Man: Quest to Find Meaning
Man: A Quest to Find Meaning is the podcast for men who feel stuck, disconnected, or uncertain about their place in the world — and are ready to reconnect with purpose, emotional strength, and a more authentic way of being.
Hosted by [Your Name], each episode explores the deeper questions of modern masculinity through honest, unfiltered conversations. You’ll hear from men who’ve overcome inner battles — and from women offering powerful perspectives that challenge, inspire, and expand how we think about growth, relationships, and healing.
From purpose and vulnerability to fatherhood, fear, and identity — this is a space for men who want more than just surface-level success. It’s for those on a journey to live with intention, courage, and truth.
New episodes weekly. Real talk. No ego. Just the quest.
Man: Quest to Find Meaning
Transforming Life’s Setbacks into Strength: A Journey of Grounding and Spiritual Alignment
My name is Jote Prakash Singh Khalsa, I used to be called Tom.
I am an Inspiro SpaceHolder, a Kundalini Yoga Teacher, Men's Work Facilitator, a Musician and a Writer.
I have been holding Sacred Space since 2016 when I led my first mens retreat.
My deep core mission is to provide people with a holistic path to deeper connection by creating safe sacred spaces that inspire authenticity, courage and devotion.
Find out more about my mission: www.inspiro.love
https://www.instagram.com/inspiro.love
In this week's episode, we talk about connecting to others in a deep, authentic way rather than superficially. We talk about developing self-awareness and emotional intelligence, which helps us to identify our emotions and to understand what drives our behaviour, and we look at creating space for ourselves to do the work. And we look at creating space for ourselves to do the work. Welcome to man Quest Defying Meaning, where we help men navigate modern life, find their true purpose and redefine manhood. I'm your host, James, and each week, inspiring guests share their journeys of overcoming fear, embracing vulnerability and finding success. From experts to everyday heroes, get practical advice and powerful insights, Struggling with career relationships and personal growth. We've got you covered. Join us on man Questify Meaning. Now let's dive in. Good morning, my name is James, I'm the host of man Equestify meaning and today I have a very special guest, Jyot Prakash. Is that right? Is that pronounced right? That's?
Speaker 2:spot on, bro, that was spot on.
Speaker 1:That's spot on. So just before I've been doing live, I've had a little bit of practice with his name. Can you start off by telling us your journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, as James said, I'm Joe Prakash. I wasn't always Joe Prakash. That's actually a name that I took on when I was 18. And it was part of my sort of claiming of a new identity at that time. To give a little bit more backstory, my mum actually started Kundalini Yoga when I was 10 years old, and so this name, this spiritual name, is through Kundalini Yoga, so I guess that's been a big, influential part of my journey is actually my mum and how she started her spiritual journey, which happened, like I say, when I was about 10.
Speaker 2:And she started Gishtel Psychotherapy. She started Kundalini Yoga. She started wearing a turban. She divorced my dad. Basically she took us out of school. So me and my three brothers were home educated from that point on and everybody thought she was gone, batshit crazy. But she was really just carving out a new life for herself. She recognized that the way she was living before, that wasn't serving her, wasn't actually in connection with her soul or her higher self. So she really forged this, this new path, and that meant that I was then in that energy with her. We were, we were getting like organic food. All of a sudden, we were taking our school.
Speaker 2:I remember that moment as she in the car driving back from school, when mum said, how would you guys feel about by not doing school anymore and coming in and doing work at home, I remember just going like crazy. I was like so excited. I ran around school the next day. I told all my friends like huh, screw you, we get to stay at home and we never have to go to school again. It was this just like yeah, like my reality shattered in that moment and that led to me essentially being able to think for myself and think outside of the box and I think mum was really laying the groundwork for me to then step into this new way of being, new way of living. I fought against it for for long enough time for the next few years and my team there's years I had had an idea that what mum was doing was her thing and she was a little bit wacky, a little bit of a hippie, a little bit weird and I wasn't really. That wasn't really the path for me. I was like set on I wanted to be an actor, I wanted to go into drama school and do acting, but basically when I was actually at college I did a performing arts BTEC.
Speaker 2:I had an experience that changed everything. So basically what happened was I was smoking quite a bit of marijuana at the time with friends and things, and I think I just started, to my mind, started to expand and expand more and more and there was a time where I kind of upped my intake of marijuana and so I was like sort of chain-smoking a little bit more over the course of a few days and then I actually did it for the first time in a public place. I did it, I did it at college and that like led to me having this wild kind of awakening. So as I was walking back into college, I just had this experience of my mind exploding into this like complete state of awareness, and everything was amplified. So smells, all of my senses kind of exploded Smells, tastes I could see everything. I could see colors that weren't there before. I also could really like almost see people's auras. I remember walking back into college and like seeing all this gray energy, people just like trudging into college, this like bought out of their mind, or just I could really feel that something was needed to shift and something was needed in me to shift and all of a sudden, like just all at once.
Speaker 2:So what I now know to be kind of I might call a spontaneous kundalini awakening actually like I had this experience at that moment, like all this, all fear and anxiety drained out of my body. It was like there was no fear, no anxiety in me. I was like all I wanted to do was bring joy to the world and bring light and creativity. And that led to me like taking my guitar into college and playing music in the corridors and singing, and I used to be so scared out of singing in the corridors and singing, and I used to be so scared out of singing and all of a sudden I was like in the, in the canteen, like singing in front of everybody and everybody would. It was like a mix. Some people were loving it, some people were like this guy is crazy.
