32. The Heart Space w/ Christine Samuel

In a world driven by control, certainty, and constant thinking, what happens when we begin to listen to the wisdom of the heart?

In this episode of The Butterfly of Why, we sit down with Christine Samuel, author of The Heart Space: Living with Grace and Ease in an Era of Uncertainty, to explore the balance between head and heart, the courage it takes to look inward, and the power of surrendering to life as it unfolds. Through her journey of self-discovery, we uncover how fear, identity, and early experiences shape our lives,and how reconnecting with our inner world can lead to greater presence, compassion, and freedom.

Transcript

unknown 0:00

The Bible.

SPEAKER_04 0:18

There's always that all the bears. But it's our light growth. Here we get the bed. The butterfly.

SPEAKER_06 0:40

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the butterfly of why. I'm your host, Jamie Weddle, and we are here to explore the why behind every first step that leads to growth, resilience, and perspective. And what happens when the mind's constant search for control begins to drown out the quiet wisdom of the heart? To help us better understand that question today, we're joined by Christine Samuel, author of The Heart Space, living with grace and ease in an era of uncertainty. Through a journey of self-discovery and reflection, we're invited to reconnect with something many of us have forgotten, the wisdom of the heart. Today we explore the balance between the head and heart and the courage it takes to look inward. Christine, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_10 1:31

Thank you, Jamie, for having me here. I'm excited and I'm looking forward to having this conversation with you.

SPEAKER_06 1:38

Before we start, I want to share a conversation that I was having with my daughter last night that is very relevant to what we're going to talk about today, but also just relevant for the world. So if you'll indulge me, last night my daughter was writing about love and hate. And she was writing in this way of saying that that love and hate is necessary for the world and and how it how it's a balance. So I'm hearing this, I'm like, that is very deep. Mind you, she's 11. And at one point she asks me, she's like, Well, is this right? I said, Well, you're not wrong. And it it allowed for me to explain to her, I'm like, well, this is what happens between the head and the heart. Love and hate are byproducts of what happens between the head and the heart. So us having this conversation today, I was able to share with her what she is saying is exactly relevant because hate strengthens how much love we have in the world. Because if we don't have hate, we'll still have love. But love is only further strengthened by the amount of hate that we have. So not that not to say that hate is a good thing, but it better helps us understand what love really means. So, anyway, I just wanted to share that because last night we were going to bed and she was talking about this, and it allowed for me to talk about what we're sharing today. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_10 3:05

That's beautiful. Um, I it's amazing how children can see better than us sometimes uh with these kind of things, and and I love that you know, love and hate, fear and courage, and how in the world of the headspace, which what we live right now, that since school age, we all learn how to use our mind, our head, we all learn how to think. And thinking in the culture right now, in the Western world and globalization, uh, you know, I think, therefore, I am. Um, and with news, with writings, uh, with things that we see in the media, um, it's all opinions, it's all thoughts about something else. So uh we what we see now is a byproduct of somebody else thinking. And um to sit down and slow down and think about hate as an invitation to love, fear as an invitation to trust. It requires something else than this head space because this when it's in doubt, it's just gonna try to tell stories that doesn't support us.

SPEAKER_06 4:38

Yes, so it it just emphasizes for me how how important and how special a conversation like this can be. So again, thank you for for the time and I'm excited to see where we we navigate today. So, to begin things off, in your book, The Heart Space, we begin to learn how the analytical mind, while very necessary for navigating life, it can sometimes trap us in fear and the constant need for control. Then you contrast that with the heart, which seems to operate from a very different kind of awareness and protection. So, can you begin to unfold and help us understand the difference between these two ways of experiencing life?

SPEAKER_10 5:31

I like what you said about two ways of experiencing life, because the idea of these are tools, right? As humans, we have different capacities. We can have the head, the heart, the left brain, the right brain, and these are things that are capacity to how we use it to experience the life we want. So the headspace is powerful by its own. Like it's very powerful, that's why we use it a lot. And um, and these are things that are capacity to how we use it to experience the life we want. So the headspace is powerful by its own. Like it's very powerful, that's why we use it a lot, and um things so you can compare things. So that that is basically the power of the headspace. It can conceptualize. It's basically you can kind of put yourself outside of something and then make an abstract about something, you know. Like we can have a you know, a cake of chocolate, like a chocolate cake, and eating it, right? And taste it without saying anything, we know that. But I can you and I can have a conversation about chocolate cake, as if it's something else, you know, a concept about this chocolate that is so delicious. So, and it's also narrow focus. The idea is it's like uh, you know, in in a dark room when you uh have a flashlight, flashlight, and then you kind of put your flashlight into something, it's so bright, but it's like it's bright only a certain spot. It doesn't really, you know, it's not like a sunlight where it's like brightened the whole room, it's like a certain spot. So because it's so bright, you can see in detail what is in that when when you shine the light on on it. But then if you if that's your navigation system, is that the way you see and light or brighten something, your sight, then you forget that there's something, there's many things in the room because all its focus is very narrow. It's like that's it, right? It can go into very details, it's reductive as we know it. Um and and what I notice in myself and in in in a lot of people as well, is intolerant with the unknown. What I mean is like if you have a gap of information, information, for example, let's say, you know, you you go for you know you go for a date, and this person that you date don't call you for a few days, right? It's like what's going on, what's going on? It's that like you start start guessing, oh, maybe he doesn't like me, maybe you know, a lot of things. So there if there's a gap of information, what happened in our brain is our head, uh we like we cannot stop thinking about what's going on. We try to bridge the gap with stories and meaning. Um, and it's also a comparison. So meaning because I'm labeling things, right? Um, anytime I see things, I say, oh, that's good, that's bad. That's not right. That's that's that's bad, right? That's good, that's bad, that's not um better, worse. Um, so it's very comparison-based. It needs to compare something that I see into something else so I can analyze it. I can know if it's good or not, because that way I can feel in control. I can label things when I say, oh, that thing is a chair, it's not like something that I don't know. Then when I when I when have when I have a name of it, I feel like I'm in control because I know, right? So it's also neat proof because it thrives in doubt. So the more you doubt, which is great for scientific things, right? Like you ask the question, you doubt it, but then uh what happened is when you doubt, it just also doubt about yourself, doubt about situation. Then you always, what is the proof? I need to prove it, right? Um, so it's strife for control. Uh that's basically the difference. I mean, that the head space. I don't know if you uh we want to go next to the the the heart space, but that's the ones that make us overthinking and anxious and always think about the future, um, and always worry about the future.

