What If Your Worst Moment Is Your Way Out-Rise Up story with Robert Jacques

One night of rage can destroy everything, but it can also expose the exact moment you stop running and start waking up. I’m joined by Robert Jacks, a man who went from a pressured teenage marriage and a painful divorce to a violent breaking point that landed him in jail facing the possibility of decades behind bars. What follows is not a neat self-help story. It’s a candid account of fear, regret, fatherhood, and the kind of inner chaos that makes you feel like your own mind has turned against you.

We talk about the turning points that don’t look spiritual at the time: handing yourself in because you’re scared of what you might do next, hearing a quiet line of guidance in the middle of panic, and learning to walk through hardship one step at a time. Robert shares how silence, faith, and community begin to rebuild him, including a period of winter isolation so stark it strips life down to the essentials. From there, we explore a practical framework for overcoming adversity: moving from brokenness, to seeking, to real practice, and finally into integration and acceptance.

If you’ve been searching for healing, mindfulness, meditation, or spiritual awakening, this conversation brings it back to something simple and tough to do consistently: finding the “gap” between thoughts and choosing peace without waiting for life to behave. We also challenge the mirage of chasing outcomes like money, status, or the perfect relationship as if they will finally complete you.

Subscribe for more Rise Up Stories, share this with someone who needs a light right now, and please leave a review so more people can find these conversations. What did you hear that you want to practise this week?

And if you want to hear more from Robert, follow this link to his podcast.  

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Story Matters

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Hi, and welcome to Rise Up Stories podcast today. My name is Vicky Ross, and I'm your host, and today I have an unusual guest, and I would say unusual because so far I seem to know the people that I interview. But I've been introduced to Robert Jacks. Is it jocks or jakes?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Yeah, jocks is fine. Yeah, in French it's jox, and in English it's Jax.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

Okay. So I've been introduced to Robert Jacks by a really, really close friend of mine. And I've had a couple of conversations. I've listened to his podcast, which we will put the link to his podcast on the notes if you want to go listen to some more of what Robert has to say. And I said to Maura, I need to speak to Robert and have him on our show. Because especially with Rise Up Stories, as you all know, I love the inspiration that it brings for somebody to listen to the story, especially if you're going through something that is quite turbulent. And all you need is just that light at the end of the tunnel, a story that possibly belongs to somebody else that can help you go. I can do this too. I can rise up. So welcome, Robert. Thank you so much for your time and for being here with me today. And I'm looking so forward to us having this conversation because that's what my rise up stories are all about.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Thank you. I'm glad to be here. I I uh yeah, I'd like to share some of my stuff that we've talked about, and I'm looking forward to getting started. So let's do let's do this. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

Right. So, Robin,

A Teenage Marriage Under Pressure

SPEAKER_03 2:30

just so that the audience knows a little bit more about you, how would you kind of introduce us to who you are? Because you've got a very unusual story and a very spiritual one, which I love because I think on some level, especially the people that listen to these podcasts of mine, at least, we are on a mission, a spiritual mission, maybe, a healing mission, a personal development mission, perhaps. And that's the thing that really attracted me to the to the messages that you have. So tell us a little bit about yourself because you've got a fascinating story. And I and I would encourage the listeners to go and listen to the at least the first episode of the podcast where Robert is there with Mora and to listen to the full story. But if you give us a summary of your story of what happened or who you are. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah, um, okay, just so the audience knows, at this age, I'm 64 years old. So my beginning was like 40 years ago or something like that when I was a teenager. And of course, you being young, happy and all that, free, free from school, free from everything. I met a group of people that would become my best friends forever. And we began, you know, of course, back then at 17, you start drinking, partying, having fun. And uh met this young lady and we fell in love. And they were Catholic. Her mom was Catholic, and so she was 16. I was no, she was 15, and I was 17. So we started dating and all that. When I turned 18 and she turned 16, her mother kind of forced us to get married. And neither one of us, yeah, we didn't even think about being married at that young neither one of us, I think, wanted to be married, but her mother kind of forced us because of her religious beliefs. And they worked out pretty good for a few years. And uh, we went through the marriage and you know, lived together. You know, I became a truck driver making decent money. We had a very good early start, and then about I'd say, I think it was five, maybe six years into our marriage, all hell started breaking loose, you know, how people just kind of grow apart or you just get tired of each other or whatever it is. But oh my gosh, my life started falling apart, and I don't know that it was all kind of infidelity on both sides. I mean, we just got to where we couldn't stand each other as young adults, you know.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