Speaker 2:But that kind of escalated into this. Like my energy got higher and higher and higher over the course of about two weeks, I'd say, and I basically stopped like sleeping and eating at the same time. So I was kind of like I lost all like the grounded, practical things that were keeping my feet on the earth. They sort of fell away in favor of this like let's just follow this flow of life and love and creativity and I don't want to go to sleep. There's too much to experience in this life to sleep. So I I said she went into this like cascade of different experiences, one leading to another, and I was like surfing in scarborough one moment and then I was like longboarding.
Speaker 2:I was doing this like sport and I was just the adrenaline was like pumping through my, my system. So I was on this like up and up and up until basically after about two weeks, my nervous system started to like crash a little bit and what used to be a good experience suddenly became like this this paranoia started to set in. So at first I was quite happy to not be sleeping and then all of a sudden I realized I'd go to bed, I'd lay down, and then I realized I actually couldn't sleep and had this experience of falling through space. And then that started to lead into this like quite intense state of paranoia, of genuinely believing that there was something wrong with my brain, and I was like googling stuff, like crazy stuff. I really don't recommend it.
Speaker 2:If anyone has an experience like this, of like rapid awakening, don't google the symptoms, because I was like googling. Can you give yourself a brain hemorrhage. And it was like, yeah, you can give yourself a brain hemorrhage if you like, overthink things. And so I was like terrified that I was giving myself a brain hemorrhage and even one day like spat blood into the sink, my mum's house and was convinced it was happening. But maybe I just bit my lip or my tongue or whatever, because I I wasn't aware of things at this point. I was sort of losing my mind and I spat blood into the sink and I was like, oh my God, I'm actually dying, I'm literally gonna die.
Speaker 2:And yeah, that led to quite an intense what what I would now call a psychosis, an experience of, of psychosis, and mum took me into hospital. They didn't know what to do. They were like about to get a mental health practitioner or a psychiatric person to come and see me. And this was also a moment that potentially like the fate of my whole life was hanging in the balance. And I remember it clearly, like I remember everything throughout this experience, this awakening. It's like it was. People say I bet you can't remember a thing because you were just out of your mind. But I was like, no, I'm actually like it's high definition, it's the most clear memory of my entire life these few weeks.
Speaker 2:So I'm in the hospital and they're like doing all these physical checks on me and nothing's physically wrong. So they go and they call for psychiatric consultant to come and and see me and as the consultant was on his way to to assess me to the probably to to come and say that I need to go into a psychiatric ward. That was probably what was going to happen. I was like in that much of a head fuck. I reckon that I probably would have been sectioned or they would have given me something like some drugs or something.
Speaker 2:And as this consultant was coming to assess me, he got sidetracked on another, more important job and at that point my mum looked at me and said do you know what? I think we can do this ourselves. I don't think we need the medical system. I think we can get through this ourselves. So she took my hand and took me out of the hospital and what followed next was actually about a week in Scotland with the family, basically just mum like doing all these things for me to to bring me back down to earth.
Speaker 2:So I'd be going out for walks in my bare feet. She actually tied a turban on my head because the turban is said to contain the crown energy. So in yogic philosophy, I guess what was happening to me with my crown chakra was like expanding a lot and opening and my lower chakras weren't grounded enough and my nervous system wasn't strong enough to actually hold this energy and contain it without exploding. So she was like offering me stuff like ginger juice and carrots and just really like root vegetables and I was on a bit of a protocol of recovery and various different things like yoga and stuff that she had me doing. So that was like a really powerful experience to then really be held by my mum. Through this process she brought me back down to earth and there was a moment throughout that week where I was like, wow, I can kind of feel my body again. I remember actually bursting into the back of a car on the way to some castle in Scotland, just bursting into tears and being like I feel like I actually exclaimed to the rest of my auntie and my uncle and my cousins that we were driving with. I feel like I'm me again, I feel like I'm actually coming back to reality and my auntie burst into tears. It was a really big thing for the whole family and everybody was really affected by what was happening with me and so that kind of cracked me open. To come back to your question that my journey and how I got to where I am today, that really cracked me open into this new way of seeing the world and myself and I was nervous of anything spiritual.
Speaker 2:Kundalini yoga has been a big part of my journey and kundalini yoga was also like something that I actually did during the experience of the, the psychosis that kind of amplified the, the state, and so I was wary of kundalini yoga after that. But I found my way back into it in a gentle way and, yeah, and kundalini yoga actually became something that really helped me understand my experience. So I was actually gifted a free place on my kundalini yoga teacher training that we were running at a holistic center. My mom and my auntie were running a holistic center. At the time. I was 17 years old, just come out of college, didn didn't get into drama school and was gifted this place and I was like you know what At first I was, oh, teenager rebellion, like no, no way, am I fucking doing that? That's just weird, I'm not going to follow that and follow my mum into that, but I just was thinking why not? I just was thinking why not? I just remember thinking why not? I might as well do this training, see where it takes me. I'm not planning on really doing anything with it, but over the course of the training, just yeah, it was a year-long training and it just unraveled a lot inside me and I ended up joining my mum, my auntie, and helping out with the holistic center.