SPEAKER_06 10:09

It it makes me think of a quote: what looks like resistance is often a lack of understanding, and that's coming from the headspace. And going back to your point about uh the flashlight, it makes me think of if you're walking through a forest at night with a flashlight, you're limited on what you see that's all around you. So going through a forest during the daytime when the sun is out, it's a lot less scary because you could see more of what's happening all around you. And and I think sometimes in your heart space, it's having that lack of light, but trusting what's happening in front of you. And and we'll get more into this as we continue on. But the heart space is if you're in a dark forest and you only have the flashlight, are you trusting the heart that you're going to be fine on your path without needing all of the light?

SPEAKER_10 11:13

Yeah. I love your uh your metaphor on on the forest. And and the idea is uh it's reminded me of a quote by I forgot the name, but he he was a rider, and he talked about riding actually, but I think it's it's great examples about live because he said you can go, you can arrive at your destination in a foggy night just by your you know your your car light. What whatever it's it's in front of you, right? You only can see it's a limitation of what you can see, but you trust it. You don't like, oh what about this? Whatever, like I you don't um expect yourself to know exactly what is 10 step ahead or 20 step ahead or where you're gonna be exactly, because that's the need for control, right? But when when we like okay, I'm this is what I'm here right now, and I see what I see, even though I, you know, I'm scared, but I can trust for us one step at a time. That's that's all we need.

SPEAKER_06 12:25

The head space and heart space, it's balancing a state of anxiety and acceptance, which is really at the center of your work. But I but I know that that level of understanding wasn't always there for you. So I'm curious to kind of go back a little bit on a bit of an origin story. Can you take us on the journey that led you to this place of self-discovery and insight?

SPEAKER_10 12:54

That's a deep question, and I'm trying to see uh where should I start?

SPEAKER_06 13:01

Well, I I do know this uh you being a young girl growing up in Indonesia and having something moving inside of you of wanting to travel and go to somewhere else. And I believe you were 25, 26 when you moved to Toronto.

SPEAKER_09 13:18

Yes, correct.

SPEAKER_06 13:20

So then that is the part where what was happening in Indonesia that that part that was stirring inside of you, and then what was the part of you then when you traveled to Toronto was the beginning of really where you're at now?

SPEAKER_10 13:40

Yeah. Um, thank you for the guided question. Um, it's quite interesting because when I was in Jakarta, I mean, if you've ever been to uh you know that part of the world, the streets are not um like in the Western world where it's like grid system, you know, north-south, east-west. It's very organized here. Over there, it's like meandering, it's not like big street, it's laneways. So when I was uh little, when I was like you know, grade five, six, I love to go for adventure with my sisters and friends going through all the laneways. Um there's no map, there's no Google map. And and it's just like an afternoon after school, we went around and uh through those laneways, and then the the joy of figuring out oh, that it leads home. You know, when you finally find a place, oh I I know this street, you know, after like, oh, I don't know this, oh I know this, this leads to home. That's that's give me joy. It's like excitement excitement. So through that, then I start having in my head all the maps of you know the streets around around my neighborhood. Um, and also I don't know, it's probably in me that I, you know, I left my family and just went somewhere else um because I'm curious about what is life in the other side of the world. And I I think I would say where I am now, how it can be, uh because you know, when my kids um was small, like uh, you know, little, uh, before they go to sleep, we have a routine. We, you know, I will go to their bed and then we would pray together. Um, you know, they pray their own prayer, and then I'll, you know, it's usually the same, the same words over and over again every night. Um, and I start praying what I love them to be, which is uh, you know, um, may they live the fullest in you, may they become the best version of themselves, um, may they love themselves the way you love them. So those are three things that I asked in my prayer. And then after a while, I start to realize that in order that to happen, if I pray for them like that, I need to be an example. I need to be that person first, I need to be the person who lived the fullest for whatever gift I was given. I need to be the person who love myself unconditionally. I need to be a person who be comfortable and not not not trying to control who I become. So through through that understanding, through that insight, then I and the journey of uh exploring and finding myself, I think that's where it starts. And and the book, actually, my exploration after um about a year or two before I left my career, after 20 years career in co uh in corporate world, that that I grew and I didn't feel that I'm fitting into the box anymore. But all my experience around me, who I am, how valuable I am, it's based on the cookie-cutter of the outside of how good I'm performing. Um, and so the experience how the contrast, basically, I experienced the contrast of uh I would say dehumanizing because it's a it's a it's a machine thing, right? Um, and that led me to really question what do I want? Like I I always fearful to let go of that part because it gives me uh stability, right? Um, I tried to get away from it before, but I I I I was so fearful uh and paralyzed, I came back to that because it's it's giving me the routine, um the process, you know, the control. So I knew when I left, I decided to leave, you know, if it if it's not now, when if it's not me, who, I knew I will face fear, like from because like you know, where this is after coffee, right? So um then I realized if I really want to make this work, I need to um find a different way of being in this uncertainty. Um and and I know how much I was clinging with uh not wanting to know 10 steps ahead, you know, trying to find a bulletproof, you know, of doing this and that, learning what other people do, and and always frustrated why they can be successful, but I cannot with this, you know. This is bulletproof, it's easy, but like why I cannot do that. So uh so for me, knowing that I decided when I laugh uh to give myself six months to just do things without plan, without goals, with only one constraint that I put on myself, which whatever I do, I must do it with joy and curiosity. I must respect my desire inside me that wanna explore inside of no no don't do that. You should not do that, right? So I I wanna it's a it's a journey of honoring my soul in a way, um and and I think the the heart space is a way to create like a container or or like a space where I can feel safe not knowing anything. And uh there's one word that I use, and I actually that what make possible for finishing the book, which is codi wumpo. So codi wumpo is an English slang, which means to move purposefully towards an as-yet unknown destination, which I said I can do it if it's one step at a time, purposefully, yes, I can commit. I don't know what is the end, but I can commit one day at a time, I can commit one step at a time. So as I'm doing it, it's like how can I gently hold and honor the other part of me that's scared, that is like wanting to know, right? So that's basically where this comes from. And I know I want to write a book that only me can write because in each of us there's a book. Um, and to write the book about the heart space, about navigating uncertainty, I need I need to live that book first so that I can write it in a way that's powerful and impactful and can be felt. And it's not just in the head, but in the heart when people write it. When people read it and they can feel it, they can they can they can have this yes, you know, because I think this is not a new thing that I wrote. Um, it's been you know a lot of uh contemplative traditions and philosophies in eastern and western have this kind of ideas about the the heart space. But can I write it in a way that is true to my own experience? And they can feel it, they can they can they can have this yes, you know, because I think this is not a new thing that I wrote. Um it's been you know a lot of uh contemplative traditions and philosophies in Eastern and Western have this kind of ideas about the the heart space, but can I write it in a way that is true to my own experience? Philosophies in Eastern and Western have this kind of ideas about the heart space. But can I write it in a way that is true to my own experience?

