AWAKEN with Ryan DeJonghe

Kathy Gruver: Stress Mastery, Mindfulness, and the Art of Resilience

• Ryan DeJonghe, Founder of TranceWell.help • Episode 38

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In this episode of AWAKEN with Ryan DeJonghe, Ryan sits down with Dr. Kathy Gruver, an author, speaker, and health practitioner known for her expertise in stress management and mind-body medicine. The conversation explores Kathy’s diverse background, ranging from her work as a massage therapist to her success as a trapeze artist and her appearances on platforms like TEDx and Dr. Phil.

The discussion focuses on practical strategies for navigating stress in a high-pressure world, emphasizing the importance of mindfulness and the "mini-meditation". Kathy shares her insights on how to interrupt the stress response in real-time, the power of visualization, and the necessity of finding joy and play in everyday life. Ryan and Kathy also dive into the mechanics of belief and how our internal narratives dictate our physical and emotional health, offering listeners a grounded approach to reclaiming their sense of agency.

Key Takeaways & Meaningful Quotes

  • "Stress isn't what happens to us; it's our reaction to what happens to us. When you realize that, you realize you have the power to change the entire experience just by changing your breath."
  • "I do trapeze because it forces me to be 100% present. You can't be worried about your taxes when you're flying through the air. We all need that thing that demands our full presence."
  • "The ego wants to keep us safe by keeping us small and afraid. My work is about helping people realize that safety is actually found in growth, movement, and the willingness to be seen."

How to Connect and Work with Us

Connect with Kathy Gruver: Kathy offers coaching, keynote speaking, and a variety of books and resources focused on stress reduction and personal development.

Work with Ryan DeJonghe: Ready to explore your own transformation through hypnosis?

SPEAKER_00

Welcome everyone. Again, I'm so happy that you are here on the Awaken podcast with Ryan DeYoung. And today we have a very special guest, Doctor, Kathy Gruber. Thank you for being here, Doctor.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And right at the back, I think you're a little humble, a little too modest, you know, like you're like, I'm just out here healing people, doing nice things, helping people find, you know, relief, and that's all I'm doing. And then meanwhile, you're like, you're putting pink to chain doing these air acrobatics. And then you're like, you have not just one, but two TEDx talks. You've been on Dr. Phil, you got books that have won awards, you know, like that's pretty cool, man. So congrats on all of that. Well deserved.

SPEAKER_02

Sometimes people read like this really long intro or bio of me, and I'm sitting there going, Wow, she sounds pretty cool. Oh, that's me. You know, it's like I'll probably forget that I'm the one that did all that stuff. Yeah, classic overachiever.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I saw I was thinking I was reading like one of a biography on Pink, and she just thanked you for showing her how to do it, you know?

SPEAKER_02

Like Yeah, I wish. I'm not quite that good. There are people that there are people that get paid a lot of money to do that.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know how she can sing so well and do it at the same time. That to me is a miracle.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that is strenuous. I'm lucky, I get down from doing some of the aerial silks that I do, and I'm like, singing would not be on my list of things to do after that.

SPEAKER_00

So I want to talk about what you're doing now. Yet I feel like we should probably rewind all the way back to when did you first uh get into the healing practices?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So I had a very fascinating childhood, um, as I think so many of us did. I had this very parallel path of performing and healing. I stepped on stage in fifth grade and I swore I'd never step off. And at the same time, I was like, I would read my parents' medical textbooks off their shelf when I was a little kid. Right. So I was just reading psychology books and biology books. And it just fascinated me. The human body and the human mind was always so interesting. And so as I had this parallel path, I used to do, um I used to rub my dad's neck on long car trips so he didn't get headaches, even as a little kid. I just had this pen chat for doing that. So when I I was a theater major in college and um very accidentally apprenticed with a woman doing massage. Didn't know I was apprenticing with her. Uh I was just watching what she was doing. She would show up to our theater and just massage all the actors for free. It was, she was a dream. And one day she said, Oh, I know, she was incredible. And one day she said, Kathy, I'm so backed up. There's so many people on the list. Um, and I need to leave. Can you go take these mats and go work on that other student? I said, No. I said, I don't know what I'm doing. And she looks at me and she said, Yes, you do. And I went, Oh. And I had the sense to listen to her. So I took the mats. I took this as a kid in the other room and worked on them, and I was pretty damn good at it. And so when I moved from Pittsburgh, which is where I was raised, to LA to pursue the acting career, I thought, great, let's keep this massage thing. That'll be the perfect edition for the award-winning film roles that I'm gonna be doing.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And you know, those didn't come. Um, but the massage stuck. So when I moved to Santa Barbara after about nine years of being in LA and doing the acting thing that just wasn't working the way I wanted it to, um, I started my own massage practice up here. And I learned really quickly, one, I was very good at it, also a business person. Like I had never really thought about it that way. I was used to self-promotion as a performer, but never self-promotion as anything other than that. And interesting. Oh, I was pretty damn good at that too. Um, and so I also realized quickly that my clients didn't want just someone to stick an elbow in the spot. They like they wanted a healthcare provider. And they would ask me questions about their uncle's disease and their kids' autism and their cousin's heart problem. And and I started studying more and more. And because I'm just a a voracious learner, I started reading more and more and started studying more and more, and started, uh, I got my master's and PhD in natural health, and I got my doctor's of traditional naturopath, and I had been doing Reiki since the early 90s, so that stuck. And then I've been doing hypnosis since I was a little kid, so I went back and got my hypnosis training, and then I got my coaching training, and then I got my psychedelic coaching training, which lands us here today.

SPEAKER_00

Uh that's what I want to talk about. I'm doing my best to be patient and get there, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Like I have so many letters behind my name. I collect continuing education, like it's matchbox cars. Uh, I'm just obsessed with it because the more I know, the more I can help whoever's in front of me, whether it's you or your audience or the audience in front of me or my people who read my books, I just want to know more because then I can tell you what I found out.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Right. And thus the reason for your awards for your book. I opened up the one book. What's it the what's the one that won like the Beverly Hills Best Book Award?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, Journey of Healing won a bunch of stuff. Um, so I have eight books, and I think five of them have won awards. Uh Alternative Medicine Cabinet. Yeah, alternative medicine cabinet was one. Yeah. Um, yeah, that was my very first book.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I was looking at that earlier today, preparing for this, and I'm like, all right, there's a lot of knowledge in this book, right? You got so much detail. Like, oh, this is cool. This is like like if you're an artist and you walk into the biggest art store you've ever been into. There's all these different shades of paint and colors to choose from. And I was like, this is a cool book. And then I opening up your most recent book, and what's the name of that one?

SPEAKER_02

Journey of Healing?

SPEAKER_00

Journey of Healing. Yeah, I opened up that one. And then again, it's like you doubled or tripled the one you had from that first book. You're like, whoa, this is so much knowledge. And it's not like overly long, it's not like an 800,000 page volume. It's condensed and it just has like meat on every page.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. That's what I I I had a friend when my first book came out, Alternative Medicine Cabinet. I she bought a copy. She was one of the first, which was you know, thrilling. And she said, Kathy, it's the perfect bathroom book.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, is that a compliment? Maybe. I don't know. I keep the Dao Li Ching in the bathroom.

