What If the Next Chapter of Your Life Starts Somewhere Unexpected?

What if the growth you're looking for isn't where you've been searching?

In this episode of The Wisdom Trust Podcast, Loren Crawford sits down with Dale Rowse for a conversation about personal transformation, life after crisis, awakening, creativity, stillness, and the unexpected paths that can open when life forces us to rethink who we are.

After careers in professional dance and real estate, Dale faced a serious health challenge that changed everything. What followed was a journey into alternative approaches to personal growth, self-discovery, writing, spirituality, and energy work.

This conversation isn't about finding a single answer.

It's about staying curious.

It's about being willing to explore possibilities that may not fit neatly into conventional ideas about growth, healing, purpose, and meaning.

For many gay men over 50, there comes a moment when the old answers stop working. The question becomes:

What's next for me?

Whether you agree with every idea discussed or not, this episode invites you to consider new perspectives, reflect on your own path, and remain open to the possibility that your next chapter may come from somewhere unexpected.

In this episode:

• Life after a major health crisis
• The search for meaning beyond success
• Alternative approaches to personal growth
• Stillness, reflection, and inner wisdom
• Creativity as a healing practice
• Conscious aging and self-discovery
• Why curiosity may matter more than certainty

Dale's website: https://dalerowse.com/

Join The Wisdom Trust

If you're a thoughtful gay man over 50 looking for deeper conversations about friendship, purpose, aging, belonging, and personal growth, join The Wisdom Trust community.

These are the kinds of conversations you won't find in most gay-focused media or communities.

Chapters
00:40 Welcome and introduction
02:05 Dale's unexpected life journey
05:40 A health crisis changes everything
11:00 Awakening and alternative paths to growth
21:10 Writing as a tool for transformation
35:40 Stillness, self-discovery, and inner wisdom
49:40 What happens when you outgrow your old life
56:40 Advice for anyone feeling stuck
59:10 Final reflections

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Wisdom Trust. I have Dale Rouse with us today. And before I get into introducing Dale, we're just going to take a reminder, talk about why we're here, building community. We're not here as experts, having figured it all out and made our life's work perfect. We're all on a journey. And this is really about building community, hearing each other's stories, and learning and growing from each other, to be quite honest. Now let's find out about this Dale character. His bio reads a little bit like a piece of fiction, and in many ways, it actually is that. So Dale spent many years, two decades as a professional performer, dancing on Broadway, serving as an original cast member in Celine Dion's iconic Las Vegas show, A New Day, working under the direction of Franco Dragon. I hope I pronounced that right, the creative force behind Cirque du Soleil. In 2005, Dale pivoted completely stepping into real estate. Wow, that's a pivot, and within just three years earned top honors for individual sales volume at Remax. But it was a diagnosis of generalized dystonia that uh became his most profound turning point, shifting his focus from external success to deep inner work, which is what I love so much about you. That journey led him to shamanism and authentic writing. I think that's what I'm gonna say and hand it over to you, my friend, to tell us even a bit more. So who is Dale?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Good. Thank you, thank you, thank you. As you know, I'm a huge fan of you and your work and what you're doing here. It's so needed in this time where post-COVID we're still very fragmented from one another, right? And our our lives haven't necessarily caught up with sometimes even our needs. So I applaud you and what you're doing here. I really believe in this level of you know stewardship of men of our age because we do have a bit of a challenge in that like the generation above us is kind of gone, right? As gay men, you know, that generation was kind of wiped out. And so, you know, it's up to us to pick up that mantle and carry it forward. So, you know, I'm forever grateful for the work that you're doing here. And thank you for inviting me to be on. Yeah, my journey has been a bit nuts. I've lived like eight lives in one life. But yeah, so I started as a performer, but then by the time I was 35, I just didn't want to jump up and down for a living anymore and wanted to actually really make some money. And that's when I went into real estate. And like you said in your intro, and that was all good until, and I'm not sure, you know, it's it's all factors all at once, you know. But, you know, that level of success and that level of kind of chasing money and chasing all the things we're supposed to be doing, one way or another, my nervous system essentially collapsed. And I was left with an incurable neurological movement disorder that's in the same park family as Parkinson's and MS. And I described that as the best thing that's ever happened to me and the worst thing that's ever happened to me, right? Because it really, like, quite literally brought me to my knees, my inability to walk, my inability to feed myself, my inability to function and and work a job, like my entire life just untethered from all norms of what we're supposed to be doing. And it really caused me to focus on the inner work, right? Like who is Dale without all the trappings of you know, a stage or you know, a real estate career or a career at all, actually, to be honest. And that is where the real journey for me began. And I was asked to essentially like look at what do I have control of? Okay, if my body is saying, I can't do this anymore, well, what do I have control over? And what levers can I pull in order to affect change within myself, within my life, you know, because the doctors were all saying, well, this is this is incurable. And it would have been really easy for me to go to the support groups and to live the life of a newly disabled person. That was the path I was on. I had all the government approvals in order to just, you know, like sit back and, you know, take some type of government assistance. But I just I never saw myself that way. And when I went to my first support group for Dystonia, which is the disorder that I have, I knew the second that I got in that room that that vibe was not for me. Like those people and what they were doing in their lives was not at all what I was trying to do. Like I still saw myself as a very powerful person. I still saw myself as a very able and capable person, even though I was physically struggling to get things done that I needed to do, like dress myself. And gosh, if you have never been to that place where your future is taken away from you, where there are no good days on the calendar to look forward to. Like I was just really staring down the barrel of a life being disabled. And what was I gonna do with that? And that's when I really started chasing out the most powerful thought forms on planet Earth. And I'd always kind of had an interest in it, anyways. I mean, if you like look at all my tattoos and stuff, they're very like shamanic, they're very, you know, spirit-driven. I've always been interested in that, but that's when my path really, you know, found its light. That's when I really started diving into what is energy work. And oh my gosh, are you kidding me? The entire use universe is far more pliable than we've ever been taught. Well, what does that mean? And what is shamanism? And if a shaman is the doctor of the soul, how does one turn that into a practice? How does one heal oneself from the inside out? And so that's the path that I went on. I went to a shaman school for a year and studied that because I really wanted to know the inner workings of, you know, the principles of core shamanism. And it was there that I was introduced to things that were not taught in the Western world. And that's what really like caught my interest, and that's what really like brought me back to life, because there was this whole other way of essentially being that I hadn't been tapped into, right? In our typical religions that we use in the Western world, whether that's Christian, Christianity, Mormonism, Judaism, whatever, like the the person in those circles who is the most subservient is the best Christian, is the best Mormon. But being the most subservient is not being the most powerful. And I was discovering spiritual circles where they were teaching you how to essentially jailbreak the matrix and be able to manifest on a Christ level and to start witnessing people who have like gone to that place and see how they live. And it is abundance. These people are not, you know, the little church mouse pastor who's getting by paycheck to pay paycheck. These people are living in abundance, these people are living their best lives, and it all starts there from the energy work that they're doing in and on themselves. So that was kind of the path that I first started on in order to reclaim my health, reclaim myself. But it goes even further than that. Once you really get into the traditions of shamanism, it's reclaiming all the parts of you that you had to cut off just in order to survive. And for us as gay men, like there's so many parts of us that we've had to cut off in order to exist, like even as little, you know, gay boys, you know, we we can't be as feminine as we maybe want to. We can't be as pretty. We can't be like, we just can't express ourselves, you know, in a feminine way. And so we often, you know, remove that from ourselves and joining, you know, a practice like shamanism. And I want to make sure that I say it clearly here that it is a practice, it is not a religion, right? That you know, allows us to reclaim those parts of us, allows us to integrate those pieces, because you're not gonna act as a powerful being on this plane if you haven't gone through the process of understanding who you are, like in all its parts, including the shadow work, including the you know, good stuff, including like every aspect of what that means, right? And to come into yourself in a real powerful way. And I feel like you and I are really blessed to be the age that we are at this time, because this is like your 50s are the era of your power, right? And that's when you're really functioning with the majority like of your brain locked in, right? And you're actually thinking higher thoughts and you're really like stepping into your most powerful time on the earth. So that's kind of how I arrived here, a little bit of background, and you know, that's that's where I am now.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

