Peel the Onion Podcast by Olivia Maxwell

Unmasking Spirituality: Authentic Leadership, Manifestation & The Path of Embodiment w/ David Sarkany #2

• Olivia Maxwell • Season 1 • Episode 2

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This episode dives into the struggles of authenticity, vulnerability, and emotional connection, as our guest, Dave Sarkany, shares his journey of self-discovery following burnout. We explore the societal expectations and conditioning that hinder genuine connection, emphasizing the importance of slowing down and embracing honest self-reflection.

• Exploring authenticity and societal expectations 
• The transformative journey of self-discovery after burnout 
• Understanding the need for self-accountability and vulnerability 
• Navigating the complexities of male intimacy and emotional connection 
• The significance of acceptance in overcoming suffering 
• Mythology and the hero's journey as a framework for personal growth 
• Emphasizing the balance of the divine masculine and feminine energies 
• Practicing mindfulness as a tool for healing and self-reflection

| David Sarkany |

YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheR.Y.S.E.Movement 

Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/dave_ryse/

Email | dave@rysemovement.com.au

| Olivia Maxwell |

Website | https://awakenedmbs.com.au/

Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/awakened_mbs/

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Speaker 1:

I want to start with as much authenticity as possible, because that's all that counts really. The last few months have been really challenging for me going through autistic burnout, starting work with a new therapist, just finding out who I am without all the other layers on top of conditioning and societal expectations and these agreements that we unconsciously make, that we subscribe to, and just figuring out what I don't want to subscribe to anymore.

Speaker 2:

Welcome everyone. I am very grateful to have a dear brother from another lifetime indeed, dave Sarkany. He's a health and wellness coach based in Gold Coast. We crossed paths this year and have kept in touch since. I'm very much looking forward to our conversation today and learning from his wisdom and experience over his time. So thank you, dave.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to get into this.

Speaker 2:

Dave and I crossed paths at a coaching weekend out there. He helped me break through some deep limiting patterns and beliefs and by the end of it I was screaming out I'm a world-class leader in my field. And yeah, he really helped me get there. What's been happening in your world of your business?

Speaker 1:

because you're up to amazing things I want to start with as much authenticity as possible, because that's all that counts, really. Um, the last few months have been really challenging for me going through autistic burnout, starting work with a new therapist, um, just finding out who I am without all the other layers on top of. You know conditioning and societal expectations, and you know these agreements that we unconsciously make, that we subscribe to, and just figuring out what I don't want to subscribe to anymore, what I want to revoke that consent and just say, well, that's not me anymore and I no longer choose to be a part of this. Let's create new, and so this year there's been basically let's create new in all ways, shapes and forms. So in my business I I really took it all back.

Speaker 1:

I was like I don't like what I'm doing anymore. I don't like the coaching practices I'm doing. I want to make it more accessible for those that that aren't, you know the premium client sort of thing. I want to make it that it's accessible for everyone, because everyone can use this medicine that I've got. Everyone can use this, the interventions and the programs and the strategies and everything else. So why gatekeep it behind? You know this premium price tag?

Speaker 1:

And yeah, so that's where I started coming from a lot more recording a lot more different sort of content for socials and engaging people in more of a holistic way. Because I did have everything compartmentalized Like I've been a personal trainer for 12 and a half years now and I had my coaching and like hypnotherapy and stuff separate, and so I started melding them together because it feels more authentic, it feels more integral for me to be able to make sure that I can connect the dots both from like a health and wellness standpoint gym, but also, you know, mental, emotional, like a more psycho-spiritual, mythopoetic sort of worldview, because everything's starting from like that that mental, spiritual, aerial realm and then we take it down into the physical body and it's about embodying everything and understanding the reasons why we do everything that we do.

Speaker 1:

so I've been, I've been studying a lot of mythopoetics for myself and using a lot more of that language in everything that I do as well mythopoetic can't say I've heard of, of that I think like, uh, like plato socrates, you know, bringing like a demonic, uh, the demonic essence, you know the otherworldly sort of essence that comes in and, you know, plays the puppet master and goes here, this is where you're going, you're going off on an adventure and obviously you have no idea why, all of a sudden, you're doing things and you're like, okay, there's something here that I'm supposed to be doing, that I'm supposed to be doing.

Speaker 1:

Let's see if I can step back and figure out how to get in contact and communication with that otherworldly, you know, oozy, deep, beautiful thing that allows me to be able to see life through another perspective and go. That's exactly the thing that I was missing, you know. It's been here this entire time and now I'm in communication with this thing and I see things through a whole other lens. I see the intricacies and the synchronicities and the just how beautifully connected everything is oh, so much in there, let me.

Speaker 2:

Let me start with the first thing that you said around creating a new way and, oh, goosebumps around stripping back, yeah, the false layers and conditioning and expectations from a range of areas that you've witnessed in your life and what you're currently moving through with. You know your, your roles and your hearts of a business owner as well as a father, as well as a husband, as well as a leader in in a holistic, integrative space and bringing that awareness of the spiritual realm, which is what I really love in your work, and I feel that's where we connected really deeply. But back to the authenticity piece. I'm curious, for those who are listening, what really helped you one, identify where you weren't being authentic and, two, how you began to see that false layer.

Speaker 1:

There's a few different ways that I've learned how to do it. So when I was young, I learned that I'm the weird guy. I remember I've got this memory about 11 years old, in primary school, watching like all of my friends and I were walking around and acting, you know, like kids, and then I said and did something that broke rapport with all of them, and I remember watching them turn their bodies away from me and kind of giving each other sideways glances and I was like, oh, you guys think I'm weird. And so that was like like the start, the start of the self-awareness piece. I never really cared too much about it, but then I started to turn it inwards because all of the results that I was getting in my life were horrible.

Speaker 1:

That was so painful, you know, going through domestic violence, seeing lots of family violence, lots of alcoholism, these sorts of things. I'm like I don't agree with the way that you guys are doing life. It feels horrible for me, like in my body. It's just such a hard no that I'm not doing this and so I just do. I learned doing the opposite of what you know, like I saw my family members and stuff doing and what greater society says is okay with, you know, smoking cigarettes, drinking loads of alcohol, promiscuous sex, gambling, like all of that crap. I was like I hate all of this. This, to me, from the outside perspective, leads to ruin, because I've seen so many family members, you know, declare bankruptcy and divorce and all that sort of stuff and I was like I'm not doing that.