SPEAKER_02

So hey, you know, if I can you're in good company. But she said, you know, every page I open, there's a there's a just a nugget of wisdom there. She said, so if I plop down to do what I'm doing in the bathroom, I can get through a chapter. It's short. Yeah, it tells me everything I need to know about that thing. Uh most people have a very short attention span.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And I don't need to wax poetic about a lot of this stuff. So to me, it's like, here's the thing you need to know. Here's how it works, here's how it doesn't work. Go forth, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Go learn more if you want to learn more.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Now when you're so you have all these paints, we'll go back to the art metaphor at your disposal. When you're seeing clients, what do you feel like you're pulling from certain colors more than others? And then do you find that you're blending them to make your own color?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, 100% blending. Um, so you know, I'm big on if you say you're gonna do the thing, go train to do the thing. So I know hypnotherapists who have never taken a hypnosis class. To me, that's shortchanging themselves a little bit because why not learn you might be great at it, but like why not learn the thing, like to do the thing. And when I started coaching people, I had not really had any coaching training. I kind of did this like health coaching little course, but it didn't tell me nearly enough of what I needed to know. And so I had misconceptions about what a coach did, the coaching language, how you look at clients, all that sort of thing. So I went to and did a full-scale coaching program and got ACC certified, yeah, which is really hard to do. Um, and now that I have that basis, now I can mess it up. Now I can, you know, you have to learn the rules to break the rules, sort of thing. Yeah. And so I wanted to learn the thing. And honestly, as a theater person, a lot of my theater background comes into my coaching sessions.

SPEAKER_00

I was about to say, because through the vision I had in my mind as you're talking is like a like everyone could say they're a dancer. You can dance, right? And yet it'd be helpful to learn a certain technique, like maybe ballroom or maybe salsa or whatever it is. And by learning those techniques, then you could do ballroom salsa. You know, I think it is a ballroom dance, but you know, like, yeah, so you're out there now, you're improvising, you know the rules and you know the form, and you can create your own form.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And so I might have a coaching client, and maybe the third session in I go, you know what? Can I we do a quick visualization? Can we do a quick hypnosis thing? And I find that the majority of people that call me for hypnosis don't actually need hypnosis, they need more coaching. You know, I had a guy, oh my god, I had a guy call me and I said, you know, how can I help you? And he said, Uh, I want you to hypnotize me to make me a better husband. And I started laughing. And he's like, No, I'm serious. And I said, No, I know you are. I said, That's like, I can't do that. Right. I said, if I could hypnotize you to make you a better husband, I would have a hundred women with tied up spouses outside my door.

SPEAKER_00

And that brings up another thing you're an expert in, and parts work. Yes. That's the thing that popped to my head when you're talking about a guy being wanting to be a better husband. The first thing they said, like, the parts work.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Well, my my first thing was, what the hell does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Because, and you know, people say they want these things. My first question to everybody is, what do you want? And people, I just want to be happy. I don't know what that means. Because happy to you means something really different than happy to me. I don't, you know, you don't get into an Uber and say, take me someplace. You're not where you want to go. So when I said, okay, and I thought, and I probably shouldn't laugh at this guy, I said, you know, what does that mean to you? And he goes, Oh, I don't know. And I said, sir, I said, with, you know, I'm sorry. I said, but I can't magically make you a better husband if you can't even tell me what that is. He goes, Well, I gave up coke using hypnosis. So if it didn't for that, and I said, you know what, coke, yeah, I can do that. Smoking, Coke, anxiety, sure. But I can't make you a better husband, especially if you won't tell me what that means to you. And my thought was, we need to get in and do some coaching and look at these parts. And he didn't want to coach. He's like, I want one session of hypnosis, and I went, Well, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, he wanted what they're advertising on Facebook. I've seen those guys. I wonder what their success rate is.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Uh, I think the only people that make money with that are the ones that are charging a lot of money for that course, but that's a whole nother. But it's like, so, you know, there's so often where people see one aspect of what I do and they say, I want that. And I get to sit from this place of a buffet, and I get to say, you know what I want to do? I want to give you a little bit of salad and we're gonna go for that chicken. The macaroni and cheese is amazing, but you don't need that yet. So let's hold off on that. And then there's this dessert that I think will go great. So I get to pull from everything that I know, which is so best, um, because I'm obsessed with it, and give them what they need. You know, and this is also eked into my talks. So I did a studying with compassionate inquiry in Gaborn Mate, and I pull some of his exercises into some of my workshops. So my brain is constantly like filing and filling. I have a little a little uh filing guy that's up in my brain, like looking through little folder.

SPEAKER_00

You probably have your filing guy, probably had to outsource some of his work, you know, like you overworked your filing guy. Now you have like three filing people, you probably have a whole army of filing people in your head. I'm got a lot going on there, yeah, which I love. And then I'm also kind of stuck. You're talking about this buffet in front of you. That's a great analogy metaphor. I'm wondering in this grand buffet of yours, what's the dessert? I'm curious. What would you refer to as dessert?

SPEAKER_02

It depends on what the first two courses were. Um, dessert might be hypnosis. Okay. Dessert might be here's a visualization I want you to do at home. Um, I literally just walked out of my office and I saw a client, and he wants to hone his listening skills. And he's very cerebral, he's very analytical, and he's so busy hearing their content of do I need to correct something that he doesn't hear with his whole body. And so his homework, his dessert is I'm gonna make him a 10-minute video. I don't know what I'm gonna talk about yet. Yeah, but I want him to not look at the video and just listen to see if he can tell where the beats are that he should be hearing. Right. So when I hear people talk, especially when I'm in coaching mode, I kind of hear the language, this straight line, and then something will pop up and I'll go, oh, you just said let's go back to that. There's something that strikes me away. It's not emphasized, it's not in any way the way they said it necessarily, but there's something under it, right?

SPEAKER_00

Okay, did you pick up a beep with me so far?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, probably, because I've responded to stuff you're saying.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, yeah. I'm always wondering like what the other person is seeing when they're looking at me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So what I'm hearing, what I want him to do though, is I want him to watch this video and note where he hears and feels the changes that I'm making. You know, so I have to come up with something a little bit creative that's got some underlying something.

SPEAKER_00

It's like you're creating a theater performance, like your theater. Do you find yourself performing in this work a lot? Oh, kind of like a shaman, you know, like do you do you have some kind of ritual you do with your clients?

SPEAKER_02

No, not really. But I mean, every time I step on stage, it's a performance. You know, anybody can stand up there and go blah, blah, blah, PowerPoint, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah. We're talking about like your TEDx talks and your your corporate speaking. Yeah, I was thinking like in the client, like Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, I'm telling stories and I'm doing silly voices, and I'm, you know, it's it's just wearing it's the parts work, it's wearing those different hats. And so I'm sometimes, I mean, there's overarching kind of healer mode, right? Reminding that I don't actually do any healing. I just facilitate space for people to figure that out. But there's this sort of overarching healing hat, which sometimes I put on, sometimes it's put on me someplace else. You know, I might be at a dinner party, and the next thing you know, I'm in the corner having this very intense conversation with someone because clearly what they needed in that moment was coaching.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And I'm not their coach, but I have some word of wisdom or some little exercise that will help them, and I'm not gonna not share that. So then the half switch is to, oh God, I'm sorry, I'm supposed to be barbecuing right now.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02

Whoopsie.

