From Addiction to Authentic Connection | Roy Meshaka

Roy, hailing from London, is the founder of The Wandering Masseur, a venture born after he left a decade-long career as a chef. Realizing that the seeds he had sown in the culinary world had more potential to grow elsewhere, Roy embarked on a journey of self-discovery and healing. 

The Wandering Masseur offers Sports and Thai Yoga Massage, drawing on nearly ten years of Roy’s own inner work and healing journey with Reiki. As a Reiki Master, he also teaches various levels of this practice. Teaching comes naturally to Roy. 

He has a unique ability to translate complex, often unfathomable concepts into language that anyone can grasp, regardless of their spiritual background. 

His life experiences, from battling addiction and coping with the loss of close friends to drugs and alcohol, to healing deep depression and suicidal tendencies, have shaped him into the person he is today. With eight years of sobriety, a daily practice in Taoism, and a profound inner stillness, Roy is a beacon of groundedness and resilience. 

Recently returning from Thailand and a series of transformative one-on-one medicinal sessions, Roy continues to unfold his truth and live his soul’s mission. 

By sharing his stories and blending analytical and spiritual approaches, he creates a safe, grounded space for others to begin their own healing journeys. 

Roy understands the importance of balancing the inner feminine and masculine energies and combines techniques that allow these forces to be expressed in a divine and authentic way.

How does one break free from the chains of addiction and transform their life? Meet Roy, who, at just 22, found himself caught in a whirlwind of toxic relationships, substance abuse, and overbearing work stress. Roy's journey is nothing short of inspiring, as he turned to energy work, timeline therapy, and neurolinguistic programming to reclaim his life. By embracing somatic practices like dance, Qi Gong, and tai chi, Roy achieved a delicate balance between spiritual and humanistic growth, emphasizing the crucial role of authentic communication and grounding.

 In our heartfelt conversation about vulnerability and emotional health, Roy discusses the transformative effects of celibacy and tantric practices in fostering deeper connections. He delves into the qualities that make a healthy man, the importance of setting clear boundaries, and the significance of creating safe spaces for emotional expression. Growing up in a Syrian family that discouraged emotional vulnerability, Roy's journey through healing masculine guilt and shame offers profound insights for anyone seeking emotional freedom and personal growth. Finally, he shares his expertise in holistic healing practices like Thai massage, Reiki, and NLP, demonstrating his commitment to personalized care and well-being. Join us as Roy's story unfolds, offering a roadmap to inner peace and resilience.

www.thewanderingmasseur.com

Transcript

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In this episode, I'm joined by my friend Roy, for a powerful, honest conversation about addiction, healing, and the journey back to yourself. We explore vulnerability, connection, ity, inner child, and the courage it takes to stop escaping. And to start truly feeling. Welcome to You Matter. I matter, a transformational podcast about reconnecting with what truly matters. I'm your host James, and each week is an opportunity to explore a little bit deeper who you really are with amazing guests. We explore topics such as purpose, connection, commitment, and what it really means to live more consciously. If you've been feeling disconnected from yourself, from others, or from life, you are in the right place. Join us on new matter. I matter. Now. Let's begin. Today, I have one of my friends, Roy. How are you, Roy? Very well, thank you. It's lovely seeing you today, man. Just to clarify, I met Roy at a dance event, of which I've probably been to about five times now, I think. And our friendships just got stronger each time. And I thought Roy, it would be a great guest on the podcast because he's been through an amazing transformational journey, but he's also at the same time I see as a healthy man. So let's just start off by, tell us about your journey. Yeah, cool. My journey started when I was 22, 23, and I was basically really sick of my own stuff, really sick of how dependent I was on everything outside of myself and not really tapping into me and being able to rely on me. There was always something outside of me that I needed more than what was inside and it was a perfect escape every time. So I was just sick of that script. I got really tired of my own stuff. and just made very almost chaotic decisions according to the routine that I was used to. Went through lots of energy work, timeline therapy neuro linguistics programming went to rewrite my future's history as well as my past history, and through that met incredible people, incredible ways of somatically using the body to release certain emotions through dance, as you would know from the Aesthetic Dance Festivals and Qi Gongs and Tai Chi's and getting more into the movement practices and bringing that aspect of yoga into everything that I do, including washing the dishes, for an example. So everything becomes, everything became like a yoga