Bridget Finklaire- The Bone Circle

Bridget Finklaire is an author and spiritual teacher. We had a wide-ranging discussion as she has a wealth of knowledge to share that comes from years of experience. She's a wealth of knowledge. I started with six pages of notes and we only got to about half of what I wanted to talk to her about in our hour together.

Bridget is originally from the UK and lived in London for many years before moving to Cape Town, South Africa. She is a qualified and experienced psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and healer, and used to work in London's Harley Street.

Since 1995, Bridget has been on a journey of spiritual awakening. She's studied and taught many spiritual, metaphysical, and personal development teachings and explored different techniques – from meditation to yoga and from chanting to prayer. She currently facilitates a study group for The Book of Knowledge, The Keys of Enoch (r) by Dr. JJ Hurtak.

In 2012, Bridget began coaching people to create their lives 'on purpose' - purposefully and according to their soul's purpose. In 2018, she pulled together three distinct areas of her expertise to create The Bone Circle - a unique, transformative, and life-changing program.

Her novel "Red Dress" is available in July 2021. It's based on her life's work and has been compared to Eat, Pray, Love.  It incorporates many of her spiritual teachings into an entertaining package.

Her 'why' is transformation. Her core message is 'love is the way.'

ℹ️ https://www.bridgetfinklaire.com
ℹ️https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com

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Transcript

Brian Smith: 0:55

Close your eyes and imagine what are the things in life that causes the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, or challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried, but what if, like a seed we've been planted and having been planted, to grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes, open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is grief to growth. And I am your host, Brian Smith. Hey everybody, this is Brian Smith back with another episode of grief to growth and I've got with me today I really fascinating guests. I can't wait to get into this conversation. Her name is Bridget Sinclair. And she is I'm going to read her bio and I've got literally six pages of notes to talk to her about so I don't know how much we're going to get through. But I feel like we're kind of like minded souls, everything that she sent me I'm really interested in. But she's an author, a spiritual teacher with almost 30 years of experience. She's qualified and experienced psychotherapist, hypnotherapist and healer. She was a professional therapist on London's Harley Street. She left England in 2012 for Cape Town, where she now lives with a South African husband. She loves teaching, writing and speaking and weaving together the threads of her spiritual professional journeys. She designed the bone circle, which is a neat, transformative and life changing program that ties together three significant areas of expertise, intuition and creation, the sacred and the metaphysical and therapy and healing bridges. It's facilitated and taught many courses including meditation, healing, 1000, sacred geometry and space clearing. She's also facilitated A Course in Miracles created truth yoga, retarder Yoga is a spiritual practice and freedom dance, which is a free form conscious somatic trance dance. She currently facilitates a study group for the book of knowledge, the keys of Enoch, and Bridget's intention is to awaken people to a higher purpose and a more joyful and harmonious life. She does this through creating awareness, providing a higher path of consciousness, teaching how to tap into intuitive wisdom, and setting up support groups that can work together powerfully to create positive change. Her favorite saying is an African one, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far go together. She believes we need to go together and supporting a new evolution and consciousness. And Bridget has just finished a new book, which is coming out, I think, the end of July in England and beginning of August in America. And it's called red dress. I'm sure we'll talk about that that novel, which I guess covers a lot of the themes of Bridget's work. So with that, I'm going to welcome to grief to growth. Bridget from Claire.

Bridget Finklaire: 3:43

Thank you very much, Brian. It's lovely to be here. I'm really honored to be a guest. And thank you for that wonderful introduction.

Brian Smith: 3:51

Yeah, and as I was saying, your publicist sent me like six pages of notes. He said, pick a few topics that are of interest to you. But they're all interesting to me. And it's really, you know, you've done psychotherapy, you've done hypnotherapy, and somewhere in here talks about past life regressions. I just did a past life regression session a couple of weeks ago, for the first time ever, in between lives. And you talked about A Course in Miracles. I just spoke to the circle of atonement Group A couple of weeks ago says, as a lot of overlap in our in our our lives and interest, I'm not exactly sure even where to start. But tell me more about yourself and how you get into all of this.