SPEAKER_00

Um now that'd be a fun business practice, being like a barbecue therapy shop, you know, come through, here's some wings, and yeah, bless you, child, you're healed on your way, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Hey, I would love if I could do that, but unfortunately it takes a little more work.

SPEAKER_00

It takes a little more work. Yeah, it would still be fun.

SPEAKER_02

It would absolutely be fun. So I don't know how much of it is the the performative aspect of it as it is the creative aspect of it, right?

SPEAKER_00

So I love that creative aspect of it. Yeah. I especially picked up on it when you're talking about you want to do this 10-minute thing for this dude, and you don't know what you're going to say yet. So you get to create something. And I love that. That's so much different. Like some of our peers are leaning on the AI to create it's like, dude, that's not really creating, that's just spitting out.

SPEAKER_02

You know, that's just like a word generator.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And then so, or they're like, they're bound by these scripts, and like there's just some kind of magic in the create. And where does where do you think that comes from when you're creating?

SPEAKER_02

Oh man, I don't think anyone knows the answer to that question. I mean, that's been posed to religious scholars and spiritualists and brain scientists and neuroscience. I mean, it's like we don't know where that creativity comes from. I do know because I was raised, I because I was a theater kid and I started doing improv in seventh grade, and my father was hilarious. My father was one of the quick-witted, funniest people that you would ever meet. And I grew up recognizing that people liked him because of his personality. And so, as conscious as I could be of that, I think I I don't think I know I made sure I was like that. So if there's an opening for something funny, I'm gonna take it. If there's a pun, I'm gonna say it. If knowing timing, right? You know, if you're in the middle of a really heavy conversation, there's times the the comedian jumps in that was not appropriate. I've fallen into that trap.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I've been I did stand up. I was that guy. Nice, yes.

SPEAKER_02

The one where everyone's like, not now, Ryan.

SPEAKER_00

It's a little that's definitely me. That's why I'm doing this now.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I love it. You can be as funny as you want. Uh so but I I mimicked that to a certain extent, right? I mean, he used humor to dispersed stress. You know, I remember him cracking jokes at my mother's funeral. My mom died when I my mom died when I was 18. And so, you know, I just remember him sort of using his personality and that warmth and that down-to-earthness. My father was every man. If they were gonna cast a dad on a sitcom, he looked just like it. Bald, home over, glasses, pudgy, you know, he just looked like every sitcom dad. And he was hilarious. And so I think I was able to take that creativity and that rapport-building capability and turn that into multiple careers. Because if you're not building rapport, nothing is gonna get done.

SPEAKER_00

Can we just sit on that for a minute? Yeah. Rapport. Yeah. Because I my day job, I work at a hospital, the A hospital for veterans. And oh man, we got and it's a blind center, that's where I work. And they uh so veterans have lost their sight, they come in and it's cool. I love working with them. Um but you know, some of the mental health providers they piss our guys off so much because they have no rapport. Yeah, like it just I'm like, dude, can you teach rapport? Is that possible?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. You can.

SPEAKER_00

Wow, that's the miracle I'm looking for.

SPEAKER_02

And you know, quite honestly, the the coaching client where I'm gonna have gonna have him listen to this video, uh, that's one of the things we're starting to develop trying to develop that we just had our first session. So rapport is built on so many different levels, and a lot of it is leading and following, right? So I see you kind of leading off to one side. So if I want to start to build rapport with you, I'm gonna kind of lean to that one side. And if I see you kind of do this, then I maybe I'll do that. Or if you lean in, I'm gonna lean in.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

It's also matching their pacing. So if you're a very slow talker, if I start talking like this, we're not gonna get it, you know, it's matching energy levels. You're a little more low-key, at least in the way you're listening to me right now. So if I'm all the way up here and like I'm at a 10, I'm gonna dig it. Yeah, I'm gonna scare the crap out of you if you're an introvert, right?

SPEAKER_00

So it's about noticing first.

SPEAKER_02

It's about getting curious and noticing, and then on some level, going, How do I match that? Uh, and I think that's really important. How to build rapport with someone without sight, whoo! That's gonna take a lot of work to it's gonna be tough.

SPEAKER_00

The blind dudes have the rapport, it's the mental health providers.

SPEAKER_02

They're like well, except what you just said doesn't make sense because you have to have rapport with someone. You can't just have rapport, rapport is necessity if with another person.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well it's like an energy. So all the dudes in the circle I'm picturing all these different people, and they're all like have rapport with each other, and then the mental health provider comes in. It's like, do you ever do that experiment on water where you put some Dawn dish soap? No, first you put sprinkle pepper over the water, right? And then you drop a dish soap, and the pepper just that's what happens when the mental health provider walks in the room.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, because they have an agenda, right? Because they have an agenda and they probably feel like they don't have time to build rapport with a room full of people because rapport, you can have instant rapport, but you probably already so connected to that person. Rapport takes a little bit, rapport takes time to build, and it's so funny. So I'm still friends with my ex-husband, and I stopped over to his house to pick up something, and we were standing in the kitchen, which is the kitchen he and I shared for I don't know how many years, and it ended up that I was leaning against one of the walls and I had my leg over my other leg, you know, just like standing up, and we were just standing there having this conversation, and I noticed he was standing the exact same way as me. And I went, huh? And I uncrossed my leg and I stood up. Yeah, you could feel the energy between us break. I broke rapport with him. The same thing when I when I see clients who I'm maybe having to reel back in, I don't mimic them. You don't want to like hear them like you're doing that acting exercise, but you do want to, if I see them cross a leg, maybe I'll cross a leg. If they end up sitting like this, maybe I'll sit like that. Uh subconsciously, that builds rapport with that other person. So you get this healthcare provider who walks in and probably doesn't think about that. He's in his agenda, he probably doesn't feel like he has much time to build rapport. How do you do that with 10 blind guys? Um, that would be a challenge. And depending on the situation, is this the same guys all the time? Does he see them one-on-one?

SPEAKER_00

Different guys all the time.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, see, and that's the problem. So you walk into a room with that group, how do you build rapport with that many people? It's a challenge.

SPEAKER_00

I just go, I just go in the room and be like, What's up, guys? How's your day today? You know, like I'll get like nine out of ten of them on my site already. Yeah, just like that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So you're coming. In with that personal aspect of inquiry first. How are you guys doing today? I'm so excited for you.

SPEAKER_00

Like genuinely, I like what you said about being curious, right? Like you said, she has this agenda. She's she's not curious how their day's going. She's curious how fast she could get this done. And then I'm like legit, like, dude, how's your day going? Like, I'm like, is it a bad day or a good day? I want to know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, and that curiosity, I mean, curiosity brings us back to self. So if you do know about parts work and internal family systems, those eight C's that we try to stay, we don't try, the eight C's that we're in when we're in self, which is us with no part on. Oh, wait, curious, courageous, calm, connected, uh, all those things. I can never remember all eight. I always forget one of those.

SPEAKER_00

Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_02

You don't have to have all of them. Um, but like for me, curiosity is the most important one. So if I find myself getting lost in another part that I don't really want there right then. So like if a client is saying something and it's make reminding me of, oh God, I remember when my ex-husband did that. Oh, gee, oh wait, that's not what I'm here for.