practice for me. And that even, especially when it comes to communicating with other people, so authentic relating, really speaking up and saying, Hey, I feel this. How does that feel to receive knowing that I feel this thing right now? And just having that conversation as human beings. So went really deep down the spiritual side, the non physical size of growth. I went to lots of chanting, crystals, energy work, all the hippie stuff had dreadlocks down to my ass. And then I thought I want more of a humanistic approach to things. I really want to knuckle down on, yes, the psyche and a knuckling down on what it means to be a human. first and then the spirit kind of comes afterwards. I feel there's a balance between that one as well. Yeah, that makes sense. I think people can get especially when they go into spiritualism, they can get so caught up in the head and almost fly away with everything rather than grounding themself. in the moment. Because I find from my own perspective, being at the place where we do dance, Usher Lila, it's in its own bubble. So if I stay there too long, I get a little bit overwhelmed by Orcs, there's so much energy there. But at the same time, I have to come back into the other world, as I call it, simply because I know that this is where I do the work. This is where I put the stuff in what I've learned. This is where I go and meet people and have to really dig down into my own psyche, my own emotions to figure out what to do next. If we go back to the very beginning, when you first started on the journey at 22, what was it specifically triggered that transformation inside you? And what kind of action steps did you take? Yeah, I love this one. So I was in like most trauma stories. I, it all started with a very toxic relationship and we fueled each other's addictions through drug abuse and alcohol. We always went to the party, but it came to a point where I was working 50 to 60 hours a week as a chef. Which is stressful as it is and then I was just dosing myself so much for my partner and I never really had me time Never had time for myself. I became really anorexic. I Yeah, just couldn't hold food down whatsoever My body was in such an extremity of stress and then I thought to myself if I carry on in this relationship Whether my relationship with work my relationship with my partner my relationship with drugs and alcohol I'm not going to survive much longer. Like it's breaking down the fact that I can't keep food down. That's a major red flag. The fact that I'm constantly nauseous. That's not, it's not a great, not a good thing, so then I wasn't quite ready to let go of the alcohol. I wasn't ready to let go of the drugs. I wasn't ready to let go of my work, especially but I could let go of the relationships. I feel that was really fueling everything. And so I told my partner, listen, I can't do this anymore. Like I literally, my body cannot do this anymore. I need to stop. I need to stop something and I'm afraid. I'm gonna have to stop you, basically. That was a huge, chaotic scene. Lots of screaming and angers and crying and I was just there just so deflated. I can't even react to this right now. I'm just I'm done. I'm just so done with everything. Of course, I went down a spiral as well, and I had been going down a spiral for a while. It just took a while to really speak up and speak my truth, saying, listen, this isn't working for me. And then not two weeks later my partner, or my ex partner back then, now, started dating one of my best friends. I thought that was a big stab in the back. I felt very hurt. I felt, mate, how long has this been going on? All these sort of, the mind really had a good playground to, to fool around in with that. And that was the first time in my life despite all the cocktails of all sorts of substances that I put in my body, that was the first time where I actually felt scared for my life because I wanted, I never wanted to get so fucked up in my life before. Genuinely frightened. And I knew my body couldn't handle it. I was working at a burger bar back then as a chef and the person on the other side of the pass he was getting through alcohol abuse and he was about six months into AA meetings and 12 step program. And he genuinely looked really amazing. Like he, I can see him, standing up straight again and he looked healthy and I thought, what's this guy doing? So I realized he started wearing crystals. It's has he become a hippie? What's going on? Asked him, David, what are you doing these days? What's going on? He said, Oh, a bit of this Reiki thing and crystals, but it's mostly Reiki that's been helping me. It's okay what the hell is that? Like completely oblivious. What is energy work? What the hell? Energy. So he briefly described it. It's Oh, okay. So it's like a spiritual cleanse sort of thing. Is that what you mean? I went, yeah. And then this thought came to my head. It's I've got two options. Either I go down the medical route, whether it's recreational or pharmaceutical and go down the counseling route or just my own way. And either way, I feel like at some point I'm probably going to commit suicide or just accidentally kill myself. Or I'd try this hippie stuff for a bit. And so I told David do you think you can try this reiki thing on me? But yeah, of course, man, what are you doing after work? I said, probably getting