And I think that what's really rich is you know, your your connection through shamanism and the work you've done there and how it's awakened in you a whole new understanding of self, of reality, of the dimensionality of this thing that we're in, this life, the thing that we're in, this experiences we're having. And some of us will experience that awakening in different ways and shapes and forms, right? I I strongly believe there's no one right path to that, but the project is ultimately find a path. And that path can change and shift. And mine certainly has. And I think the thing about energy is so important, right? That ultimately it is just all energy and how we are using that, manipulating that, working with that, honoring that, growing that. This is this is the journey of life. And the more we can sort of have tools and techniques that help us to plug into that, how people sort of acting as you know, elders to show us that way, I think that's really, really key. And a lot of that is perhaps missing, well, in society in general, but certainly in in in gay men. And I think what you said is exactly on point that this is a pivoting point in our life where the way I describe it to people is like your soul is kind of tapping you on your shoulder and saying, hello, hello, I'm in here and you've you've you've missed me, right? The egoic part of you is driven, you know, been in the driver's seat for a few decades now. Let's like shift gears and put ego into the passenger seat and and that sort of thing. I think that car analogy dudes can relate to. So so that's so great. Tell me tell us a little bit more because you're doing a whole bunch of interesting stuff, right? Like I encountered you, you moved here to Vancouver Island, and I saw this post for some dude who's making quilts. And I'm like, what? And so give us a little bit more of what you, you know, Dale at this stage in life, how you're being in the world.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, it's a great question. And yeah, I uh I I do make quilts just, you know, as kind of a hobby. And yeah, I I look at it in the same way that I look at shamanism. It is pattern recognition, right? And it's it's I see, and it's just the way my brain works, right? And and maybe it was just my formal ballet training for you know a dozen years or whatever, but there's a very there's like there's the rigidity of the count, right? But then there's the fluidity of the art, right? And so while the beats give you the structure of the dance, it's the in between those beats of what's happening where things really come to life. And so that was something that I've always enjoyed is fabric and textile arts and things like that. And but yeah, I just see it the same as as everything else that I do in in life in terms of pattern recognition. That's something I do. So after I kind of like healed myself, and I I want to be clear, I I do not consider myself fully healed, but I am certainly able to function. I am able to, you know, live an absolutely full life, even with this diagnosis. I just have found like the workaround, and I just, you know, I danced an entire season of ballet on a stress fracture. Like you just find the parts that are working and make that go, right? You know what I mean? Like you can't be stopped or you know, held back. You just have to find out what is working. So when I start working with a new client and I work in energy healing, right? I'm I consider myself an energy worker if I had to describe myself in one way or another. And energy workers look at human emotion, human experience, human energy, human dynamics differently than say a trained clinical psychologist. It's it's very different. Like as an example, we would never in energy work, we would never talk about our problems, right? Because what you're talking about, what you're focusing on is what you're bringing to life, is what you're manifesting, is what you're expanding on, right? So you never talk about your problems because then you're just worshiping the problem, right? And so we really try and move people into actions, words, thoughts that are far more in alignment with what it is they're actually trying to bring into this world, right? Like, don't sit around and practices that serve them where they're at, right? Yeah, exactly. Like don't sit around and talk about your problems, then wonder why you have problems. Like it's all you're focusing on. But if you didn't focus on those problems, if you didn't even talk about them, if you didn't even see them, and that's ultimately the goal. And it gets so wild once you start to kind of pull for yourself what you're gonna include in your reality and what you're leaving at the door.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