Speaker 2:I started doing men's retreats at the same time, really because I needed a group of friends on the same level as me. I actually like, over the course of the training, quit like alcohol, marijuana, stopped eating meat, stopped eating sugar, stop, just cut out so much of these things that weren't really serving me. And I was like, actually in this space of quite like lonely, because I really started to just not resonate with my friends in the same way anymore. They'd be out clubbing and I tried to go clubbing at first and I could get into it. I'd do like breath work in the toilets to get me a bit hyped and I could enjoy it, but after a while I was like, just that's actually not really very fun. I just find it boring like we're dancing to this same kind of music for hours and hours.
Speaker 2:I was like I just really was craving something else, so that led me to setting up men's retreats. I had no idea really what I was was doing. I taught some yoga and meditation and we do like projects like building a tree house, but just have a lot of fun together and just started to evolve into where it is now like with these retreats and the work I'm doing with sacred space and holding. Holding sacred space and the men's work of, yeah, really deepening into powerful somatic rituals and sharing circles. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I know that I've talked for ages now, but yeah, that's my a little bit about my journey, so thank you so much for the question literally so much in that, probably 10 minutes of your journey.
Speaker 1:I want to quickly just go back to when, the first 10 years of your life, when you're in school. How did that impact? Did that have an impact on you for the next 10, 15 years? Yeah, so the home education yeah, been for the first 10 years. Quite often, if you always people say that the first seven years your life impacts you on the biggest level, with your beliefs and what you, how you act as a person. How did the first 10 years of your life impact later on?
Speaker 2:yeah, like being in school coming out. Yeah, I can definitely feel the unraveling to take place and it's like quite amazing to capture. I suppose that at that, at 10, the conditioning that goes in or in the system, in the school system, is strong. It's like I was grateful, I actually like enjoyed school for the most part, I was like had good friends and I was quite clever, and so I think it, yeah, it served me like at that time to actually be in school in a way. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I think there's one memory that comes up actually now that was a defining moment in my life was being very young and having these sort of magical abilities, if you like. So, for example, I'd be able to play the game Pairs, where you're flipping over different cards and trying to find a pair. I'd be able to play this game and kind of see through the back of the cards and get the whole game just like one after another, without anyone else having to go, and people were like whoa and I did it multiple times and had this what might call hypersensitivity and ability to just, yeah, like magical ability maybe. And I remember this moment being in the kitchen at my mum's and one of her friends saying something along the lines of she saw me do the pads, she saw me do this it was a bit of a party trick by this point and she said something like oh, that's a bit strange that he can do that, that's a bit weird. And I think at that point I realized that level of openness is not really normal. It's not what people are used to. That level of just seeing beyond the veil of normal reality is like a bit weird or a bit strange, and that was injected into me in that moment to the point where, from that moment on, I actually couldn't do this. I lost the ability. So there was probably quite a few moments over the course of those early years where, if we step outside of the box of what everybody else is deeming as normal reality, they're almost like people want to then bring you back into that framework of the way that they see the world, because it's maybe slightly threatening to be someone who sees the world in a completely different way, and so I could see how I was getting dragged into certain boxes and certain ways of thinking and being over those former years.
Speaker 2:Even just stuff like you need to get good grades and that's a belief that gets ground into us if you don't get good grades, you're not going to have a good life, you're not going to get a good job, you're not going to be able to support your family and it gets injected in to us at school. But I remember an assembly one time. Literally they were saying if you don't get good grades and they did this whole graph and they did it If you don't get good grades, you won't get into college, you won't get into university, you won't be able to get a good job, of this much per year and all this stuff. And they were like we're super young at this point and they're just like it's almost weird.
Speaker 2:There's propaganda. And it's almost like there's propaganda. If you forget your pen, you won't be able to join the exam and then you won't get a good grade. And then, yeah, I think breaking out of that then allowed me the space. So coming out into higher education allowed me then the space to actually expand into this creative self that I am, and I believe that we all are.
Speaker 1:You can see it all the time. As kids you're very expressive, creative and you hit a certain age and people start saying you're weird by being able to express yourself and show your creativity and I even now I get called weird. But I've changed what I used to see as weird thinking. Stay away from weird, I tend to go towards it. I tend to almost embrace the word weird. Yes, I am weird. Who cares kind of thing, and almost be myself, unapologetically yeah, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:And I, to go a little bit further along the, when I was, I think, 14 or 13 something around that age like when I was actually like just hitting puberty and and coming into my teenage years I did actually decide to go back to school for a few years and then I obviously did go. I went to college, so I went back in in year end of year nine and I did like year 10 and 11 and I did my gcses in in school. So I got this chance to come out of school, break some of the conditioning and then come back in with this new, new way of seeing and this. Yeah, how am I gonna be my authentic self within this environment? So that was a whole. That was a whole experience in itself and, yeah, I thrived really, like I did.
Speaker 2:Okay, I remember feeling like a bit of an outsider at times and, yeah, there was like bullying and there was like people were judging me and things and specifically when my mum would be around or they'd see that my mum wears a turban and all this stuff. I remember getting called Sikh boy and all this stuff and instead of claiming it, like you say, I actually am now a Sikh, so I used to get called Sikh boy when I was a teenager. But now I'm like, yeah, I can claim that and then it doesn't affect anymore, it doesn't affect us.