And the thing is, I mean, what you're saying, Robert, I know maybe at the time it's like, why is this happening? But if you think about, you know, you were both 18 and 16, five years later, you are 23 and she's 21. But this is where we are as people, this is where we start to mature and grow into ourselves. And this is why most people that start a relationship so young don't actually survive that part because you suddenly wake up and you you you know you would have never been together had you not been forced to do it. So it's I understand it from the from the work that I do, but oh my goodness, it it must have been a nightmare.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Oh, it was. And see, uh, even we discussed it, her and I, she's like, I don't want to get married. I said, I know I don't either. They what can we do? You know, I was like, I know that at this point in time, I don't want to be married. Um, you know, she didn't either. But her mom stayed on us and stayed on us. If you're not gonna date my daughter unless you guys get married and this and that. So, you know, we succumbed to that pressure because we were kids, we didn't know. And as we grew and then we started growing apart, well, we had our son, he five years into the marriage, we had my son hit, and uh, oh my gosh, the joy of my life. The uh the absolute changing for me. I I prayed this prayer when he was born, you know, because I kind of grew up in and out of churches. We weren't real religious, but we've tried all the religions, but I knew enough about praying, you know, the way I prayed, and I was like, God, I just want to be the best son or the best dad to my son Levi as I can. You know, I just want to be the best dad possible. Well, and then later on, I regretted that prayer because within two years, our marriage completely fell apart. I mean, big time. She wanted out, I wanted out, but we didn't know how to get out. And then and then we went through this most brutal divorce. And while while we were going through this, I committed a couple of atrocities. She was seeing this guy, which was supposed to be a friend of the family, and he owned this pawn shop, so he could give her all these gifts. You know, she got leather jackets, boots, jewelry, everything that I really couldn't afford as a you know young husband. But we are, but our bills were paid, we had things. But anyway, so I was getting, I guess, more and more jealous, although we were splitting up, and she wanted me to rent her apartment, so I did. She wanted time apart, so I'm paying for her place and my place. My son's going back and forth, you know, just staying with her, staying with me. And one night I just caught them in a place and I shouldn't have saw it and everything, but my son was right there and I lost it. I mean, this is my son, and he shouldn't be in this position in this place. And so later that night, I guess midnight, one or two in the morning, I went by the guy's house and I took my pickup truck, just drove down the road as fast as I could, and I smashed his truck and just shoved it up against his house, broke a couple windows. But I was so angry, I backed out, went around the block. That wasn't good enough. Man, I shoved that truck all the way into the house because I was gonna get to these two people. I was gonna hurt them because I I reached a breaking point. I was just I was hurt. Oh, I was so so broken at that point, just broke. And you know, this is it. This is I was and so I drove my truck home. And what's really weird is my truck was uh it was all damaged, my bumper was hanging off and dragging. My tire was one of my tires was pretty much flat, oil poured everywhere, and a freeze. My whole truck, yeah. My whole truck just smoke and it, but I'm like, it's like two or three in the morning, right? Nobody's out but me. And I finally make it home, probably five to seven miles away. I don't know. And uh, I was so broken, just crying on the way home and didn't know what to say or what to do. I knew I screwed up, God wasn't gonna help me, he's not gonna answer my prayers now and all this. My mind just in ultimate, utter chaos. I was like

Jealousy Boils Over Into Violence

SPEAKER_01 8:30

the most confused, violent, angry person at that time. But at the same time, I had something in me that wanted to beg God for help and plead with God. So when I got home, I just got right on the phone. I called the sheriff's department. I said, Look, I just did a lot of damage across town. You guys better come pick me up, or I'm gonna go back and hurt these two people. And the lady was really nice. She goes, Well, sir, we already have officers on the scene over there. And uh she goes, Yes, I'll send some officers to your house. And I said, Yeah, you need to get them out here because I I can't control myself any longer. And the beautiful thing about it, when these guys showed up, she's like, Okay, the officer at the front door, back door, if you'll uh, you know, open the door for these guys. And I did. And she goes, Can you hand the phone to the officer? And I did. And these guys are totally quiet, they didn't come rushing in, they didn't come doing nothing, and they're all standing around talking and heard a little bit of stuff on the radio. I don't even remember what. And what was neat about it is they were all just standing there in a circle looking at me, and I was just a broken man. I was not violent. I was broken. I mean, I broken so bad. My mind was in utterly chaos, and I just stood there, just big tears drawing down my face, and all these guys were just and I unlocked police officers because you know, usually they want to get their hands on somebody and throw them down and cuff them and all that. And I guess God, you know, looking back, I think this thing we call God or consciousness was there with me, and they just escorted me out, didn't handcuff me or anything, took me to jail and booked me in and all that, then that's kind of where my story really starts twisting and turning. You know, because you got to imagine a guy that's done all this damage, total chaos in his mind. My mind, I'm telling you, oh we I guess we all go through these major chaotic states where the thoughts are just so intense, you know.

