Shayde the Wise

Claudia sits down with Shayde to explore how welcoming heavy emotions like grief and discomfort can expand our capacity for a truly vibrant, authentic life. Together, they dive into the wisdom of life’s natural cycles, challenging the status quo to envision a world driven by presence, radical freedom, and genuine human connection.

Follow Shayde: https://www.instagram.com/bbshayde/reels/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Protect All Life Podcast. I am joined today by Shade. Shade is protecting life by helping people understand and protect their emotional and spiritual selves in this crazy chaotic world. Shade, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Thank you for having me. It's a treat.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Seriously. When I first came across your page, I was like, wow, this person is putting into words so many things that I have just struggled to be able to put into words. And so I the first thing I want to ask you is, where do you think your wisdom comes from?

SPEAKER_02 0:39

I think a lot of it, well, I I would have to source my mother with a lot of it. That's probably age-old cliche at this point, but I'm I'm a lot like my mom. Um and she I would say she has a lot to do with providing me the container in which I have the capacity and the spaciousness enough to cultivate or pursue and collect wisdom. Um, but I think a lot of my whatever benefit I am to the world really comes from fantasy. Like less like real, real world stuff and a lot of Saturday morning cartoon stuff. Um, I grew up mostly on animation. My mother was protective, we were quite sheltered, so not a lot of live-action TV and film, a lot of Disney. Um I grew up on Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z. I grew up with X-Men the Animated Series, yeah. I grew up with Captain Planet, I grew up with The Last Unicorn, um, A Flight of Dragons, The Animated Hobbit, and The Return of the King from Lord of the Rings. So a lot of that stuff has really informed me. And um I stand ten toes down on the idea that everything that you could need to learn can be found in animation. A lot of the secrets are kept there.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

I love that. That's so fun. Um, in the intro like episode to this show, I brought up the point that everything that's ever been built or like brought into creation was at one time just a fantasy in somebody's mind, right? So I think it's really easy to discredit fantasy and to discredit the imagination as like something that's like child's play when actually that is like the key to creation and all that is.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

What I used to say was fantasy is reality's waiting room. The doctor will see now.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Oh, that is so good. I love that. Um another question for you. So you're really tapped into your emotions, it would seem. And I I'm so excited to talk to you because I just believe that your emotional reality is everything. Like I you could have everything in the world, right? But if you don't feel good inside, like what does it even matter? And I think so many people don't realize this. And then also emotions being kind of the key to reverse engineering the life you want, right? Like if you can like get yourself there emotionally, you can kind of manifest what you want physically. And so, what like what is your take on that? How do you how do you see how would you describe like a the role that emotions play and are meant to play in our lives?

SPEAKER_02 3:32

I think it's both. Um, so basically what you just said, uh, they're they're definitely information. Um, so they tell you which direction you're facing relative to, well, they tell you which direction you're facing, and the quality of your emotion is based upon um what you've selected you you're going to experience. So if I say I prefer to experience um joy and freedom, and if I start feeling anything that feels unpleasant, what that's telling me, the information that that's giving me is that I'm faced away. I'm heading in the opposite direction of the experience of joy and freedom that I have declared that I want to have for myself. So they're that, and it's also what you came here for. So it's both um navigation, GPS, and the whole point. Uh, you came here to feel something. You came for the the thrill for the wonder of the human experience. Which is why I say the sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

No, you go. No, I want to I want to know what you have to say.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

It's why I say that you can reduce everything to the emotion, and you can also just start with the emotion rather than being like, I want my life to look like X, Y, and Z particular tangible thing, like I want a Maserati and a Lamborghini and a house with seven floors. You can reduce that to the emotion that you think those things are gonna give you because that's what you want it for anyway. So, like you said, you can have all the things in the world and still feel empty because what good is it if they're not giving you an emotional response? So you can cut out the middleman and select the emotion that you want to have, and then everything that matches that experience is summoned to you by resonance.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Absolutely. So, emotions as a GPS. Um, if you said I'm setting out on this course, you know, I want to feel joy and happiness, and then you started experiencing something else. Um what would be like your first course of action? Just for people who maybe aren't as familiar with like working with their emotions, um, what's the first thing you would do to kind of address that?

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Um, I would first I would stop. I think so much benefit can be had from pausing um and getting present. It's the faster you're moving, generally speaking, the more challenging it becomes to be present, and all life is happening in the present moment. All the information you will ever, could ever need is for you, is wait, it's here for you in the present moment. So I would advise that you pause and just notice how you're feeling, where it lives in your body. Um, I think it's really helpful to catalog that information, whether you're a journaler or a you know, a voice note person, any way that you can take note of that so that you can have it to come back to in the future uh can be really helpful. Um and then I would just ask myself, uh if I'm if I'm not feeling the way that I want to feel, like how can I, what happens when I move this way? Like what happens when I shift my attention? And also what is this trying to tell me? Because there's like discomfort is is a it's a general term, right? Anger could qualify as discomfort, fear, pain, jealousy, sorrow, all of those things. Um so if it's if it's anything other than what you've selected you're going to experience, I would yeah, I would pause and ask yourself what it's what it's trying to tell you.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Yeah. I've I've been kind of obsessing lately over why, like, why this? It just behind everything. Why that? Why do I feel this way? Why is this happening? Why am I doing this? And I I think that's a question that we don't ask ourselves enough. Um, and there's there is so much information to be had. Like you're saying, um, if you slow down and pause and are comfortable with like some silence, that that will that information will come to you, right? It's like it it is there in the present moment. And I think we are so used to like go, go, go, and having like music on and TikTok on and distractions that we're not um even like available to let that information in. But the the why is so important to our lives.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Yep. The why, um, I would say to what end is is usually the question that I that I'll ask. Like, to what end am I feeling this? And if I want to do something in particular about it, to what end? Which is just another way of saying why. What do I want out of this experience? Why do I, why, why?