Speaker 2:

But to jump in there, jump in there sorry to interrupt is for you to realise you didn't want to do that, would you say. That was later on down the track and now retrospective. You're putting all the pieces together because you've built such an awareness, because I can completely relate and just hearing you say what you're sharing deeply. So, thank you. I see me and you and I was being raised and around me and that wasn't okay, just like my religion and what wasn't said in church and things that were missing. But now I've found the pieces because I'm on a conscious journey of doing my inner work and connecting to spirit myself. So it's like a retrospective pulling pieces together versus then and there, because of your brain development, wouldn't have been able to do that as such at this level. Is that right?

Speaker 1:

yes, it was more instinctual at the time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it was just I felt it.

Speaker 1:

I understood that there was like a hard body note and I didn't know what to do with it. So I just kind of went with the flow and just did the opposite um, I was always the contrary, and I was like, well, what you guys are doing doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna go over here. I'm like I have been extremely selfish and followed my own path and I'm like you guys are going and doing that. I'm not doing that. I'm gonna go do all the things that I want to do, like looking around at the friendship circles that I've had over the last sort of 20, almost 20 years since leaving school, sort of thing yeah.

Speaker 1:

I. I just went on my own path. Like there were core common traits that we had with my friendship groups. It was, um, you know, girlfriends and partying to an extent into my later teen years, and then it was like cars and xbox. They were the only commonalities that I had with anyone else. Everyone you know left school, did the traditional things, went to uni or or some form of tertiary education or they became tradesmen and whatever it was, I was like I don't want a piece of any of that, I'm gonna do it my way. And I went to do like I became eventually became a store manager of mcdonald's, started my personal training business, did bodybuilding while I was at McDonald's Like I did all these things that I was like. Well, I'm going to follow my bliss and essentially that's how I've lived my life, my bliss has changed a lot in that time.

Speaker 1:

As you kind of orient and course correct along the way, you kind of go to the extremes. You go, oh, this is a bit, how are you going? It's a bit off, so I'm gonna go a little bit differently and you just kind of, you know, follow the, follow the current a little bit and then eventually it leads you to the things that you're like oh, this is what I was searching for so I just keep coming back to the importance of the presence and building conscious awareness to be able to be at a point where you're at dave and you know choose.

Speaker 2:

No, I'm not following this mainstream grid of the, the rat cycle of oh, and particularly as an entrepreneur, which I can completely relate you can get swept up in that constant doing. You know we've spoken about it, all these things, and if you're in that mindset of there's just endless things to do, well, you're going to feel that similar with time. If you think there's not enough time in the day, well, that's what it's going to feel like. But I can see from when we last spoke, there's been a shift in how you're really holding yourself and showing up and and choosing differently, which is powerful.

Speaker 2:

So thank you we need more of the yeah, we need more of that authentic leadership. Really we do, yeah, ultimately what it?

Speaker 1:

comes down to is that it's the, the self-accountability, authenticity, like. There's three things that I hold myself by. To note Like these are the highest standards and values that I hold myself to is transparency, authenticity and vulnerability. I'm going to be me to the best of my ability, without any armor, because I have nothing to hide. The good, the bad, whatever it is like, there's nothing for me to hide because I very much believe in, I very much believe in integrity being the most important thing outside of those three.

Speaker 1:

There it's like to be integral is to show up in truth, to speak truth, to act in truth. It's just truth, full stop. So anything other than truth, anything other than integrity, is to be a lie, and for me to lie is to be not authentic, it's to not be myself. So I'm going to call a spade a spade. I'm going to like, I'm going to, I'm just going to be me and there's no other way that I can be, because anything other than that is a lie and that's not to be a leader. It's not integrity it. Anything other than that is a lie and that's not to be a leader. It's not to not integrity it. It's a facade, it's false, it's a, it's a facsimile, a facsimile of reality, and it's a very small sliver of what people are trying to project.

Speaker 1:

I don't want to project anything, I just I just want to go through doing whatever I'm doing to the best of my ability and allowing people and like giving people permission to do the same and the permission piece, tell me if you'd agree with this.

Speaker 2:

But it's learning, whether it's strategies or tools, but anchoring back within the moment, right here, right now, all the senses being clear of what's happening in your body.

Speaker 2:

Potentially, potentially, if you're having thoughts bringing again your awareness to the present, letting the thoughts float away, but anchoring into your heart and letting yourself build that muscle, listening to the whispers of the heart, because back to you, understanding what your bliss is, yeah, that connection in my experience and with my clients and my own inner work, I've realised that's where it comes from really anchoring into the heart, because that is the compass and through that, whether seeking out professional support from someone who is embodied I would encourage, is embodied in that. You know you can learn it in a degree or a course, but we're really shifting to a world of embodied leadership and intuitive. People like yourself are very sensitive with energy, as myself. We feel that straight away, when a leader or anyone walks in a room or even chatting, as you said earlier, your instincts just straight away signal if something's off or not. Yeah, and that that's coming also back to the heart.

Speaker 1:

But your body is part of that vessel absolutely and like I'd like to add on to, around the heart and understanding energy being intuitive. I think something to do with accepting and giving yourself permission when something feels off, because a lot of people like to people-please. You know they go. Oh well, you know this person's new to the group and they're the life of the party and they're great and you're going to love them. And if you have that feeling, if you have that instinct to go, no, they're a snake, trust it. You don't have to act upon it. You can just hold some boundaries, hold some space and say, well, I feel this, I'm sitting with it, I'm just going to. One of my favourite sayings is that's interesting, is no matter what happens, it doesn't polarise you. It's like, huh, you over there.

Speaker 2:

Interesting, yeah, and it's neutral yeah, I love that it's such a neutral statement.

Speaker 1:

Eh, that's interesting, yeah giving yourself permission to be able to not be polarized is huge.

Speaker 1:

What I, like, I learned, um, there's a book called the cabalian and it's the seven hermetic principles, talking about the law of mentalism, the law of gender, correspondence, rhythm, polarity, so on and so forth.

