house are crazy. And it's like since I've been working with the Happe, and specifically working in this way, all of it has come up to be cleared. Like it's really, and I'm seeing it, and now every time I've been sitting with Happe, and I would say I would sit with it myself like once every month, month and a half. I'm not someone that thinks for me, it's not a good idea to sit there and do it every day every day.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's when meditation helped me because I realized quite quickly that no, this isn't reverent. No, no, and you do not need to do Happe every day, sometimes twice, Michael. Now, what's going on here? Yeah, it's a distraction, it's like it was so intense that however I was feeling and I was going through a breakup, I didn't know I was going through a breakup, yeah, but I kind of did. Yeah, and I just kept sitting with it every day. Yeah, and it was like, bro, you just don't want to feel how you feel. Yeah. And that's not what we signed up for nowadays.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, and the thing is it's interesting, right, with these spirits. It's like any plant spirit. If you abuse it and you just do it so frequently, then where is the time to integrate?
SPEAKER_04Exact please tell me where the processing and integration is happening between Friday's shroom session, Sunday's ayahuasca session, and then Wednesday's Happe. Yeah, don't forget the cacao you had every day. Yeah, don't forget the life events that you've not even processed. Yeah, it's not always a medicine teaching, yeah. Yeah, like movement can be medicine, this chat can be medicine.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and but but even our movement practice. I mean, you know, I love kind of getting into this as well, and like I hope nobody listening thinks that it's coming from a place of me thinking I know better than anyone else, or being in a place of judgment because it's never that. It's also me knowing from my own experience. Like when I started first, someone introduced me to Happe at first. I think there was a stage where it was it was being, you know, worked with in a way that wasn't actually allowing me to integrate, where I wasn't really deeply connecting with the plant, really sitting, connecting with it, being in reverence of that. I mean, tobacco as a spirit is an amazing spirit.
SPEAKER_04One of the oldest ones we've worked with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04No wonder it got abused and chemicalized and turned into this, because it is actually one of the master medicines.
SPEAKER_01It is absolutely, and you know what? It's a beautiful, powerful, masculine, protective spirit. It's a very, very amazing spirit of protection.
SPEAKER_04Well, they're a lot more to the point, the mask, like Bufo. Yes, this. Yeah. Whereas, say, ayahuasca, you more feminine ones, they take a while. It's very direct. Stories and journeys, no, the masculines look, bro, it's this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, within shamanism, they work with tobacco all the time to cleanse the space, similar to how yogis or you know, practitioners would use Sage or Palo Santo. They work with tobacco, but what's interesting, they they have it as a smoke, pure tobacco, no chemicals in it at all, and then they don't inhale it, keep it in the mouth, and then they blow it to clean the space. Now, what's really interesting is within shamanism, they believe that if you inhale the tobacco, you are inhaling all your emotions and trapping them inwards. And they said about the West, when the West commodified tobacco, they said two things. They said you're going to, you're all going to um, you're all going to die from inhaling the tobacco, and then you're all going to go to war from inhaling and trapping the emotions. And so they kind of could see the way that that was going. And you see it with tobacco, you certainly see it with cacao becoming chocolate and how that was commodified, and the you know, the the Spanish took that from there, and then it became this thing. And it's a really interesting world within the human society, how we take these plants that are such a pure thing, and then we change them and we alter them and we manipulate them.
SPEAKER_04Everything, yeah. You're a being of pure light. Yeah, you turn up and I mould you into manipulating and getting your qualities to serve needs, I wouldn't meet myself, and all of a sudden I'm not having this pure interaction with for me, you are as much medicine as the weed or the or the cacao or whatever. You're just another spiritual being in a framework that's one I can recognise as a human. Yeah. And for me, seeing somebody as they are has been so eye-opening for me. Yeah. Platonic touch with women, because me and my partner have been a broken up for three months now. Yeah. And for me, I had wanted to connect with women, but I didn't want it to always be sexual. Yeah. Can we not just connect, even like hold hands or hug? And like maybe for a while you could stroke my hair, I'll stroke your arm. But there's no like expectation of anything coming out of this apart from a connection in the moment, and it's so nice to have that. And it actually has allowed me to do more with the men. Yeah. Like you know, Echo, Echo Widma. Yeah, yeah. I was at a festival, Wild Child Festival. Shout out to those guys, that was amazing, by the way. And she was doing a workshop called Birth, Sex and Death. She's really powerful, Echo. Really knows what you can tell, like you can tell the people who were talking a good talk because they've seen it on a TED talk or a podcast. And then the experience was but when she was doing it, there was a certain moment where I realized I was performing. I was just constantly performing for all these people, whether they're strangers or not, it didn't matter. It was a habit. It was a habit of performing, it wasn't for anybody in particular. No, of course not. And in her workshop, it was just this moment where I just released it all. You shed it, and then she went, stillness, silence. And then you're like, I really want to shake, and this is a lot of rage right now. Like, I need to get it out. But the problem was when you were constantly just expressing, just expressing, you were stuck in a loop of expressing energy, and it was creating more of the same energy that then needed to be expressed. Yeah, when you were still and silent, well, that that divine masculine quality of containing the rage came in. And what was the rage? Nothing but a big brother for a vulnerable bit that was trying to speak but didn't know what to say. So the big brother of anger turned up. Yeah, and once that had been expressed by being felt, because you don't have to express it, it can express itself to you internally. You've got God essence that can hold the finite with ease, it's infinite. And then all of a sudden, I was happy again. And I was happy until I was sad, until I was rageful, until whatever else came up. But the whole time I was allowing it rather than trying to use it, and that's what I realized. I wasn't just using other people, I was using energy. So say I felt a certain way on this energy frequency that I liked. Yeah, I'm now gonna generate any scenario which will recreate close enough to that energy frequency, which my body then translates as sensation. Yeah, and funny enough, your mind then translates that sensation into thought so you can understand what the body's trying to tell you. Yeah, and I realized all that in one moment, and the stillness became easy because I got to find out who I really was. Yeah, it started to speak my body was speaking to me, and I just was too busy paying attention to everything around me.
SPEAKER_01Well, of course, because our society is uh a society of distraction, our society is a society of our attention span becoming shorter and shorter, and also the influence of the external sources being constant. You know, like we now everything wants your attention. Yeah, and we now wake up in the morning as you know, general the general citizen of the UK will wake up in the morning, they'll turn their alarm off on their phone, and they'll have 20 notifications from 15 different apps asking them to do something, commanding something or a need or a requirement. Even if it's just the bulls when you sat there and and it's you've got to be changing. I feel it, I feel it myself. Like I've I've started my one of my new meditations is observing, becoming meditative in the sense of observing as soon as I start that process of scrolling on my phone, as soon as I'm in that, and that's my new meditation.
SPEAKER_04Well, meditation is that divine masculine quality being present. You can do that whenever you can do that whilst you're not being present. Yeah, that meant you can be present or not being present.
SPEAKER_01But it's it's the catching, it's the catching that spiralling of the the the presence being lost, but not like the prison guard.
SPEAKER_04No, no, not really important, it can't be found him, get rid of him. It has to be the loving mother. Well, what's wrong, darling?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then the thing is, it's like how do you do all of this stuff without being sharply judgmental towards yourself? And also it's the same with all of these, you know, for me, like the social media side of it, okay. I have awareness of these things, I have awareness from my own experience. It doesn't necessarily mean it's right or wrong. My experiential side of things will see things. How do I come away from judgment and come into discernment? If I'm judging all of these other things as being a negative, if I'm judging everyone as doing everything wrong, I'm holding that energy within me. And I'm also not appreciating that everybody's perspective is based on their conditions and everyone's perspective is different to mine. You know, how do you find that? And how do you find that within your own experience? How do I find that in my day-to-day? And then how do I find that and recreate that as a facilitator? You know, my main intention when I'm showing up and facilitating practices, whatever they are, regardless of the different tool that I'm working with for the different practice, the different energies that are going on in the space, can I create a space where everybody feels held enough to work into themselves and find what lies within them? And whether it is the power that lies within them, whether it's the observation of something moving within them, how can I create that space where people feel um and I'm not gonna say safe enough because we, you know, it's very easy to say, oh, you know, you're safe here. And it's like sometimes we're working into these things and it it doesn't feel safe, but that there's a there's a holding there where people will go there. So it's a container rather than a safe. Yeah. And that that that this is the thing. Like, I don't believe when I'm facilitating these practices that I'm fixing or healing, right? And I also don't believe that people are fixing or healing back to this because we'll loop back around to that. I really, really believe that the wellness world supports this idea and almost commodifies this idea of fixing and healing.
SPEAKER_04Well, you gotta pay money if you've not if you're not, but if you're not if you're not okay, if you're not fully if you need fixing, you best come and give me this money for this breath work or this cacao ceremony or this Reiki or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Maybe it comes from Western medicine, that though. Yeah, so maybe it comes from that prescriptive idea make money off a well society. No, well, this is the interesting thing though, right? You know, how do you change that narrative? Because from my perspective, I believe that if someone is coming into these practices, and if this is you right now and you're listening to this podcast and you're you're you're starting this journey of this spirituality, or you've been in it for a few years, and it's coming from this place of I'm here because I need to fix and heal myself, right? Immediately that plants a seed of scarcity. You know, your journey is beginning from a place of you are here because you are not enough, because there's something wrong, right? It's my belief that we don't fix or heal. It's my belief that we unravel the sharp judgments that we hold of ourselves and others and the things that allow us to feel separate.
SPEAKER_04Well, then you also get to see why you had those judgments because those parts only ever came in to protect the whole. Of course. So why? What's the judgment about and what's the perceived lack? Yeah, not necessarily that it's there, but perceived. Perceived lack. Perceived lack. I like I like I like that expression of it. I I heard something the other day, it's meditation doesn't fix your life. No, it just fixes how you see it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And that's what you're doing, you're reframing the moment, and that difference between exactly the same thing happening, yeah, but you seeing it from a victim point or an empowered point. Yeah, oh, this is another obstacle, another opportunity for growth. Yeah, same scenario, but different way of seeing it.
SPEAKER_01Everything's according to your conditions, but your conditions are based on your perspective. For me, that is everything. It's like my perspective dictates the way I see the world, you know. And I believe that these meditation practices, these yoga practices, these breath practices, when we're doing them in a way where we're held in that space, we can clean the lens in which we see the world, and that our um unconscious memories, our unconscious judgments aren't distorting the world around us. You know, I if I within me have a lot of anger, sharp judgment of myself, I will find that in the world, I will find things in the world to pick apart. Okay. Easily. If I have a if I have a practice of gratitude, you know, and I've I've been able through meditation, through these different practices, you know, and again, like it's really easy to sit here and say this right. And then you could easily go, Oh, well, these other people, well, they're not doing these things. I am privileged to be in a place where I have had amazing teachers and inspirations that I've connected with in this existence because of my timeline that have allowed me to have this perspective.
SPEAKER_04And it only works for you. Yeah, and it only works for me. Well, it's not that it's right. Yeah, the teacher thing doesn't sit well, it's hierarchical. I know more than you. Come to me if you want. And I'd said to you, didn't it, you'd be a breathwork guide. Yeah, yeah. You'd be a yoga guide, I'd be a meditation guide. I found some stuff out, it's helped me. Yeah. Do you want to see if it helps you? Yes. Here you go then. By the way, I've got to pay some bills and I spent some time building this knowledge. Do you mind an exchange?
SPEAKER_01Well, also, though, it is also my firm belief that if you are someone that is, because I've definitely been on this road before where I've been in full back tea, devotion, full sever, full service, oh, I'll give everything to everybody. Then the alchemic energetic exchange is not there. And you do that enough, and then you aren't actually it's it's some people believe that you are actually building negative karma when you're like, I'm giving to everyone all the time, and then then I am not allowing myself to receive. And the other side of it is in the Shiva Shakti energies, the masculine and the feminine, right? If I am always holding space, if I am always in service, if I am always in devotion to everyone and everything else, I am not allowing myself to receive. And actually, from my experience in India, and my primary reason for going to India was to learn how to receive. Like I realized this within myself. I was like, okay, you you are not allowing yourself to receive. And for me, I firmly believe for you to receive, you have to let go of control.