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah, maybe a more eloquent way of saying it. No, I knew your other um, the other point you made that you know, we're here to experience um to experience our emotions and to have these experiences. It reminds me of something you said that I love so much, which is to to live is to be vulnerable. Um, like, wow, you blew me away with that. I've always felt that way, but then you like hit the nail on the head. How did you arrive at this realization? And can you expand on that thought and like what it means to you and how other people could be able to understand it too?

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Yeah, I think a lot of my arrival at that particular verbiage can be credited to the time that I've spent with Britt LaRue, who you might know about on Instagram. She is, how does she build herself? I think as a mystic who speaks the language of astrology. So she's she's very much known for the work that she does in the realm of astrology. Um, and she works a lot with shame. And so I've been in her field since 2020, late 2023, early 2024, right? I think. What what is time? Um yeah, and so moving through discussions about shame um has led to the uncovering of the con the I the notion that underneath the shame is grief. Uh I shame is a this is how I term shame, is a desperate bid for protection from the uh grief that there is no escape from discomfort. Everything you do is, well, I shouldn't say everything, but for most people in the 21st century, um, life has become organized around the resistance of discomfort. Uh and that's like it's anti-life. Uh and I got there by just asking, basically asking why. If you ask why enough, the it leads you to the bigger or deeper questions and then the bigger or deeper answers. So, like, why are we all doing this? Why are we all, why does everyone hate shame? Why does everyone hate discomfort? Why like why, why, why, why, why? Um so yeah, you can't have um, you can't have life without vulnerability. Uh because there's risk involved in being alive. Uh, you what I say is that everyone is God playing human. You've um you've left behind the everything, everywhere, all at once awareness to experience a finite life as a human being, or you know, a squirrel, a rock, whatever you whatever you've chosen to become. And so in there is the potential for things like pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow. Like you can't have one. Everyone, everyone's always saying this. You can't have pain without pleasure, you can't have joy without sorrow. So there's always risk involved. If you want the payoff, you have to enter into the contract that allows for you to possibly have the unpleasant experience. So if you're gonna remove the unpleasant experience, then you're not really doing life. You're in suspended animation, you're in a sort of half-life, like a wraith. I I like to refer things back to the Lord of the Rings a lot. So you'd be a Nazgul, you'll be run of the one of the ring raids, neither living nor dead. I feel like that was not very concise. I just really tangented.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

That was beautiful, and you like expanded on that so much more. You went into so many more like corners that than I even thought. Um, first of all, you're saying like with life there is risk. Oh my god, yes. I think about sometimes when I'm feeling sorry for myself, I'm like, why is it so hard? And then I'm like, oh well, if you were alive like, you know, 10,000 years ago, like you would like, you know, break your leg and die because there's no like right, like it's way easier than that. Like, but this has never been designed as something that like wasn't dangerous and uncomfortable, like you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Yeah, it's the that's the thrill. The feeling of aliveness is what you actually come here for. And so, like you said, thousands, millions of years ago, when you could break your leg and die because there's no anesthesia, there's no medication, that that's it for you. That's a certain kind of thrill. Um, because that's been taken off the table with advancement, technological advancement as we've gone on and evolved. Um there are other ways that you can experience thrill, right? Like before we weren't flying in the sky and moving submarines that were a mile in the clouds. You know what I mean? Now that's another way that we could lose our lives and be screwed. Um and it's all from from you know, from the very zoomed out perspective, from the source, the all that is, the god, the universe, whatever you term you'd like to use, from that perspective, all of these experiences are worth having because they're all thrilling in their own ways. So things I think get um they get more unfun, uh, and you lose the plot the further you go from remembering and being aware of the fact that you came here for all of that thrill.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Yeah, and we are so removed from discomfort, from from like being okay with feeling discomfort, right? And I think even more so in the West. Um What are your thoughts on kind of how we broke away from that when it happened, like the trajectory we trajectory that we're on? I think your comparison to I I'm not that familiar with Lord of the Rings. I do love the movies, but I don't know all the I'm bad with like lingo. But a half-life, like, yes, you are living half your life when you're just trying to be comfortable all the time, right? I think that's and I think so many people are experiencing that these days.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