Speaker 1:

And when I started studying that book, you can, you step back and you view things, you become the observer, so understanding that everything is like the all is mine, everything is mental in nature. So, stepping back first and understanding that there's a mental realm in and around and through the physical as well, to become the observer of all of it and go, well, if I'm things, then I can choose how I want things to be. I can choose how I want to respond instead of react. I can choose who I surround myself with. I choose whether or not I want that person in my life, whether I want that energy to be around me, and that's okay to hold sacred boundaries to say, well, that's you and I'm me and you can stay there, and that's okay to hold sacred boundaries to say, well, that's you and I'm me, and you can stay there and that's okay and to add the psychological lens from the beautiful what was it called?

Speaker 2:

the book? I missed that the caballion the caballion.

Speaker 2:

Yes, what came came to mind is what I'm trained in acceptance, commitment therapy and it's all about which. I'm sure it's rooted in deep ancient wisdom, as a lot of Western techniques are, and it needs to be acknowledged, but I don't have evidence for that. It comes back to becoming the witness and learning specific tools in how to do that, mindfulness being one, but realising you're the self as context. So I teach clients the ability to one. You can just drop in with your eyes closed and start to notice. If you can notice your body in the chair, if you can notice things outside of you in the room even though your eyes are closed, and that's that's a way of building that muscle of self as context. I'm. I'm more than just in the body. If you're able to transcend and see things outside or feel, that's evidence already. So it's, it's creating the evidence and then bringing that in the day to day is the next, I would say, challenge.

Speaker 2:

Personally, it's catching myself when my thoughts go haywire and particularly the fire within to want to achieve and and help so many people, but then anchoring those strategies back in all the time, and I wanted I wanted to say that because it's not like you get to a point where you know you're just always present and you don't have to use your, your tools or strategies. I believe being part of human is just constantly exercising that and sometimes it's quicker, sometimes it's not. It depends what you're going through in your life. What are the big stresses that are happening? Less stresses may mean you move through it more swiftly.

Speaker 2:

But back to what you said around yeah, that anchoring into becoming the witness and then applying it in everything you're doing in the day-to-day. It can be hard. It's not something that you just obtain. So I wanted to say that because along my journey of my inner work I used to think, unless I wasn't educated enough then, or through my own experience, I just assumed oh, I'll get to a certain point if I'm meditating every day. I don't know what you'd call that. Did you ever experience that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. I've fallen into so many traps of ego and projection and spiritual bypassing where, like you know, you get to this place. Well, I'll speak for me. I got to this place several times where I was meditating every day, you know, breath work, journaling, like all the things, all the practices, and yet my physical life and my physical results weren't what I was aiming for. They weren't, they just weren't acceptable. You know, I had kids and a partner and all these other uh requirements of me, but I was like, oh, like I'm doing all the things, like I'm a spiritual being. You know, like that, that spiritual ego that comes on. You know, we wear this other mask that we create and it's like, oh well, I'm so enlightened. You know, I walk through life effortlessly and yet you look at some of your results in hindsight and you're like I'm not any of that, I was playing a facade, I was playing a game.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what's your example of results that you're talking to?

Speaker 1:

So I would spend so much time doing the things instead of just being, instead of being present, like I would practice so much, practice, so much loving. What did I used to call it? Whenever there was people that I disagreed with, I would apply this bullshit lens of loving detachment. That's what it was, and I'd just be like oh well, that's you and that's wonderful for your worldview. And I'd just like psychologize everything and add all these linguistics to everything, but instead, internally, I was feeling all this resentment to them. I'm like you're wrong, what you're doing is wrong, and it was just all this projection that I was shoving onto it, but using language in a way that would be airy-fairy and not offend anyone.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah yeah, it's.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting to consider the the ebbs and flows, the highs and lows of going through that journey of like self-awareness towards presence. There's so many pitfalls that you can fall into. There's so many things you can become identified with.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. And if we were to just pause, which we already have now, I can feel that presence. Yeah, what would you want to tell your younger you who was doing all the things? You know you're still doing all the things, right. You're looking after yourself in that spiritual way and also physical way, very fit and mental you, you have your team, as you said, new therapist and support. You're doing all the things to ensure your resilience is strong is what I call it. Whatever life throws at you, you're ready. But what would you say to that younger version of you now, now that you're at this point and you, yeah, you realize where the gaps were. Previously, you weren't embodying, you were spiritually bypassing.

Speaker 1:

I would say slow down.

Speaker 2:

I love that yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, simply put slow down.

Speaker 1:

You're great at doing. There's no one that you know that can take action quite like you. There's no one that you know that can take action quite like you, when your ability to become pragmatic and zoom out and see solutions instead of problems is fantastic. However, you have to give yourself that time to be able to zoom out. If you're constantly in the doingness of life, then there's not enough time for reflection and another perspective to see if what you've got is actually the right way, because you could have, just because of the doingness, the inability to slow things down and to zoom out might have taken you further down a path than you wish to go. And listening to that quiet whisper, coming back to that again, listening to the quiet whispers, understanding that there's always, always guidance, there's always signs, synchronicities, metaphors, dreams, other worldly sort of entanglements and nudges that are constantly giving you reinforcement, constantly giving you feedback that if you just tuned in a little bit more once you slowed down, then it would become a hell of a lot easier.

Speaker 1:

I I watched someone send me a um a reel today on instagram of what it's like your spirit guides and watching you fumble through life. And so this woman sitting there trying to light a trying to light a candle and she couldn't figure it out to save her life. And she's got. She's got the matchbox, but instead of doing it with the the friction side, she's doing it on the soft side and the spirit guide's looking at her going what are you doing? And then eventually the spirit guide hands her a lighter and she's got the candle in front of her. She lights it and then she lights the candle and then blows out the lighter, but blows out the candle at the same time, and the spirit guide just goes I like the lights of them blows it out and the candle representing your spirit right, and you as flame.