SPEAKER_06 22:59

While you were uh describing that, I was thinking about you being on the bike as a child and a level of fearlessness and exploration and excitement to to kind of go in areas that felt like the unknown with the excitement of how are you gonna get back home? So you making that that choice to sort of step off the treadmill, so to speak, almost had the same level of excitement and exploration to move forward in that. And it's the analytical mind, the the headspace that is going, what are we doing? We can we can't do this, and really having to use your heart space to go, but I have to do what feels good to me because I don't feel comfortable in this other space. So it's maintaining a daily level of presence, of not thinking about what has happened, not what's going to happen, but being present every single day to go, well, what's gonna happen today? And it's for me that feels very akin to the Michael Singer surrender experiment of just finding a way to move through each and every day because what is happening right in front of you is only the thing that's happening right now, and technically, two seconds from now right now can be considered tomorrow because time is relative. So all we really have right now, but when we live in a society or in a world where everyone is following something and everyone's asking what you're going to do, you find yourself really almost standing alone, and that's where the fear control brain really just goes, keep following the path. I mean, it's it's hard because if you're looking at supporting yourself financially, stabilizing a future. I mean, we all want to travel, we all want to provide ourselves, we need health insurance, all of those things, and it's it could be a sticky place just to go, I'm free, let's go. Because you still have to kind of have a plan, but it's is it your head that's making the plan, or is it your heart that's making the plan? And really figuring out how to navigate that is the is the tricky part, I think, for most human beings.

SPEAKER_10 25:20

Yeah, um, I think that's why uh it has to work together, right? Like it's not like this or that, it has to work together. Uh, I have a conversation with with a couple friends. Um, so the the head is love, uh it's good of like doing planning, right? And it loves planning. It's like, okay, so we're gonna go this, this is gonna happen, maybe this is gonna happen, or we're gonna do this, and then after this, you know, like just like this imaginations and planning and strategizing. So it's good at it. Um, and I think we can allow it to do that, right? Because it's it's also give excitement, um uh planning, it also makes us we we do need feel like that there's a need to feel in the control. So when we we we know we we have a control of how we um be behave and what's the situation is, we feel safe. So um that therefore, where's the that's the heart space comes? The heart space is a way of going inside and finding the inner knowing, finding the deeper desire that beyond what you know our society tells us to do, we have to desire this or that. What is that give me joy? What is that keeps me alive? And allow that as kind of a an inner navigation system to to move towards that because that's that's how nature is, you know, like uh sunflower plan, they it's always facing the sun, like holding the sun, right? So can we follow that? And while we're doing that, we plan. While we're doing that, of course we need to protect ourselves, but then that's when the heart space, that's when you said about being present. It's like, wait a second, um, all right, so where am I now? I'm here, and there's like two or three steps I can go. Um, okay, it feels good to go this way. So, so in a way, um we are able to sense and response in the moment rather than planning having a goal in the future, right? Because then we become very rigid on how we're gonna go there, how we're gonna achieve that, but we open a little bit and allow things to inform us at this moment, we can adjust, and therefore it becomes more flowing of where we're going. It's not like I have to be happy ever after. Like, of course, there will be confusion, there will be like things that we don't know as we fall, uh things that we worry about, but then when that happened, can the heart space hold us and say, wait a second, am I trying this? Lit am I trusting this little brain of mine, or am I really seeing the interconnection that actually, even when we walk, it's not just we rely on our feet, our legs to move forward, we rely on the ground, it's an interconnection. Um, so every single thing when you move, there's ground that holds us, right? But we forget it's like it's all about me or it's my effort. But in every moment, there's this things that we are evolving and working together with whatever it is around us, but sometimes we cannot see because we so narrow focused.

SPEAKER_06 29:10

You spoke about nature and it it makes me think about how when fall comes and a tree loses its leaves, the tree isn't scared of that because it's a part of nature. But we as humans in our analytical brains, we we fear change, and I think the one thing that's really interesting between us and nature is because we are deeply complicated emotional creatures, and there is a dance that I think many of us have to go on at some point in time, the dance between our headspace and our heart space, especially if we look at our nervous systems and the way that our heart has been affected by anything that's happened that's been emotionally impactful in a negative way. And it's that it's the analytical brain that goes, I'm gonna keep you safe. We got hurt, we're not gonna do this again. And the heart is going, well, I guess, and the heart is just trusting, trusting the mind because just fear is driving the the car, so to speak. And listening to the heart space when it comes to anyone that needs to go back to a past and really taking that courage to have honest reflection. I mean, you could look at yourself as being a person that's left-handed and being told for a long time as a kid that you can't use a left hand, even something like that could be so negatively impactful. But then being an adult and then having to emotionally backtrack to go, wait, that really impacted me in a significant way. So then having to again have that dance between the heart space and headspace to to bring up something that was very disturbing in a way, to really be at peace, then to be able to move forward with that. It is a very meaningful thing that that people have to go through sometimes.