So I think you well, I don't know exactly half how far back you can trace it, but you can definitely trace it back to colonialism and the advent of empire and things like racism and institutionalized misogyny, which takes us back millennia, right? But a group of people decided to come together and concoct a collection of schemes to make it so that they wouldn't have to um be with discomfort. If we convince everyone on the planet that anyone who doesn't look like us is born with the duty of shouldering discomfort, shouldering discomfort, and then everyone who does look like us is born with the duty of not shouldering discomfort, then we don't ever have to do discomfort again. We don't have to, you know, go out and work in the field. We don't have to um none of those things, just none of those things. But like we've said, there is no life without discomfort. So in order to do that, you have to move yourself away from connection with the land, natural cycles, the elements. Um, what you're really doing is moving yourself away from death because anyone who doesn't want to do discomfort is terrified of death. They're terrified of endings. Death is a big, it's like one of the big bads in terms of discomfort. So systems of oppression are running spells of suspended animation. I don't know how conscious of that they are, but anytime you're trying to evade death, you are in suspended animation because life is not the opposite of death, birth is the opposite of death. Life is a joint operation between birth and death. So if you're only doing half the equation, you're not completing the equation, so you're not truly alive. So that's that's what happened. We've all been um they've sucked, they've attempted to suck the rest of humanity into a suspended animation modality with them. Because the more you are alive, um, the less they can feed on you, and then they have no they have no power source. So now things are the pendulum swinging back in the other direction as more people become more alive by way of being more uh having more capacity for discomfort and thus death.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Yeah, the pendulum do be swinging.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Um swinging hard.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Question. I'm pretty scared. Um question for you. Do you practice making yourself uncomfortable or like what um what strategies do you have? I mean, because I think it's a natural thing, right? Like no shade, no shade to anybody that um that is uncomfortable being uncomfortable. I think that's a very natural reaction. And we also haven't been taught how to do it, and it's totally like frowned upon. Um, so it's something that you have to kind of discover on your own and then take on on your own and develop your own techniques and educate yourself on. Do you have any strategies or skills around that? Or um how do you apply it to yourself and your life?

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yeah, I would like to say I don't actually think it's natural to resist discomfort. I think it's normal, which is basically just another word for common. It's become common, it's been normalized. But I think the closer you are to your indigenity, the less that is true. Um, you have things like fear responses, like your fight or flight responses are there to uh facilitate your survival. Um, but fear is only a kind of discomfort. Uh, fear that facilitates survival is not the same as any old discomfort. Um I think discomfort is useful. Fear is useful. Anything discomfort is useful because it's all information that's it's helping you to enhance your experience. So there's that. And then to answer your question, I don't practice being uncomfortable. I don't necessarily I wouldn't say that. I love comfort, I love good feelings. Um, but I don't resist them. So I don't, I don't seek them out. I'm not like, ooh, let me go feel uncomfortable directly. Um, but when it shows up, I'm not like, ooh, run away, run away, like bury it, shove it in the closet, don't look at it. Um, I might have that knee-jerk reaction, but I take a deep breath and either be with it immediately or come back to it later because I know that if I don't, it's gonna bite me in the ass and I'm not here for that. Um but I have uh death rituals and grief practices because um death and grief are I would say the big bads in come in terms of discomfort. Um so the more you are in a intimate, the more you are in an intimate relationship with death and grief, the more you are in an intimate relationship with discomfort. And um that makes it so that when discomfort arrives like out of nowhere, you're less likely to have that knee-jerk, runaway, resist reaction. And then even if you do, it helps you to close the gap between the time that you resist and then come back. So um it doesn't have to be anything big or like fancy in terms of rituals. Mine, mine aren't. Mine's really just spoken words. I'll just say a few, I'll say a few words and and that'll be that'll be it. Um, I like to do them at night. I like death and night and darkness for discomfort, it just works for me. So I'll say uh what is done may what is done may die, what is dead may go. You light a candle, blow it out, and then you're I mean you do it with intention, right? You don't just go through the motions, and then it's over.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

That's so good. Um, okay, I have so many thoughts. I was just listening to somebody talk about how ritual is really important for human beings to create change because that's how we've done it for thousands of years, right? It's like it tells your brain, like, okay, now we're changing. Um so you're you're doing this ritual um just to deal with like grief around not necessarily people that have died, but just things that upset you in life or things you have to let go. Over like losses that you feel, is that right?

SPEAKER_02 22:02

I do it not even specifically for anything. Um that's I don't do it for anything in particular. That's a better way to structure that sentence. Um I just, you know, like when I'm in my bag, because I'm not always doing this every night. I have been slacking, I should do it soon. Um, it's really just to keep me like stepping in time to the rhythm of death, which is the rhythm of life. Um so that it just keeps me in touch with that natural process. So that when something uncomfortable shows up, it's not the process of moving with it isn't foreign. It's not like, I don't know what I'm doing here. This is terrifying. It's like, oh, I was just talking to her last night, I know what to do here. Um, I would also say that death and grief are, well, grief in particular, is a it's a metabolization of information. Um, and that's what I mean, that's what life is. Um, discomfort arrives when the information in front of you is too foreign for you to readily make sense of, which is why people run from it. Um, but you, in order to not meet your demise, you have to return and find a way to process it. So grief is a processor. It's like the processor for uncomfortable things. If you're doing grief, it means you're doing you're processing something uncomfortable. So anytime you can conjure that energy and be with it, like out of the direct stimulus, in essentially a safe environment, is really gonna benefit you. It's like the difference between taking your driver's license cold, like without ever practicing driving, going for your driver's license test, or like spending a month practicing with your parents behind the wheel. You might be fine. I don't know about you, but I'm not, I wouldn't advise that.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Yeah, absolutely. Um, well, I I mean, let's talk about death. I think it's interesting that we are so far removed from the process of death. Um, like, you know, for millennia, you would have seen your loved ones' bodies up close and personal, prepared them for the afterlife or to be buried, um, had, you know, all kinds of rituals, ceremonies. Like your life would have revolved around their body for a couple of days, right? And it's um it's obvious, it's more comfortable, right? To not have to deal with that. Um, I've I've had a lot of experiences with death recently. I went from having like none for so long to just like a ton all at once. I lost my stepdad. He died in our home. And then we, you know, we called someone, they came and got him and took him away. Um, and I I also lost my dad um after that, who I was incredibly close to. And that has been very hard. It is, it is definitely um like a the informational part that you're saying. Like having to, I think the the information that came through was like, I have to, I have to deal with never seeing him again forever.