SPEAKER_04You have to let go of control. It's kind of how to open up when you let the door open. Yeah. You just let the energy flow in and out. That's been a big one for me. And you look, but I can physically feel how it feels to be closed and open.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And it almost feels like hands are like this. Yeah. And then they let go of the cliffs. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And there's a vulnerability there being in that trust, being in that that yielding. And the thing is, you are, and I I see it, you know, I've worked with so many teachers at Block. It was beautiful. I was working with so many teachers. And again, not in a hierarchical place. You know, my job was to manage the yoga studio and the yoga and wellness there, but I never ever saw myself as above or below those facilitators. And you know, this is what I love about one of my teachers, my teachers, one of the facilitators, I have had the luck and the blessing to be in space with Dharma Mitra from New York, is he does not believe he's above or below anyone. He says, Humsa so hum so hum humsa. I am you, you are me, I am that, that I am. Yeah, I and I, exactly. And that for me is like, you know, because that man, if he had gurued himself, which he definitely could have done with his experience, with his lineage, what which is what he with what he bought to the world of yoga, he could have easily put himself in the position of one of the yogi greats. And I'm again not here um chastising the the gurus of yoga, but he chose not to. But he chose not to because he is grounded in the belief system and the principle that he is neither above or below. And this is why, you know, I love it when I can I love to facilitate breath in a circle. I love to articulate that. I am neither above or below you in this space. My my my feeling is I'm there. What I'm trying to do is create this energetic space that is held, and then every single person in that space is creating the collective consciousness. It's all of us, you're a conduit, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, all right, I'm maybe the the conductor this time. Yeah. You know, going this way, and but none of this. If I'm doing this in an empty room, I'll still have a good laugh. Yeah, yeah. This Friday I've got an ecstatic dance on because I do those liberation dances at Transmut Northern Quarter, and I had a thing at the start because it was new where not that many people are turning up.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I I had my I'm only good enough if I save the whole world. Oh, but did you know there's another world around the corner that you've not saved? It's just a constant of needing. So, how about the fact that one person is a myriad of universes make up that one person? Yeah, and that's enough. Yeah, and that's fun. Like, it doesn't have to be like how I'd have quick a little question as well. Like, how'd you stop these things becoming a chore? Because I remember getting to a point where like doing an hour meditation, half an hour, yeah, but then don't forget your mobility, but don't forget you need to go to the gym. Have you had your morning cacao? Have you done have you and it starts becoming have you have you done that? Rather than oh, I get to. So I just wanted to see.
SPEAKER_01Well, you you you you started with that right there. I mean, my personal feeling is that um with all of these practices, when you get into rigidity of it and almost the over-masculine energy of I have to do this every single day, and there's this it's a beautiful thing to have discipline, but then when that becomes constricting, where you are doing something in such a stuck way because you're like, This is the way, I've committed to this, and it's one thing to commit to something, but then it's another thing to get trapped in it, where we commit to a practice, say you commit to a certain kind of meditation, that meditation has moved things, has changed the alignment of your energetics, and then you're still stuck doing that because you've not listened to the feminine and your intuition that tells you actually something shifted, a different practice or tool might be much more beneficial for you now. So it's how do you find those balances between like being disciplined and being consistent and not getting stuck in the rigidity of that masculinity? And this is you know, it's definitely something I've been exploring more in general within myself is like finding that balance between the masculine and the cultivating the intuition, like really cultivating the intuition. I had a thing with yoga years ago when I, you know, and I was working with Lululemon, I was an ambassador with them, and they were like, set 21 goals for 2021. I mean, even the idea of setting 21 goals at New Year, January the 1st, and I would never ever set goals at January the first. Yeah, yeah. You know what? I would never I would never set that now anyway, because I don't also believe in New Year. I mean, I know we had this conversation on the last podcast, but Spring's my new year. Working with the season.
SPEAKER_04It doesn't make any sense to start your new year in the deaf zone.
SPEAKER_01No, and like one of my lofty ambitions was I'm gonna practice yoga every day for 365 days. I wondered how that was gonna go. And I did that, right? And then I loved it so much that I was like, I'm gonna keep doing this. And a year and a half in, I was like, what am I if I don't practice yoga today? Oh, you're not a good yoga teacher, you're not enough, and and that had become my hook, that had become my addiction, and by the rigidity, and yeah, I was getting a lot from the practices, but then I was so stuck in this validation, and that's the tricky part is when is your ego taking, taking like sneaking through the back door? Because the ego will always it will always try and find its way back in at points, and you'll think, oh, I'm in this beautiful place. And you've always got an ego. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You meant to have an ego. Yeah, yeah. Actually, it's ubiquitous between the human race. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The issue is when you don't realise that you have an ego. Yeah. And you think you are the ego. Yeah, yeah. Don't don't punch that person in the face. Yeah, that's a good attachment. Yeah, don't want to walk in front of the car, good attachment. Yeah, don't leave that person even though they're horrible to you all the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Now the attachments become an issue, and that's where being fully present with the moment, because you go, Oh right, I'm gonna sit with that. I'm gonna sit with that sensation. Yeah, and it's sitting with that, and it's all sort of realise the ego was just trying to help you, but it was a bit misinformed. Let's upgrade.
SPEAKER_01And how do you sit with that where the sharp judgment doesn't come in and instead it's discernment? Because judgment in itself throws you away.
SPEAKER_04That's the difference. Judgment comes in. Why do you think we all have judgmental parts? Because they're very fucking helpful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04We we judge a situation based on the pros and cons. Why wouldn't that be helpful? The issue is when we then take action from a misinformed place of judgment. I need to judge that sketchy looking guy on the street who's got a knife in his hand walking towards me looking a bit fucking chaotic. I need to judge that. I need to weigh that shit up. People think judgment is a bad thing, no unconscious judgment. So bring conscious to the judgment.
SPEAKER_01What's really going on? I'm telling you, mate. What happens then though? Because I don't believe that is called judgment. I believe when you bring consciousness to judgment, it becomes discernment.
SPEAKER_04So you think judgment is the shadow side of discernment? Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01I think judgment is the unconscious taking over. And I think when we can see a situation, and rather than judging that person as a good or bad, you know, getting into the good.
SPEAKER_04I'm judging to whether to see if they're dangerous or not dangerous. Or not dangerous, or you've got to get more specific. People are so lazy. Okay, well, that's good. That's bad.
SPEAKER_01I can whoa spoke. I can get into this with you though.
SPEAKER_04That's where your ability to use dialogue, to use the word skillfully, because the climate is fuck. What is clumsy? That's not a word to see. Clumsy as fuck. And what's your association with that word as well? So we need to make sure with articulating well.
SPEAKER_01So my thoughts and feelings with this is as human beings, we've left the process of animals. Animals use their instinct and their intuition for survival. Our thinking minds Do they though?
SPEAKER_04I I believe they have- I don't think they have any ability to remember something happened once and avoid it in the future. Why is that cat scared humans?
SPEAKER_01To an extent, yeah, to an extent. But I also believe that fundamentally their intuitions and their instincts, as well as their intellect, are a lot more at play than human beings are.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they're not analyzing it with rational thought. No, no, no. Using it's it's more of a re it's no, it's not.
SPEAKER_01But what I really muscle memory more than yeah, okay. But what I believe then as human beings is that the intellect has become our first of all, our our tool to sense danger. So we've the intuition has dulled, I believe, in our human society, and then the intellect goes, that's safe, that's unsafe, that's safe, and it does it unconsciously.
SPEAKER_04But it's the ability to recognise patterns is intelligence.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Now though, then I believe that our intellect goes one further unconsciously, and because of perhaps the parameters of societal programming, starts to put in the boxes of good or bad based on moral code. Convenience sake. Convenience, because it's easier to compartmentalize than actually discern. It's easier to unconsciously compartmentalize. Like someone could walk down the street that it it that walks like someone that I've had an altercation with 10 years ago. And unconsciously I will see that thing or person as a threat, whether they are or not. Now, for me, discernment is bringing presence and awareness to the situation.
SPEAKER_04So you must be present about your bodily sensations then. Yeah. How have I reacted to this person? Yeah. And be so conscious that you don't go down this path very long.
SPEAKER_01The non-conscious side of it. But then the other thing that I feel is super, super important is not this, okay, this is a good or bad, right? And I believe that that happens a lot with the moral coding of society, with the idea of like, you know, like America and terrorism or Ukraine-Russia or Israel-Palestine and all the things that happen in society at the moment where there is this real, and you know, I've been listening to a lot of beautiful podcasts about Israel-Palestine. I don't want to get it into it too deeply because I don't want to get into the political side, but it's very easy to go, okay, that is an Israel person, and immediately the unconscious judgment comes in. Whereas actually, it's like there's a programming there that allows people to be lazy in their judgment, and rather than that, actually discerning and seeing that human vessel in front of them as that human vessel is. Yeah, fluid discernment is nice. And this is the way. Yeah, fluid discernment. I take it, but basically, yeah, I've I'm I'm really like looking at it now from a place of sound frequency. So my feeling, my sound frequency, and the way that I operate now on a day-to-day basis, outside of facilitating in my own life, I sit with whether a vibration is resonating with my vibration. But it doesn't come from a place of that being a good or bad vibration. Maybe I'm a C and that's a an A sharp. Actually, an A sharp will probably sound okay with a C. Maybe I'm a C, as you can see, I'm not musically trained, and that frequency is one that is dissonant with my frequency. Does not mean that that is a bad frequency, means that that is not resonating with my frequency. I create space from that, from a place of compassion and love, not from a place of judgment.
SPEAKER_04So here's a little thing then with the judgment thing. So would you see the judge in a courtroom as a bad guy? No. So why not? He's judging, she's judging.
SPEAKER_01The judge in the judge in the courtroom is taking part in a structure that is there as part of our society. That judge in the courtroom is not a good or bad person. What happens in our society though is people have the programming of judgment, and attached to that judgment is this moral code that they hold within themselves that makes people good or bad, not just different perspectives, different conditions.
SPEAKER_04That might be just the said the same though. So he basically uses his knowledge of the law, which is what the human say the law of nature and what we decide is right or wrong, yeah. Same thing. Yeah. And then he decides based or she decides based on evidence whether guilty or not guilty, we'll swap that out for right or wrong, good or bad. Yeah. What's the difference still?
SPEAKER_01Well, he's I mean, he's you know, he or she is doing an occupation there, right? But for me, I'm like when I am judging something as good or bad, and I am applying that judgment rather than discernment, I feel like I hold that energy within myself.
SPEAKER_04So would the judgment be subjective and the discernment would be objective?
SPEAKER_01Perhaps. I mean, I think I quite like what we were talking about before of the idea of bringing presence to it and it being a conscious thing rather than an unconscious. Yeah, but rather than an unconscious action. I feel like So you could be consciously judging somebody. Yeah, but then at least you you have you are you are able to take responsibility for your own judgment. So would you say swap out the judgment for curiosity?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Why are they doing that rather than why are they doing that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but this is the thing, right? Is if I'm judging, it's because I'm I believe if I'm in a place of sharp judgment, it's because somehow I've created an unconscious idea that I am better than that person, or more righteous than that person, or more like able to discern.
SPEAKER_04And is there a perceived danger to having their qualities be something you absorb and then project to others? So you see them.
SPEAKER_01But the qualities they have often that we are triggered by are the qualities that lie within us that are unacknowledged.
SPEAKER_04Which we are then rejecting, yeah, and therefore we saw it in somebody else. Mirroring it back to us, we went, no, no, we don't like that. Yeah, exactly. And that's where you can actually use these as anti-gurus. Yeah. Where they point you towards what you don't want to be doing anymore. That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01There's a name for this, there's a name for this. Oh, there probably is. No, there's a really beautiful name for it. And I had a session with this guy about the masculine wounding side of my family, and like he came there there is a term, and I will find it, and I'll let you know after this podcast. Put it in the notes. And yeah, basically, it is that and again, you know, for me, my experience with this person that has this term, I don't think they're a bad person, but the the the way in which they have shown up and not taken responsibility has taught me to do the opposite and take responsibility. Anti-guru. Anti-guru. Yeah, we like that. That we'll use anti-guru. But you know, I even like the even the term guru, right? The term guru in our in in the now world is immediately covered in negative stereotypes because of experiences that have happened. But guru translates as mirror, right? Guru translates as mirror. I think I remember someone say it. And it also translates as remover of darkness. Now, I don't really, the remover of darkness side of it, it feels a little bit ego, egoistic. I remove the darkness from you. Judging darkness is bad.
unknownYeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Mirror, I like that.