Speaker 1:I'd say it's like when you do start to claim these things, they no longer have the power. They no longer have that power against us and it's weird. Now Weird's almost my super strength, but at the same time it's not like it's you get called weird and you're down. It's more like yes, kind of thing. You mentioned about psychosis and the period of time when you had paranoia. For those people who perhaps might be going through something like that, can you explain what psychosis is and also how they could perhaps start to work themselves, work through this kind of stuff?
Speaker 2:I'd love to. It's something I'm so passionate about now. Actually, I really want to work more with people in some capacity with psychosis and moving and recovery from from psychosis, because I think we're letting people down in the system. I think that just pumping people full of drugs I've seen friends who have suffered from psychosis go into, get sectioned, go into a ward and just get pumped full of drugs to the point where they're just completely numbed out. So, yes, they're able to function slightly better, but it's almost like what was opening up for them through the psychosis gets shut down and it actually leads to this series of consequences and side effects from the drugs that then they have to deal with later down the line to see us find a way in our society to hold people whose minds are cracking, because that's what psychosis is. To me it's like the mind is cracking. The the way of seeing the world suddenly is wavy and suddenly we're seeing things that weren't there before. That doesn't mean they're not real, that just means our reality is shaking a little bit and that actually is the basis of all awakening. So this is why it's a fine line. It's like a tightrope walk between falling into complete psychosis, which is where the mind is kind of cracked open to the, to the like point of real distress and suffering and the, the, the other side of that, which is actually this like going into an awakening, which I was very blessed to be almost steered by my mother towards the like, harnessing the energy that was rising up in me and harnessing that for my awakening to actually strengthen me and help me grow and crash over my heart and experience more love and more presence than I have ever experienced. It's almost like nowadays I'm spending time just trying to get myself back to that space I was in during the, the initial like two weeks, the of the up. It's like I just want to get back there, but from a grounded place, like in a grounded way.
Speaker 2:So I talk a lot about grounded awakening. Yes, just to give a definition on psychosis first. Psychosis is where your, your reality is, is no longer what you thought it was, so this could be. People can then see like ghosts, or sometimes people have very visual things around. Psychosis of just like walls might start cracking or you might be able to put your hand through a table, or just like really crazy stuff happens another time. This it's just like a, for me heightened sense of awareness, just like complete awareness and presence. That is really heightened above and beyond a normal state. So when I, when I'm feeling to like how could people work with that if it's happening for them, if if anybody's listening who is going through themselves or is holding space for someone who's going through it, I think it's just about offering like really grounded energy.
Speaker 2:So my experience, the way I understand it now, is my higher chakras were opening before my lower chakras had been developed. So chakra is like energy center in the body in yogic philosophy, and the higher chakras are all related to connection with spirit, connection with the soul, connection to our creative expression, connection to the heart and like unconditional love. And and the lower chakras are all about security and sexuality and like power and courage and direction in life. So I think it's really just focusing on like the lower chakras, so kind of getting down into the. So if we go through it like the root, it's all about security, it's all about routine, it's all about stability. So my mum, in my situation when I got to Scotland, she was really offering me a lot of routine and stability and I was getting up at the same time every day. I was having like hot baths. I was eating really well, so like a lot of grounded food, and I was eating regularly.
Speaker 2:And then the second chakra is all about connection and relationships with others. That was a big thing for me throughout was the way that other people like were relating with me. I remember a lot of people, even even in their worry and their anxiety, because that's like relational contact is. I was seeing people around me who were quite worried about and sometimes they'd be in tears, like what's happening with you? I was called tom at the time, so what's happening with you, tom? It's like you're not who you were before, like what.
Speaker 2:You're completely like out of your mind what is going on, and that I think that was kind of like pulling me back towards reality as well, even though I was like oh, don't worry about me, I'm obviously fine, I've never been better.
Speaker 2:And my mum really actually sometimes she was angry, she was like you need to snap out of this, you need to come back to reality. So having all these people around me that cared about me was really tethering me back into the earthy realm. And then I think the third chakra of the solar plexus and the power and just like feeling really solid in my, in my direction and having this ability to yeah, like it's more about action the solar plexus more about taking action and just taking these steps towards our dreams, but like a very practical way. So, whereas my mind at that time was like I can change the world and I was a lot of in my head about it all, like I want to change the world, I want to make the world a better place, but because it wasn't connected to of an actual like direction, it was just a bit of a pie in the sky idea.
Speaker 1:So like bringing it over the last few years, like bringing all that energy of yes, I still want to change the world, but like I'm now more just about taking steady action towards that, that vision yeah, that makes sense because you can be all in your head and have this great, big, massive dream of yours, but unless you are grounded and taking small action steps, it's just a dream and it will always be just a dream until you are able to really connect yourself to that down to the earth and, as a human being, take them physical steps.
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly, and it's just one of those things, I think For me. I've had this big dream of impacting the planet. I've had to really ground into the base chakra, because for me, there's parts of me that feel unsafe. So it's working with safety and making my inner child feel safe, in particular, and being able to then, once I've got a bit more grounded, okay, what action step can I take in this moment? So, rather than thinking tomorrow or the next day, what can I do now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because the big vision is sixth chakra, probably like third eye, and it's holding that big vision and then reining it in. I like what you say there Reining it in to what's the tiny little step that I can take today, right now, in this moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just a dream until you walk it In our physical body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah definitely.