SPEAKER_03 10:17

And and we we say these things, we say to ourselves in moments like this, I lost my mind, I I lost sense of who I was, that the trauma that you're going through in that moment completely hijacks everything that is sensible in you.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

And oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

And wow, so please, Robert, carry on, because this story is just so good.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yeah, and then uh so so I'm I'm in jail, and now like I said, this oh my gosh, my mind is tearing me to pieces. I'm you know, because now not only am I in jail, but now I'm thinking about my son Levi, and then they book me in and they said, Well, you're facing 30 years in the penitentiary, two counts of attempted murder. Yeah, two counts of attempted murder, one count of destruction of private property, and each one of them carries a 10-year minimum, I guess, or maximum. But anyway, so oh my gosh, now I'm sitting in this jail, and there's other guys around, but I don't care. I'm just sitting there and I'm just going crazy in this jail cell now, just sitting there. And you can imagine now my mind is like, oh, thank you, God. I just wanted help. I just wanted to, you know, I'm screaming and yelling at this God I had in my mind, and and I just wanted your help, I wanted your love, I wanted to be the best dad, and now I'm in trouble. I'm going to prison. I'm sorry, I'll never see my son again, you know. And my mind just absolutely tormented me. And then I heard this voice that said, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding in all your ways, acknowledge me, and I will direct your path. But I didn't pay attention, and it was just so subtle and quiet, and all the chaos was back. And I sat there for two hours, just struggling. And I mean, I mean, I was in hell in my mind. You talk about hell. My thoughts were driving me insane. And then I just banged myself on the head with my fist. I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. If that was the voice of God, if I heard God, the God, I said, if that was you, you know, get me out of here. Help me, and and I'll change my life. And that voice came back and it said, Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. Now, my own understanding was chaos.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

Yes, and punishment.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yeah, oh, I was tormenting. Uh the tormentors were there. They call them demons or whatever. I realized their thoughts, but yeah, the demons were in my mind. They was tormenting me. I was so hurt and scared, and I didn't want to go to prison, you know. And all of a sudden, the you know, the door, big door opens up, these police officers come in, two of them with uh another guy in a suit. And uh, Robert, get up here. And so I went up there. Yeah, what's up? They said, This guy's a bell bondsman, he wants to talk to you. And I'd never been in Trundle, I didn't know what a Bell Bondsman was. But he's like, Hey, what do I out front? And he goes, uh, let me call the judge. I think I can get you out of here. And so I remember it was Super Bowl Sunday, five o'clock in the morning. He calls this judge, and this judge just cussing this guy like a dog on the phone. I can hear it. We didn't have cell phones then, so he's holding this phone out from his ear because the judge is this is the dumbest reason

Jail, Panic, And A Quiet Inner Voice

SPEAKER_01 13:20

I ever heard of anybody getting felonies on their account and blah, blah, blah. And why would you call me for a criminal at this early in the morning? And and he said, Set that bond at $7,500 because I'd never been in trouble. So guess that was good, $7,500. And he turned around, he said, Hey, I got you $7,500 and you can be out of here. My mind's still going crazy. He's like, Where am I gonna get $7,500? You know, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, Well, you just need 10% down if you can come up with that. And I was like, I don't even have that. I paid for her place, my place. I'm broke, just pour my truck. They took away my driver's license. So I called one of my friends and he's like, Man, ask him if they'll take the title to my car. They have before. And the bondsman's like, Yeah, I'll take the title to his car, tell him to come on down. So that day, I was a good friend within a couple of hours. Yeah, oh yeah. And he came right down within a couple hours, I was out of jail, right? Like, oh my god, now I'm sitting in his car just crying. Marty, he's like, got a big old joint. He's like, Man, let's smoke this, you'll feel better. And I was wanting to. I said, Marty, I said, I can't, man. I'm going through so much. And I just told God, if he got me out of jail, I would try to change my life, man. And I we grew up for years on pot. I'd smoke pot every day, all day long. It was our thing, you know. So I loved it, but I was like, I better not, because now I'm I'm down like I made a deal with God.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

I heard that voice. I heard that voice. He did, he delivered. I better deliver my part. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, from there, of course, now uh I've been in trouble, right? And now we got all these court hearings set up. They have to do a preliminary, they have to do a plea bargain, and several, several court cases came up. And during that time, though, no vehicle, I don't have a vehicle anymore. So I'm walking, it's the middle of winter, and I found this little church down the, you know, probably about three or four or five miles from my house. Started walking there, and the pastor just took me right in a beautiful, beautiful black pastor. His name was uh Lorenzo Kelly. And this guy just he just he knew I was just a dead man walking. I was just a plain, uh confused man looking for something, you know. But that helped me out because he uh he just took me right under his wing. He started teaching young men how to become men, I guess, or pastors or whatever. And uh so I would walk back and forth. And uh one night leaving there, I got home and we had a blizzard. And I'm giving you paraphrase, short, you know, increments of my life, because I know this is limited. But uh man, I was I was snowed in in my place, my mobile home for three days and three nights. Wow. The snow drifts were 18 feet high, was the snow drifts. And so the electric was out, the water was frozen, there was nothing there. When my when my ex-wife left me, she took everything, absolutely everything out of the house, all the dishes, all the store, all the everything, all my clothes, all my all my hunting gear, my fish and stuff. And she I I hurt her so bad by what I did. And I and rightly so. You know, this was her way to punish you out, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Punish me. Yeah, and I and and I was understanding that, like, yeah, you needed to do. I was I felt like, oh my god, you can't hurt me as bad as I hurt myself.