SPEAKER_04The brightest lights are in the darkest places. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And uh, you know, even like I'll give you an example, cult, right? Cult has so many negative stereotypes. If you look at the definition of cult, it's not negative, it's a fascination of a person or a thing. And I remember when me and David Seed had a, you know, we we we organically ended up creating this amazing community called the well, called the Reservoir Dogs, and that everyone was in the influx dry robes. There was sometimes 150 of us going down to the water doing breath and cold water, and loads of people were like, Yeah, and loads of people were like, Oh, it's a cult, it's a cult. And I was like, Yeah, it is. It is a fascination with the water. We are all a cult of the cold water. We have a fascination with that thing that is the water. And this is an example of the way things get distorted and the way, oh, now the idea of gurus straight away, if you say guru, in our now society, people will go, okay, well, that's someone that is exploiting lots of people, that's someone that's probably sexually assaulting a lot of people.
SPEAKER_04I understand why it would get propagated in the media to make cults look bad. Yeah. Because they're against the norms. Of course. Systems that we currently have in place, of course they are, somebody's challenging that and broken off. So let's just get the worst examples of that known to man, yeah. Like your horrible shit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Tell everyone about it, put it on Netflix documentaries like you wouldn't believe. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Stay away from someone who's doing it differently, guys. Well, that wild wild country is a good example. I mean, that's document it's a documentary about um what's his name now? Osho. Osho. Osho. Osho, yeah. It's a documentary about him and he went to America and he had a community of about 30,000 people there, uh, that he just landed in America and created. And obviously, you know, all the townships and things around there didn't like it. It literally got to the point of weaponry happening on either side.
SPEAKER_04And I think that you got proper villainised, didn't you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, he got this is the interesting thing, right? He got villainised, and there will definitely have been things that he has done that are not ethical, right? But this is an idea, this is a good example, right, to use of this idea of judgment, right? I could go, okay, Osho is uh he is a bad human being, so I will not pay attention to any of the the things that he has put in. Take the teachings out of the teacher, right? You know, I've had um I've done trainings where there was someone on that training that, you know, had the school, and I won't I won't name it, had the school, and actually I felt my discernment was like, hmm, not sure about this guy. He had amazing, beautiful teachings within him that he shared with me. And I can take those teachings and teach them from a place that is my experiential perspective, but again, my experiential perspective, you know? I don't, I am not better or worse than anyone. Well, serial killer could know not to eat animals.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_04Which would be a weird thing. It doesn't mean you go, oh well, a serial killer for it, so I'm gonna I've gotta do the opposite. No, you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but this is the looping, this is the looping background to do that.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's where getting into like, say, just one religion, one ideology. Oh, well, you best believe everything that's in it then. Yeah. Don't worry about that stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but it's this, this is the it's the the danger, I believe, of this idea of the sharp judgments of good or bad, right and wrong, rather than like under I understand that I am the way I am as a result of my conditions, of my perspectives, of having the privilege of having like coming into contact with people that I believe are beautiful conduits of different medicines and different practices. And all that's happened is on an experiential level, they have um created an environment or facilitated things that have created big shifts for me where I feel like they've opened me or like um like helped me to see things from a more neutral perspective.
SPEAKER_04Well you have to have your eyes open. Yeah, you have to be open, yeah, and you have to be willing to let that egoic attachment to some of the beliefs, some of the identities go because you you can't receive the new if you attach to the old. Yeah, that's why you get so much pain when you suppress a sensation because you've rejected the flow of reality. Yeah, it's got nowhere to go apart from down. Yeah, and it's I use the you know the the finger magic, the um the hose analogy. So when you stand on a hose and you turn it on, what happens? It starts to inflate and stretch the sides, yeah, but that hose doesn't have nerve endings, we do. So when we're having too much energy, which accumulated turns into matter, that's what matter is, it's a lot of energy in one spot, then it becomes very uncomfortable for us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Then if what we do is go, well, I don't like that uncomfortable feeling, so I'm gonna just distract or stimulate or numb or whatever it is, then you don't actually find out what the cause of that issue is. When really, if you just sit still and you're present in silence, you lift your foot off the hose. But then it goes, can you feel that emotion that was trapped and the initial thing you trapped it with? And that's what it was all about. You were only ever meant to feel it in the first place, not as a universal prod with a stick as some victim, no, as oh I no one else gets to feel this unique moment within me. Only I get to feel the sensation as it presents itself in this moment, yeah. And it's my judgment of that sensation that is blocking it from being able to go on its merry little way, pure little energy. It's just trying to go on its merry little way, this signature frequency. Go in here, oh trapped in my framework now because we just didn't like a sensation. We weren't trained how to feel we all this fucking work about this and that, and all these literature coming out of our arsees, everyone doing podcasts like we are. Do you know how simple it is? You sit in stillness and silence with a sensation without anything but just a curious, patient mind. Yeah, and you watch a show. That's what it is. The universe going on inside you is giving you a show. Would you ever watch a film where nothing went wrong? A show where there was no adversity, no moments of growth, it was just really nice. Yeah, yeah. Who the fuck would want that? So why do you think your soul would want that show to watch? It wouldn't. Yeah. So embrace the fact that humans were meant to feel pain, they were meant to feel suffering. Your children were meant to be in a moment of suffering, and if you take that away from them, they'll never learn how to suffer skillfully. No, you're denying them the wisdom of that suffering. So you are doing it because you can't handle seeing your child in a state of suffering or your partner or your mum, whatever. And yet you have weakened them. You opened the cocoon for the butterfly, so its wings never grew strong enough to fly, and now it falls and gets eaten. So why don't you just hold the presence and let them come up with their own answers, which by the way. Way 90% of the time they fucking do if you're just in stillness, not trying to give them answers to solve this current situation through the judgment of it being bad.
SPEAKER_01And that's again like noticing background to that conversation about how we depict and see the world. That is the internal dialogue of where I believe there's a judgment of good or bad rather than a discernment and an allowance and a curiosity. Like, you know, our Western world is really good at talking therapy. You know, we're all so great at talking, we all do all the time. Check everyone's Instagram, talking, yeah, talk, talk all the time. The somatic side is like really neglected. And I believe that you know what you do when you're talking, don't you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You you're you're projecting thoughts, and if you're thinking, you're not feeling. Yeah. That's why an ecstatic dance, the first thing the awkward people try and do is talk. Yeah, yeah, of course. And you go da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How does that somatically want to release? Yeah, how does that uncomfortable feeling that's trapped within you right now want to express?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And that was one of the most uncomfortable things for me was movement in that way. Okay. Yeah, movement before the breathwork training I did. Wow, any kind of movement like that, anything, I was skating, slack lining, fine. I'm in my element, I'm in my power in that way. But I always thought that I was an awkward mover and had a belief system that I couldn't dance. And you know, wherever that's come from, or wherever parts of childhood that's come from, but that judgment had trapped me in an inability to explore.
SPEAKER_04That's a beautiful way of putting it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's trapped me in that inability to explore and be curious.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, this particular framework of energy that's coming through your and it applies to everything.
SPEAKER_01Like, this is the thing. I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, how can I cultivate a mindset of non-judgment, discernment, and curiosity? How can I show up? And this is the other reason why, as well, you know, I had it many, many times over the you know, last few years, uh, Black Lives Matters, the other political things coming in. I've had a lot of people directly messaging me on social media platforms saying, you need to be speaking about this, you need to be doing this. By you not doing this, you are not a true yogi or true yoga teacher. And I'm like, my, it's not that you're you have your cause, you have your purpose, you have the thing that energetically you are that's where you want to put your energy passion, yeah, that's a good thing and and and beautiful, right? However, my passion and my energy is involved in creating environments where people can find the truth that lies within themselves. Not me imposing my idea of what is a truth onto them, not my ideas of going, this is how you show up, this is how da da da. And you know, goes back to being a guide rather than a teacher. Yeah, exactly. And in turn, I mean the the the the yamas and niyamas in yoga changed my life. They are such beautiful principles that when I learnt, the person who put them across to me put them across in such a passionate way that they became for me, they resonated, they vibrated so beautifully within me that that became the framework that I I existed from and has been fundamentally under the surface. That does not mean that I'm right and someone else is wrong because they don't work in those principles.
SPEAKER_04Because there's two paths up the mountain.
SPEAKER_01Two paths doesn't mean that path was wrong. There's millions of paths up the mountain, infinite paths, but infinite possibility should get to the path, and so this should be your path. And that's like, okay, so that's because you're not sure about your path still. You're still not sure.
SPEAKER_04Does that actually get me to the end? Yeah, you just make sure it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it and it is also like I need you to be on board with my path. To make sure that I do it, to validate and also to kind of validate me that I'm right. And it's like this for me, it's this unraveling of being right. It's this unraveling.
SPEAKER_04Unraveling for you because that was a defence mechanism of mine. My mum loves to feel safe, but you can see how clean the house would be, or how neat and tidy everything that's you try like to the point where it's like causing a stress. Yeah, yeah, that's been internalised. Yeah. So where like me needing to be right was actually me having a fake sense of control in a world that terrified me.
SPEAKER_01Love that. Yes.
SPEAKER_04So actually, it was accepting that Voltaire phrase that Voltaire phrase, all is for the best.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and also.
SPEAKER_04And if you accept in that moment and have faith, that's one of the words of the year, faith, all's for the best. Yeah. I promise you, you cannot see the infinite slice of the pie. You can only see yours. Yeah. So have faith. I promise you, something out there is looking out for you. I think that's why when you say protecting your energy and you're bringing in the ancestors, and I really didn't sit well, that didn't sit well with me for a long time. I had just had some weird blocks of ancestral things and spirit guides, angels, animals. I kind of like the animals. Okay, but the animal ones is less of a I think that was less intrusive. It was I could sort of look at the qualities of the animal and go, right, I get what you did. But when you start bringing Archangel Michael and all that, but yeah, it gave me a sense of like when I just entertained it. I realized when I got rid of this judgmental mind and I was concerning it and going, that's worth looking into this person I respect suggesting it. Yeah. And then it was like, ah, I kind of got some good messages from that. Whether it was a spirit guide or not, I guess. Something something in that moment told me what I needed to know. Alright, so I thought I'd tell you a little bit about your verbal, right? So the dream healer. So this one, if you know, you know, it's like you want to get it again. Then you can go into the dream world where you spend eight hours a day if you look you doing. And then get your nice and clean. Till next time, Peter Love.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and whether it's a placebo and whether it is even the placebo effect. You know how powerful that is.
SPEAKER_01Make the placebo effect. I I find it really fascinating how Western medicine explores the placebo effect, and the placebo effect fundamentally proves that we can change the framework of our existence with the power of our thought and the power of our words. Yeah, but no, but back, you know, back to this. I mean, it's interesting that you caught talk about Archangel Michael, because again, this is something where my lineage is within yoga, you know, I was very much first fundamentally, it was the Yamas and Niyamas, and there was none of the the deities, and I wasn't really working in there. And yeah, you know, I chanted Om Gam Gana Pate Namaha because it was I quite liked Ganesha, I thought he was cool. Plus then Sam Garrett does it, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, and then but even before, like on the first yoga training, I did, oh, I had a little Ganesha and I thought it was quite cool.
SPEAKER_01And I was like, Oh, removing musicals. No, but I really believe, like, I genuinely believe, like, you know, you know what the term abracadabra means, right? Well, I thought it meant, and here's your bunny, but go on. It means as I speak, so I create. I think I've heard that. But I also think it means I also believe it means as I think I create. Right? And and then this is the wild thing with this, and the thing that I was always always mental. Yeah. Where does mental meet the matter? Well, I think I think that I I right, so this is my belief, and I had it when I was in India, so I was in loads of different places in India.