Speaker 2:

ah yeah, I just felt instantly relaxed when you said slow down to tell your younger self, that I would say, oh, I'd agree. I was talking to my husband last night about because he's a business owner as well and you know, in that pace of achieving and we've spoken about this too and wanting to tick things off that need to be done, you know those, those things that you're not too big on doing but need to be done, and it's like you get in in this cycle in the mind that says, oh, once you do that then you'll be free to relax. But actually once you do that, then you'll be free to relax. But actually once you do that, then you realise you're on that habit of doing and doing and doing. And I was saying the importance of realising like, live, you don't need to hurry, you've got your whole life.

Speaker 2:

I hope I do, I mean, but still real, realizing the richness of this moment and even beyond that, it's realizing the power of working and being and living from a regulated nervous system, which I'm just so passionate about educating more and more people on, because the moment we're regulated in our body, which we drop in and out of, obviously, depending on what we need to do in the day.

Speaker 2:

So you go in the gym you're not going to be in your rest and digest, I hope, if you want to get results right, yep. But coming back into that, rest and digest the green zone I call it parasympathetic nervous system as much as possible, particularly when you're resting, because I find personally, for years I was not doing much on the outside but in the inside, my body thought I was under attack because of all my inner thoughts and beliefs and I'm not doing enough. That isn't coming from a safe place, is it? That's like, even sitting with that thought which my mind can say to me and your mind, yeah, many people's minds I'm not doing enough. I'm not enough, actually pausing to to feel how crappy that feels, and then let's flip it. I am enough, I am doing enough. That's how you can start with sensing the subtle energy, just flipping from the negative to the positive lens, the empowering, the loving lens, would you say, the truthful lens.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely. Lens, would you say the truthful lens? Yes, absolutely. The? The mind is a wonderful place. It can be chaotic for a lot of people. It can cause a lot of distress for a lot of a lot of others. I work probably 80 of my clients are neurodivergent and so teaching them the the signs and the symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system, because you know the ADHD, ASD mind processes upwards of 30% more like electrical synapses and like there's so much going on mentally, let alone physiologically, it's like to slow down into presence, to take stock of what's going on and to recognise just how much not so much control, but how much?

Speaker 1:

how much presence they can bring to things, because, realistically, that's what it is. If you're caught up in the doing and you're, like myself, constantly seeking dopamine in all the things that are available to life and dealing with impulsivity and distraction and phones and all the things, sitting back and going again, that's interesting going. Hmm, how do I want to show up? Just asking that one question is so damn powerful to figure out all the things that you need to do, because, ultimately, we're all our own coach, we're all our own mentors If we give us time and space to be able to ask the right questions, to be able to just explore and be curious.

Speaker 1:

There's so many times where I've, like, butted my head against a wall, feeling nothing but rejection and frustration, stagnation, all these things. I'm like if I keep going this way, it's going to burn me out and it's going to leave me frustrated and feeling hollow. What do I need to do? And I, the moment that I have that feeling of tension in my body where things aren't going the way, that I want them to zoom out, slow down and go. Okay, what have I left undone? What haven't I seen? Is there something that someone could potentially help me? If I need another mentor or resource to call upon. But ultimately it's about zooming out and slowing down and going oh, I know what I've done Because ultimately you do, everyone knows what I've done because ultimately you do, everyone knows what they've done or left undone yeah, I haven't done.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I agree it's, and as a as a coach and for me as a as a therapist and and guide, it's giving people back their power through holding up a mirror, a loving mirror. So I feel there's such a stigma around even just reaching out for support. Right, that might be a block, but maybe at that point in time you need that external mirror, investing in that to unlock a block that you're not aware of particularly. Back to what you were saying if you're doing X, y and Z and you're not seeing results in the way you are ready to see, is that when you sort out more mirrors professionally as well, to match, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1:

So when things are slowing down and I'm noticing that the the input that I'm giving in terms of time, effort, energy and money isn't yielding the results that I'm looking for, there's something amiss. So if all of a sudden, my input's going up but the results that I'm getting are staying the same, if not coming down a little bit, I know there's something amiss that I haven't that I know, dotted an I across the T and then that's where I'll look for a mirror to come in and go okay, this is what's going on. Here's another perspective for you. And like I've had mentors God, all the way back to when I ate my McDonald's days, there was people that took me under their wing and then said you know, don't do this, this is what I messed up. Here's another perspective for you to go down, and like I've had people guiding me my entire adult life.

Speaker 1:

I don't go through life alone because I know that truly I'm never alone. I've always got family around me 24 7. So it's just about calling upon those resources. I've been hyper independent for so much of my life and I know a lot of people out there are, coming from, you know, maladaptive coping mechanisms from their childhood of going oh well, I've been neglected, I'm not seen and heard by my parents, so I have to do everything myself. And it's just not the case like it's okay to depend upon other people. You're not weaker because of it. It's not. You're not weak because you need a bit of assistance. We all need assistance, we like. If humanity can't do this alone, we have to do it together yeah, bang on.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for for raising that, because, yeah, we are our own healers and and guides and gurus, but yeah, we live, we're hardwired as social beings, starters, and this is the journey of life. So why would you want to just do it all on your own? You know, lean into the joy of it and the curiosity, just whenever we have our conversations, I just notice parts of my brain unlock, and that can't really happen on my own. I mean, in my meditation, maybe in a different way, but, no, not to the same extent. We're meant to experience and really open ourselves up to life and receive what life has to offer.

Speaker 2:

And that hyper independence point wow, that, that one, uh, I'd say, has been a shadow of mine, shadow as in um, yeah, back from from childhood and using that as a strategy to, to give myself what I need and realizing my strength of being able to do that. But then then I just find, over the past few years and the past few months when I've slipped into being hyper-independent, it hasn't been draining, it hasn't been helpful or sustainable or enjoyable. I just feel like I'm in that cycle of needing to do so much because you are, though, when you're needing to lean on those around you that you trust.

Speaker 1:

I've been horrible at asking for help until it's time for me to look into the mirror myself. Yeah, I've lived majority of my life, like I said, with mentors around me asking for help, but a lot of the time it's because things have become started becoming stagnant and painful. You know the coming back to like the wheel of samsara's. You know existence is suffering, but it's only the suffering that we have is to the attachment to the outcome that we're looking for. Things are as they are and so if you have the presence to be able to sit with it and to go, wow, like this is, there's no other.