Bail, A Promise, And First Steps

SPEAKER_01 16:30

I just lost my son. And that was the greatest thing in my life, was my baby, my son. And uh, because he and I were just so close. I was raising him because my ex just didn't like kids. That was just her. She just didn't like kids. And she told me, I didn't even need raising. You know, I don't want nothing to do with him, basically. So we become pals, you know what I mean. But now I just I felt, you know, I just totally deceived my son, if that makes sense. I totally my mistakes drew us apart. And it was like, oh my God, even more pressure, more hurt. But being snowed in there three days and three nights, no electricity, no nothing. We had one blanket left on the couch. That was all that was in there. And I had my coveralls on and my boots and stuff, and just my gloves and laid on the couch freezing. And I covered up with that one blanket, kept my head covered up, just freezing and freezing. And uh at one point in time I was so hungry. I went in the kitchen. I dug everywhere. I found this one can of chicken noodle soup, but no silverware, no nothing. I got man, I gotta open this. I baked it on the counter edge and tried to break it open, nothing. And I dug around underneath the kitchen sink. I found an old butter knife, which was cool because I thought, oh my god, I can open it with this butter knife. And I jammed that can around the edges and wiggled it, wiggled it.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

I got it open, and that poor that chicken noodle sink was frozen solid. Oh no. Oh no. Yeah, on top of everything else. I got food and I can't even eat it. It's it was frozen solid. That's how cold it was in that little house, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

And so it was step after step after this, just being broken over and over and over. But I begin to hear, you know, I begin to hear that that trust in the Lord, that little still, small voice, you know, what we call consciousness, and it's it's a consciousness awakening, so to speak. And and I began to hear it, and oh my gosh, it began to really guide, direct, and change my life. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 18:24

And and I guess it it's something that you hear, you know, people go on retreats because they want to get away from all the noise so that they can actually get in touch with themselves and start to listen to that voice within us, that wisdom that's within us, the God that is within us. And and this is why people always want to retreat and go away. And you had this beautiful experience where they, you know, you obviously consciously didn't plan it, where you got snowed in and everything was taken away from you, so that the only thing you had was yourself. And you you could have gone the other way, you could have gone crazy with it. But I'm glad because I've I've heard more of your stories, and I'm glad that you heard the voice and you you got in touch with that part of you. So for people that are listening to this and they're going, gosh, your story it's really hard. If I I mean, I've gone through some really hard things in my life, but I think from from what I'm hearing here, this this is really difficult.

Walking To Church Through Winter

SPEAKER_03 19:31

What would you tell anybody who's going through hardship?

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Oh my gosh, let me let me throw this in there and then we'll get to that. So after after months and months of going through this walking every night in blizzards and stuff, I got to where I just love to walk because that silence. And every now and then I would hear you know the voice say something so beautiful or wonderful, sometimes even stupid, like, hey, go tell that person I love them or something. And I would find them like, no, I'm not telling that stranger that. I mean, that's ignorant. That's how the mind worked. But so I had to go to court, right? This is the most beautiful part that happened to me. I we plea bargained through the months and months, and they dropped two counts of attempted murder. So they dropped those. If I pled guilty to destruction of private property, which held a 10-year term, and we agreed to that. We signed to that. And they said, Well, you're only going to go to prison for seven years. So I feel a little relief. You know, I'm not gone 30 years, so I feel a little relief, but at the same time, you don't want to go at all. So I'm fighting myself still. Well, thank you, God. I've been listening to you, I've heard your voice, and thank you a lot. So now it's judgment day, and we're at court, right? And I'm on a line of benches with uh about eight or ten guys. It's judgment day. Everybody made their deal. So one by one, they go before the judge, and one guy, 25 years, 18, 19, all these guys are getting different times and uh for their they tell what they've done, you know. And I was the last one. And uh, they brought me up there and I'm handcuffed, and I walk up there, and and and this was all nice, quiet court for about two hours. The judge is like, sir, do you plead with this? Yes, sir. Okay, we I sent it you to this much time. Everything just one after the other, right? Quiet. As soon as I got there, as soon as I stood there between the state's attorney and my attorney, and there were two bailiffs. The judge stood up and he slammed his gavel down hard. I mean, he stood up and yelled, Let me tell you something, young man. This is the stupidest reason I've ever heard of anyone getting three felony accounts on their record. He said, I'm gonna tell you something right now. I'm dropping all of these charges, and you're gonna get out of my courtroom. And I'm just crying and shaking because he's yelling at me. He didn't yell at anybody else. But then I caught what he said, and I just kind of froze and looked up at him. And when I did, he just winked at me and he smiled. Wow. It was so beautiful. He said, Uncuff that man. And it was like, oh my god, take away his shackles. You know what I mean? And that was so beautiful, and that was the absolute uh turning point for me. I was free. Yeah, you know what I mean? So it was like it was quite a journey. So if I was to suggest anything to everybody, anyone, there's actually phases that I've learned that we go through in the first phase, it's kind of like the broken, confused phase. You kind of go through that, you don't know what's going on, just hang in there, keep going. And then the next phase, you get curious, and so you want to seek. And as you start seeking, okay, you get lost in the seeking. You buy books, you listen to tapes, you go, like you said, retreats or churches or whatever, because you're seeking. Yeah, and but most of us get lost in that seeking. I got lost there for so many years, but thank God I was also hearing. I had enough brokenness to where there was nothing left to do, but here. But after the seeking, and if you get past the seeking, because everything you learn in those books and seminars, and this is kind of like the third step, people don't practice it, and that's where they get stuck in the seeking. Oh, they always want more, they want more, they want to hear or an easier way or a magical way, you know.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Yeah, but you just gotta do the work, isn't it? You just gotta like see who you are, listen to that voice, trust it blindly, and go forth.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