SPEAKER_00

I see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I get curious, right? So curious, calm, connected, courageous, um, other C's, I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00

All right. Those are the most important ones, anyhow.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, those are the ones that came out this time.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um, but curiosity, it brings us back to this present moment. It puts the focus back on the other person, which builds rapport. I am all about curiosity. Curiosity, just in life, takes us back to that childhood state of presence. And you know, I very consciously many years ago stepped on the path of awakening, right? Spiritual awakening. And yes, curiosity to me is one of those things that just bring us back to the now. And that and that wonder that comes from exploration and curiosity takes us right back to childhood. This is why I love magic, because you get to sit there and go, Oh, we do that. You know.

SPEAKER_00

Oh man, we're going down that path. We're going down the yellow brick road here. Great. Uh, and in the moment, just in a moment, I just want to highlight when you're talking about being curious about the other person, it reminded me what Mike Mandel said was his favorite quote on how to treat people. He said, the you'll see success most often when you treat the other person as if they're the most interesting person in the room.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And that alone heals people.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, and I love, I'll expand on that because I'm I'm in the Mike Mandel fan club. He says, if you're talking with someone who is not interesting to you, yeah, pretend they are the most interesting person in the world and then pretend you're not pretending.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah, that is so good. That is so good.

SPEAKER_02

Can't take credit for that. That is that is Mike Mandel the whole way.

SPEAKER_00

He is a wizard. Oh my god. Talking about magic, yeah. He is a wizard.

SPEAKER_02

Total wizard. He is a total wizard. Um, yeah, I'm a huge fan. I've known him for years. He's been a huge influence on the work that I do uh because he's brilliant. So the curiosity, you know, you can't go wrong with curiosity. Now, you don't want to be nosy. You don't want to try to get into people's business when it's not appropriate, and you don't want to use curiosity as a weapon. So the people in the narcissist camp, they get curious and they build this rapport and they make you feel like you're the most special and interesting person, and then they weaponize all that. So that's a whole separate conversation.

SPEAKER_00

We can't feel like the the magic happens. You're talking about improv. The magic happens when you are playfully curious. You're curious in a playful way. I wonder what if, like, you know, like this just happened. What else is possible?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yes and.

SPEAKER_00

Yes and and then I think in British improv they they translate yes and to always accept the gift. Like never deny the gift.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah, because it but you might think I'll use the example my improv teacher always uses, one of my improv teachers, he says, you know, you're doing a scene, and the husband says, Hurry up, honey, we have to go pick up the kids from school. And the wife says, We don't have kids. For a second, that might be funny, but you've just destroyed the scene.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Now you could say, eh, we'll take our time. I don't really like our kids, which is at least yesing, we have kids, and the anding of, I don't really like them, let's forget to pick them up from school. You know, as soon as you negate that, then well, then where's the scene gonna go? You know, you've completely stonewalled the person before you. And I see this in business where people just so right off the bat, no, that can't work. Really? Okay, can we can you hear me first? You know, the yes and means that you heard what the person said. It means you're consciously listening with them. And that makes people feel special, that makes people feel heard, they're gonna confide in you more, and it builds that rapport.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. And then you have the masters like Stephen Colbert, who will, like you said, will know the rules and then break them. So he'll he'll say the word no, yet it's a sneaky magical way of saying yes at the same time. It's like it's above my pay grade in impro, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, there's definitely an art to it. Yeah, he's great. I love I love all those color shows.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. All right. So I have some other things I wanted to talk about, but I'm ready to go down the yellow brick road. We're walking into this big castle-looking thing, and we see the curtain, and it's this thunderous voice coming at us. And yet you and me, we're curious. We're curious. We notice a little curtain to the side, and it seems like there's these wires moving up and down, and now we open the curtain. What's behind the curtain? Who's creating this thing we call us?

SPEAKER_02

We are.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so say more. We're talking awakening here, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so oh man, how uh this can go way uh esoteric. Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00

Let's dive in. I brought my oxygen tank, let's go deep.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it's all an illusion, right? I mean, we create all this with our minds, it's so very matrix-y, and uh, you know, our thoughts are getting in our way. We we think that our thoughts are true, they're not. And I love sort of the co-in of if you're not thinking about the past or the future, where is it? And you kind of it shorts my brain out. I think about that for a second and go, you know, because it's nowhere, it's up here. And this this dragging the past along and this fatalizing the what-ifing into the future is so um it's so detrimental to our awakening, right? Because just now is all there is this now, and then now that now is gone, so now we got this now, and nothing else exists, you know, uh, except you and me on this screen. Right. That's it. I mean, someplace over there I have a cat. Yeah, he's still there. Um, someplace in this town, I have a spouse. He's not here right now. So it's just you and me in this present moment. And we so often waste that because we're dwelling or room or or projecting. So there is this, I believe, there's this just sort of cosmic soup, this universal consciousness that we're all a part of. And other than that, nothing's real. And as soon as we acknowledge that, then the duality goes away. And I recognize it's not just you and me sitting here, it's you and me, and we're everything sitting here. You know, we are the same thing. There's no separation between us, even though I don't even know where I'm calling in to you from in California. So it's like there's no separation between us. And once we realize there's no separation between us, then I can't be mean to you, and I'm not gonna take your food and I'm not gonna bomb your village because I recognize that you are me, that I am you, and why would I do that to myself?

SPEAKER_00

Right. Right. So of course, like, so we're in this simulation, right? That we created. So, in this simulation that we created, then we should theoretically have a choice to create what we want, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but who's the you in that?

SPEAKER_00

I feel like I I like the analogy of what we call this subconsciousness, this universal consciousness, whatever it is. Some people call it God. It's like the sun and we're rays of the sun. So we are the sun. And we are the light. Right. And then I feel like we're just in this bliss. And then we're like, okay, we want to feel we want to feel something. We want to feel happiness, right? Yeah, you can't know happiness unless you feel sorrow as well. And then so we created this experience we call life to feel happiness, and then part of the game is you gotta feel sorrow too.

SPEAKER_02

And then so Yeah, I'm gonna flip that a little bit. I I think, and I mean, I've studied a lot with Ekartolle and uh Technad Han. I had the privilege of sitting with him, Aja Shanti. Um I'm doing all this in cra, I just lifetime learner. So if you look at this from the suffering perspective, and Buddhists talk about this, right? Suffering is how we wake up.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And if there wasn't suffering, then we wouldn't wake up. And some people wake up spontaneously, Akratole, Aja Shanti, you know, some people work at it for a very long time. Some people have a little bit of suffering and boom, they wake up. Some people suffer for decades before they finally go, F this, and they something shifts. Um, but without the suffering, awakening doesn't happen. Now, the book that I'm reading right now, by uh, which is stuff by Papaji, who died in the early 90s, he was a an Indian Buddhist monk. Um, he talks about lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, this accumulates and we're working on it. Or perhaps it was the video I watched today. I don't know. I I so many things happening.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it blends together after a bit.