SPEAKER_10 31:08

Yeah, I think um thank you for bringing that up. I think we all have that journey. I think the journey is returning to ourselves, the journey is remembering who we are. You know, we we come to this world with like bright eyes and so curious about things, so moved by, you know, things around us, and you know, things happen and we feel hurt, we got we you know, it's like every every one of us has wounded child within ourselves, and I think for me, the gift of it is you receive the gift when you're able to return to it and um make peace of it and find the gift behind it because it's it's painful. Um, and when we receive the gift, for example, like you like the way you you explain your daughter about uh you know, with hate, you know what love is even more. Um, and I think that that's the beauty about being human. We can experience it in a way that is so bodily, you know, like we can experience so many different spectrum if we allow ourselves.

SPEAKER_06 32:33

I want to look at the world we're living in today. And there is a modern society where there's pressure to constantly prove ourselves to be relevant, and it's it's difficult because it is a stream of I mean, for me to have a podcast, clearly I want to be relevant in some sort of way, and there's a pressure and expectation that comes with that. And I think in many ways, in a modern world, technology, internet, social media, it really kind of disconnects us from who we are. So I think it's a matter of what we can do in a modern world to really reconnect and sort of find out more about our authentic selves that isn't contingent or reliant on this sort of external, you have to be fully baked internet social media world.

SPEAKER_10 33:34

Hmm. I I I think two things, and I'm I'm doing it. Like otherwise, it's like you just get sucked in into social media, right? Uh first of all, having a space, uh like I would say, you know, I don't know, a sacred space where it's you um walking on, you know, it could be going to nature because that's a space where it doesn't really suck our attention, it's more like it's expanding our uh attention instead of like making it um rigid. Going to nature, movement. Um I find the the thing about about society right now, it's like everything we do, it's very conditional. So it's like I'm doing something, it has it must be useful, it must be meaningful. Um, I'm doing I go into the gym so that I can, you know, get healthy. I'm doing this so that I can achieve something else. Like I'm doing A so that I can go to B. Everything is conditional. So because of that, every time we do something, we we measure ourselves. Oh, this is not good enough. Oh, I'm I don't get like it doesn't get me to the ones that I want to get doing this, right? So the idea, I think what we need is to do something without condition. Like, you know, if you like playing music, play music. If you like going out, go out. Um if you like, you know, knitting, then go knit. Um if you like to make tea, make tea. If you like to bake, taste with your hands and smells and be in it without trying. If I do this, therefore, you know, so because that's what connects us with ourselves, that what's alive in us. Um, so that's that's uh I think it's a personal level, you know, things that you can do yourself. Because you are giving permission to be you, to be here, right? The second one is connection, you know, with family, with communities uh of like-minded where you can feel safe. Um there's many circles right now, I think, in the communities uh online, or it's like you know, like boom dialogue, things where we come not to network, you know, where I can know you, then so I can maybe find a job. It's not like that, it's more like let's come together, sit here together, um uh listen with one another. That's why I also have like deep listening practice circles, because in in those kind of circles, people slow down and listen to one another and connect and be human together. We need spaces like that, and it's not uh, you know, it's not like I go here, therefore, it's more like how can we build connections? How can I listen to you um and listen to one another and also express myself so that the understanding that we have, like my understanding, because I only know my way of thinking, my perspective, but when I hear you, the way you express yourself in that topic, for example, then I can see it from your eyes, then my understanding expands, then I can feel connected with you because I know you're seeing kind of there's something that resonance, even though the way you express it differently. So I think we need those spaces to hold us to make us be human together, or even by just being ourselves.

SPEAKER_06 37:23

Really centering in our self, our five senses, to be present, and then connecting with others in that same type of spiritual connection, if you will, is is a very critical thing compared to scrolling emails. I mean, to a degree, you I could see how younger people who are sort of born into this digital era can look at a FaceTime as being socializing. And and there is some level of socialization, but it's very, very different when you're in the same room as someone because there's an energy that's involved, there's there's proximity, there's there's nuances that that you just don't quite pick up in terms of of uh anything that that's happening over a camera. Whereas if you and I were in the same room, I have a feeling that the conversation, as enlightening as it would be, would still have a different feeling to it.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:30

But in the same regard, there are also some benefits because you're in Toronto, I'm in Los Angeles, and this does allow us the opportunity to share an amazing conversation. So I don't necessarily want this to be a total like anti-digital era, but I think it's a more it's more so if you don't have to be on it, disconnect. Like take off your shoes, socks, go walk on some grass, just sit there and breathe, and just find a way to really connect with yourself because I mean, original humans, we're we're tribal people. We're just meant to be with each other and to sit and talk and to share stories. Before there was any written language, it was humans just talking and sharing stories, and those stories were then passed down to other generations. So it's sometimes having to be a bit in the actual sense old school and reconnect with that in some meaningful way as much as we can.

SPEAKER_10 39:25

Yeah, you know, I I I I like what you're saying, and also the ideas is like we we live in a society where you know, for people looking for meanings, it seems like meaning has to be so meaningful, so like uh extraordinary, you know. I need I want to change the world, I need to, you know, I need to have how many, you know, 100 followers, right? Like something, something you can measure, something tangible, something that looks so good and so divine. But if if we and and I think that's that's conditioning, that's that that is the society that uh treat makes us thinking that way, so we still can feel powerless because uh who I who am I that can do that kind of stuff? But actually, again, that's conditioning again, right? So the heart space of being here, being with one another is the way of retraining our brain and our mind and our our heart and our beliefs that simplicity you can find extraordinary, in ordinary, you know, like the smell of the flower, that moment, or the moment when you're you see your your you know your daughter and like wow, she's growing up, right? Those ordinary that we forgot, it's so meaningful at the end of the day, those are things that we remember, not like when we you know do somewhere or so it it's like this is this is an era where our contribution as individuals, as I I would say, like I'm nobody, you know, like nobody, maybe you can say it's like have that moment, have that attention, intention where you can hold, and I would say this um the heart space is a gentle holding space where all feelings, thoughts, and sensations are welcome. It's a space where we can have a loving relationship with our complexity and contradiction, no pushing, no pulling, just is. With this deliberate, gentle holding, a different kind of intelligence and clarity emerges, and through this experience, we finally understand from the core of our being, in the relationship with ourselves, others, and the planet that we are enough, whole, and always interconnected. So we not this or that, we have fear, we have love. People who are, you know, maybe you can call them bad or criminals, they also but they may love their children, right? Uh, so we have all aspects of humanity, the good and the bad. Um, and in order to transcend it, we need to provide this space where everything can be in the place for a moment. We don't push one another, we don't push the part of us that we don't like, just be here. Um, and then that when we can see, that when we can have a different kind of perspective or insights rather than reactive right away, reactive right away, right? Um, so can we provide that to ourselves?