really hammered. How about you? Why don't you come around mine instead? We'll, we can do it tonight for one. I go, yeah, okay, cool. All sure. And he'd done like a ma, a massive crystal grids on my chest, laid his hand in my heart, and I felt this like magma pull, this kind of erupt and in case my entire rib cage and solidified into this hard stone. And it was a perfect depiction of what, of where my body was, where my heart was, where I'm, where my emotions was. And. he brought me back around half an hour and I noticed he was crying and he looked at me and said, dude what happened, man? I explained the story before I knew it. Like we were both just crying. He was craving me. And he just said, you should really meet my Reiki master. I think she'll be really keen to meet you. And so I did work with her pretty religiously, like three months straight, maybe two or three times a week. And then through all of that really deep work. And I still smoked. I was still drinking here and there, but it definitely lessened. She just turned around and said, you've come a long way. Do you want to if you wanted to learn Reiki yourself, like I'll happily be your master. It will be an honor. And even working with her, I've never felt so much at home, not only with myself, but with another human being. And that was the original reason why I started really screw myself up. With all these substances, because I wanted connection at the day. And that's the only way I knew how to have connection. So I said yeah, let's do that. Then over time getting all these sort of hints and messages from the universe, through dreams, through synchronicities that the day is coming where I'm gonna go sober. But of course, me being me is nah, I don't need to be sober. I can still enjoy myself. And of course, the lessons came around again and again to the point where it was beating me up. It would give me nightmares. It would leave me in shakes and shivers and a cold sweatshirt in the night. And it's, it almost scared me. It did, it scared me straight. It scared me sober. So this was like a year into, yeah, like nine months to a year of doing Reiki for me. And I just went cold turkey from absolute fear of what it could turn me into after seeing these messages and really acknowledging them and hearing them. And yeah, the first few months were horrible, but then it got better and better. I started learning more about neuro linguistics programming and how my brain is wired, why it's wired that way, and how to rewire that. And then, bit by bit, just grabbing these little bits of little nuggets of gold and just creating my empire, essentially. And it just, yeah, blossomed from there. Just for the people out there who perhaps are going through something very similar to what you were going through, what kind of signs and symptoms were there? And what one action step could they take? Yeah funnily enough, the hardest thing to get over was smoking weed. Cause it was so easy, so accessible, so easy. But then it got to the point where I couldn't get out of bed without having some. Sometimes it was with powders as well, like I couldn't get out without sniffing something. I can eat without having something in my system. I can function during work. I'll be sprinkling a little bit into my cigarettes whenever I go out, which was very regularly. I wasn't eating especially being a chef and all chefs can agree with this. It's very easy to miss food and you just don't get the appetite and that's all the extremities of stress, the physical heat the mental stretching of how many things you've got to do simultaneously. Yeah. I was living on coffee, cigarettes, and weed great deal of the day, like 90 percent of daylight. Those were, those are the things how I functioned. What symptoms came up out of that. I'm olive skin. I was very pale. So yeah, just look at what, just look at the body functions and what it's doing and recognizing, huh, I feel nauseous. Even the thought of food makes me feel nauseous. That's something. Eating makes me feel like this. I can't really digest that well. That's your prime source of energy. So take a look at that one first. The messages that were coming through, they will pop up when I'm rolling, when I'm smoking, when I'm putting out the roach, putting out the flame when I'm walking around or realize that I don't feel safe to leave my house before I smoke. And ironically, that will make me paranoid and make me believe that everyone knows that I've smoked and it just exacerbates this anxiety and fear. So look at how you're relating to it. Think of the reasons why you're smoking or why you're doing what you're doing. If it's a celebratory thing, is are you using it to escape something, an emotion, a situation? And if there's a recurring theme where it's always sadness that you're trying to escape or always this thing that you're trying to escape, then that's something to address, but in my personal case, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate. It just became any reason at all. And I started planning my life around this thing. And that's another sign as well. If you feel like not necessarily you're out of control, you're planning your life around the drink, around the substances, that's an issue. You're not the one in control here. I was getting lots of dreams. I still do. Most of my downloads comes through