And it's like moving from the cerebral, particularly the left brain analytical stuff, which is where a lot of therapy can kind of get stuck, I think, into this more energetic realm of us energetic, multi-dimensional beings.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Right. And so when I first start working with someone in a shamanic healing session, one of the first things we'll often do is just kind of, of course, I address the space and we get quiet and we, you know, really tap in and we make sure that, you know, spirit is welcome and and you know that the space is is humming of that resonance for healing, for good work. And then I just get them to essentially, you know, tell me who they are. And in those words, in those words, I can find what their problem is, I can find their dis-ease. And once we start to address their dis-ease in their words, then we can start to move them in a proactive manner towards that which they seek. And it is helping them understand that they're not experiencing anything without their consent, and that the only thing that they need to survive, and this is a big one, right? We really get into the understanding of where you are in space and time. And once I get them through that portal in the understanding that the number one enemy of this work, the number one enemy of energy work in general is illusion, the untrue, the unreal, that which is not substantiated, that which only exists in the mind as a problem. Right. And so once we eradicate the past, because that's just illusion, and once we no longer have a future, because that is just illusion, then we're just left with what is, which is the current conscious present moment, and then we tap into that, right? Where the power is, and we focus the mind of where we're going, and then it's like everything becomes easy, everything becomes easy. I call it the slipstream, right? Where you just like you just glide into one thing happen. I don't try, I don't effort, I don't market, I don't, uh-uh. I don't do any of that. I do not strive in any way to do anything. I set my intention and then I understand that it is true, and then I watch for the evidence to arrive. Right. I I mean, I come at this from such a different place than your average American person who, you know, goes to work and tries real hard and strives and has goals and they have a five-year plan. No, I don't do any of that in my practice, right? What we're doing is we're standing in power. What we're doing is connecting you to your own holiness. What we're doing is getting you to understand that you are God. Yeah, and most people can't hang with that because they're not willing to be that powerful.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

It's such a paradigm shift, right? And and and our culture is such that it it teaches us to be really small, yes, infinitesimally small.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah, the most cowed person in the room in most religions is the winner. Yeah, like that's how you win at Christianity, is you be the most subservient, not the most powerful, not the one who is standing in a Christ consciousness type of vibe, declaring their own holiness to the room and walking into the room and affecting the room, not letting the room affect you. Like that's where we're going. That's power, that's choice.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah. And so this is this is uh, I think an amazing revelation for many of us because our whole way of being in in on this globe is shifting and changing in ways that most of us, especially if we're rational brain thinkers, can't even fathom, right? But so many things are are shifting and will change the way this world looks in the in the coming years and in the not distant future. So you've had this pivot, you're doing this work, you're you're an energy worker helping other people on their journeys. What else is going on that that's really been part of this this pivot? So that's I know one part of it. But I know there's other stuff too that I would like you to share with us.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Sure. So yeah, I I started authoring books as a way to heal myself. And I highly recommend that if you have like real-world problems, like I did. Like I mean, like I told you, I needed help dressing myself, I needed help feeding myself. I I couldn't walk from one room. I needed help even with I had a walker. You know, I was seriously disabled. And how I was able to kind of like find my way out of that was through writing books. And what that did is it allowed me to essentially put my problems on a fictional character and then solve their problems from an arm's legs transaction. It gave me kind of the stop gap that my mind needed from me and my problems. And so by yeah, solving the characters' problems, I was, you know, solving my own problems.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