SPEAKER_06 43:24

It makes me think in your book you talk about seeing life as a set of disconnected nouns and experiencing it more like a verb. Can you explain kind of what that shift means and and how might that really change the way that we show up in the world to live more like a verb?

SPEAKER_10 43:46

Yeah. Um I think it's not fair if I not if I explain it without explaining where that comes from, because this is not new. So, in the indigenous languages, you know, in North. America uh most of the time mostly uh when they say for example the bay or the tree it's not really a thing, a noun, right? Because the reason why is because if I say this is this is a chair in English or this is a table, then what what what I do to the chair to that thing is I limit it into a chair, the chair cannot be anything else, so I limit the possibility possibility of it to evolve because through naming it as a fixed thing, I box it right now in the book uh braided sweet grass by Robin Wall Kimmer, she said to be a bay, release the water from so the bay is noun only if water is dead. When bay is a noun, it's defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. To be a bay releases the water from the bondage and let it live, to be a hill, to be a sandy beach, to be a Saturday, all are possible verbs in the world where everything is alive. So to be Christine, to be Jamie, because we know we are evolving. This is I'm not just a noun, I'm evolving as you are evolving. So if we see others not as a label that we box, if we see our children not like has to be this way, we are allowing possibilities that is better than that box to be something else.

SPEAKER_06 46:07

Nature is at a really big foundational uh point in in how you really work. And it's interesting that that we look at elements like water. In your book, you had talked about how the the heart space is like a flowing river, and sometimes the analytical mind that the the head space can be like a cup. What does someone have to do, do you think, to to take the cup and allow for that water to flow like a river?

SPEAKER_10 46:47

I would say to realize there are not there's no cup.

SPEAKER_05 46:53

Back to being a verb, okay.

SPEAKER_10 46:55

Yeah, the cup, the cup is the way our brain, our limited mind, our brain that's never see the light because it's in the skull, see things. So that's why I think awareness is very important, right? So awareness to like, oh, I'm I'm just like a cop holding all the salt and it's salty and it doesn't feel good, then just remember you're not a cop, and the cup disappears.

SPEAKER_06 47:30

And the cup is a noun.

SPEAKER_10 47:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 47:34

Okay, I love that. Makes sense. Um, okay, so a couple more before we get you out of here. There was a story that you shared in your book about um your family going to a Christmas party and coming back to your house, and then the next morning your your son couldn't find presents. And him saying they were lost. And you said, Well, if you can't find them, it doesn't mean you've lost them. This goes to the heart of you have to really use trust, going back to the the the having a flashlight in a forest. It's it's the survival mind really it comes into connection with the heart space by having that level of trust. By if I tell myself that I'm lost or I feel lost, it's having to tell myself, like I'm a human, I'm on Earth, I'm one of eight billion people, and I have to trust what's happening in my heart just to keep moving forward because it's not that I'm lost, it's just I'm trying to figure out where I'm going.

SPEAKER_10 48:44

Um, I want to bring that the word trust. This is I mean the end the end of it. The word trust tr u s t in the middle of the word trust, there's word us. Trust require us, require relational, require to being together. And we are when we are in fear, what it means usually is we feel alone, we feel like isolation. We we we we close ourselves down. So remember this when we said I need to trust, or I trust, it's relational, it's opening, it's allowing, it's it's um acknowledging that at the end of the day, every single action is our responsibility, it's our own, right? Our choice. But our life is not come just like that. It's all interconnected that creates us, create me, create you. So by by being by going back to like, okay, I'm like you said, I'm not alone. I'm trying to figure it out, and I'm I'm here interconnected with the stream of water. I'm in the I'm in I'm on a river, not a cup. And being able is just to stop, it's like, oh, I'm in a cup, but like, wait a second. I'm in the river, and I know deep down, even though I couldn't see it right now.

SPEAKER_06 50:32

It's also quite interesting. As a parent, my daughter a lot of times will say she's lost something, so it's very relevant that I'm actually using the same line constantly, like it didn't walk out of here, like it's somewhere here, like logically. Like, that's where the analytical brain really helps. Because I'm going, listen, it's not lost. You brought it home last night, it's here. We know this. That's the fact. You just have to find it, that's the only difference. So to close things out, staying with water, one last moment here. In your book, you referred to a poem by Khalil Jabron and aptly titled Fear. And I think this poem really does an amazing example of the reflection when the heart space and the head space can coexist in a real deep compassionate symmetry. So, what I want to do is I just want to read uh the poem, and I kind of want you to close things out on what everyone could use to understand this poem from a daily standpoint to keep things really in a balance from their headspace and heart space. So this is Fear by Khalil Jabron. It is said that before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear. She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains, the long windy road crossing forest and villages, and in front of her she sees an ocean so vast that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever. But there is no other way. The river cannot go back. Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence. The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean, because only then will fear disappear, because that's where the river will know. It's not about disappearing into the ocean, but a becoming the ocean.

SPEAKER_10 52:42

Yeah, that's very beautiful. Um that summarizes the journey that we all have. Um for me is allowing ourselves to not knowing, allowing ourselves to live with mystery. Um to always remember, sometimes we forget, but remembering we are the ocean. And this life is a journey to it. At the end of the day, whether the ocean, whether it you are in the the ocean or the river, we are water. Uh and it is it is only when we slow down and take a deep breath and then remind ourselves who we are. That's what's possible. It's not from outside, it is awareness that is so powerful because then it returns us into that space of balance when the heart leads, the mind is at ease.

SPEAKER_06 54:09

Absolutely beautiful. Christine, thank you so very much for coming on here today. This was uh truly amazing, beautiful, and very necessary. So thank you so much. And uh where can listeners go to uh to get your book to find out more about who you are? Tell us where everyone can kind of find out the the greatness of you.