dreams. And there's one particular one where I had a free house. in the drink. And naturally I invited all my friends come around, we'll have a big smoke up, have a good time. And everyone, all my friends had a rolling box of something. We're very sophisticated smokers and we'll lift the lids and everyone, I'm looking around everyone's rolling. It's yeah, this is going to be a nice evening. This is all in the drink. It's going to be a nice evening together. It's going to be really cool. I'm looking forward to this. And then a friend brought a plus one, who I also invited I don't know them at all. I was like, yeah, come along, they're your friend, they're my friend. And then his box was a lot smaller than ours, I went, ah, okay, interesting. And I just had my eye on him the whole time what is he doing? And then he brought out a spoon, I thought, that's a weird looking joint. And he started heating it up and putting these things in there I don't think he's smoking weed. I think he's And then he brought out a needle like he's shooting up heroin. This isn't cool. I don't want this in my house. And in the dream I said, listen, I don't want that in my house. Like you, if you want to do that's fine, but you can't do it here. You can do it somewhere else and come back and chill. That's cool as well. But I don't want you to do that here. And I'm sorry, but bye bye. And he was like, ah, don't worry about it, man. It's just one little thing. Like it's all right. And I went back and forth for a while until the point where I was wrestling him, like just get out of my house. And he had the needle in his hand, swung round and stabbed it into my ribs, I can really feel it piercing. And then my entire vision went completely psychedelic in the most horrible ways. I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't focus on anything visually. And then these panicking thoughts start coming up of, back then I worked in a school. And I thought to myself, I need to cook for 300 people in a few hours, like, how am I going to do this? I'm, I am screwed, and all those kids are going to go hungry, and I got really oh, I'm such a bad person. And yeah, anyway, I was like, shaking, I knew I was in a dream, I was trying to shake myself awake, finally did, cold sweat, I was shaking so much in, in real life, in my bed. And I still felt this needle in my chest. I thought that's the weirdest thing I looked. And I was like, there's nothing, there's no red marks, nothing. But that piercing of that needle was still there. I thought that was weird. Okay. It's just a dream. It's just a dream. Went back to sleep. And it's like someone just press pause previously and now just press play again. It just carried on from where I left off. And this loop happens. I would say four or five times. It was a terrible night's sleep. And that's what scared me sober. Not necessarily that you're going to smoke to the point where you take heroin. It's no, but you're going to lose control and you are losing control and have been a while. It's time to own up and take accountability for all your wrongings and start taking action to just stop this thing and take that control. Nice, deep. I can imagine on your journey, there's been points of setbacks. How did you personally overcome setbacks? Did you take any step back or were you able to navigate these setbacks quite easily? Yeah, there's two sides to this, like setbacks spiritually, yes, that's one story, but setback through addiction especially, yeah. So the first few months, like I said, were extremely tough. I was cradling myself in the bathtub, tears, sadness, fear, anger, guilts all coming up for me. And I felt like from when I started smoking to when I stopped, my emotional aging was also really stunted. And all the things I experienced within that window just started coming up for me when I went sober. So it's really hard to to go through, but I was also pretty much religiously listening to Ram Dass and Muji, who I will say every day. Without a doubt, they saved my life. And really pulled me through without ever meeting them with just with the content that they have in mind. Yeah. And it came to a day was like, you know what? I think I'm ready to be around people who smoke. And that same day, my friend called me. I was like, Hey so and so is having people around just for board games. Like his parents are out. Do you want to, do you want to come? Like we haven't seen in a while. Yeah. You know what? I think that'd be okay. Cause it being his parents house, I thought, They're gonna smoke outside and then come back and we'll just play games and I'll just stay inside and whatever. That sounds really humble. That sounds really warm and lovely. Little did I know his parents were away for two weeks and they were all smoking inside. I can feel myself just itching and biting my nails, which I don't do. And I was nervous oh man, I really want to smoke. I want to do the powders. I want to do something. I want a stimulation of some sort. And then I thought to myself, okay, what is it that I actually like about getting fucked up? And I thought to myself, I really love getting high, but I don't like being high. And this is a really relatable thing with a lot of people who are in this sort of similar journey, where they love getting to the, getting there, but they don't like being there. And I thought to