So this is a little segment which I call freedom from. So you're you you found this as an outlet. Uh-huh. And it sounds like it was kind of a surprising one for you that that took you from that place of not being identified as that, you know, use the word disabled being to an empowered energy being. And the the book writing was a powerful vehicle in that transition.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Yeah. And so I I mean, I didn't know that I could do this. And I was really surprised when I sat down to write my first book. How the title of the book, the main character, the setting, like it all just came to me. And I was like, oh, okay, I'll just uh I'll I'll take some notes here. Uh okay, that seems like a good idea. Let me just write that down. But then it didn't stop. And it was like, and then he did this, and then they did this, and then they did that. And I vomited up my first book in six weeks. It's like 350 pages, and it changed my life. I mean, going on that journey was. So transformative. I can't I can't even put it into, and and what I was tapping into is I I've later learned there's an actual term for it called automatic writing, and it's just allowing the subconscious to write the book. So when I'm writing my books, the first thing I do is I excuse Dale from the room, right? Dale doesn't need to be in the room while Dale is writing a book. And in shamanism, they call that being the hollow bone. When you essentially empty yourself from yourself, what that does is it allows for the new to come in because nature doesn't, you know, allow a vacuum, right? There can't be nothing. So when you excuse yourself from yourself, the new comes in. And when that new comes in, for me at least, it arrives with information. And so what I do is I essentially just open up the movie screen of my mind and then just start taking notes. And it is the wildest thing because like the distance between what's happening in here and it coming out on the page is like they're one. And it's almost like my keyboard becomes like a Ouija board. I just I literally just allow it to happen. I I do not think, I do not process, I do not do an outline, I do not have character studies or nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, none of that. And I am continually shocked. Now, mind you, this is a real practice. You you have to practice it, you know. And and while it did arrive like on day one, as kind of like, oh, this is interesting, it has been years of me honing this skill to understand that to understand, quite honestly, if I'm to break it down, is to understand the voice of Inkling. And when Inkling arrives, I recognize its voice. When Inkling arrives and tells me in chapter three to put in the green bucket, and it doesn't make any sense, I put in the green bucket, and then I get to chapter eight, and it's like, and suddenly I need a green bucket, and I'm just like, it's so much more intelligent than me of my own forced mind and thoughts could have come up with.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Yeah. The bucket reminds me of a story, and I'm just gonna interject it because it's about energy, right? So when I had done my first teacher training, yoga teacher training over 20 years ago, there was some element missing. I didn't understand meditation, they didn't teach it well at all. So I went seeking and I found this guy who was like the loafer-wearing healer. It was like he wore these Italian loafers, he wasn't like all granola-y with the, you know, the malas and all that stuff. Powerful Reiki healer. And so I did Reiki sessions with him for a long time, and then I did the attunements and got my own stuff going. But one time I we were starting the session, he goes, Oh, just a minute. And I'm like, okay. So he goes away and he comes back, and I don't know what he did, and then he continues to work midway through the thing. I start hawking up this bile, right? Just like from all weird parts of my body, just like and what did he? He had gone to go get a bucket because before the session, something told him, get a bucket. Like that, just as an example for people out there who are going, what's this Dale dude talking about? You know, and how is how does this stuff just flow in? It does when when you allow those channels to open and and the resistance of the egoic kind of conditioned mind to sort of, as you're saying, leave a little bit, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, what is required in order to get to that point where the universe is truly directing you like that, right? And I have repeatedly seen my teachers operate at a Christ level, and the stillness, the silence, the internal guidance system is quiet. It is the opposite of what most people are operating with in North America. When you sit with indigenous elders, they have a stillness to them that we in the Western world have lost. When I went to shaman school, I mean, I was just I was so fascinated by what they were accessing. How are they able to, and and it goes across everything. The shaman school that I went to, they kind of taught you a little bit about everything from ancient songs, drumming and rals to animal tracking to channeling, which is what I do, to the psychopomp realm, working with the dead, helping people cross over. Like there were so many different ways that you like shamanism is a really big tent. Yeah. Right. And so we were kind of introduced to a little bit of each topic, and then we could kind of like explore that for ourselves in more private settings with you know other elders and things like this. But when you when you watch somebody who operates from that place, they are not busy, they are not loud, right? And and again, I I I've witnessed my teachers do it where they are given a whole bunch of options, and the one they choose is they know is the one that they were going for all along. You know, just as an example, my one teacher, we were going out for lunch and he was like, Oh, wait a minute, I need some money. And I was like, Okay, well, you want to stop at the ATM? He was like, No, no, no, I'm just going to, I'm gonna go into this grocery store. And he went into the grocery store and he grabbed three scratchers, one thousand bucks, another one 2,500, another one five thousand. Great, let's go. And you're like, like, you can't believe what you're seeing. And and while you've been in the presence of these people who can pull thoughts from your mind, they're clearly reading your mind as like there's no safe place to like turn, you know, and they're just operating on a different frequency. Oh, yeah, because all their needs are being met, and they know that if they need a quick ten thousand dollars, they can just go grab a couple of scratchers and oh, let's go for lunch. Like, that's just the way they live, that's the space in which they live. That is abundance, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:47

So tell me about uh you you're so you're authoring, yeah, channeling a lot of this as I understand it. So you've moved into this place of of sharing creative stuff. Tell me a little bit about the books because I think there'll be interest from our viewers slash listeners about that.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