unknown 25:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

That's so uncomfortable. Yeah, that is so uncomfortable. And then um, I also was counseling a friend um who lost her dad, and I and she was just like, I don't know how I'm ever gonna deal with this. And I was like, this is the most natural part of life. Yeah, like humans have been doing this forever, you know. This is this is totally it. And so I mean, what you're saying is spot on. It definitely is contributing to how disconnected we are.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Yeah, and it's I think it helps to hear that it's intentional. The people who want you dominated know that distancing you from um the death process and the death work really hinders your ability to flourish and thrive. Like you're like, we're at the point where you couldn't have prepared your stepfather or your father's uh body for funerary anything because no, like that's been sectioned off. Like you have to specialize in that. What like when you're like you're saying, once upon a time, people were much closer to all of that portion of life, and now only people who go to school or like um mentor for embalming and all that stuff do that, and and you don't come in until that's all done. Um, and so yeah, like you we've been siloed, grief has really been siloed, and I would credit my friend Leah Roberts um with bringing this to my attention who I met through Britton LaRue's faces. Um, one of the things that she said to me in 2024, terrible that I I think it was 2024, was um there's a reason that they don't want us to be grieving together. Like if if the powers that be the evil folks are trying to dissuade you from doing something, it's probably because it could undo their power structures. So the fact that we've all been really discouraged from talking about grief together is no small thing. Um, and it really, in addition to keeping us oppressed, it also just makes things like dealing, processing with the death of a loved one much more challenging for the people who have lost someone. It's really shitty, but the word that comes to mind is unfair. It's really unfair. It makes me really sad for like angry cry for you.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Well, well, it's it's an odd experience to have in this day and age for sure. Um, I think a lot of people, yeah, just think this is the end of me. Like I can't, I can't possibly go on. And then also I think there's an added layer of like that capitalism will crush you. Like, because you're a lot of times you're losing a provider for your household. You are losing um you need to take time away from work. Like I can't imagine if you're in a situation where you you know you're an hourly worker and like you just aren't gonna get paid for your time grieving. Um, I think those are intentional choices as well.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Absolutely. And that in particular, the like I have to really budget my time. Budget my grief is that's crazy work, but it's real. And even when you do a lot yourself, however much time that you do, it keeps you from being able to fully drop into the grief experience because the tab is open in your mind that you gotta like make the most of this and wrap it up so you can get back to work and survive, which is just effed. So yeah, it's it's hard. Um something that I would like more people to know is that well, I suppose I shouldn't say that because I think people who are actively grieving, especially the death of a loved one, I think they do come to know, but it's not just them that dies, it's a part of you that dies. Um it it takes away from you the person you thought you were going to be. Like I've been telling the story of me with a dad and a stepdad, and all of a sudden I can't tell that story anymore. It's kind of it's robbed from you. Robbed isn't quite the right way to put it because this is a natural part of life, but it I'm sure it feels that way. Like no one warned me that this was coming. And in many situations, people die suddenly. And so it's like I had no, I had no time to process, and now it's thrust upon me all at once, which is another byproduct of people not regularly making contact with the concept of death and grief.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's very true. Um I I feel like I've adjusted really well to grief because I have always been scared of being kicked in the ass. So I like have a rule that I just like don't lie to myself about my feelings. And I also have this theory that um if I am lying to myself, my leg will twitch. So there's like a little tell, you know, like I'll have a thought and my leg will twitch, and I'm like, that's not the truth, Claudia. Um I love that. Yeah, so I it's I mean, it's like it's just great built in, you know, but I um I'm just like you have to work through it. You gotta work, you have to, you have to go through everything, every single step. And I honestly think like there is so much beauty in that work. Like I don't enjoy grieving, but there's like there's beauty in like the truth, and there's beauty in going through the motions and just being vulnerable, like living it, you know, like this is what it is.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Yeah. I I'll often say, do whatever feels right and good to you, because not all things feel good per se. Not all things feel pleasurable, like squarely pleasurable, but some of the things that you kind of want to say feel good, you want to say that because they feel right. And I think it feels right to honor wherever you are at emotionally, and particularly when that is grief and sorrow. And I also think the hard things, emotionally challenging things, um, they're not as awful when you have capacity for them. Um, which is often a matter of having a support system around you. I like to conceptualize it as um real estate, right? If the grief that you're feeling is one acre and you only have 1.25 acres of land to your name, that's gonna feel overwhelming. But if you increase the size of your real estate to like 10 acres, the grief hasn't changed. You've zoomed out enough to realize that you're actually bigger than the grief. And oftentimes that comes through friends, family, um, professionals basically annexing their real estate to yours so that you can feel that extra capacity. And then the grief is, you know, still awful, but it's not like, oh, I can't do this. It's just that was rough.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah. I also think um on capacity. Well, I'm uh I'm kind of like recovering from like crunchy life. I am like I I will always be like organic queen over here, but um realizing that it's that's not like what is greater than that is joy. Like and joy builds capacity. Um and so like pouring that into yourself can really help. And to be perfectly honest with you, my dad took his life. So post that um it was like, well, I can't fall into like the trap of his his train of thought, you know? So I like it, it was kind of a gift in that it was like lit a fire under me. Like I have to be so serious about my mental health. Otherwise, I have this just like terrible example, like black hole of grief that could just like suck me down into it so hard. And so a lot of times it was like you need to eat something, like you need to go outside and get some sun on your face, and then like all of a sudden, so much more capacity to deal with it. And so, yeah, the last like a couple years, that was four years ago. So the last couple years of my life have been really playing around with like, how do I balance like my physical needs? And then also coming to the point of like it I I, you know, when I first started my spiritual journey, I believed this, and then I got like more into the physical, and now I'm like back to the beginning where it's like it does start in the mind, it does start in your heart, it does start with your emotions, like the physical stuff is important, but um, you it really starts with like what you're believing and what you're thinking, and and those types of things. So I've I've come full circle back to that and had amazing experiences physically, just kind of realigning with that truth.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