SPEAKER_02

It does. Like who said that? I don't know. It doesn't, well, we it doesn't really matter who said it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um, so you know, that that we build up this from lifetime to lifetime, and sometimes it takes us lifetimes to awaken, and sometimes it's quick, and sometimes, you know, so I'm gonna take credit for all the lifetimes I've lived before this for getting me here to the point I'm at in awakening.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

It's not just, and that's there's different theories on that, but it's not this lifetime of work, it's all of my lifetimes of work.

SPEAKER_00

What do the Indians call it? It's like Sadahe or something, S-A-D-H-Y. Uh oh boy. It's yeah, it's like I don't know all the words.

SPEAKER_02

I think samadhi?

SPEAKER_00

Samadhi, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Samadhi is, I think, that that suffering. I could be wrong.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that sounds right. And again, it doesn't really matter, you know, it's just the word. But it is it means the same thing as that's your suffering. And then you're talking about when we think of the past, for instance, like I'll use my fiance's son, he likes to break his arm just over and over. He's like, I think this is cool. I think I'm cool. You know, I get yeah, right. And like he creates his suffering. You know, and then he can learn from it and be like, what do I get out of this? And then move on without having to break his arm, you know. So I feel like that's like a lot of us, whether it's relationships, you know, broken relationships that are on cycle until we have the learning.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, we move towards things that we're familiar with, right? So we're gonna keep picking the same thing over and over again. And it's when we finally get out of that cycle and go, you know, this isn't serving me.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And sometimes we're not that bright. And it takes a while. I've been there, you know. I've been in I've admit been in, you know, multiple decade bad relationships where one day I go, What the hell am I doing here?

SPEAKER_00

This is it's a veil, right? It's a veil you can't see because the veil's over your eyes. Odds is pulling the strings, you know. Yep. Yep, totally. So now that we have seen beyond the veil, whether it's just a peak, maybe we just saw a little light coming through the curtain, or maybe we just ripped the curtain down and we see it. I feel like our superpower is a choice. We have a choice. We could think of the past or we could think of the future, or can we just manifest in the present moment? Like what's where is the line of possibility? Like, I'm sure you've seen some things you might consider a miracle in your office and in your work. Like, what's one cool thing you've seen?

SPEAKER_02

So boy, that's really hard to answer in the context of what we're talking about. Um, not only is there no past and future, there's also just I, right? There's just I am. And so who is the I that wants to create? Because it's not me, it's the this universal thing, right? So, in regards to like uh think and grow rich, and what the bleep do we know, and affirmations and visualization, you know, I think we can absolutely program our future. I think you know, studies support that. You know, I'm also a big study nerd. You know, studies support that affirmations and visualization improve sports performance, enhance immune system, wounds heal quicker if we're using those types of techniques. Now, as far as like manifestation, you know, manifest me a car. This is a complicated one uh because it's very strict views that people have on how to do manifestation.

SPEAKER_00

Well, what are your views?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I don't know. You know, to be really honest, I don't know that I have thought about that in the context of the awakening experiences I've had. Um I still make my to-do list and I still set goals, but there's no attachment to an outcome on that.

SPEAKER_00

That's the key. That's the trick. Like that's the Tao method, right? Is holding it in a loose grip. Because the more I try to strive for something, the further it gets. And the more I just say, I wonder what if. You know, I'm just putting this energy. And you're talking about who's that one that creates. And I like how the Hindus do it. It's like they have they call it G-O-D as an acronym. You have a generator, the one who creates, you have the operator, the one who keeps things running, and you have me, the D, the destroyer, Shiva. You know, I like to destroy things, you know. So it's that cycle. It's like the three, and they're operate as one. And you talk about that unity again. So I like in the parts work, like seeing my parts as Hindu gods, you know, like Vaness comes up and clears obstacles for me, and another part might come up, like Shiva, and just destroy my life. And then, okay, now I'm gonna have a new one.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's it's tough because in this concept of awakening where all we have is I am, right? That's it. There's no labels on that, there's no striving for anything. There's no, I have found that my wants of things have kind of fallen away in a in a in a sense. And this is you're I'm just discovering this right now because I haven't thought about it. Um it just sort of it's not a thing. Like I can't even there's just like when I think about that, there's just this blank space, like there's just nothing there. So yeah, you can manifest the new boyfriend or the new car, the new. I don't know how I think about that now.

SPEAKER_00

Because I manifested five bucks today. Yeah, it was really cool. So I'm sorry to take up your time. I was supposed to be asking your question, but this is cool and kind of the same. So actually, it happened maybe a couple days ago. I was like, oh, I wonder if I can manifest five dollars. You know, a quarter is too easy, right? Too easy. So uh can I manifest a five dollar bill? I don't I haven't found a five dollar bill in a long, long time. So then the very next morning, and the thing is, like I knew not to I couldn't manifest a million dollars. Like that would be cool.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, that would be amazing. Let me know how you do that.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And I just don't have the belief within me. I don't ha I can't believe that. But I could be curious and wonder about a five dollar bill. Yeah. I opened my door the next morning and in my drive, my driveway is a dollar bill. Now I don't I don't throw money on my driveway, it's my driveway. Why would that be like I've never seen any money on my driveway before, but this morning it was a dollar bill. And then I was like, oh, that was cool and fun. It's not five, it's one, but still cool and fun. And then I was walking home, I was like, it'd be cool to manifest it again. Let me see a dollar bill on the ground. And then I didn't. Instead, I went to a crosswalk where this dude was crossing people, and I hit the button, and then the light changed as soon as I hit the button. He's like, Wow, it's your lucky day. You should go play the lottery. You know what I do? I go to the lottery with that one dollar bill, and I'm like, Do you have a one dollar lottery ticket? And they're like, Yeah. And then I won four dollars. So I got a dollar and then I got four.

SPEAKER_02

And what's interesting is the boundaries between us and that thing that we want disappeared.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And I think that's the key to it. And also you put forth effort. You didn't just sit in your house and try to manifest something. Because I have clients that do that, right? They're like, I wish I could meet the perfect guy, but they don't get on the apps, they never go out of the house. Like, unless it's the UPS driver and he happens to drop off a package and be cute.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_02

You know, you have to put the work behind it if we're talking about like pure manifestation. Um, I'm a big fan of affirmations. I've done them my whole life. I've gotten some really cool things to happen because of the affirmations that I do, uh, but I haven't thought about it in a while, honestly. It just sort of fell out of my fell out of my world, which is interesting. Yeah, it's just something curious about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And then you're talking about awakening, and then my favorite awakening story, besides my own, you know, I died and I saw this incredible place, and then I came back. I was like, that place cool. How can I get there without dying to get it, you know? And then I read about Ron Doss, and he's like, the psychology professor at Harvard had the life, but he wasn't satisfied. He's teaching other people how to be happy, quote unquote. And yet he's like, Oh, what's this LSD stuff? And then voila. And then he takes it to his guru, Maharavi, and then am I saying that name right? Anyhow, so he takes his guru who drinks LSD, he's like, I don't see any difference. Am I supposed to feel something? Glug, glug, glug. I don't feel any different.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. He took something, I don't remember how, I just read the reread the story. He took like this ridiculous amount of acid and said, It everything looks the same to me. Yeah. Um, I'm a psychedelic coach, and I have to say, and I've heard different things about this. Um, oh my God, I can never remember the name of the guy who wrote Awake, it's your turn. Um I've listened to a lot of his stuff on YouTube, and he says, psychedelics are interesting, but that doesn't actually help you awaken. Um, I'm gonna disagree with that because uh Angelo DeLulo, he's incredible, his stuff's great. He didn't seem to like the connection between psychedelics and awakening. Um, maybe I'm paraphrasing too much, but he was not like, this is not the way. Now, I have had multiple psychedelic experiences that have led me to up my awakening game. So I just had a uh um an ayahuasca journey, my first time sitting with grandmother, and it led me to a kundalini, full kundalini awakening.