I have Journey of the Light Shaman, which is oh look, it's on my wall. Magic. So Journey of a Dark Shaman, Journey of a Light Shaman, and then I have the language and light. And the journey of the dark shaman, like I said, is very probably relatable for anybody that's kind of been, you know, through the ringer with, you know, gay scene, drugs, maybe been a hooker for a while. Like that's the story for you, because it really is a very broken individual who has left, you know, just a really horrific past, very dense past, has a slight, you know, love affair with getting beaten up. You know, I'm like, these are all things that I could like really relate to in terms of situations I would find myself in. And so that's why that's where I started, was really in the gutter and helping this fictional character named Jack, who has oh, a neurological movement disorder that he's trying to deal with. And so that was the situation I put that character in. That was that's how the story of Jack begins. His past is shit, his future shit. So, what does he do with that? Like, where where does he go in his own mind in order to like what's the point of even living? If there's nothing in your past that's good, there's nothing in your future that you're looking forward to, what do you do with that? And it's helping that character understand that it's all perfect, even in that it's all perfect, yeah. And and to help that person slow down, to help that person, that character take a breath, to help that character, that person regulate their nervous system, get back into the current conscious, present moment. And so it becomes this evolution of the soul where you see a very, very damaged, broken individual evolve in their consciousness just one aha at a time. And that's the story. It's not, you know, Jack went to, you know, somewhere in Alberta, and then Jack went, you know, up to the Yukon territory, and then Jack, you know, no. That it's it in fact, it's hard for me to read stories that are just written on that level. The superficial, the person did this, the person did that. Well, who is this person? What's motivating them? Like, you know, you know, why does this story exist? And that's why I feel like that book was so powerful. It got picked up by a woman at the LA Times who's turning it into a movie script that I'm super excited about. Because I really feel like I've never seen this story told. I had to run for my life in order to avoid being institutionalized into conversion therapy by my parents. As my mother yelled down the street after me, God is going to get you. Wow. That is my introduction to religion. That's what I knew, right? And you know, like I have just been through it, especially around religious abuse. And my father was a Baptist minister, it paints itself, like you don't need to go into detail. But and and that's why my books, again, are so different, and I've never seen this story told before because it's a deeply spiritual, anti-religious book, right? Of just me helping to overcome what I was put through because my parents knew absolutely nothing of love and everything about judgment. And it's so sad to me that they never, ever, ever in their life, in their mind, had any association with love. It was just all judgment, all dense, all religious like trauma that they had gone through and survived barely, that they were then dumping on me. Oh, and by the way, my father was gay and my mother hated me for it because I was the one she could pick on.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

Right, right. Great. I'm sure people can relate some people anyway to various elements of that um that boy going through this horrific experience with family and then having to just sort of figure it out on your own, right? As an adult. And and I know when in my 20s, I was so angry because it was like, how did I land here having to figure all this shit out on my own? You know, no, no proper parenting, no idea what relationships are supposed to look like, you know, growing up in a single family, all that stuff, right? And then, you know, we find our way, you know, we find our way. Yeah. And if we're and especially if we if you had a situation which I think is quintessential for a lot of this transformative stuff, which is around health crises, right? It's often a health crisis that turns someone's life totally, like that's a huge turning point. Yeah, but we don't need to wait for that, right? And and I think this is the message that your books will deliver. You as an energy worker share, and and hopefully I'm doing that on some level too. Like, we don't have to wait for a crisis to change. Like if we're if we're feeling misaligned on whatever level, especially in this midlife kind of like shift, well, look for new voices, look for new, new and different community, like level yourself up, right? And that's kind of like the next segment I wouldn't mind bumping into now is like, how do you, in this new being of who you are, what is the leveling up that you're continuing to do? Because you said earlier, you're like, it's not complete, right? There's still some residual health issues, perhaps, and other growth that you're doing. So share with us what leveling up can look like.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Yeah. So when I'm working with clients, a lot of the times I will try and get them to understand that everything that we seek in life is all found in one place. And that is on the other side of stillness. And so we we begin a practice of self-honor. It's not something that I've seen outside of indigenous circles, but having a daily practice of self-honor, where you are granting everything you need to self, right? And so I explain it like this. When you go see like the Marvel comics and whatever else, and they're superheroes, and they have all these powers and they're like, bam! And they got that guy, you know, bam! They're like, you know, there's all this energy that's always coming out of their hands for some reason, right? Like that's just the power move of a superhero. And so I get my clients to use that same idea but on themselves. And so it's getting into a space where you are naming and granting yourself your own holiness. Now, that in and of itself is a huge practice. Like, I don't want to just like glide over that for you know purposes of time. I I will a little bit, but the first step is getting to that place of granting yourself and experiencing your own holiness, knowing that it's all self-granted. Everything that people are looking for in life is all self-granted.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

You know, that the holiness is you just reminded me again of John, the the loafer wearing healer. At one point, it was my first Reiki session because I said to him, I don't understand what you mean by healing. Like the word just didn't mean anything to me, right? And he said, Well, let's try. Are you open to trying some Reiki? And I'm like, sure. So I get on the table, didn't know what it was. And for those that don't know, there's different forms of Reiki. The one that John did was, and you're on a table, like a massage table, but you're not naked. I'm sure some people do it naked, but you're just lying there, right? And some people will touch you physically, some people their hands will just float above. And so he's doing this stuff around my head. His his approach and the one I use is touching, because like you just mentioned the energy in your hands, right? And at some point he said, Oh, I see you with these big, beautiful white wings. Well, in the Tantra tradition, a lot of the imagery is of this beautiful white swan, and a lot of the imagery around that is these huge white wings. And I'm like, Oh, like years later, I'm like, that's what he was seeing. And then he also, to your point about holiness, he said he kind of giggled a little bit. And I'm kind of like, What? He goes, You're a holy man, and like I was at that point just such a cynical, negative bastard, so filled with anger and all that, and like, like, fuck off, like, what are you saying to me, right? And but then it's I understood as the years went by and I was deepening my journey that like he saw all of that in in whatever dimension of me was present in that moment, right? And that was beautiful, you know. But it took me a long time to understand what that meant, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