Speaker 1:There must be times in your life where things might not go to plan or something crops up or a challenge is created. How do you ground yourself to be able to overcome challenges, to overcome setbacks, struggles?
Speaker 2:how do I ground myself? Yeah, my practice, my morning practice, I think morning routine is probably like the thing that grounds me more than anything else. It's waking up at a good time and I really notice it if I don't. So I've had a few weeks. It's been a lot of challenges. Actually, I'm on this.
Speaker 2:We're living in a tiny house on some land and we were planning on setting this project up on the land and retreat center and organic food and the whole shebang, but we actually, like, the landowner has asked us to move on. Basically, so, long story short, and so now we're in this space of being thrown back into the unknown and having to, yeah, move on, and that has destabilized me and it's thrown off my, my morning routine a little bit, which is normal, and I'm like okay, I'm okay with that. I've got a bit of like flex. Now I'm not I don't want to be too rigid about like, I must get up at this time and I must do these practices every day, because that that becomes like, uh, I become shackles. That becomes like another cage to put ourselves in. You know, it's like, oh, like, oh. Well, now I'm spiritual, I'm now like shuffling myself to the spiritual practices and I'm addicted to the spiritual practices so I allow that breathing space but have, like just last few days kind of locked back into my practices and I'm getting up 5 am, 5, 30 am, getting myself out, go to the gym, do a bit of yoga in the studio at the gym and then start by doing meditation in the car and then I get to the gym, do do some yoga for maybe about an hour and then and then have some like workout at the gym, then head back, do some work and it's like, yeah, if I follow this real nice flow and routine to my day, then it supports everything else that I do, even like to the to the point of eating and like allowing myself time to to digest. So I do my intermittent fasting and that's really supported me to not eat, like maybe I have a bit of fruit in the morning but like my main first meal is after 12 o'clock. So I've got this like structure and and routine and all that really really supports me and I eat really well.
Speaker 2:I've got beautiful wife who is amazing with her food and nutrition and especially when on a on a vegan diet, because like it can be easy, I think, for people who go vegan or start going plant-based is not getting the right nutrients, so it doesn't work. It doesn't work and there's been times where I've been like, ah, this is not working. I'm feeling like super exhausted all the time or fatigued, or just not getting the energy I need. I'm like getting thinner and so I'm like down this quite I don't know, I don't want to say regimented, but quite sort of solid practice of what I eat and when I eat, and like the portion sizes and big bowl of porridge with all these seeds and protein powder and hemp protein and you know, all these little things that keep me grounded and keep me tethered to the earth.
Speaker 2:As well as this, like what you said, james, like the vision, this vision that I'm holding for the like community project and living on the land and living in harmony with the earth and nature. That keeps me tethered because I know that in order to manifest that dream I'm gonna have to be grounded. There's so, there's so much that I've tried to to manifest in my life that hasn't really worked out because I haven't actually been, like grounded enough to do it. So the universe gives me all these setbacks and things that destabilize me to kind of remind me that if I really want to make this happen, I really want to like crystallize this dream into reality, it is going to take. It's going to take patience first of all, and it's going to take this like of all, and it's going to take this like grounded action and work and commitment long, like long-term commitment that I'm not letting go of this dream. As long as it takes. I will make this thing happen. Now. I will be living on land with my family. I will have organic food, fruit and veg growing outside my door. I will have a beautiful natural building to live in. All this stuff that I'm like I'm not letting go, even if the universe takes me in a different direction for a while.
Speaker 2:But there's this. It roots me deep into a better world and I want to actually live that for myself and my family. First. I want to create this way of being and living like I need. I know that I need to do that first for me and then ripple that out into other people and serve others and help others to to also get that place of of peace and harmony and connection in themselves.
Speaker 2:And this, once I've got holding that vision and it's like I've got a backtrack, you know saying like, got a backtrack, quite a few steps to be like, what are the actual steps? So, you know, looking at different projects that have happened and like lammas, or these different, like eco villages that have have actually made it work and have made it happen, it's like what did they actually do? Well, there's so many different things to to actually start now. It's like defining the, the plan of the whole thing, designing the, the village, designing the, the way that we would operate, like different conflict resolution things or different values that we're anchoring in, and all this stuff. I can do that. I can start writing things down right now. I can start visioning in right now.
Speaker 2:So, even though we don't have the land, I can actually take action on this vision today and I feel like I am consistently like doing certain things, talking to certain people to like bring it more into the being, and it's like planning and it's all this stuff. You know, finances these are the things that would cause the, the dream, if it managed to happen without having these things in place, that there'll be no roots. It'll be like a tree with no roots, it'll fall over, and we see it all the time. It's like it wasn't rooted deep enough so it didn't have the foundations that it needed and it failed, and I've done that. I've had three community projects that I've been part of which didn't have strong foundations, and they've all collapsed, and that's part of my journey is to learn from that and not give up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, my journey is to learn from that and not give up. Yeah, yeah, just to clarify with everybody I, when I say grounded, I mean to be able, in the physical body, to be present, to be putting stuff into action. I don't know what you mean by grounded. So what's your definition of being grounded?