You do, and see, and then and that's why I mean it's kind of like the third step is okay. The second step be the and you'll think third step is kind of like you have to do it. Okay, now you think, okay, you know what? I'm gonna start meditating if that's what it is. I'm gonna quit doing my affirmations, quit doing my my uh I even made the board, like they said, make a board, put all your dreams on there. Dream board, I guess. Vision that for a while. Vision board, yeah. I did that for a while. I started reading all the new age books I could. I've I've read hundreds, hundreds of books over those couple of years and listened to endless audios. Went to church constantly, began to I I studied my Bible to no end. I would look up the words in Greek and Hebrew and try to figure this out. So I was in a deep study, but then I started practicing mainly the uh meditation, just being quiet, just entering that rest. And see, and that's kind of like the third stage. And once you start doing that, you have to do it for at least six months to a year, and then something starts really settling in you, and then all your seeking starts going away. You you put away your books, you put away because now you have something more peaceful on the inside. And then, like there's a fourth stage, I guess, it would be like integration. You start realizing, oh my gosh, there's really less and less I have to do. I just have to be

Blizzard Solitude And Rock Bottom

SPEAKER_01 24:20

at peace, accept whatever comes my way, good, bad, or indifferent, whether I created it or universe or somebody, you my family, friends, and this chaos comes. You start accepting it more and going into the silence, saying, Okay, this is happening. And acceptance, you know what I mean? And then you go on from there, a couple more stages. One would be like the last two stages for sure that you're gonna go through is I would say fifth or sixth stage, you're like, okay, everything is happening, it's not happening against me, it's actually happening either through me or for me. And so you quit, you quit uh you actually get rid of the outside world. It's like it doesn't bother you anymore. You're not ignoring it, you realize it, but at the same time, it's not important to you, you know what I mean? And so the very last stage that I've been through and that uh kind of helps me is the part where you just totally it's like total acceptance, total surrender. And now everything just is, you know, you're just at peace.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

In my membership group, this month's theme and that what we're talking about and what I'm teaching is about overcoming adversity. And when you look at what is adversity, it's it's attachment to events and how we would like them to turn out rather than accepting that this is how they turn out and it's okay. Because everything to do with the attachment that we have with people and places is like we don't want us to be this way, we want it to be this way. But when you start to realize that in as much as you want to be love and accepted by everybody, you need to love and accept everybody, which means that this is where freedom comes in. And when you've got freedom to be yourself and you're free to love other people, in other words, they can be whoever they want, it's okay. Then that freedom brings the peace, I think. And that's what I'm hearing in your story is that you we go through all this turmoil. We want to be justified, we want to be validated, we want to understand, and in the end, out of the journey and the seeking and the rabbit holes that we go in, we realize that all we need to do is sit down quietly with ourselves and learn to trust who we are and free ourselves from all the expectations that we've built about what to do. And and I do think that, and this is why I love the rise-up stories that I I hear from other people, because it's in the end, it's all saying the same thing. It's when when we learn through adversity, through struggles, through all of that, that it's only we're the only ones that we can listen to, bring the Lord, the God within us to shine, to trust that, and to trust the wisdom. And I always say that if you can trust in that, no matter what happens, you're gonna be okay. You can let go of all that control and attachments that you have.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Yeah, very well put because that all the problems that I know for sure after my so-called experiences, all problems exist only in the mind. And then kind of like as within without, we make them worse, you know, because we want a different outcome. And our different outcome is always we think that's our faith. God, I trust you to appeal my marriage. God, I trust you to bring me money and all that. Those those are like actually a false imitation of what's real. Yeah, because what's real is the acceptance of what's going on, the acceptance of I may not get that person back, I may not get the money I need, accept all of that on the inside and be at peace with it. And then added things start showing up, things that are totally off the wall, yeah, things that you never planned. Kind of like my interview with you. I was so grateful. It's like to me, it's an added thing. It's like, oh my God, this beautiful woman showed up, wanted to interview me, but nobody, you know, and I just think it's beautiful because it's an added thing. You know, I accept it as part of that journey. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 28:30