myself, okay, how do I get high without actually getting high? I thought I need to make a joint. So yeah, cool. Let's make a joint. So many times I've done this, like thousands of times I've made joints. And so my brain has already already linked the dopamine, the serotonin, all these lovely chemicals. that are released from the brain when you smoke, to this action of making a joint. So I thought, okay, let's make a joint. Poked my friend, hey, can I roll for you? I thought you're not smoking. It's I'm not, it's for you, but I just want to roll it. And she went, yeah, of course you can. Show me how much you wanted. The ratio is very connoisseur type smokers, like I said. And, It was remarkable. The moment I licked that gum tape and flipped it over and sealed it all off, I didn't, I was fine. That was me getting high. I didn't need to get high after that, because I was all, my brain was already producing these chemicals. Yeah, I'm good. Okay. Let's play Cluedo, a really pivotal moment of being able to get high without being high. And so I just started to span out a little bit more on the different ways that I can get high. That's when dancing came into my life. That's when Qigong, that's when Tai Chi, that's when climbing was a big one. Climbing became my yoga. And it's a fantastic way to connect my body. feel how I can shift my weight over on the wall, engaging every single part of my body, especially the brain, because I'm actually afraid of heights and I climb a lot was the reason why I started climbing to face that fear. And it's similarly similar to what I said before, like I was just tired of my stuff and I just wanted to do it on a rip the bandaid. So it's got to the point of me, as soon as there's discomfort in some way, I want to lean into it. I want to see what's behind that. Because there's a reason why I'm scared of that thing. And I want to know what it is so I can overcome it and step up and rise up and expand and grow. And there used to be a point where I was standing on a stepladder and my knees would be shaking, like I'm that afraid of heights. And now I'm climbing 20, like 15, 20 foot walls without harnesses, hanging off one hand, and I'm fine with it. It turns out the dragon that keeps taunting you into that fear is you. Actually, a lot of the times, in my case as a male, was just a really scared little boy, and he just needed some comfort and reassurance that he can do it, he's alright, he's gonna be safe, sure you're gonna take some precautions, but it's not as scary as you think, and you just gotta do it. Prove yourself wrong, is what I say. Prove yourself wrong. That thought you have there, Prove yourself wrong. Go ahead. Try it. Try it out. It's remarkably liberating to prove yourself to be incorrect. Especially with this ticker up there is constantly working, but not always serving you well. Two things I want to talk about quickly. Just the first thing is You were saying the reason you had addictions, the reason that you struggled quite often in early life, was due to connection. How did you come to that realization? And, once you started to overcome these addictions, how did you start to create the connection, more connection in your life? Yeah, this is a big one for me. It's a big one for me because my my addictions went from substances into sex and porn. And that was when I really was like, I'm in trouble, like mode oh, crap, this feeling of addiction again. Oh, I'm done with this. I don't want to be that guy. And I can very slowly see myself beginning to objectify women, and I was like, I, there's enough of those men, I don't want to add to that, don't want to be that person, the reason why I'm talking to this woman right now is that maybe we get to kiss, or maybe even more, maybe we get a good rush of this ecstasy together, and, Yeah, again this realization of, oh man, addiction. I know this feeling. I don't want to go down this thing again. So I stopped myself quite early. This was around, I'll say 20. Yeah, it was shortly after getting sober, actually. So yeah, 23. And then I started getting more into tantric practices the Taoist secrets of love, how to cultivate the male sexual energy and then bring it back into the body through breath work, through just a various variety of exercises to really conquer that energy. and transmute it into a form which you can actually use to serve yourself. For me, it was climbing. Gave me a lot of energy for climbing, all that testosterone. It was fantastic. Yeah, so that's especially through, so I was celibate for six or seven years. I didn't even want to touch hands with a woman because I know at some point of holding a hand, or hugging them, I'm going to be thinking, maybe I get to get, that thought came up all the time. So I just, I'm done. I need to go cold turkey with this thing as well. And then through that, I began connecting with that person's heart, with that person's mind, rather than just their body and touching them on their body. I can really connect with their soul. And this just opened up so many levels of intimacy, something which I call platonic romance, because you can, we can still be romantic with our platonic connections. We can still have these hugs, these cuddles. Just the simple touch of the heart and just be held there for a minute and just breathe it through together. Love that. And yeah, and it