SPEAKER_10 54:36

Um you can find me on my website, christinesamuel.ca not.com. Uh, I also on the website, I also give away uh a chapter. Um, if you just put your email, you can download a chapter for free. Um, so that's where you can find me. Um you can find me on LinkedIn. Also, just search for my name or Instagram, even though I don't really do much on Instagram these days. Uh, my book, you can find it on Amazon, or if you go to your bookstore, you you can order it. They probably don't have maybe on stock, but you can still order it.

SPEAKER_06 55:19

Christine, thank you for sharing your heart space with all of us today. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_08 55:25

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_06 55:26

And with that being said, this is the butterfly of why. My only goal with this show is to leave the world a little bit better than I found it. So please, let's share that together. That being said, I'll see you on the next episode. Peace.

unknown 55:44

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 55:46

While you were describing that, I was thinking about you being on the bike as a child and a level of fearlessness and exploration and excitement to to kind of go in areas that felt like the unknown with the excitement of how are you going to get back home? So you making that that choice to sort of step off the treadmill, so to speak, almost had the same level of excitement and exploration to move forward in that. And it's the analytical mind, the the headspace that is going, what are we doing? We can we can't do this, and really having to use your heart space to go, but I have to do what feels good to me because I don't feel comfortable in this other space. So it's maintaining a daily level of presence, of not thinking about what has happened, not what's going to happen, but being present every single day to go, well, what's gonna happen today? And it's for me that feels very akin to the Michael Singer surrender experiment of just finding a way to move through each and every day because what is happening right in front of you is only the thing that's happening right now. And technically, two seconds from now right now can be considered tomorrow because time is relative. So all we really have right now, but when we live in a society or in a world where everyone is following something and everyone's asking what you're going to do, you find yourself really almost standing alone, and that's where the fear control brain really just goes, keep following the path. I mean, it's it's hard because if you're looking at supporting yourself financially, stabilizing a future. I mean, we all want to travel, we all want to provide for ourselves, we need health insurance, all of those things. And it's it could be a sticky place just to go, I'm free, let's go. Because you still have to kind of have a plan, but it's is it your head that's making the plan, or is it your heart that's making the plan? And really figuring out how to navigate that is the is the tricky part, I think, for most human beings.

SPEAKER_10 58:06

Yeah, um, I think that's why uh it has to work together, right? Like it's not like this or that, it has to work together. Uh, I have a conversation with we had a couple friends. Um, so the the head is love, uh it's good of like doing planning, right? And it loves planning. It's like, okay, so we're gonna go this, this is gonna happen, maybe this is gonna happen, or we're gonna do this, and then after this, you know, like just like this imaginations and planning and strategizing. So it's good at it. Um, and I think we can allow it to do that, right? Because it's it's also give excitement, um uh planning, it also makes us we we do need feel like that there's a need to feel in the control. So when we we we know we we have a control of how we um behave and what the situation is, we feel safe. So um that therefore, where's the that's the heart space comes? The heart space is a way of going inside and finding the inner knowing, finding the deeper desire that beyond what you know our society tells us to do, we have to desire this or that. What is that give me joy? What is that keeps me alive? And allow that as kind of a an inner navigation system to to move towards that because that's that's how nature is, you know, like the sunflower plan, they it's always facing the sun, like following the sun, right? So can we follow that? And while we're doing that, we plan. While we're doing that, of course we need to protect ourselves, but then that's when the heart space, that's when you said about being present. It's like, wait a second, um, all right, so where am I now? I'm here, and there's like two or three steps I can go. Um, okay, it feels good to go this way. So, so in a way, um we are able to sense and response in the moment rather than planning having a goal in the future, right? Because then we become very rigid on how we're gonna go there, how we're gonna achieve that, but we open a little bit and allow things to inform us at this moment, we can adjust, and therefore it becomes more flowing of where we're going. It's not like I have to be happy ever after. Like, of course, there will be confusion, there will be like things that we don't know as we fall uh things that we worry about, but then when that happened, can the heart space hold us and say, wait a second, am I trying this? Am I trusting this little brain of mine? Or am I really seeing the interconnection that actually, even when we walk, it's not just we rely on our feet, our legs to move forward, we rely on the ground, it's an interconnection. Um, so every single thing when you move, there's ground that holds us, right? But we forget it's like it's all about me or it's my effort. But in every moment, there's this things that we are evolving and working together with whatever it is around us, but sometimes we cannot see because we so narrow focused.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:56

You spoke about nature, and it it makes me think about how when fall comes and a tree loses its leaves, the tree isn't scared of that because it's a part of nature. But we as humans in our analytical brains, we we fear change. And I think the one thing that's really interesting between us and nature is because we are deeply complicated emotional creatures. And there is a dance that I think many of us have to go on at some point in time, the dance between our headspace and our heart space, especially if we look at our nervous systems and the way that our heart has been affected by anything that's happened that's been emotionally impactful in a negative way. And it's that it's the analytical brain that goes, I'm gonna keep you safe. We got hurt, we're not gonna do this again. And the heart is going, well, I guess. And the heart is just trusting, trusting the mind because just fear is driving the the car, so to speak. And listening to the heart space when it comes to anyone that needs to go back to a past and really taking that courage to have honest reflection. I mean, you could look at yourself as being a person that's left-handed and being told for a long time as a kid that you can't use a left hand, even something like that could be so negatively impactful. But then being an adult and then having to emotionally backtrack to go, wait, that really impacted me in a significant way. So then having to again have that dance between the heart space and headspace to to bring up something that was very disturbing in a way, to really be at peace, then to be able to move forward with that is a very meaningful thing that that people have to go through sometimes.

SPEAKER_10 1:03:54

Yeah, I think um thank you for bringing that up. I think we all have that journey. I think the journey is returning to ourselves, the journey is remembering who we are. You know, we we come to this world with like bright eyes and so curious about things, so moved by you know things around us, and you know, things happen and we feel hurt, we got we you know, it's like every every one of us has wounded child within ourselves, and I think for me, the gift of it is you receive the gift when you're able to return to it and um make peace of it and find the gift behind it because it's it's painful. Um and when we receive the gift, for example, like you like the way you you explain your daughter about uh you know, with hate, you know what love is even more, um, and I think that that's the beauty about being human. We can experience it in a way that is so bodily, you know, like we can experience so many different spectrum if we allow ourselves.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:19

I want to look at the world we're living in today. And there is a modern society where there's pressure to constantly prove ourselves to be relevant, and it's it's difficult because it is a stream of I mean, for me to have a podcast, clearly I want to be relevant in some sort of way, and there's a pressure and expectation that comes with that. And I think in many ways, in a modern world, technology, internet, social media, it really kind of disconnects us from who we are. So I think. It's a matter of what we can do in a modern world to really reconnect and sort of find out more about our authentic selves that isn't contingent or reliant on this sort of external, you have to be fully baked internet social media world.