Yeah. I think it often happens that way. You have to let you, it's you get what you can out of the like one part of the truth and then move on to the next part of the truth. And then when you come back, it's like now you're integrating both parts or both halves or whatever it is. There's something really delightful about that. In the moment of your transition from like, no, it's this way to no, it's that way, it's like, whoa, fuck, I'm starting all over again. Um, but then afterwards, you're like, oh, this is awesome. It's really, if you can make it to that point, it's really nice. It's also really relieving. Like, I didn't just waste all that time.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Yeah, I got stuck in the oh fuck, I'm starting all over again for so many years.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Right? Of just like, oh, like you idiot, like back to the spot, just like circling around. And and yeah, finally with like, okay, this is the path, like calm down.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Yeah, yeah. It's uh there's a lot of surrender involved.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

A lot of like throwing up your hands, like, that's it, I'm not trying anymore. I don't care if there's more information, I'm just stopping here.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

And then you and that's when it works.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Too is when you like surrender, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Yeah. You kind of have to have your fuck it moment.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I try to remember that when shit hits the band for sure. Yeah. Um what how like how did you begin to understand grief like this?

SPEAKER_02 36:26

How did I begin to understand grief like this? I mean, the seed was definitely planted by my friend Leo Roberts that I mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Um I've had a relationship with grief in one form or another since as long as I can remember. Um, my mom had her own like like acute personal experiences with grief. Me, like my own life experiences haven't included a lot of grief, but my um proximity to it through my mother has been so like I really credit that as my my um chief uh privilege. I've got other kinds of privilege, but the most impactful privilege is my proximity to um discomfort, specifically grief and sorrow. So she's got um abandonment stuff that has happened to her in her early childhood. Um, and she and I are so similar in so many ways. Um but yeah, like the the fantasy media that I listed in the beginning of our conversation, like The Last Unicorn and X-Men, my um my favorite character from X-Men is Gene Gray, the Phoenix. And so her whole story is that she's always dying and having to say goodbye to her loved ones and sacrificing herself for the future, blah blah blah. So like I've always been drawn to characters who are doing the the sorrow shtick. It just has always moved me. And I think because I'm close enough to it without being too close, um, and I have enough distance without being too far away, that I'm not, you know, I'm not doing the I'm so overwhelmed by it, and I'm also not doing the I don't care about anyone who's suffering. Um, it's afforded me the opportunity to really walk with her and keep her really close. Like I I love sorrow. I just it's beautiful. Um, but that's a very privileged take to be able to have. So I like to name that whenever I'm talking about my relationship with grief. Um but I think 2025 is when I really like kick down the the door, I guess we could say. Um, not because I was looking to enter into a deeper relationship with grief, but because I was looking to put my money where my mouth was in terms of death and being the bitch that I say. I'm always saying I really would rather die. You know that um the memes that have been going around for a while now. Um born to live the life of a fairy princess, forced to work a nine to five, right? Mine would be born to do whatever I want, forced to nothing, bitch, I'd rather die. So, right? So either you are that girl or you're not that girl. And if you're really that girl, then don't continue working for Uber Eats just because it's convenient when it's not actually what you want to do. So I had to put down all of the, I mean I didn't have to, but I decided to put down all the things that I was doing that were convenient, specifically when it comes to finances, and just step into, I guess we're gonna fuck around and find out. So I went to visit my friend in the first quarter. I don't really speak that way. I don't know why I'm saying that. Um March, April of 2025. I went to visit my friend. Um, 15 hours in the car there, 15 hours in the car back, and I did not have enough money to in my bank account to drive to make the drive back, the 15 hours back. I had like 20, 40 bucks in my wallet, and that's not gonna get you 15 hours worth of gas. So I had the opportunity to just like spend half of my stay with my friend doing Uber Eats or whatever else to make some money. But I was like, I'm not gonna do that because I'm serious. So um, by sending that version of me, the version of me who prioritizes convenience over fulfillment through the portal, like allowing that version of me to die, the version of me that was going to sustain this new paradigm was able to show up more fully. And I showed up for myself in other ways. Um, I was still doing, I was still giving uh tarot readings, card readings for people at that time. So I um hopped into my WhatsApp group with some of my mystical friends and was like, hey, does anybody want a reading? Because I'm in the market, and someone was like, Yeah, I'd love a reading, and they paid me and I got enough money to drive back from my friend's house to where I currently live. So that was when things really began in earnest, and I started working more um well, the information just came to me in the way that it's now sitting in me, in terms of death, and death leads to grief. So that's that's that.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Yes, it is um, it is so like that. You have to take the opportunity that you're given. And you have to recognize that it's an opportunity too, right? And that yeah, most challenges are.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