was during this celibacy where I realized the reason why I wanted physical touch is because I got a lot of physical love when I was really young. My mom just smothered me with all this love and I wanted more of that comfort as simple as that. I wanted to bring. re experience the comfort and the safety that my mum gave me growing up. And so yeah, I didn't get that as a teenager as most people don't because they're all angsty and I was in my, I was very deep in my emo phase, my grunger phase. Very dark clothing all the time. And I found it, it was a lot easier to connect with people when you screwed up on alcohol and because consent and boundaries go out the window, which is So then, yeah, addiction went from cuddles and hugs as a little baby into drugs, into sex and porn, and then it's done a full loop and now it's back to platonic touch co regulation. And now it's it's developed to a point where. I feel so safe in me and other people can feel that safety as well and that groundedness as well as the airiness that I can be and be all philosophical and spiritual and da. But through that grounding work, through that connection with myself, which they can feel, they feel that they also can be just as authentic, just as present. And with that, the invitation comes I'm feeling really cool to, to have a hug right now. Would you be open for that? And even when they say no. Really just saying thank you for saying no, because I wouldn't want to be in that situation where you wanted to say no, but really you said yes, and then we're holding each other and I can feel like you're moving away, you're tensed up, like that's not comfortable, that's not what anyone wants. So that invitation to say no is always there. I say if it's not a 100 percent yes, it's a no. Simple. If there's a hesitation to say yes, it's a no. And that's with everything, absolutely everything. When you ask someone, if it's not, yes, forget about it. It's a no, and that's okay. Understanding how to accept that no is a huge one. But yeah, it's an honoring of them. It's an honoring of you as well. So yeah, pivotal moments. It's obviously a big topic on boundaries and learning to say no, that is huge. Let's move on now to. What do you deem as a healthy man? Ah, healthy man. A healthy man, for me, provides a kingdom of safety. It has very sturdy walls. It also has beautiful markets and spices that you can smell in the air. It has the expression, the free expression of art, through dance, through painting, poems. It has the safety of being explorative, even outside the castle, even outside the realms of the physical castle and going to the non physical states of being. It's providing space, I feel, providing space and services is what I feel creates like a healthy man. But then also, I guess having that invitation of the yeses and the nos, and just being loved and cared for regardless of what's in front of you. That's what I think. Nice. If there's somebody who's exploring to become a more healthier man, what kind of steps can they start to take? They want to explore being a healthy man, what sort of steps they can take. Tap into your vulnerability. I feel is really important. We don't allow ourselves. The opportunity to be vulnerable. Especially, with both men and women it's just really difficult to really speak up and be like, you know what? I didn't really like that without getting into a fistfight or something, especially men in the pub, ends up, there's a lot of fights that go on every single night just through miscommunication essentially. So perhaps communicating what it is you're feeling, whether that's to yourself in your diary, definitely write things down. For me, I'm a, I'm really analytically strong. So journaling didn't really help, but just processing help just sitting there by myself and just thinking about it without getting too caught or attached to the thoughts that come that helps me personally, but a lot of people much preferred journaling, just getting it out there on paper. And then through that's going to give you the strength, the opportunity, the groundedness to speak up saying, Hey, I'm, I've been going through some stuff recently. And honestly, I just need to be heard. Do you feel that you can provide that space right now? Would that be okay? And you'll be surprised a lot of the times, especially your mates be like, yeah, of course, man. What's going on? It's an honor. Give that space to your friends. You'll be so surprised how easy it is to ask for that space. And it just becomes so fluent to the point where you don't even have to ask for space anymore.'cause you know it's gonna, it's that safe container that you agreed upon. But definitely at the beginning, ask for that space. Can I express something to you? It's been making me feel duh. Yeah, sure. Or even if it's a no actually, I'm not in that space right now to hold space. But thank you for entrusting me, and I hope you're okay. Maybe another time when I feel more grounded, then I can give that to you. Because it is a two way street after all. No matter who you're related with, platonically, emotionally, romantically, sexually it's a two way street. So yeah, give yourself the opportunity by putting yourself out there or in the book or analytically allow yourself that space to write it down, to let it out in some way, communicate it in some way. I can, yeah, I