Speaker 2:

Can you say that again? Sorry the suffering, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So the wheel of samsara, existence, is suffering and it's because we're attached to outcomes, circumstances, and the disconnect from our intention is what causes the pain, because things just are.

Speaker 2:

What comes to mind is focusing on potentially the how than the what, potentially the how than the what. But even with the what you know, with manifesting and creating your life and your desires, it's still the what needs to be loosely held. You still need to be a witness in the what, because it can happen, can be happening right in front of you, but because, as you said, the attachment is so oh, it needs to look like this. Then you're in that, that cycle, that suffering, when it's always there, just as everything is always there when it comes to manifesting, I don't know for for you guys, but for myself.

Speaker 1:

I'm an amazing magician, like I can click and create out of thin air.

Speaker 1:

However if I'm not specific, like damn specific, about the outcome and like the person that I'm going to become on that journey of creation, things will pop up and it'll be. Things will like I'll make manifest, I'll have results that pop up and I'll go this isn't what I ordered, this isn't what I was working towards. And then I'll have reflection. I'll be like, okay, well, how is it showing up this way? And it's a disconnect in my in, in my energy, in my intention, in how I'm showing up to become, because I'll, I'll manifest something, something will be created. Okay, I didn't order that, I don, I don't actually want that. And then I'll reflect, I'll do some meditation, I'll do some active imagination or you know one of the other millions of freaking things that I do, and then I'll have almost a dialogue with that previous version of myself that created it, and then I'll go.

Speaker 1:

I missed this thing. There was this one thing, this unconscious, this shadow projection that was going on to my manifestation desires, and then I'll see it and go. I wasn't clear enough, because asking you shall receive right. So if you're not 100% clear on the what and the how and the why behind it, you'll get it. However, will it be actually what you want it to be, or will it be a shadow projection?

Speaker 2:

Powerful insights and it's different to how I manifest, but I'm definitely taking a leaf out of your book and I love the joining of the dots of again your awareness to zoom out like a bird and realize, whoa, I did ask for this, but hang on, that's not how. And then so interesting I'm using interesting for a reason in a second because if it didn't come the way that you essentially wanted back to the how, then you take that ownership and responsibility to then rework the new plan. And then you found that the new plan then ticks every single box every time. Is that what I'm hearing?

Speaker 1:

Ideally. So I'll put a story to it so that it's got an example that people can relate to 2011, I was dating and living with my girlfriend at the time. She lived in Townsville, moved down to the Gold Coast to be with me. When we moved in together she was in a short-term rental and then said I don't want to live here anymore, I want to move somewhere. And then so I was a couple of weeks out from a bodybuilding show and then she said I found some places where what we can afford and what I'm looking for Cause she likes apartments and blah, blah, blah we can live in Southport. And for those that aren't on the Gold Coast, southport is also known as Scumport or it's not a desirable place to live. So I said I don't want to live in Southport because my car will get stolen.

Speaker 1:

At the time I had a 1996 Nissan Skyline GTST and it was my pride and joy and I absolutely adored that car. I said I was going to retire with that. It was going to be my thing, that I tinkered with Like it was my pride and joy wholeheartedly. Then I also had the belief system of happy wife, happy life at the time, with no other caveats. So we moved to Southport and then, three weeks after we moved to Southport, my car got stolen.

Speaker 1:

We went out for a drink and I was very emotional and I was sitting around the table with a a bunch of friends and I said I don't want to lose my position as store manager because my car got stolen. They didn't come right out and say it, but three weeks later I lost my position as store manager and got demoted back to first assistant. So I got everything that I didn't want because I was so emotional about it and I created exactly what I was putting a lot of emphasis and intention into. That's why you have to be really careful with what goes on in here and what goes on in here, because what you think and feel will make manifest in the world around you your car.

Speaker 2:

Well, maybe the uh store manager you've been um put down from that level. Now, reflecting back where you are, do you see another perspective as to maybe why else that would happen?

Speaker 1:

oh yeah, okay, yeah but in the moment it was way too uncanny that what I said that I didn't want happened, and it happened so effortlessly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but in terms of my question, the positives of that shift, of that change, were there benefits from that?

Speaker 1:

or lessons. Yeah, at the time, no, it was. There was so much negativity that I was focused on, but in hindsight, reflecting, it's put me on the path to become who I am today. Because who would have known? Maybe I wouldn't be who I am today, doing all the things that I'm doing with the family that I've got, and so on and so forth, because I like uh, there's a Dr John Demartini quote that I love everything is divine, in line and right on time. So there's a perspective where that had to happen, because it made me who I am today.

Speaker 2:

That's the one I resonate with the most. That's why I was asking those questions, but I love your perspective too.

Speaker 1:

So it depends on what you're focusing on, right? So I was focusing so heavily on essentially being in a victim mindset. This thing happened to me and.

Speaker 1:

I didn't shift that victim mindset until probably 2015, when I started dating my current partner and fiance. Now I she was. She was a massive mirror for me when we first got together and she's probably the reason, the catalyst for everything that I am and I'm like. I'm a massive. I'm a massive believer in the masculine, feminine dynamic of the feminine inspiring and calling to action the man to be the best version of him at all times, which is a lot of pressure to put on our shoulders, but for the right female, it will give you. You will move like it's the muse. It will move hell and high water. You will do anything, anything and everything. And the moment that I met Rachel, I was like, well, I have to become the best version of me possible because she deserves it and I deserve it, and my daughter deserves it and everyone else does.

Speaker 2:

And then it just like started this cascade of all these events and thoughts and emotions that happen and it really just put me to where I am now wow, I feel that uh and yeah, yeah, that dance of owning what you're able to manifest and create and also the surrender to what's divinely timed and what you need to experience the viewpoint of and what you need to experience, the viewpoint of inflicting our own trauma. I really resonate with that, our own wounds that we come into life with and we can call them trauma wounds, even shadow, let's say, with the wounds and the trauma. But really it's the lotus no lotus, no mud, no lotus. And that belief I I always come back to when I go through major challenges and transitions in my life. It's, it's so odd and I don't. I want to hear if you resonate, but I catch myself just side note in the depth of the experience deep grieving, loss, tragedy, horror, anger, oh, betrayal, abandonment. These deep wounds I've sat with and moved through. In that space I've also been celebrating. When I'm there, it's like my awareness was able to split and realize or not split, stay whole, but move to the other side of wow.