Yeah, there is a fork in the road. It's uh it's a hicate moment for anyone who's into Greek mythology or well, not just Greek mythology, mythology, archetypes, astrology. Hecate is the one of the archetypes that deals with the crossroads. So you're gonna go left, you're gonna go right, you're gonna go straight, what are you gonna do? And I said, we're going down to the underworld.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

So yeah, it's a major theme in your life. Grief and sorrow.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

Grief and death and sorrow. I love them.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Oh, that's so cool. Um, I want to touch on one other thing about death before we move on. I like I consider myself a really spiritual person, but I've never been like in the other side in the underworld, like you're saying, you know, like I don't want to see a ghost. I don't want to know. Like, don't fight me with that stuff, you know? So, but then once I had lost people, um, it felt like that just opened. Like, and I I still think I resist it. And I think that I do that because like I have to do that to live. Like, I like I would maybe be too much information for me, or I'm not there in my grief process yet to be able to accept it. Um but I'm I'm very curious about that side of life, about spirituality. I think, you know, I get signs from like my dad that are so obvious. And then I'm like, but why can't he just like aberrate at the same time? So like you just as a as a spirit, I don't think you can affect affect, I know, I don't think you can affect life on earth in that way, right? Like it's all very behind the scenes. Um, and I'm yeah, I'm curious. I I'm I like and like flirting with the idea of like exploring that more, but what do you know about that and what do you think about it?

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Yeah, it's it's very interesting. I love hearing that you're interested. Um, I that's not my lane. Like spirit mediumship and um conversing with people from other realms directly is not my lane. I have some people who do specialize in that, and I have some, I shouldn't say have, like I keep them on retainer, they're my they're my friends and colleagues. Um and I know some people who Don't necessarily specialize in that, but the the capacity, the gift uh is alive in them. Um, and it's a doozy, and I'm not particularly interested in having that doozy paradigm in my life, so I also don't go looking for it. Um so I yeah, I don't um I don't have a lot of thoughts and opinions because I don't have direct experience and I don't feel like it would be a little uh um presumptuous for me to be like this is real and that's not real on this subject. Um but I've had like I've received readings from people who have um said things to me uh that they've received from some people in my lineage who are dead that they shouldn't have known. So right? So yeah, it's there.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

Yeah, that's interesting. You kind of feel the same way I do about it. I I feel like maybe what it is is like that's either for you or it's not, right? Like it seems like if you're involved in the other side, it's like it's kind of an all-consuming, like it's a lifestyle.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

I think I think it's closer to that, yeah. And I think um it's a sacred, it's a really sacred position, I feel, to be the person who is like the go between between realms um is not a like thing. So yeah, I think if you're it's not for dabbling. I don't think it's for dabbling. I wouldn't say it's wise to dabble, and especially if you subscribe to the idea that certain people are chosen to be to hold that position. They're not like that realm's not gonna choose you if you're gonna dabble in play games. Like it's because that's not beneficial to anyone. So the people that I know who do have the gifts and are in that life, um, they do take it very seriously. And yeah, one person in particular like has I don't know if I want to say they've given their life over to that particularly, but they've given their life over to spirit. So they're very led. Um they check in before they do anything. Um they're they're very serious about it, and they're the real deal. Like, I have all the respect in the world for them. So I think you're right.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Yeah, that's incredible. Um, okay, I'm gonna shift gears for a little bit here. Um, we talked a little bit before I started recording about um something you said, which is you cannot get to any new way of being by working exclusively with the current status quo. I love this quote. You said it in such a different way than I have thought it in my head, and it's beautiful. And it's literally the purpose of this podcast. Um, so I want to ask you like, what do you think people should be imagining today? And I know should is a tricky word because we don't want to like push anything on anyone, but what kinds of things can we imagine today to create a better world or a better life? Like, what have you found in exploring that topic?