can relate to that massively. But one thing I realized myself is I've always struggled with safety and it's something I'm working on at this moment in time, simply because. The inner child, the child part of me, perhaps didn't get what he wanted or needed when he was younger, which creates this unsafe environment within me. And it is realization that when you are able to allow this inner child to be witness to allow himself to become safe. In the environment to be loved, to be protected. Then it starts to create a safety within the body, which allows you to be vulnerable. Just quickly, what's your idea of vulnerability? What's, when you say the words vulnerability, what does it mean to you? And yeah, you said a particular word, which is yeah, you're in a child, man. It's about what they are feeling. They sit in your heart. They really, they say that your heart rules the brain rather than brain ruling the heart. The brain can react even before an event starts. even before the brain can even fathom what's going on in front of them. So it's very intuitive. So it's about dropping down into that heart space and really listening in what that little person wants in that moment. Do they feel safe? With this other person, do they feel okay enough to express in this moment? Cause I personally can relate to what you're saying. Like growing up I thought a lot of guys can relate to this. Actually growing up my family from Syria, very masculine, big boys. Don't cry. Actually very much into that. And it's just toxic end of the day. So I was never given that safe space to express myself. And whenever I did. I was ridiculed for it. I was, it was twisted to the point where I ended up feeling guilty for making my parents feel a certain way because they were on the receiving end of me simply expressing myself. And me expressing myself wasn't malicious. It wasn't targeting them. It was just me feeling things. So it was twisted into guilt. I now feel double sad because I'm feeling this emotion I originally had, and now I feel guilt on top of it. So I linked. the expression of sadness, fear, anger, disappointment, whatever, is all linked with guilt. So whenever I felt anything, I automatically felt guilty for it. I felt I shouldn't be feeling this right now, really suppressing that as much as I can, because I didn't want to feel guilty. And for me, especially, I spent a lot of time with my mum growing up, and that sense of safety was never really open. And me to express to my mom. And so that naturally brought me a feminine wound, where even in relationships, romantic relationships, sexual relationships, I felt like I couldn't really express myself to the feminine. Because at some point, I'm going to be ridiculed. I'm going to be judged for it. I'm going to be left feeling very guilty and even more sad and disappointed than before. So what's the point? That was my way of thinking. What's the point of expressing it? I'm just going to feel more crap. But through processing, I feel sad because it reminds me of that time when I was also sad, back when I was 14, back when I was 7. And that little person is also quite sad. It's still sad from that event. So let me just really hone in and remind myself, it's okay. It was bad back then, but that's it happened. And you can trust me, because I am you. I'm safe. I'm doing so, so right now I wish you could see me. And just re parenting that inner child is a huge step to providing yourself that safe space. Because even, it's got to the point where, yes, I can arrange cuddle dates, but very few and far between, because it's very, specific boxes that need to be ticked before I feel comfortable enough to have that hug, especially with a feminine. I'm still healing that. That's perfectly okay. I'm still in that process. Never stops. Once you feel that your inner child can really let loose and be playful, especially when they can be playful, that's when you know an inner child is still safe enough to express themselves. And that's when you can ask Hey, I've had a tough week. Do you mind me up for a coffee or something? Cool. Maybe some dinner. And yeah, guaranteed honestly, nine times out of ten, it's a yes. Yeah, of course we can. Absolutely. Let's do it. Nice. I've been working on the reparenting the inner child for quite a while now and you can see from reparenting the inner child, the child within the heart, how much of an impact you create. But just walking outside, walking in front of people there's still areas that I need to work on. But haven't we all, but then it's about just really giving that inner child that support, that love, that protection and Alongside that, it's allowing yourself to go and laugh, to go and play, to go and do things that you enjoy. And I think that's a super key. You mentioned the feelings of guilt. I'm going to add in shame as well, and other emotions. How can, as men, especially, Allow ourselves to embrace these and to heal them. How can we embrace the shame, Gil? I feel like bringing in the one of the four archetypes, male archetypes of the lover, and to reach that divine expression of being the lover, you've got to go through sadness. And so a group of us a while ago had, it was a very closed container of men, and we went through each archetype each day, and it was, Really beautiful, really profound work. On The Lover, it took me by