Speaker 2:I think you, I think you put it perfectly there, bro yeah, like in the physical, just feeling a sense of calm and peace and like, if you think about it scientifically, like when you get your bare feet on the earth, you actually come into synchronization with the earth frequency. So, you know, you could, like astellas, actually start vibrating with the frequency of the earth.
Speaker 1:That might be a little bit definition yeah, that's nice, nice, I can imagine out there there's probably some people who because this conversation is going quite deep and with regards to people who perhaps aren't on the path yet or have just started, what kind of steps would you recommend that they take?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's a beautiful question. I think I would hang on. I would probably like want to know what. What is making them curious? What? What is making that that person if someone's listening who's just sort of starting out, I'm assuming if they're listening to this podcast and they've got this far, they're curious about spiritual journey or um, and what it means to live more in harmony with ourselves and others. Um, yeah, so I would want to know what's actually that curiosity inside and how could we just fan that flame? And, like we've been talking about the, the first step, maybe, is listening to this podcast. The second step is but they probably already know what the second step is it's maybe just some fear or anxiety holding them back. So we this is my experience anyways like I know what I need to do most of the time and the more important question is what's blocking me from taking that step? So I'd want to ask, like what, what's blocking you? What's blocking us from stepping more fully into, into our path?
Speaker 2:And everybody's path might be different. For some people it's yoga, meditation. For some people it's taoism, buddhism or tantra, or there's loads of stuff out there. It's like you can go on google and it's a gold mine of any practice that you want is on YouTube, like breath work, dance, meditation, sacred sexuality. It's like you can find anything you want. It's just, I would say to people actually the important thing is, don't spread yourself too thick. Find a practice that really resonates with you, for for me it was Kundalini yoga and that was sort of laid out for me through my mom's path and journey, and it was Kundalini yoga and that then gave me this practice that I could devote myself to.
Speaker 2:In Kundalini yoga there's loads of different meditations and sets of exercises that we we do and each one has a different effect.
Speaker 2:So I'd often like practice a specific set for 40 days at a time, or a specific meditation for 40 days, or I once did a. I actually did a thousand day meditation as well three years doing one meditation, 31 minute bowing meditation every day for a thousand days, and it just gave me this like can just keep anchoring back into this, this thing. I think what, what sometimes people do when they first start out is we spread ourselves thinly between lots of different practices and paths and religions or whatever's calling us. It's like we put that and we we get bored of it after a while and then you just want to move on to something that feels a bit more exciting. For me, that just leads to us like the analogy of you digging lots of small holes to try and find water, when really all you need to do is just pick one and dig it straight down like a deep hole and you'll find water. You'll find that essence of what you're looking for yeah, that makes complete sense.
Speaker 1:So, on my my journey initially started with reiki, but as soon as I did reiki, it kind of opened me up to everything. And you can get caught up in this kind of idea that I'm going to read this book, I'm going to read this book, this book, this book or this course, that course, and you're right, you can spread yourself far too thin and it's the idea that we have the answers within and, rather than looking on the outside, look for the answers inside and quite often again, it's the fear, the anxiety, the idea that I'm not good enough or worthy that stops us from stepping forward and that's a beautiful way of phrasing it like anybody just starting out on this spiritual quest.
Speaker 2:This podcast is quest to find meaning. Right, it's like anyone starting out to find more meaning in their lives. My suggestion, too, is just just turn inwards. Just keep turning inwards, even if that's five minutes a day. Everybody's got five minutes, right. You can make as many excuses as you want about how you don't have time, or you've got family, or you got your work, or you've got whatever going on. You can always make that for five minutes.
Speaker 2:Just to sit quietly. Sit quietly, close the eyes. It doesn't have to even be a specific form of meditation or anything. Just sit quietly, close the eyes Maybe you're out in nature next to a tree and just start to ask yourself that question what could bring more meaning to my life? And just turn it and just feel what's there, feel that the answer is probably just going to reveal itself from that space of silence and stillness. It's not going to reveal itself by rushing around frantically, searching through all the scriptures and all the practices to try and find it, because really what we're searching for is us. We're searching for connection to ourself.
Speaker 1:That leads on quite nicely. What's your definition of a healthy man?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I've done men's work now since I started Kundalini, so eight years I've sat in men's circles, I've run men's retreats. I must have done nearly 15 men's retreats now and every time I'm in that group, every time I'm in a circle of brothers, something very special happens. I don't know if it's some kind of the way our testosterone mirrors one another and activates more testosterone in the group, or just more sense of I could really like, just fully like, be this primal energy, be with this. It's probably does feel primal, it's like it's. It's an ancient thing men have done it since the probably the dawn of time where you just sit in circle with like fire and nature and you can just feel this. And for me it's so simple, like what is a healthy man is? It's shedding all the things that, all the conditioning that causes me to be unhealthy, that causes me to be balanced, and it's returning back to my natural state of being, which is like a balance of the sage and the warrior. For me it's like balancing the sage, which is my heart, and it's the part of me that just wants to love unconditionally and be kind and generous and forgiving and to really like have that part of me the sage and also the sage. That's very much about meditation or connection to my spirit and connection to the divine and balancing that with my warrior. Which is this like more rooted sense of actually I'm strong, I'm courageous, I am going to hold my boundaries. Something For me, recently, a big thing that's come up is I recognize that I forgive quite quickly.