SPEAKER_02 47:11

I think it's very relative. It depends on what your definition of a better world is. Um, and I would probably simplify that to what is what is the world that that you like? What and I would simplify that further to what emotions and sensations do you prefer to experience? Locate that information, and then you turn your attention towards those things and keep it there as consistently as you can. Um, and that starts to populate the things like tangible, discernible experiences that are a match to the that emotional signature, um, they populate in your life. So, whatever that is, um you like you, it's not the kind of thing that you need to have all figured out. Um, I have a reel that's in which I say, uh, every time I go to do that, it like the information leaves me because it feels so weird for me to like, in my reel, per my last reel. Um what do I say? Oh, um, miracle requires mystery. If you want things to turn out really nicely for you in a miraculous way, you have to be willing to live in mystery. You don't, you're you're infinitesimally small in the grand scheme of things. So what your mind is aware of is laughable. Sorry. Um yeah. And that's okay. It doesn't need to be anywhere close to the whole picture. You don't even want it to be because that would be boring. Um, the thrill of not knowing and then finding out is what you came here for. So um your your your work is to locate what you want to feel and do that, and then sit back and maybe not sit back, but uh untense and enjoy as things delightfully surprise you as they show up as a match to those feelings.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

Yeah, I think that's spot on. And and too, I think imagining things can be as literal as um, like we were talking about before, the um the animated movies. Like you can create that in your head, right? It doesn't have to look sometimes. I have a hard time dropping into maybe um trying to manifest or or be like woo-woo in some way, because I feel um pretentious at like with the you know what I mean? But it can literally be like a little cartoon you play for yourself in your head. It doesn't have to be um like witchy sounding or fancy even. It can just be something very literal.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

If it feels the way you want to feel, then you're doing the assignment.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Yeah. Um what kind of world do you want to see?

SPEAKER_02 50:02

I love delight. I like delight, I like delightful surprise. Um, I'm very beauty-oriented, so I love opulence. Um, there was a time a few years ago when I was like the stuff that was on my Instagram feed was giving very much 80s opulence. So like uh velvet, um, like velvet walls. It was really, I don't know if that's necessarily my aesthetic, but it was like, oh, this is like plush, and it was just, you know, 80s was the time of more is better, greed is good. Not, you know, that's that ethic isn't my preference. Um, but it was a time of real, at least visually looks-wise, opulence, and I really like that. So that's the kind of world that I I like to live in. Um freedom is huge for me. I'm an Aquarius, my son is in Aquarius, my Venus is in Aquarius. For anyone who's familiar with astrology, that means a lot of that means freedom. Um what else?

SPEAKER_00 51:09

Do you have any thoughts on our social structures? Like how you how we might um create more equity and fairness.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

Yeah. Um how we might create more equity and more fairness. Well, I would like the easy answer to that is to get rid of capitalism. Soup's ease. Um super easy to do that. Um yeah, because like I like a marketplace. That's fun. Like trading and like seeing who's like what's what's hot right now and who's interested in what. That's fun. A marketplace can be really fun and delightfully surprising. Um, but I think a lot of people conflate capitalism with marketplace, and that's not like capitalism is not exclusively marketplace. There's more to capitalism than that. Capitalism is basically how to scam people, but that's another conversation. So you can do marketplace, you can do trading. Um, and a lot of this I think would point us back to indigenous ways of being. Um am I like super interested in money? Am I super interested in like garnering funds? Not really. Not certainly not for the sake of it. Um, so I would rather a situation where I show up with what I've made and I can give you, like I've located, I've determined what I can give while also keeping myself sustained. Um, and I'm also not interested in survival. Like I'm not a squirrel. I'm here to flourish and thrive, not just survive. So, my my cutoff point would be I'll give you to the point that I can still flourish and thrive. And I would design a society that functions that way. Like the codes of conduct, all of that stuff, uh it would be written in there that we're all functioning that way. Uh you show up with what you've made, I show up with what I've made, you give what you can, I give what I can, and then everyone just everyone just is good. Um yeah, I bring things back to the idea that society and civilization is really just an extended version of you and your friends creating a fan club.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:33

Like if we all love Barbie, then we all love Barbie and we're all here for Barbie. So if someone who someone joins our fan club and then they're like, you know what? I actually don't like Barbie. We wouldn't put them in prison. We wouldn't like trap them in the Barbie fan club and be like, well, you screwed up, now you're in jail for the rest of your life, and you have to make our jelly, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the fan club meetings. We wouldn't do that. We'd be like, okay, go by. Um the fan the Ken fan club is over there. Enjoy. So there wouldn't be like we wouldn't be policing people, we wouldn't be doing anything punitive. I I'm not interested in um I'm not interested in coercion and enforcement. I'm interested in resonance. And I do believe that there's like the world is large, there is in fact plenty of space for everyone to be in their in their own resonant um places. Uh like sheep and wolves don't live together. I'm not a kumbaya girl. So I would never be like, let's create a place for everyone, because that's it's just not the gig. The place where everyone is the planet, it's not like one neighborhood or one nation or one country or state. Um like figure out what you like and then go be where those other people are.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

I would live in that world. What you described was delightful, I will say. And I I think I think that we're headed that way. I'm very hopeful that we are, that like everybody is gonna get to operate in their genius. I I think that it is so deadening to the soul to have to, like you're saying, coercion, to have to do things that you don't want to do.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

It is, yeah. Where a lot of people will take that is well, what do you what do you think would happen if everyone just did what they wanted? And I'm always like, you really thought you ate with that. That's if everyone did what they wanted in the very beginning, things would be chaotic because people have been so distanced from authenticity, and there are a lot of people are on their vengeance timeline, which is perfectly understandable. So there would be chaos, and then sooner than you think after that, we would reach an exponentially more peaceful situation than we've seen for millennia. Because the fact of the matter is we are Homo sapiens, we are biologically evolved to enjoy community care. We have mirror neurons. When I see you suffering, it doesn't feel good. So, like we're all selfish and communal at the same time. There's no escaping, it's the same thing because of the way that we're engineered. My selfishness, when I'm actually being selfish, I'm being communal at the same time. People think selfishness actually doesn't serve the community, but it does. The people who are hurting community are just bad at being selfish because they've been so distanced from knowing what authentically serves them.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