Speaker 2:

Given my knowledge and my experience in this work, I'm at a really dark place. I'm in a really dark place right now and it's really intense, but I also know in that same moment this is just clearing out some crap, deep crap, whether it's from my past lives and lifetimes, as well as my ancestral lineage. I can see it all happening, all the healing, and even where it comes from my line of women and men. And then I'm feeling it as well and it's horrible, it's not comfortable, it's very uncomfortable. But then I'm also celebrating wow, I'm rising. I know this will pass, I know I don't stay in and I have so much self-belief in what I've built and what I continue to within myself and passion and dedication and devotion that I rise. I rise again.

Speaker 2:

So it's this weird, very interesting. I'm getting goosebumps, layering of all these emotions and perspectives and it's the multidimensionality of all of us really, that we all have. But when I've been able to witness that I'm in such honour, even when I'm in such depth and that's been a more recent thing, I'd say in the last year when I really had to dig deep with challenging systems and rules and really asking who am I? Stripping layers back to 360 at the beginning, the authenticity piece, who really am I and I find I go through that cycle of questioning that and who really holds such a strong mirror for me and who doesn't? All these questions, but it's a, it's a lot. It really is. It just shakes the whole system and I feel the tension and it, yeah, it really can, can disrupt and it needs to, just like a storm, just disrupt everything, but then that new sprouts come through. So, yeah, summing up my human experience on the conscious journey, I'd say I 100.

Speaker 1:

Agree it's, and again, it's only a recent discovery of my own um where, probably in the last two years maybe, of noticing the signs and yeah the, the rhyming of the cycles.

Speaker 1:

again, I noticed, whenever it's time for me to journey back into the unconscious or, to you know, into journeying into other realms, um, of consciousness sort of thing, I I'll notice the call to adventure. You know, using the Campbellian hero's journey, the call to adventure, and then feeling my body go through the refusal of the call and going, oh, do we have to do this again? I've just come to a place of integration, I've just come back into the physical world where I'm happy and I'm, you know, like I'm enjoying life again. And then all of a sudden, the knock comes and the call comes and it's like, oh, but at the same time it's like, okay, I have the resources to be able to do this, I'm strong enough, I am committed to see this through.

Speaker 1:

And then it's for me, it's this might sound a bit flippant the moment that I get over that initial, the refusal of the call, I dive as fast into it as possible because I'm like, okay, the cycle's here, it's time for me to go into the other world, into the supernatural world. I've got the mentors, I've got all the guides, it's time to go, seek out that threshold, guardian, and to have the, have the moments of implosion, explosion, whatever. Whatever needs to come up, we'll come up, and I know that, no matter what I'm faced with in the darkness of hell, in you know all the pain and the trauma and everything else that I've been through I know that I can get through it now. So I don't sit in the refusal of the call too long anymore. I just go okay, it is what it is, let's go.

Speaker 1:

And then, like I did at the start of the year this year, um, I've just come through burnout. I had elements of that where I was grieving a past relationship that I just shut myself off to and kind of suppressed and then when it came up, I was like here we go, three, two, one dive. You know like the, the lag time in between the, the pain and the anguish, and you know samsara suffering again going okay, I've got to do this, no one else is going to do it for me, and if I sit with it any longer it's just going to become more painful and it's going to carry around like a bad smell.

Speaker 2:

time to deal with it yeah, yeah, yeah that's how I don't dwell and with the don't sit with it, a piece comes with the natural unfolding of that surrender. It's it's also not taking it on your back like you need to solve it then. And there I find I feel personally it naturally just happens once you break through that resistance. Well, not even the resistance, yes, it's resistance, but from my experience it's been. Maybe you don't want to look at it, so you're keeping it kind of tucked to the side, maybe avoiding a person or leaning into the discomfort of having a conversation. Let's break it down even more.

Speaker 2:

But if you're someone who naturally just swings the door open and leans into discomfort, I find that such a superpower and I personally relate to that. I just jump in. But it's more my body catching up with the whole cycle of the hero's journey. And that's where the slowing down piece comes, because we constantly face or we constantly ask and receive challenges for our own evolution. That's my view for our soul growth and for the evolution of humanity. We're all hardwired like that. No one's missed out. We're all at the core, evolving every single day as well as dying, whatever perspective you want to look at. But to loop back, it's leaning well, knowing your body cues, I feel like it always comes back to just knowing about yourself, to then catch the blocks and to catch the potential resistance and, yeah, going for it anyway. I don't know if that made sense. I kind of I noticed I go on a flow and then I might lose the essence. So let me know if I did lose.

Speaker 1:

No you landed? Yes, yeah, I find I'm the same as well. The physical body takes time to catch up because it's a lot more dense Mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

Speaker 1:

It happens a lot easier because you're familiar now, whereas with the physical reality things just take that little bit longer. So giving yourself the space to be able to allow instead of resist is a massive piece because sometimes it might take a time. It might take days, weeks, months. Hopefully it doesn't take years. Hopefully you've got some processes and some things to be able to help it not take that long.

Speaker 1:

But ultimately, when it comes to the physical embodiment and moving through trauma and pain and, you know, doing shadow work and stuff like that, I feel like as long as there's no massive resistance to it, it'll take a natural course. It'll flow through as it's meant to. If you're holding on to that, you, you know, if you're holding on to the suffering and going, no, it has to be like this, you know this, this relationship with my mother isn't what I want it to be and it has to be this way, then it's gonna. There's gonna be resistance, there's gonna be more pain and suffering to it because again, the wheel of samsara's existence is suffering because we're holding on to that attachment. If you can let go of the attachment to witness what is, it moves a lot easier.

Speaker 2:

And witnessing what is is through acceptance. Accepting it is what it is, yeah, but it's one thing to say it and then it's another to again create the space for your body to catch up and realise, yeah, it's crap and I need to cry because I missed out on all this unconditional love from my mother, for example. See a lot of my, my clients, having to face that grief and, as you said before, with the past relationship, you can just repress that, that knock, that could be a knock, yeah, and then need to come out. What's not expressed is suppressed. Expression can be through just feeling and allowing in, like welcoming an unknown guest.