SPEAKER_00

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02

The snake unfurled, it shot up, it was great, and it has stayed because I've been working on it ahead of time. I didn't go in completely green and be like, wake up. You know, I've been doing really conscious work on this for a very long time. I'm sorry, I'm stuck.

SPEAKER_00

I'm stuck. I want to hear more of your story, but when you're talking about this kundalini awakening, can dudes have kundalini awakenings? Oh, sure. Okay, cool. That's it. I was just wondering, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It sits at our it sits at our root chakra, a three and a half times curled up snake, and it moves up through the chakras and out the top of the head.

SPEAKER_00

Man, so can you like do you see people's light and energy now?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I always could, but it's turned up.

SPEAKER_00

It's turned up. Cool.

SPEAKER_02

So I was the kid who was sitting there in school trying to move pens with my mind. Right, yeah. Can we do that? Oh, give it a shot. Let me know how it goes.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, did you freeze?

SPEAKER_02

Oh no, did I?

SPEAKER_00

She might be frozen.

SPEAKER_02

I can still hear you.

SPEAKER_00

Sorry, folks, for a little pause in this connection.

SPEAKER_02

I can still see and hear you. Okay, you're back. You're back.

SPEAKER_00

That was just weird. I guess the universe didn't want me to ask my question because I was like, can I can I move a pin? What's just my thoughts?

SPEAKER_02

You stop the whole world.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah, look at that.

SPEAKER_02

That's such power. I didn't even know. That's such power. Yeah. So I could like, I could see auras and I could feel people's energy, and I didn't know that everybody couldn't do that. So I would find like at parades, I would get really upset. And like in the mall, I would be like, why is this so overwhelming to me? And I realized it was because I'm an empath and I could feel their feelings. Right. And when I realized not everybody could do that, it was a little scary, and I shut it down. So I shut it down pretty young, but it kept eking back in. And finally now I'm just like, yep, this is just what I do. So um I can still take people's pain. I choose not to do that. There's been very few times in the last 10 years that I've consciously taken someone's pain.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

I can help people cross over if they're in the dying process. Um, I've birth helped birth a dozen babies where I do Reiki and energy work on that. I'm pretty darn psychic. My husband and I, well, I can read his mind, which drives him crazy sometimes. So it's just all of that has been turned up a notch. Um and I just feel so much more present and dropped in. I don't feel, I don't have these thoughts that are chasing me all over the place anymore, which is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

So now where I struggle, you mentioned I. You found like as a performer, you're able to promote your business as a performer. Now you're able to promote your business as a healer. And that's where I struggle to be honest. Like, how do you like it feels like this gift is coming from elsewhere? Like, this isn't me. This is my I'm not the healer. I'm just like a conduit. Yeah. And then I like, I feel almost like, why do I want to charge money for that? When I'm making my money at the VA, like, so it's it's a hard battle for me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. You're not the first healing professional that I've had this conversation with. So it's you know, if you are in a place where you are financially independent and you don't have to make money from this, great. Here's the problem with that though. Unless often, unless people find value in something, they don't take unless they pay something for it, unless there's some exchange, they don't value it. So if people pay for something, even if it's a minute amount, they actually tend to take it more seriously. They tend to embody it more, and it tends to be more effective as a treatment. Also, you probably paid for training, you maybe pay for an office, you pay for supplies, you pay for, you know, all the stuff that I've done. You know, I had a I have a lot of aerial friends because I do that. And um I have a uh a friend and aerial person. They she was asked to perform at someone's birthday party. And she's like, Yeah, it's $700 for me to do this half hour thing for you. And they said, Oh my god, it's only a half an hour. And she goes, You're not paying me for the half an hour of performing, you're paying me for the last 20 years where I learned how to do all this.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And I went, What a brilliant way to say that. So you're not paying for the hour of time you're getting now with me. You're paying for the 30 plus years I've been studying all this.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Intellectually, I understand all that. I do. I honestly do. Like a person that goes to art school and learns a technique and buys all those canvases because canvases are expensive, paint is expensive. Like, yeah, absolutely. They should be well compensated for all of that. And then I look at like, I don't know if Mesmer charged, but I know like Jesus didn't charge, right? You know, like I feel like we're on the same path that Jesus was, and that we're called to heal people.

SPEAKER_02

Jesus also didn't have really expensive rent.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. And then Paul was a tent maker. Even though I'm not a fan of Paul, like I can honor that he made tints to help support his ministry.

SPEAKER_02

So the times that I have either lessened my rate or done things sort of, okay, pay me what you can, kind of thing. 95% of the time, because I can think of one woman that this didn't apply to, 95% of the time, they got flaky, they didn't show up, they canceled last minute, they didn't, you know, because there's no value, like why should they show up? They didn't pay for it. But yet it was my time, and I could have put a paying client in there, and I didn't because I was trying to help you out. So the times that I have made deals for people has backfired in my face 95% of the time. There's been one woman that it worked for. One people. That's it.

SPEAKER_00

Humans back to that duality, man. Those darn humans.

SPEAKER_02

Can't live with them, can't live there. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, there's also then this guilt and shame associated with that. This is a gift that's helping people. Why should I charge for that? Because you have to make a living. And then we get into this sort of martyr syndrome of no, no, no, I'll just do it out of the goodness of my heart. You know, so we have to look at the secondary gain and the underlying guilt and shame, if there is any, as to why you have trouble charging. Are you not worth it? Are you not worthy of getting paid for your work? You know, so that's that's another aspect to that.

SPEAKER_00

And then you got the other ones I'm thinking of that I've seen on Facebook, be like, I help millionaires with my hypnosis. He literally has this bag of my own. If you've seen this one, he's like, I'm the best hypnotist in the world. And he dumps a bunch of money on the table and it's like, if you lost all your money, you know, just ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, but there's all there's a difference between that and legitimately helping someone and making a decent living at it. Exactly. You know, I, for where I live, I'm in Santa Barbara, one of the wealthiest parts of California. My rates compared to some people are still really low. Um, I've been at Hypnothots and around other hypnotherapists where they tell me what they charge per hour, and I go, nope, too much, couldn't do it. It makes me uncomfortable. Now, it's not a self-worth thing. It's a, I'm not comfortable charging that. That doesn't feel good to me for what I offer. I make, I don't make, I'm not a millionaire, I make a good living, I travel, I pay for the things I need to travel, you know, to pay for. Could I use more? Sure. But what am I gonna do? You know, it's like I don't need to be a multimillionaire. I would like to be comfortable and feel secure financially. Right. And then I did that, and what do I need more for?