Bridget Finklaire: 4:30

Oh, my goodness, there's a story in a half. So yeah, I kind of I think people who've been on a spiritual journey, it's very difficult to pinpoint where it started. Sometimes. I know for some people, there's been some kind of big challenge in their lives. And that's what sort of shook them up and made them follow a spiritual path. But there wasn't necessarily like that for me. But when I look back on my life, there's probably lots of things that were signposts that there were there, right from the beginning of my life, I had a little imaginary friend when I was a child. And then I kind of just was told that it'd be ridiculous, but it's probably I was channeling something at the time, but I didn't know. But I think the real journey started when I had children. So I had my daughter when I was 13 chapters in 1992. And I think when you become a parent, you start to see a new perspective on life, because it's not just about you anymore, is it? And you could, I felt this tremendous responsibility to bring this being into the world and then went on to have a song as well, two years later. And that made me look at myself and say, How do I want to parent my kids? And I think that was the first real step in consciously looking at who am I What am I here to do? And there must be more to life. I'd had touches upon that earlier in my life with difficult relief. ships were I would self reflect Is this me? Or is this them and, you know, trying to untangle things. And I think sometimes you can go into the psyche, and it can be what I call a hall of mirrors, you know, when you go into a fairground, and you go into the hall of mirrors, and the mirrors are all very waving, and they're distorting, and sometimes you can go into the mind, and it's very, very distorting. And so, once I'd had my daughter, I actually went and had therapy because I just felt everything was so distorted inside me, I couldn't work out what was true and what was not. So I guess that really started my journey. And all the way along was this spiritual path as well. And it, it's step by step by step with me, I feel some people, and it kind of go on the elevator of spiritual journey and something comes to them. And they get they have some amazing awakening, and they go straight to the top, and boom, they're awake. And other people, it's a slow, slow journey. And for me, it's been one of those ones. It's been a slow, slow journey. But it's gathered momentum, hugely. Probably in the last sort of 2025 years, it's really gathered momentum in the last 10 years since I've been well, nine years, I've been in South Africa. Because I haven't been dealing with clients as a psychotherapist, I've had more time to write and to teach, and to study and to really, really grow. And it's my belief that the more that we become aware and more we raise our consciousness, the more we understand, and read and self reflect, and all these wonderful tools that we have now, then we're letting go slowly of past layerings past traumas, we're letting go of that stuff. And that for me, is the ego, the conditioning, and you're letting go of that. And the more you let go of that more, you're allowing your true luminous self to come through and guide you. Which is that conscious being that we are this wonderful, you know, greater self that I would call greater self.

Brian Smith: 7:51

Yeah, absolutely wonderful. And, you know, I just had a guest on the other day, and I was saying that, when I ask people to tell their stories, there's almost always some turning point. A lot of times it is tragic, but it doesn't have to be. And with you was, it was the birth of your daughter. And I'd say that was one of the turning points in my life also might when my first daughter was born, it just really, as a parent, you just start to look at the whole world differently. And it changes bringing pretty much everything. Let's talk about consciousness, because you know, I think for you and I both as after reading the notes that I got for your purposes, we both agree that consciousness is like what it's all about. So what is consciousness to you? And why is it so important? Why is it the key?

Bridget Finklaire: 8:32

Oh, gosh, what a huge a wonderful question. And consciousness is is more than just a mean, I think, let's just say well, it's not more rather than, than we can maybe go into what it is. Because sometimes people think consciousness is the fact that we're alive. You know, we can say that somebody has been knocked unconscious in the ring, you know, in a boxing match, or that you're unconscious when you're on the operating theater. So therefore, when you're alive and well, and going around your business, you're conscious, but that's not what I mean. That's just the flow of sodium ions in your brain that are keeping you alive, that that's not what I mean by consciousness. And I think it's the same for you as well. But what I mean by consciousness is awakening, and becoming aware of more than your five senses of becoming aware of more than that treadmill life that we're kind of conditioned to live, because I feel like it humanity is a little bit of a sausage machine, you know, we were born and then we're expected to be a certain way, you know, we spent to have certain beliefs. And there's the we're having the thoughts and beliefs and conditioning of our own parents of our religion of our country of our color of our race of our creed, and all and the time that we're born in. And all of these things are impinging upon us and molding that that small child mind that's taking it all on. And these become these conditioned responses that we're not even aware of. And it's, it's for me, it's we're asleep, we're asleep to true reality. We're asleep to the moment we're asleep, to the beauty, actually of creation. And we're asleep to all these things that I would say are unseen. So you know, past life, for example, between lives, spirit guides, angels, angelics, spiritual awakening, and for me, spiritual means filled with the Spirit. That's the Holy Spirit. That's for me the presence of the Divine. And so to become aware of that, in my life, I come across people who don't even believe that anything happens at the end of their life. They think they're done. That's it. For me, I heard you say in the interview, absolutely, completely on the same song sheet as you. For me, death is not a death, it's a rebirth into something wonderful. It's just the soul going into its next container, if you like it's going into its next incarnation, not as a physical but into another space. It's a rebirthing into something new So but I meet people who just think that this you know, this life is that it that is existential, we die and we're gone. And I don't believe that's true. And I meet people who just think everything is everything is with the rational mind. It has to be provable, it has to be peer reviewed, it has to be something that they can count, and quantify. And for me, consciousness goes way beyond that we go into the spiritual mind, we go into the intuitive mind, we're connected actually, to a greater mind. Because I believe that our minds are almost like terminals of a computer on a greater mind. And what we tap into, we can tap into all kinds of incredible things. But we have to be still and get rid of empty out a little bit of the rubbish to be able to do that. So for me, it's an awakening. And it's an awareness. And I think once you become aware, for example, that everything is one everything is connected at the level of consciousness that we are pure consciousness beings, then why would you go hurt somebody, you know, we live in a culture where there's a lot of war, there's a lot of crime, there's a lot of violence. Why, because we feel separated, cut off asleep, we're not aware. So for me, consciousness is the key to the evolution of humanity. Because if we were all consciously aware of who we really are, and what we're here to do, and that we're not alone, and that there is a vast cosmology out there, with a whole hierarchy, or Holocaust of divinity out there, and that we have purpose, and that the challenges in life are there for us to grow. This is schoolhouse earth. And if we all have that awareness, and we were all here to support each other, and really understood that what I do to you, I'm doing to myself. And when I get angry, I'm just projecting something from inside of myself, and to work on ourselves and become conscious. I think that would just change humanity. If you look at the problems of the world, it really takes consciousness to rise above them.