SPEAKER_10 1:06:26

Otherwise, it's like you just get sucked in into social media, right? First of all, having a space, uh, like I would say, you know, I don't know, a sacred space where it's you um walking on, you know, it could be going to nature because that's a space where it doesn't really suck our attention, it's more like it's expanding our uh attention instead of like making it um rigid. Going to nature, movement. Um I find the the thing about about society right now, it's like everything we do, it's very conditional. So it's like I'm doing something, it has it must be useful, it must be meaningful. Um, I'm doing I go into the gym so that I can you know get healthy. I'm doing this so that I can achieve something else. Like I'm doing A so that I can go to B. Everything is conditional. So because of that, every time we do something, we we measure ourselves. Oh, this is not good enough. Oh, I'm I don't get like it doesn't get me to the ones that I want to get doing this, right? So the idea, I think what we need is to do something without condition. Like, you know, if you like playing music, play music. If you like going out, go out. Um if you like, you know, knitting, then go knit. Um if you like to make tea, make tea. If you like to bake, taste with your hands and smells and be in it without trying. If I do this, therefore, you know, so because that's what connects us with ourselves, that what's alive in us. Um, so that's that's uh I think it's a personal level, you know, things that you can do yourself. Because you are giving permission to be you, to be here, right? The second one is connection, you know, with family, with communities uh of like-minded where you can feel safe. Um there's many circles right now, I think, in the communities uh online, or it's like you know, like boom dialogue, things where we come not to network, you know, where I can know you, then so I can maybe find a job. It's not like that, it's more like let's come together, sit here together, um uh listen with one another. That's why I also have like the deep listening practice circles, because in in those kind of circles, people slow down and listen to one another and connect and be human together. We need spaces like that, and it's not uh, you know, it's not like I go here, therefore, it's more like how can we build connections? How can I listen to you um and listen to one another and also express myself so that the understanding that we have, like my understanding, because I only know my way of thinking, my perspective, but when I hear you, the way you express yourself in that topic, for example, then I can see it from your eyes, then my understanding expands, then I can feel connected with you because I know you're seeing kind of there's something that resonance, even though the way you express it differently. So I think we need those spaces to hold us, to make us be human together, or even by just being ourselves.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:09

Really centering in our self, our five senses, to be present, and then connecting with others in that same type of spiritual connection, if you will, is is a very critical thing compared to scrolling emails. I mean, to a degree, you I could see how younger people who are sort of born into this digital era can look at a FaceTime as being socializing. And and there is some level of socialization, but it's very, very different when you're in the same room as someone because there's an energy that's involved, there's there's proximity, there's there's nuances that that you just don't quite pick up in terms of of uh anything that that's happening over a camera. Whereas if you and I were in the same room, I have a feeling that the conversation, as enlightening as it would be, would still have a different feeling to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:16

But in the same regard, there are also some benefits because you're in Toronto, I'm in Los Angeles, and this does allow us the opportunity to share an amazing conversation. So I don't necessarily want this to be a total like anti-digital era, but I think it's a more it's more so if you don't have to be on it, disconnect. Like take off your shoes, socks, go walk on some grass, just sit there and breathe, and just find a way to really connect with yourself because I mean, original humans, we're we're tribal people. We're just meant to be with each other and to sit and talk and to share stories. Before there was any written language, it was humans just talking and sharing stories, and those stories were then passed down to other generations. So it's sometimes having to be a bit in the actual sense old school and reconnect with that in some meaningful way as much as we can.

SPEAKER_10 1:12:11

Yeah, you know, I I I I like what you're saying, and also the ideas is like we we live in a society where you know, for people looking for meanings, it seems like meaning has to be so meaningful, so like uh extraordinary, you know. I need I want to change the world, I need to, you know, I need to have how many, you know, 100 followers, right? Like something, something you can measure, something tangible, something that looks so good and so divine. But if if we and and I think that's that's conditioning, that's that that is the society that uh treat makes us thinking that way, so we still can feel powerless because uh who I who am I that can do that kind of stuff? But actually, again, that's conditioning again, right? So the heart space of being here, being with one another is the way of retraining our brain and our mind and our our heart and our beliefs that simplicity you can find extraordinary, in ordinary, you know, like the smell of the flower, that moment, or the moment when you're you see your your you know your daughter, and like wow, she's growing up, right? Those ordinary that we forgot, it's so meaningful at the end of the day, those are things that we remember, not like when we you know do somewhere or so it's like this is this is an era where our contribution as individuals, as I I would say, like I'm nobody, you know, like nobody, maybe you can say it's like have that moment, have that attention, intention where you can hold, and I would say this um the heart space is a gentle holding space where all feelings, thoughts, and sensations are welcome. It's a space where we can have a loving relationship with our complexity and contradiction, no pushing, no pulling, just is. With this deliberate, gentle holding, a different kind of intelligence and clarity emerges, and through this experience, we finally understand from the core of our being, in the relationship with ourselves, others, and the planet that we are enough, whole, and always interconnected. So we not this or that, we have fear, we have love. People who are, you know, maybe you can call them bad or criminals, they also but they may love their children, right? Uh, so we have all aspects of humanity, the good and the bad. Um, and in order to transcend it, we need to provide this space where everything can be in the place for a moment. We don't push one another, we don't push the part of us that we don't like, just be here. Um, and then that when we can see, that when we can have a different kind of perspective or insights rather than reactive right away, reactive right away, right? Um, so can we provide that to ourselves?

SPEAKER_06 1:16:10

It makes me think in your book you talk about seeing life as a set of disconnected nouns and experiencing it more like a verb. Can you explain kind of what that shift means and and how might that really change the way that we show up in the world to live more like a verb?