surprise. Because at this point, I just came back from a retreat. I felt very good and energized and Yeah, you know what? I don't really have a lot of sadness right now. I feel like I've done a lot of work over the years. I think I'm good. I think I'm alright. But out of respect, I'm gonna join the grieving circle. I'm gonna join the sad circle. Where we all just express these feelings. And the container was that the person hosting, facilitating, would just say, please step close to the fire and call out the name if you've lost da. I was like, yeah, this feels nice. I'm just gonna honor my brothers here and stay in this space and keep this container. And they got me straight away. The first one was, please step to the fire and call the name of a lost pet. I went, oh, crap. Oh, man. Because. The year before, I had to put down my cat of 18 years, she was my best friend, 18 years, she really was my guardian angel. Because she also prevented me from a lot of suicidal thoughts, without that very animal near me, I would have lost myself a long time ago. So yeah, called out her name, Roxy, and then from there until the end of the ceremony, I was just bawling, I mean we all were. So yeah, going back to your question, like, how do we step into that and really embrace it? What's coming up to me is a really philosophical very deep and real quote, which is, Get over yourself. Just get over yourself. Just do it. Stop delaying and just do it. Stop giving yourself excuses. Go into that sadness, watch that sad film. Green Mile was the film that I watched all the time to get the tears rolling. Because I felt it was so hard to release that sadness from the guilt and the shame, that I needed something to really trigger it until I can shed a tear. And annoyingly, if I sang along to a sad song, I'll get a tear, maybe two. But I wanted to play it. all out. I really wanted to cry. So Green Mile was a big movie for me to really get the waterworks going. And yeah, just like creating that safe space for me. So no other distractions around me, even locking the door. This is my space. Watching that movie by myself, even like just lying there, just hugging myself. That's a really big one for me as a physical lover. That was It's a really lovely thing for me to give and receive simultaneously just to be held and yeah, just embrace yourself in every way. Just go for it, really go for it. Go lose yourself in that. And that's the point of so many different spiritual practices. If you want to go down there, the yoga the sangha type communities, you have to lose yourself in those things in order to be free. Thank you. Because you don't want to end up being a meditator, you don't want to end up being a yogi, you want to be free, you don't want to end up being a Christian, you want to be free. And that's what these things are designed to do, they are, they're designed to lose yourself in them, so hard, until the point where you can just, you have no other choice but to let that, let it all go, and you can just free yourself up, so much space for, New things to attract your way, just create a new story for yourself, rewrites the scripts. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I know From my own watching films, like Braveheart, when he goes, when he gets his head chopped off and he goes, Freed! Or Gladiator, when the music comes on at the end and he drops down dead. And it's yeah, those kind of moments really get me. I remember going through I've been through five breakups now. And each time I've, I think over the years I've suppressed my grief in a big way. And I find it really hard to go through. Cry. I really do. I might be able to cry for 30 seconds. Then something stops me dead. And I'm like, come on, let me cry. Cause I know inside I need to cry to let it all go. But yeah, the idea that at some point, something's going to trigger me and it's just going to go, it's going to come flying out. Yeah. Thank you very much, Roy, for. For those listening, what do you do and what can you offer? Yeah, sure. I'm a body worker. I do lots of Thai massage, Thai yoga massage and sports massage, something with deep tissue as well as relaxation. I do, I'm a Reiki master. So I teach Reiki ones, two and three, as well as provide Reiki sessions for people. And I interweave the practices that I felt really helped me and sharing with other people. So like I said before, a little bit of NLP, but mixing with guided meditations, which I'll provide live, like in that room, in that moment, depending what it is that you need we'll mix in timeline therapy as well, and yeah, just really get in deep by providing that safe space for you. Emotionally, physically, mentally, to let loose and allow yourself some space to free yourself up a bit more. Nice. Thank you very much, Roy. Thank you. Thank you. It's lovely seeing you, man. And yourself. Thank you for listening. If something in today's conversation resonated, take a moment to sit with it. And if you feel called, share this episode with someone who might need it to you matter. I matter is a growing space, and if you would like to stay connected. You're welcome to follow or subscribe wherever you are listening. It really helps us work to reach people. It's meant for. These conversations matter. You matter. I matter. Until next time, take care of yourself and the relationships in your life.