It's I I I don't believe in coincidence. I believe that everything happens perfectly. You know, you aligned with Mora, friends with Mora, Mora needed help with this. I met you, I said to Mora, I want to get them. It's it's because, and and I and I don't know who's going to listen to this. I really don't know. But I trust blindly that whoever's going to listen to your story and to what your message is, they need to hear it and they will get that that healing inside. It's all beautifully orchestrated. And if we can just all just let it all happen and and just put it out there, it I mean, I I remember one of the days I was looking on the podcast locations to see who's listening, and there's somebody in the middle of the Pacific Islands that is listening

Courtroom Shock And Sudden Freedom

SPEAKER_03 29:20

to my podcast, and I thought, what are the chances you know, like that it will reach somebody out in the middle of nowhere, somebody I don't know. And I I I just know that we are instruments of life, and when we learn to just stay quiet, be be with ourselves, be with the God inside of us. We we can rise. We can rise and we can live and we can learn and we can love again and trust.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

We can, and you know what? Right now, as we're talking, I'm having some kind of a spiritual movement. I mean, right now I sense the presence so strongly. I don't know exactly what's being said or whatever, but I agree with you. Uh the few podcasts that I've done with Mara, I I love that she's helping me get this message out there. You know, I taught what faith is and what faith isn't, and several things about the mind, how to escape the mind. But right now, as we're listening to this, as you and I are talking, I mean, I feel my consciousness really arising almost like this is a very precious moment. I I don't understand it, but I know that there's something so precious going on between you and me. It's actually moving me in the spirit. So you you just you just our consciousness is rising right now. See, we're two or more are gathered, and we're gathered in that name. Well, the name means the nature of God, the consciousness of God. And I'm being elevated right now, and I hope you are, because uh wow, something is shifting right now.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

I feel it too. I I don't know what it is. I just when I first heard because just for the sake of the audience, I helped my friend Mora edit the podcast that she has with Robert. And that's how I've listened to Robert's story because I've been doing some of the editing and helping her. And I knew it was going to be special to talk to you, and I know that this is not the last conversation, and it's definitely not the last conversation for the podcast because I do want to talk with you for the audience, for us, for whoever needs to hear it and will get to this podcast in that way about sharing some of the wisdom that you bring. But yes, there's something very special happening right now, and I feel very, very blessed and honored to be part of this.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Yeah, I do too. It's uh it's uh it's part of our awakening or helping others, like you said. It's not, well, we know you and I know it's not about us, it's about all of us. It's the collective. And there's the worldly mind that's collective, and that's chaos, that's where all the demons are, and all that's in the worldly mind. But I assure you, when you get into this consciousness mind, the higher consciousness they call it, or just consciousness itself, it it overrules and just diminishes the carnal mind. And I'm telling you, your problems that they it's not like they cease, but there's no value in them. There's no uh you can have the worst crap going on, but you're such peace that it's like, oh, it's okay. I'll get through this. They came to pass, didn't come to stay.

SPEAKER_03 32:29

This too shall pass. It's so funny that you say this. One of my best friends from South Africa, she always used to say, and it is a quote that all my friends know me for, that you know, when something bad is happening, I quote my friend Linda and she says, the big book says, and it came to pass. It didn't come to stay. So this too shall pass. Let it go, stand out of the way and let it pass. It's it's not gonna be like that. And it's true. And you know, I I do a lot of teaching and training, and when we talk about resilience and building strength and building that inner calm inside of you, I always bring people back to time in the lives where they've had a lot of adversity, a lot of stress, a lot of, you know, like, oh it's gonna be the end of the world. And I said, and did you all survive? And they kind of look at me and I go, Well, I guess that you did, because you're here today and you're sitting here listening to me. So you did survive that. And they all go, Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, we did survive. I said, I want you to hold on to the moment that made you turn around and rise up and to recognize in yourself how powerful you are. Because as humans, like you see, you know, you were talking about the chaos, the demons, you know, we are so quick to see ourselves as weak and as incapable when actually the truth is that we are so powerful and so amazing

The Stages Of Healing Through Adversity

SPEAKER_03 34:00

and so brilliant. And if we could only see the beauty in us rather than what we perceive in the mind as weakness, we could all just rise. Because I sometimes see those thoughts as energy that we feed for a reason that everybody has a reason of why we feed this energy. But when you, like you say, we keep quiet, we stop feeding the energy, we stop feeding the thoughts, we stop feeding the chaos. It has to go somewhere else. It can't stay with you because you're no longer feeding anything, because you're back with the beauty and the love of yourself, your God, the the who you are, the the peace, the acceptance, the self-acceptance that, you know, I I was talking, sorry, I was talking yesterday to my membership group, and I said, when a baby is born, if the value of somebody, the self-worth of somebody is a hundred out of a hundred, what is the value of the baby? And they all kind of went, a hundred. So I said, so what happens between your birth and where you are right now that now you are no longer a hundred? What are you? 47? Are you 58? Are you 74? Did you do something and oh you lost three points here and you lost five points there? And they all just looked at me and I said, Who's the one? Who's the one that has that little list that says, if you dot, dot, dot, then you're gonna lose three points, five points. I said, We're all 100%, we're still a hundred. But it's that thought that you talk about that makes you see yourself as something that you're not, the false self.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