Speaker 2:I forgive, I want to move to forgiveness without actually processing the deeper emotion that like the anger or the frustration or grief that's there and like. Then the forgiveness becomes shallow and actually becomes fake and sometimes it's actually manipulative. I'm like, oh, I forgive because I want to look, because I want to look like, you know, a beautiful, kind, generous man, and actually it doesn't serve me or anyone else when I actually can allow myself to feel the deeper emotions or get in touch with my anger and make sure that I'm processing that first. The forgiveness just happens naturally, and I'm talking forgiveness itself just as much as anyone else, you know. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's balanced, it's presence, cultivating and deep presence and being able to be present with my wife, with my friends, with my business, with my clients.
Speaker 2:It's like choosing one thing and devoting myself to it. I run a thing called devoted man quest. So it's it's very much about just devoting ourselves to one thing for a period of time, just making this commitment and staying with it for for as long as it takes to actually uncover the beauty of it, like like the crystal in it all. It's like chipping away. If you just chip a little bit into the mountain you're not going to actually get to the diamonds. It's like it has to for me. There has to be a level of commitment that I bring and I want to uphold that within my business life but also like in my relationship.
Speaker 2:My wife is like when things get hard, when things get really challenging, like I'm not, I'm not going to give up, I want to. I want to move through that to the other side, so that I've constantly telling myself and have been through this relationship with my partner is the grass is greener where you water it. Grass is not greener on the other side, grass is greener where you water it. I know that if I just accept that it's too hard for me or that we're not compatible or we've moved through like various stages in our relationship where we've been quite codependent or we've been in this trauma bond or throw whatever psychological language you want onto it, like we've probably done it, and it's like I know that if I just give up I'm probably going to end up in the same cycle with someone else anyway.
Speaker 2:So for me it's about taking space when I need to, but also like just continuously bringing myself back space when I need to, but also like just continuously bringing myself back to a state of devotion, and that's healthy masculinity for me, nice.
Speaker 1:How would you suggest that men? Because obviously there's quite a lot in men trying to cover all that. It's quite a lot, a big, a big. It's a big question itself where can men get started when it comes to starting to embrace their healthy masculine?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, find, find your nearest men's circle and and start going, start talking to other men, start opening up. Be the one that leads the way. If you're like, if you go to the gym, could you be the first person to start sharing a little bit vulnerably about what's going on for you? We're all going through shit like that's. That's obvious. We're all. We've all got these challenges and if you don't, you're probably not actually engaging with the world, or you bunk on a mountaintop or something. So I would say you know, be the one that walks first.
Speaker 2:If you've got friends who are all drinking and you've realized in yourself that you don't want to drink anymore, can you be the one that says, actually, this isn't serving me. Maybe you'll, maybe you will be judged. Maybe your friends will be like oh, stop being such a square, stop being such a loser, come and drink with us. We, we love it, we have a great time together. We, we love to go out partying and think, and you, you might be the one that says, actually, that's not for me anymore. Like I, I need to find something that's gonna fulfill me on a deeper level. Maybe you've recognized that drinking and smoking and anything else is not serving you anymore, and so, yeah, you will then become the one that inspires others.
Speaker 2:I'm always having people constantly even old friends from school and college that say if they're really struggling in their life, they might send me a message and be like I seen what you've done. It's really inspirational and I can see that you're happier than you've ever been. Like can you help me out? Like I'm struggling with this, or so, yeah, that's, it's okay to be the first one, and it might be lonely at first, but there's so much out there, there's so many med circles and spaces where you can get that support, and if there isn't any men's circle, then maybe be the first one.
Speaker 1:Like, be the one to start, start a circle yeah, that takes a lot of courage to start a circle yourself, especially if you don't know what's going on. I've just well, I've done a lot of men's work, so I've done mkp, the unmasked man, and I try to go. I'm going to men's circle probably once a month, but one thing I have created myself is a six. I'm creating a six-person mastermind group. So six men six men roughly like myself.
Speaker 1:The idea that we have a big quest that we want to accomplish and to get together once a month and to work through challenges that we're having, but also to, perhaps once every four months, have a weekend away where, as six to eight six to eight men we can really step into our masculinity, even into our own femininity, and to be able to embrace everything and to allow ourselves to work through what we need to work through and give each other an opportunity to lead yes, sounds amazing, and I like what you said about connection to our feminine energy as well, and by feminine energy like that more softer, tender, creative part of us.
Speaker 2:That is key. We were talking earlier about becoming a healthy man, it's like. For me, that's one of the biggest pieces is have a connection with your inner feminine, your softness, your grief, your tenderness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Definitely so. Can you talk a little bit about your sacred space?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what I do is my business is called Inspiro and it's a multitude of different things. First and foremost, it's a space holders training. So it was birthed out of me holding retreats and doing one-to-one sessions with people and really what I was doing was holding a space of deep listening and allowing that person in the space or people, if it was a group allowing them to find the answers themselves. So really just holding space for them to drop in, so guide little meditations or embodiment practices and then open the safe. So my role really is just open the sacred space, and by that I mean like we just regulate our nervous systems with some breath or a little bit of toning or mantra or just sighing or some movements and shaking, and we drop into presence. And we drop into presence and then it's holding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, holding space, because so often we're going through our life like now's the time there's no space, and I know that some people like wake up and the minute the alarm goes off, they either snooze it a bit or they wake up and they're immediately into the rush of the day and then they go through the whole day, like, even like, probably and I do it too like there's times when I'm not all these days to myself and I'm like, you know, I'm scrolling on my phone whilst I'm eating food and it's like that's a bit of a non-negotiable for me. I'm like, right, you need to just slow that down. No phone and food. But it's like or just scrolling endlessly on facebook like at a thousand miles an hour and there's no breathing space. So what I'm doing when I'm holding space or when I'm teaching others how to hold space, is I'm putting like a flag in the ground that says this is a sacred space where you can be present, where you are invited to drop into your heart and allow yourself to feel the things that you're maybe not feeling in your everyday life. And it's also about Inspiro is all about putting like authentic connection right at the center of the space. So it's recognizing what holds us back from authentic connection. And when authentic connection is like this ideal that we're moving towards or aspiring to drop into, what holds us back from is there like anxiety and emotion, and then we work through the emotion to drop into a state of harmony and connection as a group or, if it's working, one-to-one or as a circle.