Speaker 2:

I love, I love the analogy of the guest house and you wouldn't hopefully well, maybe would not you personally, but some people might just shut the door on an unknown guest. But ideally the the metaphor is the guest comes and knocks on your door and you welcome it in with open arms, take a seat or get a glass of water. You're not getting the guest to leave guest as in your emotion or the memory. You're sitting with it. You're witnessing what the guest has come to share and tell you or just be, and then it leaves in its own time, but you're still being kind to it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, kindness, compassion, love, understanding they're such powerful tools for when unexpected things pop up. We've all got stuff in our minds, in our lives, in our experiences that have happened to us, that are, you know, less than ideal, and I find that, on where I am now, it's a lot easier for me to to say how I do things, how I experience things and how I work through them. But for a lot of people that are at the start of their journey, that's so foreign for what I talk about, for what probably you talk about. Even the fact that we can put us to have awareness of it and then just welcome it when all you've known is suffering, welcoming more suffering, can be quite daunting for a lot of people that are new to the awareness piece and going oh my goodness, where did this come from? I don't like where it came from. I don't like where it came from. I don't like how it feels, I don't like how it makes me act and you know the, the whole um, that that victim piece around.

Speaker 1:

When this memory pops up, I feel this and it makes me feel this. It's not something that I'm choosing, it's not something that I'm. Well, until today, I want to be an arsehole. You know what I mean. It it's like yeah, it's that disconnect between recognising something's amiss, something physically, emotionally, mentally. You know, maybe you're a little bit more reactive than you like to be and going looking for that thing. You know, like the Knights of the Round Table, king Arthur myth of sending the knights into the deepest, darkest part of the forest for that night to find, you know, the Holy Grail, to find the dragon and slay it, sort of thing, that myth, you know. All those hero's journeys have resonance to us, because that's ultimately what we're meant to do. We're meant to turn and face.

Speaker 1:

You know that is to be. That's the hero archetype. It's ironic that I'm wearing the superman shirt, but that is the hero archetype is to face adversity, face things head on comfortably, wholeheartedly, and just go. Okay, I'm here for this powerful.

Speaker 2:

I agree completely slay that dragon or get your rainbow dragon. I've had that experience in the lemurian crystal sister circle and I was blessed to visit my, my dragon. He was incredibly large and just took my breath away of all colors and bright and just took me around in this mystical landscape with many other dragons but no other dragons look like this dragon and I. That was a moment where I connected more deeply in my authenticity and my uniqueness or quirkiness and my own power. Not that it's superior to others, but it was that completion after a big hero's journey that I was going through then. And then, as you said, when you noticed the next hero's journey and the next giving up of the vision that you thought was it going to last or remain? I read something this morning about intimacy, and the more intimate we are in relationships and that's with everything with ourselves, with the world, nature, people the more we're putting our heart on the line for pain too, and that really resonated.

Speaker 1:

That's what it is to be vulnerable, is to put your heart on the line.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then how that plays out in all the different colours of your visions and your dreams and your goals, and how they might not come to fruition. And that pain you know, because that's being intimate with life, extending intimacy to just human relationship. It's with everything that you're manifesting, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely yeah, that trust. It's interesting that you bring up what we both brought up the dragons, because my last name actually means dragon in Hungarian.

Speaker 2:

Love that.

Speaker 1:

I went through this integration that like it was a rites of passage, as I was creating that last name and all the meaning and everything that went into it. When I did it and it was just it was abundantly clear that it's all that energy has always been around me. That serpentine, dragon sort of energy has always been around me, but it's always been on the periphery and I don't know what happened through all of my explorations, but it's literally been around me 24 seven and it was only when I gave it space to be able to come through and to be birthed into the world. I was like, obviously it's going to be that, obviously that's everything to do with me and what I'm trying to birth into. This world is like, yeah, it's a no brainer.

Speaker 1:

And then I created, I created the last name and around the man that I am is I want my last name to be a compass for people to navigate their way home, regardless. If you're not even blood related, married in, adopted, you know friends, whatever it's like, if I see, if I see sarcany, I know that's safe, I can come home, but there's always going to be a seat at the table. There's always going to be this place of acceptance, no matter what, and that's kind of the thing that I try to do as a man, especially with the female clients that I work with, with everyone is I want to be that safe man that doesn't want anything from you, that you can just let your hair down, no guard, no whatever, and there's nothing between us. I'm just here, I'm just me. So the linking of vulnerability and trust and putting my heart on the line that's really really hard for me to do, to put my heart out there and go.

Speaker 1:

I'm safe, full stop. I am as I am, full stop. I don't want anything from you, I don't want anything from anyone else. I'm here and if you need me, if you want me, if you want to talk, whatever, like arm is off, go for it. Have at the sort of thing. It's really really good. There's a lot of times where I feel a previous version of me, like I want to crawl into this previous version of myself that's safe and protecting myself and limits my exposure to people and limits my authenticity and my vulnerability to people, but then I sit back and I and I go. No, this is what we're intentionally becoming. This is who we are embodying. Every single day, every single moment is this me ah, let's pause and soak that one in.

Speaker 2:

Brother, you have such a way with expressing truth and your, your own incredible hero and powerful. It's such a gift. So I thank you for making the time to share that on on this platform and this ecosystem that I'm building and, yeah, gratitude to you thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

It's, um, there's, there's no other way. It's it's how things have to be. For me, it's like. It's like I've run away from this my entire life, and so being able to go through it and to be able to express it authentically, as it's happening, is really, really challenging for me. However, I know it's who I'm meant to become, it's who I've run away from my entire life. And, like Jung always says, the first phase of your life is to create that ego. The second part of it is to individuate and to become the self, to become who you are, and every single one of us is an individual that has our own expressions and own, you know, guiding daemon or whatever you want to call it. And becoming who you're meant to become is, in my world view, is life's purpose.

Speaker 2:

There's no other meaning to do anything or to be anything other than you are meant to be and those signs of being in full alignment with who are meant to be flow, effortlessness, grace, ease, joy, presence. Yep, that is enlightenment. It isn't just being in a cave or a certain way when nothing triggers you. Yes, you're still in a human body, so of course you'll feel, you'll feel things, you might feel under threat and not safe at times. That is the point of being in the human body. It's there to protect you and your brain.