That's a really good way to look at it. I like how you put that because uh looking at it and we degrade ourselves so we lose value, we lose points. I was in the negative, I was like negative 100 or whatever in my own mind. There was no there was nobody worse than me on the planet. That's I was the worst of the worst. And uh I'm gonna tell you that if a guy like me, who was I thought the worst, uh pretty much did the worst, betrayed my son, betrayed my wife, came from shackles and the worst of the worst. And if a guy like me can find the peace and the rest and get over it, I assure you it's there for everyone. Because uh I'm one of those people that just I wasn't worth saving, I wasn't worth talking to, I wasn't worth being around. Although I had this deep, deep something inside me that was valuable, and I found it. And it's glad you did. Yes, it's sitting in the silence, it's consciousness, and once we find that, that is that pearl of great price, and nothing else you'll ever want to do except polish that pearl. You just want to absorb that silence and that love and that that constant of rising. It's it's a it's a constant, it's not it's like every day. Every day you have to go back in and do the work of sitting in the silence or bringing about, you know what I mean? You can't skip it because after a short period of time, you're back in the thought world, you know.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

So, you know, so I'm so glad that you said this because a lot of people have the misconception that we need to meditate so that we can heal, that we can stay calm, that we can this, we can, you know, that that's the reason we do the meditation. Because I'm a huge anybody who works with me, I keep saying, How's your meditation going? So they're all kind of, you know, I'm I'm meditating to get there. And I go, No, meditation does not heal you, meditation does not change you, meditation does not bring the peace. Meditation helps you connect to yourself. And when you get that connection to yourself, it is such a precious, precious relationship that you just never want to go away from it. Which is the polishing the pill. You want to go back. It's it's almost like you meet the most amazing person in your life. You want to spend time with them, you want to talk with them, you want to sit with them, you want to watch TV and say nothing, or you know, just be in the same room. You just want to be with that person because you feel so at home. There's so much deep love. And that's what meditation helps you get to, to that part where you feel who you are in such a well, I don't think there are words to describe that kind of relationship. And like what you said earlier, we go through down the rabbit holes just to get to the point where we go, oh, I didn't need that. But you can't get to here without doing that. But it's it's just when you when you can do that meditation and fall in love with yourself, fall in love with all that you are, the spiritual, the energy, the God inside of you. I don't know, just life just becomes a lot.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Oh, it does. And then you don't like you say, we don't, you know, I don't we don't do it anymore to try to get healed or try to get money or try to get our relationships restored. We do it out of the sheer love of that love, loving us, and we love that love. I call it the silence. And it, you know what people I would like to help. Maybe you don't have to meditate a long time if you just start practicing a few seconds at a time, a few seconds. If you can shut down in traffic for a huge second, say, you know what, consciousness, God, Jesus, whatever you want to call your deity or whatever, you don't have to call it anything. If you can do it for a few seconds at a time and find that gap, because it's the gap between our words that allows us to understand. It's the gap in somebody singing a song, it's the gap between those words. If there was no gap, everything would be a conglomerate and you wouldn't understand nothing.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

It would be just one smash thing thing smashing into the other.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Exactly. But see that little gap in consciousness right there in our words, our thoughts. If you can do it for a few seconds, pretty soon it'll be a few minutes, pretty soon it'll be a few hours or an hour, and you'll love it. And you'll realize, oh my God, I got this silence going on. And out of that silence comes an emanation from what we would call heaven or consciousness or whatever, and it comes out of that into you, and now it's your emanation. Now you're just a walking, living presence of love or peace, or and people come to you and they can just sense your peace. They're like, What's it about you? You know, you're like, nothing, nothing special. You know, I sat in the silence and I, and then you can teach, like you got a whole teaching thing going on because now you're living it, and then it's part of you. You want to teach it, you want to express it because you want everybody to do it. I want everybody to know to be yeah, everyone, you know what you've discovered. And it's not the it's not so personal you can't share it. It's so personal that you want to share it with everyone so they can join us in this, and we can wake up as one body of consciousness here on earth while we're on earth. Wouldn't it be so awesome to see the children wake up and the people that are struggling with people in prison, people that have been down and out, there's nobody to help? Wouldn't it be cool if they started waking and out? Even in prison, they can have this peace. You know, even in chaos, you can have it. You can have it's for everybody. It's been paid for, it's done, it's

Meditation As Connection Not A Fix

SPEAKER_01 41:00

here before the beginning, it'll be here after the end, and it's for everyone. It's just we got to get past that seeking and into that practice of silence or meditation, call it what you will, just the gap, the gap between the words.