Unknown: 13:43

Sorry, long waffling answer. Well, it's such a big subject,

Brian Smith: 13:47

it's a big question. And I've kind of evolved to the point of which is similar what you said, I look at everything is and all these things, I read different things. They're all kind of saying the same thing. But Paul tillage called God the ground of all being, and I view that that's consciousness. And and there's a guy interviewed on my show, Dr. Bernardo kastrup, that has a concept promotes all kinds of cool idealism, which says that consciousness is pretty much everything, and the material arises out of that. So once we start to understand that, that consciousness is everything, then it just creates, like you said, that greater cosmology, that bigger picture, and that we are literally all want, it's not just a figure of speech, but we are all part of this greater consciousness is there's one mind, and then we are little nodes, as you said, we're little nodes that we, we individuated, but we're still connected. And we, we walk around thinking that we're separate when we're not, and we could not exist without each other.

Bridget Finklaire: 14:44

Totally, I totally agree with you. And I think consciousness to me is life. And at the quantum level, we really are connected. And at the consciousness level, we are connected. And we know that matter. We know this from quantum physics, this is where spirituality meets meets science, we know from quantum mechanics and quantum physics, that everything is connected, that everything comes from a wave form before it becomes a particle from come from light, actually, from photons. So we're seeing so much more than that we don't understand and what how fascinating to try and dip into that and understand it. When he talks about the ground of be of all being, I agree with you. I think, for me, the ground state of well being is love, which encompasses consciousness and light and intelligence. And that obviously goes beyond our earthly understanding of love. I think there's more for us to understand as we continue to grow. Yeah. And I always say love is the way That's funny.

Brian Smith: 15:44

Yeah. And it's so funny. It sounds so hippy ish. But that's what every near death experience, you're coming back comes back and tell us it's all about love. It's all about love. It's all love. And these are synonyms, you know, consciousness, love source, God, you know, ground of being these are just words that we use to try to express something that's really you know, inexpressible. Another thing, nothing you said, I thought was really, really interesting. You said we live in a duality. And we said, you said we are a greater self and we have a smaller self. Could you expand on that? I think that's brilliant.