SPEAKER_03I like how this keeps coming back to because we're sort of getting a review of what you've been up to. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Sort of. Yeah, so when I was in Rishikesh, I really felt this fire element there, and what's really and then when I was in Darumshallo, it was an entirely different element, it was more earth and air. But I could really feel those elements within the infrastructure of the space, and then it was really interesting because in Rishikesh they do a lot of fire ceremonies, they do a lot of artisans, they're doing that all the time, they're there doing fire ceremonies everywhere. And I spoke to an Indian guy.
SPEAKER_04We just did one with you know Panit, who does it at Transmute and I didn't realise how powerful it was gonna be.
SPEAKER_01So powerful. Carry on. Well, no, it was beautiful, and please, like, yeah, acknowledge he's amazing. I I think I did I bump into you with him or I bumped into someone with him, and I was like, yes, this was. Well, might have been his partner, Angela. No, it was and it was near near transcendent. It was Josh. Yeah, it was Josh, but Transmute. Yeah, it was transmute, and it was outside there, and I was like, this guy is bringing fire ceremonies here. So powerful, so beautiful. But then what was amazing is I was on a plane somewhere, I think it was in between retreats in India, because I went to India for seven months, but I had a little break for four retreats that I was teaching, which was an interesting kind of like book bookend or middle of bookend, whatever you would call that. But uh bookmark. Bookmark. And um, yeah, I said to this guy, I said it's really interesting. When I was in Rishikesh, I felt like a real fire energy there. And then when I was in Darumshallah, it was a really earth and air energy. And I believe that we have our nadis, our energy channels that are within us that extend out of us in multitudes, and that the nadis outside of us extend to within us. And I believe that the collective consciousness is we're communicating out into the ethers all of our thoughts and feelings as a collective, and then also they're coming back in like the myocelium network. Now, then I'm like asking the question. Yeah, and then I'm like Ethereal mycelium network. Ethereal mycelium network. That's my I believe, like I fundamentally believe that. What is also really interesting on that is that the pineal gland sits on a drum skin, sits on almost like a drum skin in the skull, and you know, like the the cave of universal consciousness, as yogis over 30,000 years ago called it.
SPEAKER_04The cave of universal consciousness.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I believe that these subtle vibrations of the collective consciousness of our ancestors, of the deeper knowing of the fabric within the spaces that we are around, that the memories sit there and then we absorb them. When our pineal glands aren't calcified, we're receiving the vibrations of them through the nadis and then calcifies the pineal glands.
SPEAKER_04Fluoride. Well, if people are looking into this, because I have my um I get my toothpaste from Unicorn. Um is it Kingfisher?
SPEAKER_01Yes, it is Kingfisher.
SPEAKER_04And I get the one without fluoride. Yeah. And it's I had a friend who gets the one with fluoride and phenyl, which is okay. But anyway, that's that good. Yeah, yeah. For me, for me, they were saying how you need that because it won't take care of your teeth properly, otherwise.
SPEAKER_01And I'm like, Well, no, what doesn't care what doesn't take care of your teeth is um like eating loads of like really sugary foods and then not brushing your teeth. Like, like what doesn't take care of your teeth is like the food that you're putting in and then not actually having mouth hygiene. Like the fluoride, like for me, from my perspective, even if fluoride improved my teeth by what else it's doing is too much. Even if fluoride improv like like took 50% of the decay of my teeth away, that is not negating what it does scientifically to your pineal gland. If you look into the science of fluoride Yeah, it's not guesswork. We're not woo-wooing you right now. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_04If you look up, I mean, like you Because I feel like we do like to have that discernment. We don't like I I'm not one of those who are telling you something, yeah, it's been proven to me repeatedly. I'm not gonna blag you and say, Oh yeah, you should do this, and I've not tried it out. So that science is just a repeating of patterns.
SPEAKER_01Experience and the thing is and wisdom's knowing what to do with that intelligence. It's interesting. So I have a bit of both here. I have the the science side of it, and I also have the experiential side of it. If I do something and on an experiential level, I notice a shift in in me, then I will share that from a place where I don't say this is right or wrong. This is my experience.
SPEAKER_04This was my subjective experience.
SPEAKER_01My subjective experience.
SPEAKER_04Similar framework, maybe it might work for you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like I always say try it. Try it because really the thing is we are so caught up nowadays in the science of things, right? I'll give you an example. I have a Kangen. I've had a Kangan water filter for 15 years. I never bought it from a pyramid scheme. I bought it off eBay, right? I didn't go and get involved with that whole thing of promoting it and doing it, but I've not even heard of it before. Right. A Kangan is a reverse osmosis machine that alkalizes the water, right? Scientifically, science has said it does nothing, it's no good, it's not, it's not doing anything, it's having no effect. Uh, Western scientist has said that. I was teaching at Hot Yoga Studio, I was fatigued all the time. They got this Kangen thing. I was drinking bottled water beforehand, they got this Kangan and I started drinking the water, and I immediately noticed a change in my energy. I immediately noticed that I wasn't fatigued after hot yoga, probably because of the electrolytes in it, but I also immediately noticed that I was like energetically feeling really clear, right? Okay. That kangan machine then broke. I noticed my energy levels drop out again. And you don't think it could have been Could have been placebo. Could have been placebo, absolutely. A year later, uh the cafe near me gets one of these Kangen machines, and they have a thing where they're like, if you buy a water bottle from us for£20, which was an 18 quid water bottle anyway, every time you come in, we'll fill it up with alkaline water for you. Very clever for free, but very clever because you would buy other stuff in there. So it's like really good. Yeah, it's keeps you going in.
SPEAKER_04Come to this event, it's free.
SPEAKER_01Drinks aren't, food isn't. Yeah, yeah. But you know what? Like, fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough. But I noticed a huge shift in my energy again, right? We're 70 to 80% water. I really believe that the environments that we're in are very acidic in general, right? I believe that the city environment, the sound pollution, I believe that the lack of grounding, our lack of connection to earth, the stresses create acidity in the body. One of the primary causes of inflammation in the human body is acidity. And one of the primary causes of major illnesses in human beings is inflammation. I knew you were going to say it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's all Isabella, you know, my previous partner, she's a nutritionist, and she's saying most of that disease is just coming from inflammation, which could easily be sorted out if you just identify what's causing it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and this is the thing, like the Western medicine model, and this isn't again me bashing Western medicine, it has its place. Well, it's done very well.
SPEAKER_04It's the reason why they got rid of the rest because it was that good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I didn't know everything. Yeah, but what happened though? It well, one of the reasons why it got rid of the rest, the other reason why it got rid of the rest is when money is involved and a pharmaceutical industry is involved, suddenly the eastern medicine gets dismissed, and there's active campaigns to dismiss the principles of eastern medicine and the principles of eastern medicine. Well, what is the principle of eastern medicine? My belief, my understanding, might not be right. My understanding of the principles of Eastern medicine and all of the practices we're doing and all of these nutrition and all of this stuff is how do I create an environment where my body has the capability and capacity to heal itself? Because my body has that capacity anyway. In fact, let me rephrase that. Just get out of the way, heal do you want to do that? How do I how do I get things out of the way that are stopping my body doing what it would naturally do if I was in a natural interval?
SPEAKER_04How to objectively pay attention to blocks which show up as dissonance, as sensations that we find uncomfortable, understand why that block's there because I sat in stillness and silence, and that's where Panya wisdom of insight arises. And all of a sudden it was this that was causing this, and my body told me because I listened.
SPEAKER_01And this is the thing, and how I've always been on this journey. I've been very lucky in this way. I'm not intuitive in terms of vision and sight, but on an experien experiential level, I've always trusted the feelings that I feel from practices or different things. Anyway, that kangan water filter, I've still got one. I have it, or I you I work with it. And okay, I definitely implicitly don't believe it is the placebo effect. But if it is the placebo effect. That's why the placebo effect. Yeah, but if it yeah, yeah, you know what though, but if it is, but I actually think the placebo I think the placebo effect is proof that we can we are limitlessly powerful and that we can manifest whatever we wish from whatever we like. You know?
SPEAKER_04And oh you can. It's just if you don't believe. One of the enemies of meditation is Tao, as Goenka was saying, and it's just you can't force faith. Faith has to come from evidence.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So if you don't believe it, it's because there wasn't enough evidence. You need to go find some evidence then. And that's as simple as it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that evidence doesn't have to be outside of yourself, and this is the illusion.
SPEAKER_04It's far more effective if it isn't, because if you have that samkara, that emotional reaction, it then gets stuck as you as this thing that won't leave you because you know it's good for you, or you know it's bad for you, and you know it needs your focus, but because you're so overwhelmed, yeah, you just go into defence mechanism mode. Because if I've got to sort this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and that's when seeing it as a thing to fix is an issue. Yeah, because there's always going to be something to fix.
SPEAKER_01Back to that as well, and then back to that seed of like the wellness world supporting this idea, you need to be fixed or healed. No, your shadows are your deepest power when you explore them, when you come at come at them from the non-judgment, when you drop into a discernment about this, where you're like, This is where I wasn't in alignment with my own authenticity. Not the external good, bad, right or wrong. What is your authentic truth underneath the layers? And how much can you peel back the layers of conditioning and programming and how much can you decide? It's gonna be painful, it's gonna be never ending.
SPEAKER_04But if you've got a rejection of pain because you judged it as being bad, you'll never let yourself feel pain, which is ridiculous because that's how the body tells you something ain't right. Yeah, don't you want the friend that tells you that you've got, I don't know, some toilet roll hanging out your ass or something to be crude. And I'd rather that mate. I like the mates who tell me I've got a bogey.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I like the mate that tells me I've got some asparagus between my teeth.
SPEAKER_04There you go, exactly. Yeah, so that's what your body's got. It's going, by the way, mate, um, that sig you just had, it's it's making this feeling happen in us. Um, could you do something about that? And then you could go, yeah, okay, I won't do that again. Or you can be like, oh, but it was filling this need and we'll then fill the need naturally, organically.
SPEAKER_01And then look how interestingly here we can slide into the judgment, you know, and it's this thing of like constantly moving back and forth. How can I be an awareness of my own experiential nature, who I am as a person or a being, and then how can I come and zoom back from that perspective and see it from the the um the place of complete um complete like I am you, you are me, I am that, that's where the non-identification like you show me the most Leo part of you, and I'll call it Leo.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. You're a process. Yeah, you are wavelengths vibrating. Yeah, how the fuck can you be it then? How can you be a process? That's absurd. So how could you be Leo? Yeah Leo is basically the convenient name we give this swirling mass of bubbles, because otherwise it's gonna get real tricky real quick. Oh yeah. But when you caught well, like I've seen some of it, and I can't remember who said it, but they said the moment the mother taught the child to label the bird a bird is when the child stopped seeing the bird. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So it's just see the word and let it fucking go. And then, but then what's so interesting is then you could get completely lost in the etheral nature of it, and the and it's almost I see it as the feminine and masculine. I can get lost in the creative flow and the nothingness and this, and actually without the grounding stabilization, without the structure, without, you know, I meet I meet some beautiful people, right? And not in a judgmental way, but they are like, they're like my goduma, da-da-da, and they're lost up in the ethers, and it's not a bad thing. I'm sure it's beautiful up there. But then, but then this time of year, I heard it's great. Yeah, I heard it's great up there, but then actually the human connection stops existing because the the the human experience gets and actually it's almost like the human experience then gets judged as something that is lower.
SPEAKER_04Oh these higher, the higher planes, yeah, higher states. Yeah, the higher dimension is always not this one. I'm gonna be on the next floor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll be on the next floor if I do this, I'll be on the next floor if I do that. And you're seeing up as better than down.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's and then therein lies this you know, as above, so below, and the the the illusion of having it all figured out. And and really it's like we are in this constant of of peeling back layers, dissolving other layers. I have an idea of fun as well. Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_04You know everything. Yeah. No, you used to know everything. You were a god goddess.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And you decided that's a bit boring. Yeah. Let's have a fucking plague. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's pretend I'm not a god for a bit. I'm Leo. I'm Mario. Why do you think I play games?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I like the limitations in those games that give me specific characters that I could never be without the limitations of the game.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But if someone starts going Michael, you're not Mario, and I go, yeah, I fucking am. Don't tell me I'm not fucking Mario Michael, you need to eat. Michael, you need to drink. No, no, I'm Mario. I'm Mario. I'm fucking Mario. All the sustenance, all my needs aren't being met because I'm fucking Mario. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if I'm Michael, I'll do anything to protect that character. And that character, if I look at it even at for a minute, whoever's listening right now, even you, who is Leo? Who are you?