SPEAKER_00

I feel like it's you're you're being honest with yourself.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Like you know your truth. You talk about when you have this awakening, your value system kind of like becomes more real.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It shifts. It shifts. I do a lot of value work with my clients, and I haven't done mine recently. Let me see if I can remember what mine was. Um autonomy, humor and fun, and either service or helpfulness. I can't remember which it was. Um, but I think about that in regards to when I get called to do a speaking gig. Like If I don't think I'm gonna align with the audience, so I've had occasionally like the the speaking call for speakers will come across my desk and it'll be, we're looking for a Christian's I'm out, because I don't align with that. I'm not gonna stand in front of a group of Christians and speak to them. The my references aren't gonna make sense. I swear sometimes, I'm not gonna like that. You know, I'm not of that ilk enough to speak to that audience. So it doesn't that doesn't align with my values. I'm not gonna do it. It could offer me $10,000. I'm still, it's not a good fit for me. Right. So if you know your values, then you know when you're saying yes and no to offers, situations, people. And if it doesn't align in your values, then you get out of sync and then things start to go off the rails.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Yep. Amen to that. And for the public speaking, that's really cool because you've done TEDx twice now, right? Yeah. Of course you've been on Dr. Phil, which is badass. And I know like like people have an opinion on him, yet it shows that they have a team that vets you. Like you've been properly vetted, so you're not some crazy person going up there being like, you know, awakening or whatever you're talking about at the time. You like you know your stuff. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, he had nothing to do with me coming on. It was the production team, and it was between me and it was for a massage thing. Um, uh a massage therapist had been sexually assaulting women in a couple different states, so they had me in as a massage expert. And it was between me and this guy, and they had um the massage therapist was a guy, and they had the body language expert people on, which were all guys, and the production team is like, he's assaulting women. Why would we not have a woman on?

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And but what was really cool is after the gig, I got an email back from the producer that brought me on, and she said, We got an email from Dr. Phil saying, Where did you find her? She was incredible. She said, We don't get that from him. Um, I wonder if I still have that email somewhere. That'd be kind of fun to find. Anyway, um, but it's about being authentic, right? It's about authenticity. And the other thing I found going just to close the loop of the charging thing, what I found is people who start out with this beautiful notion, this this pure selfless, I'm not gonna charge people, over time, or I'm gonna do donation-based kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, over time they start to resent it. Because they're like, I am giving so much, and people are taking, taking, taking. What am I getting back from that? The satisfaction and joy of doing it? Yes. And I find that often people burn out faster and they start to resent what they're doing because they're not getting that exchange back.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Interesting. Makes a lot of sense. And I'm glad you kind of brought back that massage aspect. Because in your one of your books, you're talking about the fascia. Is that what it is? That's like so it's interesting because I just had a guy doing Tai G on this podcast talking about the energy that's in the fascia. Like, can you elaborate on that? What is it like? Like, what's what to you, what's fascia? Like, what's the well it's not to me what's fascia?

SPEAKER_02

Fascia is a thing. Um, it's it's um if you take the skin off a chicken breast and there's that sort of filmy layer under between the skin and the meat, that's the fascia. So it kind of holds us in. And fascia can get sticky, it can get kind of knotted up, it can get stuck. And so things like myofascial release and cupping and those types of techniques um pull the fascia away from the muscle. So it helps relax the muscle, it helps decrease the tension, it helps um range of motion. Absolutely. Um I'm not familiar with the energy of fascia because muscle is very thing.

SPEAKER_00

It's a weird thing. Like, um, I don't know if you've ever seen like I'll call it competitive tai chi where they try to move one another. Like it's like it's pushing. Sure, but that's not the fascia. This dude thought it might be like you're feeling the fascia and not the muscle. Like you're moving the fascia, but and I don't know, it could be woo-woo.

SPEAKER_02

I don't, yeah, I've never heard of that. That seems odd to me. I have no idea. There's a lot of things that are out there that I've not heard of. But yeah, that's all right. You know, fascia is a very like physical thing. Um, I have seen the moving of that with the energy, but that has nothing to do with the fascia. That's just the end, you know, that's either the the chakras or the chi or that kind of thing. Interesting enough to look that up.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, uh again, you're talking about curiosity. And my biggest thing with this, the chi is I don't know how you would test this as a scientist, but in our mitochondria. Well that's that's what I'm thinking, you know. Like I feel like when we do past life aggressions, it's all stored in there because the mitochondria DNA is the same as our mothers and the same as our mothers, and the same. So we all have the same mitochondria DNA within us that's separate from our DNA. It's like we're symbiotic with this thing. And I feel like our subconscious and these all the parts, all our parts are in this mitochondria. Like we can talk to it.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and if we go back to your analogy of the sun, right, we're all just raised of the same sun. So what's the thing? We can't tap into that cosmic soup and pull out that part, pull out that aspect, pull out that lifetime, you know, because that to immediately to say my mother and my parent, that immediately puts us back into duality, right? It's you're we're separating it out. So if we go with the concept that we're all just one consciousness, there's no separation.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right. And then there's also like there's suffering in that duality, but there's also fun, you know, like oh yeah, yeah, like this is weird. This duality is weird.

SPEAKER_02

I love being human. I used to, I was like, Oh, I'm so tired of being human. And then I realized the smells and the sunsets and the sex and the laughing and the food and the you know, it's such a unique experience, and we crap all over it so often. And it's like, is there bad stuff happening? 100%. Absolutely, there's bad bad stuff happening. Um, then we go into the is are things good or bad? They're just things, and we put a label on them.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

There's there's times of struggle for everybody, and I don't know that I'd change it for anything.

SPEAKER_00

Can you like I remember Ron Das talking about how he had found joy in the suffering? Like, oh, I feel this anger. You know, he's like, I'm not angry. I feel this anger. He's like, cool, man.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Like, because if you can meet the negative, the negative and the positive in the same way, it's because it's we're putting labels on this. That's what our brain is doing, right? It acertoly says it's not our life that we hate, it's our life situation. And that's because of the dialogue that's going on in our head. You know, we're judging this stuff as good or bad, and ultimately we really don't know what it is. We're not part of that cosmic plot. So I've now started looking at all these quote negative things as okay, it's just a thing. And I also recognize that it's leading more people to awakening. So how can that be bad?

SPEAKER_00

You know, right.

SPEAKER_02

I've had a complete perspective shift on all that.

SPEAKER_00

So we'll put everything for people to get in touch with you, to get training, your website is great, your story is on there. So if they want you for public speaking, it'll be there. If you have a thing for clients, they could find you. I'm just wondering if you had a in a moment, we'll do this little like guided meditation, maybe a little hypnosis, I don't know, a little some kind of little gift for all the listeners. Yeah. And before we get there, what's a message that kind of is resonating with you right now that you would like everyone to know?

SPEAKER_02

This sounds so yeah, I'm not even gonna qualify it. Um you're making things too hard. We're really complicating so many things that are actually quite simple. And that's all coming from our thoughts. And if we can find a way to still those, or at the very least, not attach to every single thought, then we're gonna be so much better off. Because, like when we're at the baggage claim at the airport, we don't pick up every bag, right? We go, that's not mine, that's not mine, that, oh, there's mine, and we pick that one that we want to use at that moment. People don't like when you touch their stuff. So it's the same thing with the thoughts. It's like we get so wrapped up in this brain of ours. I have clients right now that are suffering greatly because of their thoughts, and they cannot find a way out. And it's so sad to me because it's it's simple, it's just not easy, right? Just don't attach to them, you know. Easier said than done, but it can be done because I've so many people have done it now.