Yes, it's um like the greatest thing I can do for you is take care of myself. It's that paradox. Yeah. Um I also think like if everyone did what they wanted, it would be chaos. I I hate this perspective that's pushed on us that like we're dumb and we're no good and we don't know how to conduct ourselves. And like that is a total lie. Like, there is so much goodness and humanity in people. And the idea that like we can't control ourselves, or we're gonna run them up, or we can't be trusted. It reminds me of being a kid too. Like, I feel like that's the that was the overarching message of the institution when you're a kid is like you can't be trusted. Right. You you and then you don't trust yourself too, right?

SPEAKER_02 57:25

Yes, yeah. It's so we're so damaged from so young. I mean, before childhood, we're damaged in the womb because you're receiving that message from gestation point. But yeah, I fully agree with you. Um your agency is stripped from you at such a young age, and you're the the idea that I mean I don't no notes. You said it. You can't be trusted.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

You said it. No notes. Um I we should wrap up. I know we're getting close to time. I want to touch on one last thing that's kind of kind of ties into what we're talking about here. Um something you said in your reel. Kindness is a revolutionary act. It is, it is. I also think kindness is the highest form of intelligence. Um I also wanted to add, have you heard of Bashar, the alien? Do you know?

SPEAKER_02 58:16

I don't know why I've heard that sounds familiar as though I just saw something on Instagram about that.

SPEAKER_00 58:22

Tell me more. So um Bashar is an alien supposedly channeled by Daryl Anka. Um, so you see him, he's like he wears Hawaiian shirts and his eyes are closed and he's uh balding, I think, and um he speaks really fast. Um and so his clips will go viral. And he's he's you know, I'm curious. I don't, I don't know exactly what to think, but um, he's channeling information from the alien and and you know, ask questions about um what is what's the future like or what's your world like, you know, what's the history of the universe, these types of things. And one thing that comes through is like, well, in our civilization, the alien civilization that Bashar lives in, we um just don't do bad things because they don't feel good.

SPEAKER_02 59:10

It's just that's right.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

Yeah. And so I do, and then one thing I've always thought about aliens too is like if you're an alien and you have the technology to be like spying on us that um we don't have. So you're obviously more involved than we are. Yes, you would also be able to tell that like we're not being very nice to each other and you probably wouldn't want to get involved, right? So therefore, like kindness is like the next step in in evolution, the next step of us going out into outer space, like it's a it's everything. And I do think that we're part of our like um civilization and the the way that we have been able to evolve greater comforts and things does allow us to be more kind, I think in some ways, you know, like we we don't have to fear for survival as much, and so then we have a little bit more brain power to give to kindness. Um but I I think that that is kind of the key to like the next step for us. What do you think about it?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

I would say I think um maybe acceptance supersedes kindness. I think kindness is like an indicator of where you are on the acceptance spectrum. The ability to be with whatever is, whatever's in front of you. Um I had thought about this in the brief that you sent me, which was great, by the way. Thank you. Such good questions. I was like, ooh, these are good. Um I think everything is a story. Um when people say uh don't play God, I'm always like, You're you can't play God, you are God, you're playing human. So everything that you're doing as an individuated consciousness is God playing a role. It's God telling some story for the shits and giggles, for the hell of it all, for the wonder of it all. And that applies to everything. From that perspective, all experiences are worth any experience is worth experiencing, any story is worth telling. Even the ones that don't feel good, even evil is worth spending time with. And so when you reach the point where you can look, I guess, evil in the face and be like, I don't, I don't prefer this per se, but I I can see the magnificence in this. Like I can see that this is God the same way that I am God. This is the universe the same way that I am the universe. It's just chosen to play a different role, and there's beauty in every role that everything is playing. Um, I think that can can, though it doesn't necessarily facilitate your ability to be kind in the face of anything. Um, I think the more that awareness lives in you, the idea that everything is just a story, I think the more likely you are to be kind more often. So I I think, yeah, I'd say those are my thoughts. But I love the idea that Bashar's alien civilization is just like we don't do, we don't do mean things because they don't feel good. And I do, yeah, I think that is an indicator of a certain point on the on the evolutionary chain. I think I do think that's what happens when everybody just permissions themselves to do what they want. After a certain point, vengeance doesn't feel good anymore. Like clapping back doesn't feel good anymore. You know what I mean? I do think that at a certain point you might probably swing back around.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:50

To what?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:50

Because to um the messiness that is akin to the things that like where we are currently. If you're doing kindness for like a billion eons, you might be like, I haven't done the main thing in forever. I don't even remember what that feels like. Is that fun? And then you might try, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

Maybe maybe that's where we're at right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:16

Everything's a circle.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it really is. Well, I think this is a beautiful place to leave things. Um, I'm sorry we didn't get to all the questions. I just feel like so much lighter after talking to you. I feel like you just felt so much wisdom. Thank you for coming on and bringing it. And I feel like everything you said was just mic drop beautiful. So I'm really, really grateful. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

Thank you. It was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

Seriously, all mine.