SPEAKER_01Go on, describe it to me. Well, I'm I'm a constantly ever-changing wave of consciousness.
SPEAKER_04You're already too much, man. You aren't even that.
SPEAKER_01Like it's just no need to even label it. You just are. And it's and as you and the thing is, in my life, I believe, or in this existence, I believe that all the times where I thought I knew I who I was, the universe has done such a beautiful job of completely dissolving that for me. It's like, okay, I know who I am now. This is my purpose. I know what I'm doing. This is yeah, I've got it all figured out, dissolved. Yeah. Every time in my life that that has happened, um, or in this life.
SPEAKER_04You just go, I'm Michael, he hee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Little smirk, yeah, I'm Michael. Look, for convenience sake, I'm Michael. Yeah, yeah. Just for now. I might change even. Yeah. You never know. But that's the archetypal energy I resonate with. I'd actually change my name if I felt something fit better. Yeah. I just quite like Michael.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I just it really fits well with who I am. And I don't know why, as a child, I always wanted to be different. I'd always look at the underdog, I'd look at the reserve goalkeeper. It was a weird thing where I always liked the one that wasn't the main focus. Interesting. Maybe it's a just literally thinking now maybe that's because I what it was not feeling like the main focus, and therefore I was sort of seeing myself in those characters. That's interesting. Yeah. But man, now that was all I needed. I love that. That was quite interesting, actually. How I just came over.
SPEAKER_01Nice, nice process. But I mean, really, you know, coming back to or I mean, we're we're kind of expanding off in a way and then grounding it back. Um where do we find that balance between having structure and things that keep us connected and grounded and discipline and in turn that container holding our ability to have intuition and faith?
SPEAKER_04Well, I think it's the straight line of the masculine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That's your framework, that's your presence. Yeah. Framework has now been created. That's your straight lines for the chaotic curved lines of the feminine to bounce off and be the show. But the masculine is the TV screen. Yeah. And then she's the show.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That's the way I see it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I really, I really do resonate with that. And you know, something I love with this is that Shiva has 12 forms and six of them are female and six of them are male. And over 30,000 years ago, you know, within Hinduism, they understood. They understood that balance of feminine. Yeah, they understood that. And regardless of like binary, non-binary, LGBTQ, regardless of all of that, we all have those natures, whether you want to call it masculine or feminine. We all have that yin and yang nature within us. And actually it's the same with like Ayurvedic constitutions or your pit of kaffa. There's the elemental constitutions, there's whether you want to call them elements, whether you want to call them feminine or masculine.
SPEAKER_04That's where the labels people get so attached to the label, yeah, the actual thing stops taking precedence. And it's like, look, call it what the fuck. Call pink green if you want. As long as I know what you mean when you say pink, that's all that bloody matters. But the description of Barcelona is neither hot nor comfortable nor warm, nor there's no beaches when I say Barcelona. There's no Spanish people when I say Barcelona, because Barcelona ain't a fucking word, it's just communion's sake, it's a direction saying that way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's back away from the intellectual and into the presence of it. I mean, you know, one of the things that I find super interesting, and I it's uh a belief from my perspective, is I actually believe that yoga as a principle and a functional practice was not a spiritual practice in its origin. I believe that yoga was a science of tuning. It's practical, it was a it was a science, just like a mechanic tunes a car. It was a science of tuning the physical body. Oh, this way, this way, and and all with the breath and with the pre like the these yogis, they didn't have all of these tools to to analyze. They felt things, felt it, yeah, and they felt and they found these different careers and these different techniques that created a wet subtle the energetic body, though, I believe the the the yogic practitioners of 30,000 years ago, they were so in touch with their energetic layer that they could sense what was happening when they did sets of different things, and like a scientist, they studied and experimented within themselves. Now, for me, yoga traditionally is a science of tuning the physical body and aligning with the sacred geometry, and therefore, when you do that, the energy flow is better. Yeah, and so you know the Hinduism side of it, amazing, beautiful, and I do believe abracadabra as I speak, as I think, so I create. I'm gonna call this episode abracadabra. Yeah, and and actually, interestingly, like this was my other thing, back talking back again because we're kind of pinging about, which is great.
SPEAKER_04ADHD is fine. Yeah, ADHD is fine as well. ADHD, meet ADHD.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but back to the Indian guy on the plane, when I said to him, Oh, you know, Rishikesh feels like uh it's like a real fire element, and you know, Darum Sharla really feels like it's a very earth element, and the practices that people are doing in those spaces. I'm like, by doing the fire ceremonies, are they amplifying the fire element in that space? And by doing the earth practices and the grounding presence of Tibetan meditation, are they and he said a beautiful thing. He said, No, they understand that that is the element that exists in its magnitude in that place. In Rishakesh, the land itself is is is powerfully in the fire element. In Darumshala, the land itself is really deep in the earth element, and that the people that are doing those things, they're tapping into it. And then I'm like, what came first? The chicken or the egg? I'm like, was the earth element was the fire element already intrinsically powerful there? Or by them putting the prayer and the intention and the abracadabra into that, has it become more fire? And then and then I'm like, with the deities, it's like with the deities, does Shiva exist as a deity? Was he Adi Yogi that then transcended as a um you know, as a higher, a higher consciousness, or you know, did that happen, or did people create that from their thoughts on mass and that mantra on mass and omnamashivaya? Or was it both? And I believe it's both.
SPEAKER_04I think it is the people. Paradox is needed in a universe to retain balance. Yeah, you need it's I know it sounds paradoxical to say that, but it really is. It needs to be yes and no. Yeah, it needs to be up and down. I believe I believe it's both. And then you know what have a dance if there isn't right and left.
SPEAKER_01No. And do you know what I love as well with that and what you're saying about paradoxical and polarity is that Shiva in his, you know, when he appeared in in uh, you know, supposedly when he appeared in the Himalayas as Adi Yogi, and people said there's a man up in the Himalayas, and this is supposedly the the origins of yoga and this story. And I always believe that mythology has truth within it.
SPEAKER_04It's always got a hint.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's always got whether and whether it's Chinese whispers and become big a bigger thing on a basic level. It's not like every word literally and find somebody over it. Yeah, a man, exactly. A man appeared in the Himalayas in sat in deep meditation, and people went to see. Oh my god, this guy's been meditating for two or three days, he's not moved. And then from that deep meditation, he'd go into wild ecstatic dance for days at a time.
SPEAKER_04That's what I do on a Friday.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then he'd go into deep meditation again, right? And there were these two paradoxes, two complete polarities. Now, people were wow, they were amazed by it, and they'd go and see him. And after a year or two, everyone went, Oh, it's just that guy up in the mountain doing that, apart from Seven. And Seven stayed and revered that and watched. And Shiva as this Adi Yogi saw that but carried on. And then after a few years, he realized that these seven, he, she, they realized that these seven people who were watching him had had really cultivated deep meditation of presence from being there and observing for seven years, and that is the belief system that then they taught these seven people the foundations and fundamentals of yoga, which then got put all around the world, and that's like supposedly the origin of a lot of these spiritual mechanisms. Now, back to what we were talking about before. So I believe you know, yoga traditionally was only allowed to be practiced by men in royal families, and it was a secret practice, and women were not allowed to practice it, and people who were not of royalty were allowed to practice were not, they were not allowed to practice it. I believe it is a science of tuning the physical, the energetic, the intellectual, and the emotional. Now, when I believe I believe that when we tune the physical, the energetic, the intellectual and emotional, and we come into this sacred geometry and this equanimity, spirituality appears because we feel the presence of ourselves within everything and the presence of everything within ourselves, and the um the boundaries of ourself and other dissolve. That's that's my belief. I believe that these practices, when we find, and all of us have different practices that will support us moving in that direction. Not because we need fixing or healing, just because it's fun.
SPEAKER_04Have you ever danced because it's fun? Have you ever gone for a walk because it's fun, played a game, chilled, so liberating, had a chat, so liberating. Are we chatting to fix each other? No, that is an option. Yeah, it doesn't always like me and you know when either who runs the residence centre. Yes, she was outside and I was coming outside and I was like, She was like, Wow, I was like, bit sick of healing. Me too, it's fucking trauma this trauma that you're always gonna be plugging the next hole in the bloody ship's floor, and you're just just it's okay. And you know what? Maybe that ship's meant to sink.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, do you know what though? Like the curiosity and being the witness of that and being not this, I need fixing and healing, because that comes into this idea of I'm a good or bad person. No, we all are a multitude of experiences encapsulated in an energetic layer. And it's like, you know, like rather than the fixing or healing, the curiosity and the expansiveness of coming from a place where as we sit here now, we're we're enough, but we're curious and we want to be like children and open our eyes.
SPEAKER_04I say if there was one thing to take from this podcast, yeah, bring in the curious and patient mind. Be like a child. Because if you're patient because you feel content with the moment, ah, I'm used to feeling discomfort and I'm okay with that because I see the growth and I see the no, just have fun with it. Yeah, just genuinely witness it, watch the film, and maybe at some point you'll be an interactive member. Yeah. I don't know why that has to need some other step. Oh, I do because people will pay for that, people will give away power for that, yeah, and therefore they'll always be considered not good enough at the moment. Well, do you have what I need to be good enough, Leo? To feel safe and content. Because if you do, I'd give anything because that's what any being in this scenario, this terrifying universe that we're in, will give away far more authenticity for safety. Yeah. I'm just gonna check the time. So there was about an 18 minutes. So we probably got about I'd say about half an hour. Yeah, cool. What time are we on? So we're on an hour sixteen, but we'd done about 15, 16 in the in before the gremlins turned up when we started trying to speak about happened. So I'm mindful that you've been away from the show for a little bit. Yeah. Is there anything you feel you've missed? I would like to touch on the fact that you're gonna be a dad. Oh, yes, for sure. If we could, but was there anything else before that that you felt like I've been away and this was quite important? I want the audience to know about it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, maybe I've got one thing and then we'll go on. Okay. Then we'll go on for sure. We good? We can go? Yeah, amazing, beautiful. So, I mean, actually, you know, back to being in India and going away there, and I believe there was a train ride that I was taking to Goa after being at the Isha Foundation in Kuambator and being at a number of different places and being on this yogic journey that I went in my mind, I went, I'm going there to not be a facilitator, to not do all of these things. And I had these ideas and perceptions of my purpose and my reason for it when really fundamentally I think on an unconscious level, I was trying to learn how to receive because I was not very good at receiving. You know, I really, really wasn't that I was always wanting to help and support other people, and I believe that there was a part of myself that was distracting myself from receiving. If you're helping everyone else, you'd have to pay attention to you. Yeah, and it is, I believe, also like a little bit of a sort of character trait of the facilitator. Say I see it in the yoga world where it is something, and it's not again that it's right or wrong, but there was a part of me where I was like, okay, like I I want to I want to learn how to receive, and also I want to be liberated of the structures that I've created and the identity that I've created because the identity that I was in, you know, managing yacht block and everything, it was a beautiful thing, and people were really lovely with me and said lovely things to me all the time. But it was like, you know, what are you without that? What are you when all of that is stripped away? And actually, like it was quite like scary at point, suddenly having none of these but naked, not yeah, naked, vulnerable, and also not having any of these anchors anymore, these anchors of structure. Oh, you're teaching. What's the ego's doing is it's anchoring you in this. It's like, no, you're here, you're here. Yeah, this is you, this is you. You're safe, you're safe. Yeah, you say, Oh, you're teaching 14 classes a day for a week. People, you know, people, people like there's value there, people appreciate you, people appreciate you, and then it's like, okay, throw yourself into a different country where you don't speak the language, where you don't really understand the culture at all on your own, put yourself in different places. And I literally just went there with no plan at all because the other side of it was I wanted the feminine aspect, the faith, and the intuition to lead me and guide me around there. And it was a really, really fun things start happening. For really fun, really fun.