SPEAKER_10 1:16:32

Yeah, um I think it's not fair if I not if I explain it without explaining where that comes from, because this is not new. So in the indigenous languages, you know, in North America, uh most of the time, mostly, uh when they say, for example, the bay or the tree, it's not really a thing, a noun, right? Because the reason why is because if I say this is this is a chair in English, or this is a table, then what what I do to the chair, to that thing, is I limit it into a chair. The chair cannot be anything else, so I limit the possibility, possibility of it to evolve. Because through naming it as a fixed thing, I box it. Now, in the book uh braided sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmer, she said to be a bay, release the water from so the bay is noun only if water is dead. When bay is a noun, it's defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. To be a bay releases the water from the bondage and let it live. To be a hill, to be a sandy beach, to be a Saturday, all are possible verbs in the world where everything is alive. So to be Christine, to be Jamie, because we know we are evolving. This is I'm not just a noun, I'm evolving as you are evolving. So if we see others not as a label that we box, if we see our children not like has to be this way, we are allowing possibilities that is better than that box to be something else.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:53

Nature is at a really big foundational uh point in in how you really work. And it's interesting that that we look at elements like water. In your book, you had talked about how the the heart space is like a flowing river, and sometimes the analytical mind, the the the head space can be like a cup. What does someone have to do, do you think, to to take the cup and allow for that water to flow like a river?

SPEAKER_10 1:19:33

I would say to realize there are not there's no cup.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:40

Back to being a verb, okay.

SPEAKER_10 1:19:41

Yeah, the cup, the cup is the way our brain, our limited mind, our brain that's never see the light because it's in the skull, see things. So that's why I think awareness is very important, right? So awareness to like, oh, I'm I'm just like a cup holding all the salt and it's salty and it doesn't feel good, then just remember you're not a cup and the cup disappears.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:16

And the cup is a noun.

SPEAKER_10 1:20:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:20

Okay, I love that. Makes sense. Um, okay, so a couple more before we get you out of here. There was a story that you shared in your book about um your family going to a Christmas party and coming back to your house, and then the next morning your your son couldn't find presents. And him saying they were lost. And you said, Well, if you can't find them, it doesn't mean you've lost them. This goes to the heart of you have to really use trust, going back to the the the having a flashlight in a forest. It's it's the survival mind really it comes into connection with the heart space by having that level of trust. By if I tell myself that I'm lost or I feel lost, it's having to tell myself, like I'm a human, I'm on Earth, I'm one of eight billion people, and I have to trust what's happening in my heart just to keep moving forward because it's not that I'm lost, it's just I'm trying to figure out where I'm going.

SPEAKER_10 1:21:31

Um I want to bring that the word trust. This is I mean the end the end of it. The word trust tr u s t in the middle of the word trust, there's word us. Trust require us, require relational, require to being together. And we are when we are in fear, what it means usually is we feel alone, we feel like isolation. We we we we close ourselves down. So remember this when we said I need to trust, or I trust it's relational, it's opening, it's allowing, it's it's um acknowledging that at the end of the day, every single action is our responsibility, it's our own, right? Our choice. But our life is not come just like that. It's all interconnected that creates us, create me, create you. So by by being by going back to like, okay, I'm like you said, I'm not alone. I'm trying to figure it out, and I'm I'm here interconnected with the stream of water. I'm in the I'm in I'm on the river, not a cup. And being able is just to stop, it's like, oh, I'm in a cup, but like, wait a second. I'm in the river, and I know deep down, even though I couldn't see it right now.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:18

It's also quite interesting. As a parent, my daughter a lot of times will say she's lost something, so it's very relevant that I'm actually using the same line constantly. Like, it didn't walk out of here, like it's somewhere here, like logically. Like, that's where the analytical brain really helps. Because I'm going, listen, it's not lost. You brought it home last night, it's here. We know this. That's the fact. You just have to find it, that's the only difference. So to close things out, staying with water, one last moment here. In your book, you referred to a poem by Khalil Jabron and aptly titled Fear. And I think this poem really does an amazing example of the reflection when the heart space and the head space can coexist in a real deep compassionate symmetry. So, what I want to do is I just want to read uh the poem, and I kind of want you to close things out on what everyone could use to understand this poem from a daily standpoint to keep things really in a balance from their headspace and heart space. So this is Fear by Khalil Jabron. It is said that before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear. She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains, the long windy road crossing forest and villages, and in front of her she sees an ocean so vast that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever. But there is no other way. The river cannot go back. Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence. The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean, because only then will fear disappear, because that's where the river will know. It's not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.

SPEAKER_10 1:25:28

Yeah, that's very beautiful. Um that summarizes the journey that we all have. Um for me is allowing ourselves to not knowing, allowing ourselves to live with mystery. Um to always remember, sometimes we forget, but remembering we are the ocean. And this life is a journey to it. At the end of the day, whether the ocean, whether it you are in the the ocean or the river, we are water. Um it is it is only when we slow down and take a deep breath and then remind ourselves who we are. That's what's possible. It's not from outside, it is awareness that is so powerful because then it returns us into that space of balance when the heart leads, the mind is at ease.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:55

Absolutely beautiful, Christine. Thank you so very much for coming on here today. This was uh truly amazing, beautiful, and very necessary. So thank you so much.

unknown 1:27:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:10

And uh where can listeners go to uh to get your book to find out more about who you are? Tell us where everyone can kind of find out the the greatness of you.

SPEAKER_10 1:27:22

Um you can find me on my website, christinesamuel.ca not.com. Uh, I also on the website, I also give away uh a chapter. Um, if you just put your email, you can download a chapter for free. Um, so that's where you can find me. Um you can find me on LinkedIn. Also, just search for my name or Instagram, even though I don't really do much on Instagram these days. Um, my book you can find it on Amazon, or if you go to your bookstore, you you can order. It they probably don't have maybe all the stock, but you can still order it.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:05

Christine, thank you for sharing your heart space with all of us today. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:11

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:13

And with that being said, this is the butterfly of why. My only goal with this show is to leave the world a little bit better than I found it. So please, let's share that together. That being said, I'll see you on the next episode. Peace out.