Speaker 2:I host a lot of circles where what I love to do. I love to work with a group of people, and everybody arrives with their own level of anxiety or nerves or tension in the body and hopefully, by the end of the circle, it's like there's a softening that's taken place and everybody can feel this sense of shared humanity, that we're all walking this path together. We're all trying our best to be happy or find peace or find love. Our best to be happy or find peace or find love, and we can actually come together in support of one another and in a circle where no one's like at the top. I'm not there like on my pedestal, saying we need to do this and that, and I'm gonna, I'm the guru and I'm gonna teach you all this way of this, and that I'm there in the circle too, and I'm there to teach you all this way of this, and that I'm there in the circle too, and I'm there to be vulnerable myself and through my own vulnerability, it often allows that space for others to be vulnerable too.
Speaker 1:Nice, like it. If, for example, say, men want to have a bit more space or anybody listening to this podcast wants to have more space in their life, what kind of things can they start to do?
Speaker 2:It comes first through the breath. The breath is I'm sitting here on this podcast right now. I'm like, actually remember to breathe, remember to take life too seriously and that is literally creating space inside of the lungs, so you're actually like you're breathing more deeply. If you breathe into the belly, you're creating space around, around all the muscles and the ligaments and all these different like areas of the body start to open and then more air, more oxygen can flow in, regulating the nervous system, allowing us to drop into a state of openness and then, through that state of openness, we can connect with other people more deeply. We can connect with ourselves more deeply. Yeah, I think it starts with the breath, and and inspiro actually means breath of life. So I'm often like you're teaching people how to breathe more deeply and when we drop into sacred space, we breathe together, and then there's this like heart opening that that happens.
Speaker 2:So just come back to your question. I would really invite people throughout the day just bring more awareness of your breath, try and stop. Whatever you're doing whether you're on the toilet or you're making some food, or you're out in the car and someone's cut you off feel that that like anger rising? Maybe there's. You actually need to scream, and that's beautiful. Scream it out a little bit, allow yourself to feel the raw emotion and then return to that breath and really allow the breath to guide you through your day and make sure you just stop. Every now and again, take a bit of a check-in to see how your breath is. Is it shallow, is it deep, is it, is it fast, is it slow? And how could you just stay consciously and allow yourself to breathe a little bit deeper?
Speaker 1:Nice, I personally try to do every day is to slow down. But if you are simply breathing, I think you naturally slow down anyway. Yeah, I think breathing is probably one of the easiest easiest but one of the hardest things to do. Yeah, definitely. Can you tell us what? What is it that you do?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I have a few offerings at the moment, and the first thing is the space holders training, and that is a 12-week online journey all around the art of holding deeply transformational, trauma-aware sacred space. So we cover how to hold circles, how to hold a variety of different circles like connection circle, singing circle, movement circle, sharing circle, healing circle. We also learn how to hold ritual, how to do shadow work, shadow theater specifically, which is like a practice of embodying the shadow and moving it through the body and learning more about the, the shadow, which is basically just the parts of us that we've repressed or we feel shame about or, yeah, that have been judged or we've judged these parts of us as wrong or bad. Really, it's. There's a lot of power actually in the shadow, so we learn how to to work with the shadow. Yeah, so that's the first one that's called the inspiro space holders path. It's, yeah, it's a. It's an accredited training, so I've now got it fully certified, so you become a certified space holder at the end of it, which is which is cool, right.
Speaker 2:The other couple of things is kundalini yoga teacher training if anyone wants to learn how to do teach kundalini yoga, or just for your own personal practice of kundalini yoga and meditation. My mum and I run a kundalini yoga teacher training. And the final thing is the men's work. If there's guys listening to this podcast, it's yeah, we run a thing called Devoted man Quest. We're doing day retreats at the moment, working with seven different masculine archetypes, and that's in Yorkshire, so that's Sowerby Bridge at the moment in yorkshire, but we're also going to branch out and probably do like a retreat, like a five-day retreat or something in wales at some point. So, yeah, a lot going on. And we have a whatsapp group. I've got a whatsapp group for inspiro and a whatsapp for Devoted man. So yeah, can definitely pass on the links for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect. Thank you very much, jode, it's been absolutely amazing. Unfortunately we couldn't. There's so much in the conversations to cover literally within the time period we have. There isn't enough time. Yeah, but thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Maybe another one soon yeah, thank you.