SPEAKER_04To interject, I've just done two um two festivals um where I was facilitating and one I wasn't, and in two of them, the first two, I said, because I was that guy, I need to know what's on. Yeah, what I'm doing from Glastonbury schedule. I said, I was about to say 8 a.m. That was very optimistic. 10am to to to close in, I need to know what's on. Yeah, and then I'll be okay, and I'll and then if but then if I'm missing something or someone's making me late, or the guy at the first, I'm like, oh yeah. So this time I said, I'm not gonna look for anything. If something falls on my lap or someone says, Should we look at the thing? I'll have a look at the thing because they said, Yeah, but I am just going where you so much fun. Yeah, of course. And funny enough, everyone I wanted to see, I saw. Of course you. And if I didn't, I didn't fucking know about it, did I? Yeah, exactly. But then the third one, when I was working, yeah, I knew I had to be di. Well, you have those little points. And then because I had there was people like Ruben Yonton, who we've had on the show, Echo Widmer, like these really fantastic people. Oh, I don't want to miss that. Oh, I don't want to miss that. And then I and although I loved it, I did feel that sort of And then how do we find that balance between both?
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, I'll go and see Academy.
SPEAKER_04I think I did it perfectly the other time. Yeah. I had a quick scan to see what was on and then didn't even look. I literally just went like that. I almost didn't even do that. I would ask, I would and I would purposely say, What are you doing today, Leo? Yeah, I'm gonna go see this person, and if I tag along, yeah. That's all it was, and it was so fun, so much more fun. I definitely might have missed some fantastic things. I almost definitely did, because there'll always be a billion fantastic things happening. But isn't that the the beauty? Let almost enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01Isn't that the beauty of the world though? Is that there's always a billion beautiful things happening at any one moment, right? If you're if you're open and you're grateful and you're you're able, but again, it is a privilege to be in that place where you can cultivate presence. Cultivating presence is a privilege. You've got no, it's something you've got to fucking earn. You've got to earn and work agreed, however, imagine if you hadn't had all of the ignitions that have given you the opportunity to understand the tools of how to cultivate presence and also um I say role models, but like influences that have created the opportunity or or like you've been in the right place at the right time to be um open to that perspective, you know. And I look and I'm like, when we're cons when we start working into consciousness, then yes, you you work at it, you put the work in, but you also enjoy it at the same time. When if I sit down and go, Well, I've cultivated all of this consciousness and I'm better than say Larry. I'm very aware of how much I hate my life. Yeah, yeah, but but also it's like, oh, Larry down the road, who's never ever had these ignitions, never ever had those influences, I'm better than him. Well, no, in his in his arc of this cycle of his life, that wasn't his meaning or his purpose. We could go on for hours. But we're on a train, go on, yeah. So and we are on the train going back to Goa, and I'd just been at the Isha Foundation in Kuambatur, which was super interesting for me. And you know, I don't really want to get into uh my experiential feelings about like Saguru. Like, I think there's amazing teachings there. I think that he has a very powerful knowledge and understanding. But yeah, I I was I there was one point where I thought I might kind of go down that Isha route, and like I think being there for nine days, it just didn't quite resonate with me.
SPEAKER_04There's quite a few people saying he says good stuff, but there's ways it's being run that's a bit commercialised or weird or just there's a there's an interesting energy there, and egoic.
SPEAKER_01Well well, there's an interesting energy there, and also the dialingum that he has. It's very interesting the lingams and you know what I felt when I meditated there, and then finding out that lingams were and previously in the ancient Indian histories cultivated and created through human sacrifice, and there's like a very interesting thing about how lingums keep energy, how energy gets stored in them. And I really think that he has a deep understanding of energetic movements. I really, really do. Um for me, being in that space for nine days and being a witness to it, I can see the power of a lot of the practices that the people are doing there, and they're deeply, deeply powerful, but I believe that like my path, it just did not sit with that. I was like, and I I I see a lot of lost people ending up there. I mean, he has eight million, six, eight million volunteers, right? And I see a lot of lost people going there, and he gives them, or the organization, I should I say, gives them these incredible tools, these incredible careers that allow them to create energy within themselves. I genuinely believe that energy is being absorbed by the diana lingam there and being utilized for whatever purposes, whether good or bad, but that the people that are there are batteries. Matrix style. Matrix style, matrix style almost. And the the thing is, I'm not saying like I've met so many facilitators that have come out of an Isha background that are in different places in the world that are incredible and their knowledge is amazing. But I think people that are lost they can get caught into the oh, I need this person's teachings and I need to be close to this person. And the the tools even when you say need is need. Need need. It's not want, it's need. But even the word want, even the word want in lack in Latin means lacking. Okay. Even the word want in Latin means lacking, choose desire. Desire means from the stars. So I I'm always aware, like abracadabra, I'm always like, what is my words?
SPEAKER_04And I love learning what's behind it.
SPEAKER_01But you can feel the energetics of the word need.
SPEAKER_04That's why when you say need, everything literally goes, but but what about want?
SPEAKER_01I want. I want. I want. It still feels a bit it's a bit pulley. Not as no, it's not as. Need is more. But desire is, and that means from the stars, and it's like almost a word of manifestation. It's a beautiful word. And and also the the when people say to me I need, I'm like, no, you didn't need this, you chose it, right? And by reframing even that word, what's it?
SPEAKER_04I used to really annoy my ex with that. Sorry, previous partner. Oh, yeah, I've had that. Because I'm like, I am like you with that. Yeah. Oh, you mean want, oh you mean desire? Oh yeah, you've said that, and and do you know why I do it? Because I'd love if you did it for me. Yeah, you know. I actually see that as a positive. Yeah. It's just how you do it. And this is the thing, it's I think I came up with I came across a bit Ross Geller. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And the thing is, right.
SPEAKER_01Actually, yeah, and the thing is it's interesting, right? Because our words, I believe, are a vehicle for our intention. So I could say I desire, but I could say it in a way where my intention is of a negative.
SPEAKER_04Your body language and your But it's still a vehicle. It still is. It's still a vehicle. 8% of how you communicate, it's still a big, you know, 8% of your own.
SPEAKER_02And it's still abracadabra. It's still I as I speak, I create, right?
SPEAKER_01But then, yeah, this like you know, I'm really um just aware of that with words. I'm just aware of that. But back to the train in Goa, right? Back there. We'll go back to Goa. I believe that at that point, after I'd come back from the Isha Foundation and I was travelling towards South Goa, and I had a really good experience at the Isha Foundation. I didn't do any of the programs. I was going to go and do one of them. Turns out it ended up being full, and I actually think that was the universe supporting me in being in my own direction. Because maybe I wouldn't have gone in the direction I'd travelled had I done that first programme. But I was on a train to Goa, and just before I got on the train at the platform, there was a load of stray dogs, and they were really beautiful, and like I befriended them.
SPEAKER_04You love a good dog, don't you?
SPEAKER_01I love a dog. Like I am, yeah, I've been. Who remembers the third guest that we had, the the the Sid guest at the last show? Sid is always there. And I actually thought he was my spirit animal for years because anytime I did a spy a spirit animal meditation, he was the only thing that was there. Actually, my spirit animal now I believe is a spider, and we could get into that. You could, but please tell us about the dogs. Yeah, so basically, and I met these dogs and had a real connection with them, and then got on the train and left them behind. And there was I had a beautiful Max Richer song on in my ear, and it's one from um Ad Astra, a really like a really expansive song. And I was lay on the train with this, and it was this feeling of completely untethering away from all of the parts of myself that had been there previously, and I cried like and there it was this like fear, but this beautiful liberation all at once. Beautiful sorrow. Yeah, beautiful sorrow. And it was actually, I look now, and that was like um the I let go of control at that point to allow the death of that identity of myself fully, and I was mourning and celebrating that all at once, and feeling this bliss and this joyfulness, but also this sorrow and this burying this whole part of myself. And when I came back from India, actually, and it's interesting what you were talking about with this structure in terms of festivals. I went to Medicine Festival and um saw you there, didn't I?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you did now that might be when I first saw you again.
SPEAKER_01Now, what's really interesting is I don't know whether you noticed my energy there, but I was a lot more introspective than usual.
SPEAKER_04I might have been a I don't think we really so much going on, I don't think we spoke.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but isn't that interesting how we normally we probably would have had more, but I literally had no plan for Medicine Festival. I went there and I went with some of my friends from India who were beautiful. They were like, you can come and camp with us. I was like, no, I feel like camping by myself, and like really loved them and knew loads of people there and would float in and out of the cosmos of these people, but really there was this untethered nature of all of it where I no longer like when I came back to Manchester from being away in India, it was really interesting. A lot came up, a lot came up to process, and a lot of thoughts and ideas, and a lot of stories and narratives, and a lot of things that maybe people had been speaking about me without me realizing, and there was a lot of things that moved through where I was like, okay, wow, like there was this death of my old self, and then I came back here, and there was a real um I had to have many like I didn't have to, I chose to have I chose to have many conversations that were abrasive or tricky about this old version of myself, and the old version of myself was doing its very best at the time, but there were parts of me that were not in alignment with my deepest authentic truth that had been pulled into not for better or worse, but had been pulled into a way of moving that actually wasn't really on a deep level, like there was there was egoic parts that were involved that I wasn't necessarily conscious of. And then at Medicine Festival, it was interesting because it was the first time in my life where I had really felt this different energy where I was like, I felt really introspective, I wasn't wanting to connect with everyone, I was actually moving inwards, and within that festival, many things came into my experience that were cord cuttings or dissolvings or finalities of things from the past that were still tethered, and they all came in in that festival because I was in complete allowance of the flow, and then I felt this again, this second liberation of like more of being stripped away, more mourning, more dissolving for this blank canvas, and there was a real uh yeah, there was a part of me that felt like angry or or misunderstood that finally got dissolved in Medicine Festival. And then the day after I'd had this experience, I went into the lake there. And in the lake there, obviously everyone's skin skinny dipping, and the day before I'd gone to go skinny dipping in there, and it was a bit more like a not for better or worse, but it was a bit like an IB for beach party skinny dipping. You know, there was a speaker there. I think I remember we passed each other. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I was on the way there. Yeah. And I got there and I was like, I was kind of wanting a chilled swim. Okay, so everyone was like, like, this is the party. Yeah, yeah, which is like cool. Yeah, I'm down for that, but I kind of just left the Loud Place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the IB for Beach Party. And the Loud Place came and followed me. I was like, all right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so the IB for Beach Party on that day, it wasn't for me, and I went, you know what, like I'm gonna go off into the woods up there and sit with myself because I was really like moving through quite a process, I think. Like I was still trying to integrate India.
SPEAKER_04Did you have your partner with you by this point?
SPEAKER_01No, no, okay. No, this is the really interesting thing, and I felt like I met her at Temple. Yeah, and I felt like a lot of things through the process of me coming back home. Okay, I'll tell you one quick story. So I came back home and I I had a a very difficult thing where someone like posted quite uh quite intensely about me on social media on their stories in a very sharp way, and it was someone that I was very simple. Well, I mean, you know, again, like I've got sharpness, it must have been judgment. Yeah, I've got I've still got love for that person, but it was very, very sharp, and it was very unexpected because it came from a place that I was not expecting it from, and it really like it it shook me. And actually, I'd come back to Manchester. I was really looking forward to seeing a lot of people. I saw a few of my friends, and then as a result of them posting that I was there, this person then posted this big barrage of uh, you know, their thoughts of me. I actually then like reached out to them and said, Look, I'd like love to have a conversation with you about this and like understand where this is coming from. And they they completely ignored me and didn't and they avoided me from that point. And I was like, okay, and the you know, the part of me that would be- You want to event about you, not understand it. Yeah, and the part of me that would want to be well, I I see a lot of where that's coming from now. A lot of it wasn't about me at all, a lot of it was about the organization that we were working at, really, and I was the perfect opportunity because I wasn't there anymore to get involved, and I don't want to go into too much detail. I don't want to go into too much detail. And I've got, you know, I've got love, got love for that person, but what it bought up in me was it bought up a lot in me. It bought up these ideas of being misunderstood, these ideas of being misrepresented, but then also the parts of myself that I wasn't consciously aware of back then that actually were not in alignment with my own my with with with a deeper part of myself.
SPEAKER_04Um I almost feel like an old version of you was getting attacked.