SPEAKER_03 41:14

Yeah. And it and it's interesting because I think people are really it's the insecurity inside of them of who am I with this and who am I without this? Who am I if I don't have the big house? And I'm not suggesting don't go for the big house. If you want the big house, have it. But who am I without the big house? Who am I without the the designer brand bag? Or who am I without the job title? Or, you know, rather than it doesn't we're all the same. And and the irony of it is that I say that this thing called life is a game, and you can use this game to expand, to get to know who you are, to get to know you as the player of this life, and you can play the game and win lots of things or have nothing and lose it all. But at the end of the game, everybody dies and nobody takes anything that they've accumulated, fought for, designed with them. So you know, I I used to do a thing for the wheel of life, which is a coaching kind of model where everybody kind of goes, okay, yeah, on a scale of naught to eight or ten, and my family relationship is a five, and the other one is a this, you know, you you kind of rate yourself. And then I say, okay, so tell me all the things that you're working hard for. Oh, well, I'm working hard because I want a Porsche and I want the big house and I want the this and I want, you know, whatever. So I said, okay, let's take the car, let's take the Porsche and ask yourself, it's either a yes or a no, it's a it's an on or an off type of thing, it's a plus or a minus, whichever works for you. Take the car and you say, how will the car impact the family? Well, if it's a Porsche and it's a two-seater, maybe with your partner, but you can't really, it's not a family car. So let's just say that that's a minus. How is the Porsche with the finances? Well, that's a minus. How is the Porsche with my health? Nah, no, let's just say it doesn't impact my health, so that's a minus. How is the Porsche with my leisure? Well, that's a plus because that's going to be great fun driving around with my Porsche. How is the Porsche with my spiritual development? It doesn't impact it, so that's a minus. And suddenly you realize that of the things that are really important in your life, the thing that you're fighting for is a two out of eight or a two out of ten type of thing. You know, that people start to see what they are where they're putting the importance outside of themselves in things that at the end of this thing called game, this game that's called life, actually you can't take it with, and it's not really that valuable after all.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Right. Yeah. That's uh that's could take it to the extreme. So in your mind, let's say you got a hundred million dollars, give yourself a hundred million, buy the house, buy the car buy everything have the perfect relationship gift of charity okay you got it all now what now what you've reached your absolute you've reached your absolute goal now what you've you've still got another 30 years in front of you what are you gonna do yeah yeah so see something else will change but the uh you know what a mirage is correct let's say you're in the let's say let's just say it's hypothetically you're in the desert you're on this hill and you look down and this valley's full of water you never knew what a mirage was there you're like oh my god I can't go through that what in the world is going on but then all of a sudden a truck goes by boom he goes right through you're like oh that wasn't even real it was a mirage correct and so see you didn't you didn't maybe know what a mirage was but when truth came the truth was it wasn't real it was an optical illusion and so this world see so let me ask you this how do you get rid of a mirage you're just gonna drive through it and see that's the answer everyone gets and the answer is no you don't just drive through it truth comes and you realize it's not there so you can't drive through something that's not there.

SPEAKER_03 45:04

That's true as well so would you have to wait until the light changes and then you realize that it's not there.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

No but the light's different however the mirage itself see a mirage does not exist so there's no way to get rid of a mirage an illusion see that it's like this is a dream or this is illusion. We're living under a dream state or an illusionary state right here in this this outer world it really is part of the mirage and we haven't been woken up yet to realize oh my gosh it isn't even real like you said it's the game we're entering this game we're playing this game and every time we

Illusions, The Life Game, And Closing

SPEAKER_01 45:40

move a piece on the board it either hurts or don't hurt you know either we go to jail or don't go to jail we pass go or don't pass go and we're playing this game and we're unaware that we're involved in the game but when you wake up and you turn back and look at the game it becomes a peaceful game because now you're not out to win at all. You know you're just like I'm just playing it's true.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

It's true. Robert I'm definitely going to invite you and I hope you will accept to come and have some more conversations like this because I think there's a lot of stuff that we can bring to people a lot of just enlightenment and just bring some love into people's hearts. So I hope that you'll say yes but for today I I I could talk to you for hours but we can't because we have to also be a little bit practical. I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart because I really really enjoyed actually meeting you after listening to you for so you know for the last two three weeks that I've been listening to you. I just want to say I'm so th I'm so grateful that you are here today having this chat with me.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Well I am too yes I'll let do it again I I love it and uh I want you to know and our listeners to know I have been lifted today and I know that something's happening through this little podcast I don't know what but I hope your listeners really enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

Thank you so much Robert and for my listeners thank you for being part of our podcast today. If you know of somebody that would be lifted by this story by this conversation please do share the podcast and if you want to join my beautiful community there is notes in the podcast notes about how to join my membership and for the rest I'd like to wish you well and here's to your success. Yay right we can