But I love this question, and I hope you do this with all of your you know guests on the podcast because it is so powerful. And for me, leveling up is everything, and you can't level up if you're not naming your level, right? Yeah, you know, and so it's taking the time to understand and unpack your entire mind, right? You you're in my teacher calls it your mind garden. Like, what are you tending to in your mind garden? And like, is there frustration there? Yeah, okay, that's information that nothing's good or bad. It's just we we need like a baseline read of who you are. Are you being shitty? Right? Are you being generous? Are you being frustrated? Like, what what's holding you back? And when you start to understand that it's just you against you, then the game gets really good. And it gets even better once you realize that everything that you're looking for in life can be self-granted, down to the money, down to the house, down to the partner. Like, give it to yourself, grant it to self, right? And spend that time, you know, like like really focusing in and giving yourself everything you need. Don't look to others for love, right? That's where most of us 100%.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

100%.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Yeah, no, no, you'll always be disappointed and you'll always be frustrated, right? Spend the time granting yourself all the love that you need in the world. Fill yourself up and your resources from you. Don't go looking to, and that's the you know, greatest thing that I learned through writing all these books is how the answers live within me. Yeah, if I will go and chase them.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Yeah, you said something earlier, which I want to come back to too, about stillness, you know, in the in the yoga tradition, and again, we're not like I try to avoid the word yoga because people see this box of fancy exercise class in spandex, right? But in the yoga tradition, there's this saying that all the answers are found in stillness. So for for folks that are feeling misaligned or feeling incongruent about stuff, you know, like that, that just that angst and malaise that can come up, you do need to figure out a way to get still, you know, like that. That's I think there's so much richness in that, but it's fearful because we're conditioned not to be still. Right. Yeah, you know, and our apps and the constant swiping and the dopamine, dopamine, more dopamine. It's you know, we're just being programmed for this thing to respond in a certain way. So we need to we need to make make an effort to to to do things differently, right?

SPEAKER_01 41:07

And it's really stepping into your own power, knowing that you can have anything you want. So once you get to that level, well, what do I want? I mean, you can literally change the way you look, the way you vibe, the way you feel, you know, your your finances, you can change all of that through decision.

SPEAKER_03 41:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

And on that note, this thing again, because it's five times more wired to to focus on the negative, it's gonna focus on what's not appearing. But we need to remember that's just the the brain doing its thing. And and meanwhile, we might actually, and I do this, I I'm still, I still do this. Like all these things are happening. How is it that two months into deciding I was gonna do work focused on midlife gay men over 50, and I'm already doing my sixth podcast recording, have the infrastructure set up. Like, how did that even happen? I don't even know. You know, like this is the thing, it's so powerful when we get clear. Yeah, um, but that it is that point, like we have to acknowledge where we are now, not from shame and judgment, but just where am I right now? Right. And then where am I going in the sense of and it's like you said it earlier, it's not about goals and all that stuff, it's just about getting a little bit more clear about what that being is that you want to become, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Getting clearer about your truth. Yeah, who am I in the world? Am I a rich person? Am I a poor person? Am I somebody who struggles? Am I somebody who like lives in infinite wealth? You know, because once you do once it becomes clear to you that you just have to decide and that the rest is a feta complete, right? And once you understand like that and those steps and how powerful that is, it's like this podcast. It was a thought, was it not? Before we are sitting here having this conversation. It was a thought, right? You you you began the process there and then brought it into the world. Well, the same is true for all things. I look at it, and I this is something I do with a lot of my coaching clients, is we go through understanding programming the reticulated activator, and that is to say that it will bring to your mind anything you ask. So, like when you go and buy a new blue VW bug and you start seeing blue VW bugs all over the place that you never saw before, that's your subconscious that you've asked, your you know, reticulated activator to bring to the forefront of your mind every time you see, you know, in the background a blue VW bug, and suddenly it's all brought in. Same can be with success, with money, with opportunity, with partners, dates, whatever you want. You can just program it into the reticulated activator and it would start bringing all this opportunity to you that you otherwise had been missing because you hadn't asked your mind to show it to you.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

Yeah.

unknown 44:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

And that reticular reactivating system is a real big part of what a lot of people are talking about in quantum physics now. So, you know, all this stuff that people consider woo-woo is not as woo-woo as and and we're going to be seeing a lot more of this in the coming years, right? Of people understanding these dimensions of themselves and how the brain can actually work in consort, not you know, in opposition to it's that egoic conditioned mind that needs to be kind of quieted down, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

And I study I study this as a science, you know, not as a woo-woo, whatever. No, I mean, there's real science behind this that shows you, you know, the path. And then going out onto the path, you begin to start your own practice. And what does that mean for you? And what do you want? Right. I mean, just getting clear on what you want, where you're going. Another thing I do with clients that's really big is just is helping them identify a north star. Like, where are they going? Right. Like, what's the one thing that all words and decisions need to live in service to?