SPEAKER_01An old version of me was getting attacked, but also like there was there was a lot of smoke and there was a little bit of fire there. There was like there was like a small there was there was an element of it where it was like that triggered me because there was a part where, yeah, okay, this has been destroyed and it's been Chinese wishes.
SPEAKER_04Maybe because it was a hint of truth. Trigger you wouldn't trigger me calling me a black woman.
SPEAKER_01No, no.
SPEAKER_04I'm pretty comfortable calling it was there was if you said something that I've got an insecurity about, all of a sudden I'm being hysterical, you're only hysterical if it's historical.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, you know what's interesting actually is that the seed that was there though, that was a truth. I had already been through the process of having conversations with people, worked through that, taken responsibilities for those parts that maybe weren't in alignment. Okay. And this was like a good half a year before. And so it was like that had all been, you know, it's interesting, right? People that are outside the sphere of your interactions, you have interactions and then they're not in alignment, and then you do your best to take responsibility. Like the anti-guru side of it, one of my anti-gurus always has taught me beautifully that if I do not take responsibility for my actions, they will repeat and repeat, and the patterns that I'm not taking responsibility for will come up again.
SPEAKER_04You won't take responsibility because you're scared. Yeah. And if you're acting from a scared point of view, you've identified with the vessel once more, and that's the cosmic joke.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but also as well, I believe that the universe brings these things up for you again and again to allow you to learn the lesson.
SPEAKER_04What it does, it's not interested in your comfort, it's interested in your growth. Yeah, and but it's going like I keep re-lessing.
SPEAKER_01I'm trying, I want to help you. I want to help you. Okay, you're going to because you aren't separate from it. No, exactly. That's helping its fucking bells. True, no, true, definitely. And it was really interesting though, because all of this came up, and I was um, you know, we're we're we're in the process of selling my dad's house at the minute, and at the time I was clearing out the cellar at my dad's, and um, there was a big cupboard in there, and I'm definitely someone that in my past experiences have subdued my anger. Could you call it a closet so we can see it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was cleaning out of my closet. I was coming out of the closet. No, I was um I was in I was in my dad's cellar in um You were your dad's closet, I was in my dad's cell. Wow, this gets deep. Yeah, so I was in this cellar and there was this cut this wardrobe there, and actually it became really apparent to me over those days that I was holding a lot of real anger, real anger, that anger that I tried to suppress with compassion, that I've tried to suppress with non-judgment, that I've gone, okay, well, it's not this. Oh, you know what? Well, it's not, no, they're okay.
SPEAKER_04Not letting anger be fucking bad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but you know what? There was a primal anger in there of this being misunderstood, being managed, being misrepresented. Yeah, and actually I was suppressing, right? And this cupboard was it was amazing. And I realized I had this epiphany, I was in the cellar cleaning all these things out, and I realized it, and I looked in front of me, and there was this massive wardrobe, and there was an axe on the floor, and that wardrobe was being destroyed to be put out of the house, right? And I remember going, okay, like, okay, this is time, but also then what I also realized was like a lot of the me being misunderstood was as a result of the representation of me on my social media, which was represented a certain way where I hadn't done it consciously, where someone would have taken a beautiful image of me doing a handstand, doing something, and then at the time within facilitating, something had really resonated with me that I wanted to share with people, and so I put it across. As a result of that, then this beautiful picture gets painted of this person who's always calm, who's always relaxed, who's always a yogi, who's always infallible, which is not true. I am a human being that makes mistakes.
SPEAKER_04I make a point of putting that on mine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm I am like, you know what?
SPEAKER_04Well you should try not doing it, yeah. You know, making himself look like Yoda, the guru, Alan Wall. It was like, dude.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but you know what as well, even that, right? Even that, it requires this energy and effort being put into a social media platform. And then even you could get into stuck into that where I don't believe you're doing this, but you could go, oh well, I need to show people how human I am. And it's like actually, like, do I need to do any of those things or do I just show up in integrity?
SPEAKER_04But that's what I've been work well, not working on, that's what I've been doing, and I have noticed a lot more likes, a lot more interaction, and you know why? Because they're seeing me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't resonate with the fake shit unless you're fake as well. And but what's really interesting is I even look at that version of myself that was on there, I wasn't consciously representing myself in that way. Someone takes a beautiful image of me doing yoga practice because that's what I do, and then in turn, there's something that really helped me that had come up that I wanted to put as a share, right? And it was never anything where I wanted people to represent me or see me or perceive me in that way. But as a result of us as human beings, we'll see a pattern of things, we'll see some pictures of someone that have some articulation within them, and then we'll create a representation of that character based on what we're seeing there.
SPEAKER_04And it'll never be close to the right, they don't even know themselves, mind you, from limited fucking data.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but you know what? As well, it's like, and then it's like I can't be angry at people for having that perception of me when that is the perception that unconsciously I have created there.
SPEAKER_04Well, I had it with my previous partner, Isabella, where it right near the start, because I this is why I had a bit of a an aversion to being myself, yeah. Um is because I am quite colloquial. Yeah I am your mank lad. Yeah, I'm a I'll swear, I'll make silly comments and da-da-da. But oh by the way, I've also found this ability that helps me to process all my shit. But because I had that way of delivering it, yeah, I I felt like people wouldn't uh receive it. They resonate with you more, but that's the that is very true, which is one of the reasons why I'm doing that anyway. But um, she she thought I was an idiot at the start of the relationship because of the way I spoke. She said, She said, I don't know. There's something about you, the way you speak, and it gives me idiot vibes. You can imagine how triggering that is, especially to somebody who really values their intellect and sees that as one of their main talents. Yeah. So I'm like, why does she think that? It's because of the way I'm speaking. Alright, well, the way you're speaking can't be helped because that's how you speak. Yeah, but you just keep not being an idiot, my friend. Yeah, she'll see you're not an idiot. But if you attack her or try and change anything, or you try a roll. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's that's almost going down the idea that you might be an idiot. Yeah, and then also you need to attack you for calling me a black woman. I must think I'm a black woman. Otherwise, I'll go, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01But then also the external world world is moulding uh you away from your authenticity.
SPEAKER_04It's also making me think I might be an idiot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So sit with that insecurity of oh actually there are you know, you don't know everything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And that's okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_04But the point being was I had to live it. So rather than these people, you trying to explain yourself and you'd be doing that for the rest of your fucking life the more popular you get on Instagram or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and also it's like justify and all of this. It's like, no, take the responsibilities where the responsibility is due, and then also understand the things that are absolutely out of your control. Process it. And and allow and yeah, and the process of this and then maybe go on Instagram and go, This is rather than that emotional Instagram. Yeah, and you know what? I did I did actually do that. I did do a put a post up actually at a point where it was processed through and it wasn't reactionary or emotional because you know, again, that person, like I've got so much love for that person, and I understand that wherever that is coming from, that was a mirror for me and an opportunity for me to really actually, you know, I'm very, very grateful for that post that they made because it allowed me to move through a big process where I cleared and I I wouldn't say fix or healed, I cleared some things within me, or I integrated or I unraveled. But anyway, so back to the the wardrobe and the axe. And it's interesting this idea and this archetype that I'd put up that unconsciously I'd put up and realised, and I was like, you know what? Like, I am actually gonna film me smashing this cupboard to bits and screaming, and I put it on my Instagram story, and I put it on my Instagram story because I was like, wow, like there is such a perception right now that I'm always calm, always composed, always compassionate. And it's like, wow, and you know what? At the point of smashing that cupboard to pieces, it was so liberating because it was like my anger actually got a mocksha moment that yeah, yeah, so liberating, so freeing. And so I had that, and then I was in medicine festival, and it was almost like so many different things from the past, like serpent energy coiled back around for me to move through. It's quite nice when you do the snipping. Oh, yeah, it starts getting well at it.
SPEAKER_04So you do with love, yeah, with love. But if you do hate, they're still in you.
SPEAKER_01No, and you're holding you're holding that.
SPEAKER_04You're holding hate, you're holding judgment. You have to generate judgment.
SPEAKER_01So you are you are you are strengthening the cord of you and that other.
SPEAKER_04You're still putting energy into it.
SPEAKER_01You're strengthening the cord. If you have an issue and and it's coming from a place of judgment, you're strengthening the cord. You're not cutting a cord, you are strengthening that cord. If and this is that I'll speak to anyone that's listening to this podcast now. If you're still on this podcast, you're still listening. If you are um currently in a difficulty with a person or thing, and you are holding your judgment of that person or thing, you are strengthening your connection to that personal thing. And the way to truly cut a cord is to liberate yourself from that judgment, to come away from the idea that that personal thing is better or worse than you is right or wrong, and see that personal thing as a vehicle and an opportunity for you to move in whatever way it is you want to move, and by uh liberating yourself of that judgment and liberating yourself from the story and the judgment that is around the emotion, and instead just letting that emotion move that.
SPEAKER_04Emotion is energy emotion, yeah. It was never meant to be stopped. Yeah, this is it. This is actually what it is, it's your energy and emotion, and you went no no no no no because emotions bring waves of sensation, don't they? Yes, and you go, ooh, no, not that one. Yeah, that's more than that one. So I'm mindful of time, and I know me and you could chat all fucking day. I want one la I want to tell you one last thing. I genuinely don't have a time scale on this anymore.
SPEAKER_01Let's go for no more cuttings. Let's go for one last thing though.
SPEAKER_04If you stayed this long, like what kind of weirdo stays around for almost two hours and then gets off for the final tidbit. So you see.
SPEAKER_01So the the appreciation if you've stayed at this moment and if you've been here with mine and Michael's stream of consciousness that has moved in many different places. But after the the cupboard smashing and being in Medicine Festival and being in that place of purely allowing the intuitive energy to come in, I went to this lake on the first day. It was like a beach party, not for better or worse. It looked like people were having fun, but discernment came in and it wasn't really resonating as my vibration. I went back the next day and it was uh it felt like the environment to be in, and you know, the environment party again or no, quiet and quite introspective. And I went in and right after me, someone got in the water, and they her and their friend were immediately like struggling with their breath, or not struggling with their breath, they were kind of hyperventilating in a sort of happy and excited way. And anyway, I got into the like, oh like pay attention to your breath. And Rachel thought obviously at first, who's this guy trying to tell me to breathe? So that was Rachel, was it? That was Rachel, and we had a conversation and we were naked in a lake, but we were literally like up to our shoulders and water. So we could naked in a lake, but we couldn't see each other's bodies, and actually the conversation we had was because neither of us were wanting to meet anyone at that point. Me at that point, you were ethically non-NO. At that point, I would say at that point I'd even broken away from that. At that point, I was in a place of you, I was in a place of um what would the term be for it? I had zero interest in meeting or connecting with anyone or anything in that way. I was really away from that.
SPEAKER_04I was actually that's why she turned up, then yeah, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01And I also think I was in that space because there was probably a wounding there as well that that would been processed. But the the point at which I'd fully accepted that I wasn't looking for anyone or anything, a piece came within. And then she was there, and we had a conversation, and the conversation we had was so non-flirtatious. You know, I was interested in what she was doing in shamanism, and I was like, okay, this person can direct me because I'm looking to work to sit with a medicine, and it had been blocked the few times beforehand for different reasons, it had been cancelled or shifted. And I was like, Okay, I'm looking for someone, and she was gonna direct me. Anyway, I came away from that conversation. I said, Oh, I'll find you. Uh um, then I was sat playing my flute with my eyes closed. She was really not in a place where she was wanting to connect with Von in one, but her friend said, Look, like, you know, he seems like a nice guy, like, connect with him or whatever. And she left her business card while my eyes were closed, and then we started talking, and from there, this like just this beautiful, like I would I would say, like, this sacred union came in that hasn't been like, oh, like the dream picture, like we've moved through things and we've really cleared things with each other, and we've had big rows and big fights, but but ultimately, you know, this relationships come in where I'm like, this is this is my person.
SPEAKER_04You've been together for almost a year now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but we are also now seven weeks away from having a child. And actually, when we met, it all felt so beautifully aligned, and we had a conversation where we were like, Okay, we're both ready. For children, if it happens, it happens, but we're not rushing it. And then it came in and it was like, okay, yeah, we're ready. Let's go. And that intuitive part of me and that trusting part of me really just felt this like, we're in it. This is it, and this is beautiful. Because I thought you'd just pulled.