Speaker 2:

But really the essence of who you are being in that grace, being in that joy, being in that presence, that trust, that surrender, that flow, that is the magic of the feminine which we all have as well as our masculine. Protecting that, yeah, yeah, the divine masculine energy has been an area I've been leaning more into and re-evaluating who that divine masculine person is, or energy is, in an in a natural way, in a protective, honoring um, forcing or dominating, competitive way, which I I found I used to be more in when I was a lot younger and I've caught glimpses of that, but really healing that, that masculine wounding from authority figures that I grew up with, that I never felt seen or heard or really safe around, but they were the only baseline at that time. Yep, to learn off and then that undoing of actually, you know, I get to choose what it feels like to feel really stable in my body. So then my feminine, my creative, my flow and softness and sexuality can just come out naturally and feel able to do that. And I'm so passionate about exploring more of this area and finding the vocabulary to bridge that awareness that's within us all, the masculine and the feminine, because there was so much emphasis on feminine wounding and, yes, so much feminine wounding, but also masculine wounding, toxic masculinity, for instance, but being repressed because of an authority systems that are saying you've got to do this way and that way.

Speaker 2:

That is, that's the masculine wounding, which is what's in our mainstream society. And these have been more recent insights through my own personal experience of whoa. Okay, that makes sense, why I wasn't able to hold myself in the way I really wanted to them because, okay, there's some deeper work to be done here. When it's time, I'm ready to go there discerning, yeah, because I've got to be human too, yep it's interesting bringing up the masculine polarity of.

Speaker 1:

There's an intimacy to the divine masculine that is so safe and so comforting and it's just absolutely beautiful, beautiful, um. An example of the opposite of um I hate this term, but toxic masculinity is. Over the weekend I had a friend's bucks party and it was. It was amazing, it was fun. However, the amount again becoming the observer, witnessing, becoming you know, uh, thinking that's interesting, partaking as well because it was fun was the pseudo intimacy, the pseudo connection that men have through homo, uh, homosexual slander to one another. Because men are so devoid of any kind of approval, validation, emotion, connection through other men that when they want to show intimacy and fondness and connection with one another, they'll show, they'll throw a lot of homoerotic stuff around. You know they'll be like oh you homo, you gay, blah, blah, blah, all that sort of stuff. And it's because there's such a deep wounding, the and the desire for connection and intimacy with one another that they have to add this, this lens of, of projection, because they can't be able to say I love you, you matter so much to me, and it has to come through this like pseudo intimacy by slander, because the moment that men are close to one another in times past. The moment that men are affectionate to one another's a homosexual activity. You can't love a brother, you can't hug a brother and say how much I love you. So it has to come through this facade of, like I said, pseudo intimacy where it's like I, I love you, but it's because of this, you know, like you're gay, because you know, like that sort of thing. And I was sitting back, what is it watching it? I'm like I've been friends with all of these dudes for damn near 20 years. These are like these are my brothers. I love them through thick and thin and I tell them that I love them.

Speaker 1:

However, it's interesting to sit back and to watch the slander. And you know all of this, I don't know it's a variation of what's approved in men's circles, in like mainstream men's circles, because I've got other friends where, like I can give him a hug and I could kiss him on the cheek if I wanted to and be like brother, I fucking love you so much, and he'd be like I love you too, and that's acceptable in that. But, like you know, being a top golf and stuff like that I was, I was witnessing all of it all the other bays, all the other blokes that were, you know, a bit drunk or whatever it is. I'm like, huh, that's how they get connection is through slander, because they can't be open and vulnerable and transparent and say, hey, man, like I like you, you're really cool.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. And like this insight hit me because my partner, she asked me she goes why are guys so homoerotic with one another? And then it hit me. I was like it's because we're looking for intimacy and connection but we can't do it in case we get shit on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, see, my lens has gone to their childhood and back to the roots, which I always go to in my work. Yeah, that's the foundation of where that was missing within the home, where that wasn't modeled. And then you zoom out and you look at generational blocks and traumas and a lot of it's shared. A lot of our wounds are really shared, just come out in different ways, but also adding that layer of, yeah, the pseudo intimacy really wanting it, but then not the fear of being seen in x way, which could come from early on.

Speaker 1:

You know what was judged of them yeah, it's all about getting to the fire, yeah and then you look at it like that's the collective, pseudo intimacy that guys go through. And then you look at all the other ways, down to the individual, down to the industries and infrastructure, all the way that there's pseudo, pseudo expressions that are masking everything to keep them in this one way. Men are this way and they're this way, only it's you know, you're strong and stoic and rigid and you know all that crap. And the moment that you lift that lens off, it's like, oh, my goodness, you poor beautiful men you're. You're seeking so much connection and community and love and just validation. And just to understand that they matter, to understand that they're needed here, to understand that their perspective is, is unique and beautiful and it's warranted Not just warranted, it's needed in society to be able to say, hey, like I am this individual and I'm a part of this collective and I'm doing my best To say that as a bloke and to go.

Speaker 1:

You know to be vulnerable and to express and to share love like that, to share love to yourself. You know to go online and look at pornography and stuff like that and to like it's. It's a shadow version of what's actually what we're actually looking for.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and a higher vibration which then circle right back, comes back to how you feel in your body after doing all these things where they're calling you made out in oh, you're gay, or in a non-loving way. But even if the intention is meant to be loving, how does that feel? How does that create the field around you? How do people respond? Is it coming from love and light or is it coming from a shadow, wounded part? You instantly get feedback right, instantly. Well, I mean just as, as per usual with us. I could talk for hours with you, with you and just learn so much and, yeah, experience so much. So I wanted to thank you and thank you for your time and love and insights, wisdom, all of it. Wish I could give you a big hug. I'll send you a remote one from Sydney.

Speaker 1:

The feeling is mutual. I love our conversations. I love the space that we share together. It's wonderful. More discussions like this, more expression like this, just more.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I agree, Watch the space. Let's do it Absolutely. Thank you for jumping on and thank you everyone for listening to our episode. It's been a pleasure and we'll be in touch, Thank you.