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Yeah. Yeah, that's powerful.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

And so it's just getting into alignment with that north star. Okay, I understand that my movie is going to be coming out soon, right? And so everything lives in service to my moving come, my movie coming out, right? And I spend a lot of time thinking about it and calling into the physical plane that which I seek. I see myself in the limo going to the premiere, right? I have and and I don't see anything else.

unknown 45:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

And it's kind of being delusional, but knowing that I'm a world-famous author who makes not just books, but these books are movies, and they were always intended to be. And that is the only thing I see, it's the only thing I talk about. Like, I'm sure I'm super annoying to a lot of people who are like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, you're delusional.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

No, and it's amazing, it's it's really truly amazing. Because that subconscious, when you're seeing those images of yourself in the limo and all that, it doesn't know if that's real or not. So it's it's conditioning you to be there, right? To for that to manifest. And and I think this is where a lot of the manifesting stuff that's out there gets lost because it's it's done in a very superficial way, not in that sort of I'm I don't just want it, I'm I'm there, I'm already there, you know, and then the reality quote unquote gets to catch up, you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

It's jumping timelines, yeah, yeah, right. And in the same way that you remember your past memories, you can remember your future memories, and by remembering your future memories, it brings it into reality. I mean that's just the life hack.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Yeah. So now that we've kind of maybe lost a few people, but maybe we need it more, you know, that happens. Some people are just, you know, there's there's it's kind of like I have this thing, like where people are like, Oh, I I'm gonna bring someone to yoga class. I'm like, no, don't do that. Let them find yoga of on their own, of their own volition. Because when you bring someone to something and they're not ready, they're not gonna have a good experience, right? So even with hearing this stuff, some people be like, Oh, that's so yes, yes, I'm I think I'm understanding. No, I totally get that. And others will just be like, and that's okay, right? Because I think there is this thing about a readiness. But I this whole community, this podcast is about awakening. Like, I'm gonna keep that thread coming through everything that that I do, and hopefully all the discussions that are you know flourishing within the community as it grows, that we're awakening into new and more evolved versions of ourselves, right? That's so much an important part of the work.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Yeah. And the world is really fighting us to not do that. The world very much wants us to be busy, to be stressed, to be broke, distracted, to be running, to be like, you know, not have the time for yourself in stillness, because that again is where it all begins. And if you can even just spend five minutes a day in a practice of self-honor, granting to yourself all that you need and want, like, don't go looking for it out in the world, it ain't out there. That's not where your work lies. And anything you see on the news, anything you see in the world, that is not you, and do not bother yourself with that.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

That is not you. I just posted a piece on seeking today. It's very interesting. This is coming up. So in my first pilgrimage to India, I went and I was kind of like, you know, I went with a spiritual tradition that I was connected to, and it was all very wonderful, you know, it was curriculum driven and all of that stuff and and what have you. But I kind of knew I was like, I don't really need to go to India to do this deep work. Like that was kind of inside of me, right? We get there, we do the whole thing, and Punjagee led us through all these beautiful things and blah, blah, blah, blah. Three weeks later, we come back, and then I go down to the Himlain Institute in Pennsylvania where their their ashram was. And he said he was talking about just a review of the thing, and he said, You all know you don't need to go to India to have those experiences. And I'm like, exactly, exactly, you know, so it's it's all that's going on in here, you know, and and this is all distraction, but also supporting and and and loving stuff. So it's it's really perspective, right? Yeah, yeah. So tell us, you know, moving into the the the final bits here, how now that you've leveled up, you're in this whole new thing, and what's going on in your life? Like, how are you having fun? Like, what what and fun? I know that's a superficial word, but it doesn't need to be. Like, how do you at this stage kind of like yeah?

SPEAKER_01 50:21

Well, that's a great question. And let me just preface it a little bit by saying anybody who evolves in their consciousness will experience massive loss, but you have to get to the other side because you're like outgrowing all of your friends, your relationships, like everything you've ever been and ever done will no longer suit you. It will no longer feel like some a place you should be hanging out. And so there's a massive, like I just got divorced. I I that was I thought we were gonna be together forever, but I evolved so much that like we just weren't compatible anymore because I was no longer willing to, you know, put up with certain things that were had become total deal breakers. So once you get past that point of you know complete annihilation of everything and everyone you know, like once it's fun, right? Once you get past that part, it it does actually become fun because then you really step into creativity, then you really step into being able to do whatever you want very easily, again, stepping into the slipstream where you don't even have to try, you just set your intention and your consciousness, and you just go through your day floating along. You're like, Oh, I just got into a car wreck. Why did that happen? And then you meet the person who you got into a car wreck with, and you're like, Oh, I was supposed to meet this person totally, yeah. And you stop, you stop criticizing what's happening, you stop having a judgment on that car accident, you stop being annoyed by the fact you just wrecked your car because it was worth it, because you just met that person that came into your life without trying.