SPEAKER_02No, no, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You turned up the temple. I thought, I need to love the opening.
SPEAKER_04You both had a real good connection. So I thought, right, well, that seems like more than friendship, but it was like this deep.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you know what? I actually genuinely think that before I'd met her, that non-monogamous part of myself that had been on that journey, had been on that journey to really actually come through all the beauty and all of the difficulties of that into a place of this like not requiring that external energetic connection to be in my centre. And at the point that that was cleared, the anger from the judgment, but also the needs and the wants and the desires, and to be seen, to be heard, to be felt. I fully feel that all came in. And you know, blessings to that person as well that posted that thing on their social media because they really helped with that journey, you know. It's how you go into it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it can be a traumatic moment or it can be a liberating moment.
SPEAKER_01You know, and it was you get to choose, but it was a suffering. It was a suffering, but it was a necessity, it was a suffering that was necessary. We were made to suffer.
SPEAKER_04We were made to suffer, and you know, suffer, and in that fire we get cleansed to be the new iteration of us, but only if we can accept the the sting of the flame. Yeah. And you know what? That's only going to be a negative if you don't like I've actually got to the point now where I'll sit with such discomfort that I'm like, God, you're interesting though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then all of a sudden it bounces into its sister. Yeah. So everything needs to be balanced in quantum physics. She says that something can be affected even though it doesn't seem like it's next to it or tethered. Yes. So for me, like just if I feel pure anxiety, it's twin has to arrive. Excitement. So all of a sudden I feel pure depression. It's twin has to arrive. So it's balancing twin has to come. So actually, and this is the trick not to be free of it. I'll sit with that child and hold it if it shuts the fuck up. I'll listen to Leo if eventually it'll get him to fuck off and do the thing I wanted. It's not a good energy. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02And you can't lie to your own energy either. I'll listen to it so I can fix it. Exactly. And it comes back to that fixing healing.
SPEAKER_04But now I'm watching it and I'm like, what a show.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And all of a sudden last night, I was sitting for hours in meditative lighting, man. I was actually going to have to make it passive. And I felt heat just washing over me. It was coming to all these parts and I didn't even realise they were cold. But the only reason it came was because I sat so still and I was so present with such a whatever. If it's hell, it's hell. If it's heaven, it's heaven. There's trips I used to have that I hated were the ones where I went in for a party and it turned out to be fucking a climb up the hardest volcano that's erupting, and it was like, oh my god, if I'd have just known it was a volcano. Well, brother, stop trying to go to parties all the time. Yeah. Realize that sometimes you've got to go in the depth.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I also feel that as well, like on that note, like I sat with grandmother after meeting Rachel as well. Have you sat with it before? No. Okay. It had been blocked many times. So the you know, the first conversation that we had was me a one, you know, ideally looking for direction as to who to sit with. And she had beautiful knowledge and depth with that and directed me. And actually, it that journey itself was really like I was I felt like I was inside the belly of a snake, which is interesting because on the Peruvian medicine wheel, the serpent energy is going back around to the start. And actually, that whole journey from coming back from India, from being in all of that process with different people, from going back and living at my dad's house, even before I sat with her, her deeper intelligence was with me, and she was putting me through that process of bringing everything up to be cleared and bringing everything. And I believe that she was bringing everything up to be cleared so that we are we are able to bring this beautiful life into this world.
SPEAKER_04And I believe that this because you are bringing that into every moment, arguable-wise.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I also believe that like all of the intuition that has been directing me to clear the masculine side of my energy, and I've been working into that is because my son is coming into this world, and how do I bring this son into this world, not trying to fix or healing it, but giving it the space where it is liberated from the uh ancestral conditionings as much as possible, but again, the ancestral conditionings that are there for it are there for it as the medicine.
SPEAKER_04Well, Gabo Mate says, right, look, my mum and dad gave me this much trauma. My job's just to give my kids this much trauma. And that's it, and that's give them a bit less. A bit less, and that's it for me, you know. Give them a few more tips, a few more hints, a few more, you know what, son, I've already had that happen. To me, this is what helped me, which is all we're doing when we're facilitating, really. Exactly, exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_01It's not this, I've got it all figured out, I've got it all worked out. But if I say something that resonates with someone that can be a seed that allows them to move into themselves and something shifts, then I'm in my purpose. My purpose for me is when when it comes to facilitating, not as a human being, as a human being, like my purpose is to uh be as authentic as I can be.
SPEAKER_04My thing as well with all that is and if you think that he's not being authentic or I'm not being authentic or something's triggering you, speak personally. Why does the world need to know your negative thoughts about me or Leo or somebody else? You know I'm right here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04If you think that something I'm doing is having a negative effect on other people and you genuinely care about those other people, yeah, then come talk to me. Yeah. Don't try and use mob mentality to bully me into do something. Even if that gets me to do it, that's not a particularly nice energy you want to put there karmically, is it?
SPEAKER_01No. Or is it just a human level? And I believe actually that when that came in, it was an interesting thing because it it showed me, not from a judgmental place, but it showed me that okay, this person is not ready to face this or face me and face what's really moving for them here. Because I wouldn't have approached that in an aggressive way or a judgmental way or trying to shut down where I was just at the time, like quite surprised, shocked, a little bit hurt, and was like, wow, like where's this perspective coming from? Like, help me understand this so I can take responsibility for the parts of it that I am responsible for and discard the bits that I'm not responsible for. And it was beautiful that they didn't allow that because that allowed me to let go of that, trying to fix it, trying to solve it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you could tell my my logic mind came and went, Oh, if you just did, did, did, did, it's like not everything's logical, bro.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no. And actually, you know, like, yeah, blessed for that process, blessed to be where I am now, you know, beautiful child coming into this world and all the research, all the study I can do with this, as best as I can try and be. Give me some hint, yeah. Yeah, as best as I can try and be. Like, I know ultimately that I know nothing with that. And when that child turns up, I will do my best to show up in authenticity and integrity and be as best of a father as I can be to whatever that being requires, and not in a way of trying to protect it, just in a way of like, how do I hold this space? How do I hold this space? And then also how do I understand that I let go of that tea? Well, you know, the best parents don't have kids.
SPEAKER_04I always give the best advice to my friends. Oh, they're doing this or doing that. Well, yeah, if you hadn't have enabled that behaviour in the first place by not having a boundary again, then it's like easier said than done when you've not just done a 10-hour shift, come home to make tea, your husband's having a bad day as well, or your wife or your partner, and then you've got all this other stuff going on inside your own vessel. And then, by the way, there's this little vulnerable being who needs every ounce of your attention. Could you give it them? I get it, I get it. I can imagine it's a lot harder in practice. Yeah. So is there any way people can find you? Like just that's so it's if anyone's interested in what you've said or checking out some of the yoga what because what are some of the offerings just so people know.
SPEAKER_01So I'm acting with what you're facilitating. At the minute, I'm not facilitating any regular classes. I'm covering a lot of yoga soul in Manchester, I'm doing a lot of different workshops and events. I'm basically trying to curate workshops and events. So on the 26th of July, if this podcast is out before then, I'm doing a um cacao ceremony into breath work at Yoga Soul in Leventune.
SPEAKER_04Might not be out by then.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that's all right. Well, I've got many other retreats.
SPEAKER_04But if they want to find you, they can if they want to find things.
SPEAKER_01I it's Leo Oppenheim on Instagram. I would say that is the best place to find me and to look at the offerings that I have. Um, I obviously post about them all, but the link tree that's there always has all of the offerings I've got, all the different retreats. I've got a really beautiful retreat coming up with an amazing teacher called Anna Faviger October 10th to 12th over that weekend. She's a magic facilitator if you've never been to her practices and we are. Or the practices that she facilitates. You can always put the link in the description. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, click the link in the description because I think that is going to be the best place to get um a really sort of wide range of the So the Gremlins turned up again. We've had a few minutes.
SPEAKER_04Well, we're f we're wrapping it up now anyway, so go and finish what you were saying, brother.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I would say the best place to find me is on Instagram, it's just Leo Oppenheim. The link's below, and then the link tree will have all the different events I'm doing. I'm curating different events, I'm collaborating with different people. I've got an amazing retreat launching 10th to the 12th of August, and that is at Land and Sea, also known as Patty's Barn in Lancaster with Anna Favager. That is going to be an amazing retreat, and I would love to direct everyone's attention to that if they're looking for a retreat that has many of the different practices, cacao ceremony, yoga in different forms, breath, sound, cold water, we are going to be working into all of it over the state.
SPEAKER_04All the good stuff. All the good stuff. Was there any like last words, any final messages you wanted to just leave people before the gremlins turn up again?
SPEAKER_01Last words before the gremlins turn up. If you were to study the vibration of emotions, the highest vibration of emotion is authenticity. I invite you to look into yourself and really find what is your truest, deepest resonance on a deep level, your deepest authenticity, and follow that and move with that. No matter what is happening in the external, allow all of the narratives and the constructs that you have formulated in your life to start dissolving away and come to that deepest core essence of your authentic truth. Speak from there, live from there, breathe from there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you go.
SPEAKER_01What more, J. I'd love to collaborate with you on something. We'll do something, man, for sure. I'm ready, I'm up for it. I'm liking this hammock situation. I think we can do something very cool. I think we could do some hammock, hammock, and sound.
SPEAKER_04Well, I create stories. I'm a storyteller, I believe. Yeah. Stories. So we could create a story. Let's do it. Where we have your music, my DJing and storytelling, your breath work. Let's go. Yeah, man. All right. Keep ready. Stay stay tuned.
SPEAKER_03Stay tuned, it's coming. Bless you, my bro. Thank you for staying until the end, guys.
SPEAKER_04Peace and love. Peace and love. Yeah, man. I thought that was a great. Whenever you listen back to it, I thought that was a great conversation. Me and Leo, we don't struggle to talk, do we? It's just about letting each other finish. Like, Michael, let him finish. Leo, let him finish. We both was like, we're just so excited because of the stimulation that we get from the conversation. So yeah, I hope you also enjoyed it. I mean, if you've stayed for such a long episode, I'm thinking you did. If you want to check out Leo, now some of the stuff he was advertising, I've already given you a pre-1 in the intro. It's past, it's way past. So I'll put the links for Leo. Go check out his link tree, check out his Instagram. He'll no doubt be doing some amazing thing. And I'll actually, one of a friend of mine, actually folk, who's just raving about his breath work course that she went and did. So go check him out. He's he his skill with this stuff, he's one of the best, I find. And just um it was quite nice to see how humble he was about how he was opening up about some personal stuff that you know some people would rather just put to the side, but at least he owns it and accepts like you know, I've seen I've seen that working on it and working on processing. He's quite a little boy now that he's bringing it into the world and sure, it changes really drastically the way you see the world. Yeah. Appreciate you staying until the end. If you wanna check out Eva Herbal Reminance, this one will you do eight days, eight days, eight days, eight hours a day dreaming, right? Why not do it skillfully? So the dream healer is on the store, the aura cleanser, the algorithm for the reader, and we do have a beautiful morning coming soon as well. So it's all gonna be on my socials anyway. Um next door this was episode 15. So episode 16 is gonna be with um a friend of mine, um wizardry from season one, and he's doing dancing as golden monastery, it's beautiful, and um Emma Davies and she had a vibe. You know, you could get on with someone and like and then decided to learn what she'd been through and she had crumbs, and she's had a shattered jaw and da-da-da-da-da-da, which we're about to film that episode today after we've done this, so yeah. I don't actually know what the conversation is gonna be like, but I know it's gonna be fire and her story, and think it's gonna really inspire you. So subscribe if you want to make sure you don't miss stuff like that. Appreciate if you give us a like. If you think this was worth a like, it helps you agree with agree with an algorithm now. It's worth checking out. If you feel like, you know what, I love this conversation. Maybe that's right. Drop a comment, man. Let's create a little community so we can get to know each other. I want to hear what you thought about it as well. A link for myself and slowly working way, and I'll still be again as I'm not putting too much on the playbook. I will be easing some of them. And if you want to check out some of the free stuff I've already got on the website, help it all in any way you can. There's loads of cool stuff coming from meditation like also put the links there as well.
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