SPEAKER_00

So I love that. I've never heard that meditated thing. Now I want to go to the airport and just stand up baggage claim. You know, I've heard like watch your thoughts like clouds in the sky or be in the river and watch the leaf float down the river. Yeah, but you're like, nah, you know, like I'm just gonna wait here and look for my Gucci bag, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it's not so much a meditation because I say that to you, like let your clouds float or let your thoughts float by like clouds on a summer day. But for me, it's just it's such a great analogy because we've all been there. We've all stood there going, where's you know, and we don't pick up every one. So I love metaphors, I love analogies. It's like the improv thing, right? The way my brain works. And then one sticks in and I go, I'm gonna keep using that. And that's where the luggage one came from.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's a great one. Yeah. And I'm just looking like I could swear I had a little pet skunk on there. I'm looking for in a little cage coming through. Oh, that's right. You like skunks, right? I do like skunks. That's funny. I just said that. I didn't, I wasn't even thinking of that consciously because in my head, all I saw was, you know how when skunks get mad they do a little pitter-patter? That is so adorable. Like, I just want to piss off a skunk just to see him do that, you know?

SPEAKER_02

They pound their front feet. They like jump at you.

SPEAKER_00

It's really it's so adorable. As long as your smellers taking out, you know, that's cool. But I like the smell of skunks even too. I like I was like, I'm one of those weird guys, you know.

SPEAKER_02

I've collected skunks since I was a little kid.

SPEAKER_00

Is that your spirit animal?

SPEAKER_02

It's no, it's one of them. But no, my mom called me skunky when I was a little kid. And so when my dad would go to flea markets or yard sales, he would bring me back any kind of skunk he would find. So I have probably close to 300 skunks.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, that's funny. That's funny. I said that too about your baggage claim thing. It's just a picture that pops in my head.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's so funny.

SPEAKER_00

All right, cool. Well, thank you so much, Doctor, for being here. I really appreciate your presence. I hope it blesses all the listeners and viewers. And then anyone listening now, um, maybe just find a place to be comfortable, relaxed, and just allow yourself this moment in a safe place where we might not be disturbed just for a little bit.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Are we good with like eight to ten minutes, or how long do you want me to go? Whatever you want.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Okay. I have a pro Zoom account, so you can go all day if you want.

SPEAKER_02

Well, we don't want to bore everybody. Okay, I am gonna set a timer though, so okay. All right, so if you're in a safe place to do so, let your eyes gently close. If you're driving or operating machinery, please do not close your eyes right now. And I want you just to notice your breathing. Just paying attention to the rise and follow the breath. And as we sit here just breathing, I want you to picture yourself in a field. A field of your own creation. And I want you to really heighten your senses. So noticing the smells in that environment. You smell grass or flowers, freshness after a rain. And I want you to notice the sounds in that environment. Wind through trees, rustling of grass, perhaps animals or birds. And I want you to notice the sensation on your skin. What is the temperature of the air to you? Is it a warm sunny day? Is there a breeze? And I want you to notice everything you can see. What does the sky look like? What does it look like under your feet? Are there grasses or dirt, flowers, plants? And as you're experiencing everything there is to experience in this field, you hear a sound behind you, and you turn and you notice a beautiful hot air balloon. And you know this is your hot air balloon because you recognize the colors and the patterns on that balloon. And you decide you're gonna go for a ride. So you walk over to that balloon and you step into that basket, and you notice it's pretty solidly anchored to the ground, but yet there's no ropes holding it. And that's confounding just for a minute. And then you look down at your feet and you notice a couple sandbags. And you pick up the sand first sandbag, and that one's labeled fear. And you realize that you can pour all of your fear into that sandbag, and it'll take it from you. And it's a magical sandbag, it can hold an endless amount. So you search your entire being and pour all of your fear into that sandbag. You don't even need to know what it is, you just need to know you're done with it. And when you can't fit anything more in there, when you can't find any more fear, you tie up that bag and you throw it over the side, and it lands on the ground with a thump. And you float about an inch off the ground, and that feels amazing. And you pick up the second sandbag, and this sandbag has the words on it, guilt and shame. Any guilt and shame that you feel from the past right now, you don't even know what caused it or what the root was. You just need to know that you're ready to be rid of it. And so you search high and low through your entire being and you find any guilt and shame you pour it into that sandbag. And just like that first sandbag, it can hold an endless amount. It's magical. Pouring in all that guilt and that shame. And when you can't find any more to get rid of, you tie up that bag and you throw it over the side, and it lands on the ground with a thump, and you float about two inches off the ground, and that feels pretty spectacular. So you pick up that third bag. This one's labeled anger. Any anger from the past, resentment that you're feeling currently from the past, worrying about the future. You can pour all that you want into that sandbag, and it will hold whatever you give it. And so you hunt through your being for that anger, that resentment, and you pour it into that magical sandbag. And as you do, it fills more and more. And when you can't find any more, you throw it over the side, and it lands on the ground with a thump, and you float six inches into the air, and you feel pretty magnificent. And you pick up that last sandbag. It's not labeled anything. It will take anything else that you're ready to get rid of. Anything that no longer serves you. Could be grief. Could be habits. Could be outdated ways of thinking. Anything that no longer serves you. You get to pour into that sandbag, and it's magical. It can take as much as you want to get rid of. You don't even need to know what it is. You just need to know that you're ready to be done with it. So you pour anything you can find into that sandbag. And it fills, and you find more. And it fills and you find more. And when you can't find anything more to be rid of, you tie up that bag and you throw it over the side, and it lands on the ground with a thump, and you float into the sky. And you find yourself floating above that field and floating above your town, floating above the city and the state, floating above the continent. And soon you find yourself floating higher and higher amongst the stars. And you look back at this beautiful blue marble that we call home, and you have a new perspective on who you are and how you fit in your place in this world. And as you float there, filled with joy and love, compassion, healing, abundance, you see the faces float by of all those people you love and all those people who love you. And it's that love that carries you through. And all that space that you made room for from throwing those sandbags away, you get to fill with those beautiful qualities. The beautiful qualities that allow you to stand as a beacon of light and hope for other people, standing as a shining example for those people who need that love and that healing and that compassion. And you put all of those beautiful things exactly where they need to live, in your heart, in your gut, in your hands, wherever you can access them most readily. And this field and this balloon, it's of your own making, and you get to return there whenever you need to to get rid of more things that are no longer serving you. And bringing back all the positives from this experience and taking a deep breath in and out. And on a count up from zero to five, we'll come back to that waking consciousness on zero. We relax just a little bit more. And one and two, three is a very alert number. Four, moving the body a little bit, and five is eyes open, wide awake. One, two, three, four, five. Eyes open, wide awake and alert.

SPEAKER_00

Amazing. Thank you, Dr. Gruber. Thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_02

You're so welcome.

SPEAKER_00

May your path be blessed. And may you put my name on the mailing list for when your next book comes out. I will do.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you so much for having me, Ryan. This was a blast. And I appreciate all of you being here.

unknown

Cool.

SPEAKER_00

Bye-bye, everyone.

SPEAKER_02

Bye-bye.