SPEAKER_02 52:05

Yeah, and that's the part where it gets really fun, and and and and fun is different. Like, fun isn't about going to the bar and having a bunch of drinks and and and maybe having the best sex of your life and whatever, you know, fun looks different. And and for me at this stage, it just seems like joy is ever present. You know, I can find joy in the simplest things, you know. Uh and it's like, whereas before it was like bitter angry judgment, you know, and it's when when when I used to run yoga training programs, especially the first couple of years when I co-led them with a wonderful teacher, Roxanne Jolly in Ottawa, we would we would tell the folks when they started, okay, so you're gonna do go through this whole winter of training like every weekend for a number of months, right? And we're gonna make you really boring because you're gonna go from this way of living, like peak highs and then peak lows, and then peak highs and then peak lows, to a little bit more like this, right? And so it may look like, to your point, annihilating everything that you don't need to live in drama land. No, like that's really a choice, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:13

It is, and once you gain controls of being able to light your own lights, that you're not looking to anybody else to light your lights, that at any given moment I can just turn on and just light up myself, right? In and of myself on my own say-so, like that's when it gets super fun, because then you get to make different choices because you yourself are so different, and you will again like just have that path like reveal itself to you without trying, without striving, without you know, the usual American stuff that we feel like we have to do. And and I've gotten to this point where I fully understand when life hands you the easy path, take it.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Yeah, and the thing you said about revealing. So I think sometimes this is what I teach a lot is you know, we can be so focused on this is me and this is what I do, and this is how I do it. A door just opened right there that may have changed your fucking life, and you were so focused on this, yeah, and it can be as simple as you're driving, and this thought drops into your head about blah, blah, blah. And it's like, that's interesting, and then you just dismiss it outright because how could that ever be? Well, that could have been your soul or however you want the universe giving you a little nugget, like this can change your life, and we dismiss it, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:33

Just out of the voice of inkling I was talking about earlier, right? In getting into that place of stillness, that when that information drops in, it's not lost on you because you have programmed your mind to look for the voice of inkling and you recognize it really clearly when it comes in. But again, you won't hear it if you're busy, you won't hear it if you're mad, you won't hear it if you're busy in your mind. Right, you will only hear it and be able to decipher it for what it is in a much quieter inhabitants of self.

SPEAKER_02 55:08

Yeah. One of the things we'll be doing here in the future, not on the podcast per se, but in the supporting stuff, is uh practices on how to cultivate stillness because it's so important. So let's um move into the final little section here, which is about wisdom, your wisdom nugget or nuggets. Like you've shared a lot already, but you know, if you're speaking to someone or or you know, just wanting to impart some and to someone who's listening or watching who may be feeling a little bit stuck, maybe feeling a little bit like there's some uncertainty, they're at a crossroads and they're not sure of the next step to take. What's some guidance you might provide? Or if if if when you were in that step, like one of your teachers, like just some words of wisdom.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

Sure. Yeah. So what I always recommend is first and foremost, is to get a teacher, right? You can get there on your own. There's plenty of people who have been self-taught. That is an option. However, if you want to kind of shortcut the process and make it a little bit cleaner and smoother and you know, not so such a crazy path, right? Get in touch with somebody who's been there. Get in touch with somebody who has a light or a spark about them that you that you want to for yourself, right? And spend some time with that person. Now, if you can't get to somebody or you don't know of anybody, or you can't reach either one of us, you know, I would say stop.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

Just stop just stop. Stop, stop doing, stop trying, stop striving, stop, just be still.

SPEAKER_02 57:04

Yeah. I know that sounds like a a truism or cliche, but it's it that's played out time and again in my life. And sometimes the people that show up you don't see as teachers in that moment, but you recognize later, oh my God, I learned so much from that person who wasn't formally a teacher necessarily. Right. But there are people like us who do energy work who do help people, you know, expedite the journey. And that's definitely a good starting point for many of us who aren't aren't too sure.

SPEAKER_01 57:38

Yeah. Yeah. So again, just always keeping in mind that everything you're looking for is on the other side of stillness, and everything you're looking for is all self-granted.

SPEAKER_02 57:49

All right. So this has been brilliant, and I want to share with the folks listening, watching how they can connect to you. So I'm just putting the web address on the screen. So what will they find there?

SPEAKER_01 58:04

Yeah, there's a bit of a blurb on my books and where you can find them on Amazon. There is a little bit about me and my energy work and yeah, just a little bit of my background and what I do, everything from real estate to working in sustainability and prefab housing, uh, which is also a big interest of mine. So, yeah, you can just learn about all of my weird and and everything about the books, and there's it's it's all on there.

SPEAKER_02 58:32

Yeah, it's quite, it's quite. I remember when I visited the first time, I was like, what? Like, holy is this one person or is this an enterprise? He is the Dale Enterprise and the quilts too, right? Like, so lots of good, good stuff there. So, folks, go check it out. You know, I've been blessed. It was one of those things, one of those inklings is your word, where I saw your profile, and and I the first time I looked at it, I'm like, I'd love to reach out to this guy, but he'll never acknowledge me. So why would I? And then a few weeks later, I thought, well, why won't wouldn't I? And then so I just messaged and said, Hey, your website's kind of crazy. I like what you're doing, and you're on the island. Let's meet and and have a conversation. And you're like, sure. Like, what? And then so we got to know each other, so it's been really, really great. And that's how it works, people. Exactly. Yeah. So wonderful. We're gonna wrap this up. Thank you so much for for making time to be here.

SPEAKER_01 59:32

Of course, my pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me.

SPEAKER_02 59:35

You're welcome. And good luck with everything. I mean, it's it's just so exciting to see everything that you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 59:41

Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 59:44

Bye for now.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

Bye.