Bridget Finklaire: 16:17

Yeah. So interestingly, I've just I'm going to backtrack to give a bit of background to how I get to where that is. And so I didn't, I grew up in England, and I didn't grow up in a religious family at all. I mean, I think most Church of England English people are not very religious and you go to church for weddings and funerals. So in a way, that was a massive blessing for me because I didn't have that indoctrination of a religion. You know the dogma of a religion. So having now gone on this huge spiritual journey, I'm able to come back to Scripture, the Bible, but also Eastern scriptures and be able to come back to Scripture with a spiritual mind. And it's fascinating. So I've kind of dipped into Kabbalah and Eastern scripture and the Bible as well and other teachings, like the Nag Hammadi, and all sorts of things. And it always in go back to when we talk about duality, the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve in the garden, and there's all these different trees, and it's a metaphor for the trees of life, the cabbalistic trees of life, which is the, the sefer, rhotic, emanations, which are divine personality or divine aspects, if you like. And they choose to eat from the tree of good and evil, not the tree of life. So they go into now there are many, many, many trees of creation, and they go into the tree of good and evil and good and evil is already a duality. Now we're in black and white, good and evil, right and wrong, you know, and everything in our life has this polarity in this system of things where we live, I don't say that that's there in the greater cosmos, because I think there's only our local universe, which is in that sort of duality. But that's, that's what it means hot and cold, up and down easterly, west, north and south. But of course, that geology is an or polarity creates a lot of friction in life, and it creates a moral argument. So we can see that playing out so hugely in the world, right now we're really we really need to unite and realize we're one and work together. But then how people are faced each other, should we get the vaccine or not? And is it this or that and conspiracy or not, there's all these kind of dualities that are playing out. And in amongst that, what I would say is that we're actually conflicted beings, because we ourselves are also have this dual nature. And I think when we're born and before we awaken, and before we have any kind of awakening experience, or any kind of spiritual journey, whatever that is, we believe that we are the small self. And for me, the small self is the one that as I said, is conditioned in childhood. Now, look, that's going to be different for different people, some people had a wonderful childhood, and their conditioning is going to be less harmful, shall we say? Then somebody said you had a horrific childhood. So and then there's also resilience and what the so many factors that were unaware of, but for everyone's experience is different. But at the end of the day, even if you had a fabulous childhood, you will still be conditioned. And so we it's like laying down programs in a computer, you know that the mind of the child is completely wide open till about the age of five. Now, they're actually saying now, maybe seven in an Alpha Theta alpha brainwave state, which is a learning programming state, we kind of knew this, even from Freud, you said, you know, five years, first five years. So now we know even more about that with neuroscience. So in those first five years of life, all of these things, were basically learning how to survive, we're learning how to please the people will look after us so that we were viable. We're learning how to fit in with society, how to fit in at school, how to fit in with our culture, and we're learning the ropes, and we're learning it from the people that went before us. And that's laid down just like putting programs on your computer or putting apps on your phone. They're just there. And we don't even question them. They're just there. And we run them. And I don't think people understand how deeply conditioned we are. Now that conditioning, as I said, it can be really detrimental people can be in horrible trauma, and that really stifles them for their life until they've been able to heal that trauma and overcome it and move forward. And I think actually, a spiritual path is a very powerful way to do that, because you'll be guided by a higher mind. But yeah, so you're the duality is that you have this smaller self. Now, even in someone who's had a wonderful upbringing, we often find these kind of negative beliefs that play out most of humanity get focused on negative beliefs. Now, the reason for that, if we look at the psychology of it is that our subconscious mind is there to keep us safe. And to help make sure that we stay alive. It's not there to make us thrive, it's there to survive, and survival goes into the fight or flight response. So babies are all born with a fear of falling and a fear of loud noises. Now, when we have that fear that kicks in whatever it is, we'll go into either fight, flight or freeze. That's the only three things that we're wired to do in that small self. And that creates, so if it's fight, it's anger. If it's flight, it's fear. And if it's freeze, it's actually you're giving your power away to somebody else and hoping something else will protect you. And at that point, you're not in your power and that leads to depression. So these are the three kinds of things or negative values, but emotions are an out of that stem all the other things. So if you're mildly frustrated, it's actually a form of anger. And those are the emotions that come from the small self, when the ground state of being, which is love, and all the wonderful things come from that, and like joy and peace, and all of those things, happiness, when that's blocked, and it's blocked by this survival mechanism. So people then can wind up thinking, Well, I'm not good enough to do this, or I don't really belong, or I'm not got the power to do it, or I can't I'm not allowed to do that, because somebody will tell me off, or who am I to do this little me? I'm insignificant. And this I actually worked with 12 key core beliefs that everybody has varying degrees. And those things run the show off. And so a lot of times people want to do something, and the small self, because he can't do that. It's often like in mom's voice, or dad's voice, or uncle Joe's voice or your teachers voice, you can't do that. And, and that stops us, and it keeps us limited. And it really goes back into what we were saying about consciousness. Because I think as you become more consciously aware, you become aware of your own conditioning, and you become aware of the voice that goes, You can't do that, for example, and then you go, actually, let's question this, who said, I can't do this. I didn't stillness I think meditation is important. And prayer, any kind of stillness, in stillness in nature as well, those sorts of things, were able to bypass that conditioned mind and catch glimpses of a taste of honey, we catch glimpses of in the intuitive mind, we catch glimpses of glory and beauty. And we can look at a sunset or a rainbow or a waterfall and, or child at play, and see fully present in that moment, just the absolute beauty and perfection of creation. And when we're doing that, we're tapping into something more. And to think that we each of us are also as well as the conditioning that we get in early childhood. We're also born with gifts, talents, and skills, and passions. And those are part of our greatest self. And where there's an interesting you talked earlier about near death experience, because most people who have near death experience say that they're large and luminous and huge, and they can't imagine fitting back into their tiny body. Right? Right. And that they can see 360 degrees, and they can, they can be anywhere at any time. And they see how beautiful they are, how normal Sarah how incredible they are, at that level, and all that this body is, is our little Earth suit, it's our container that we're in. And so my belief is that we all have that bigger self, that greater self, we are our gifts and talents and skills and passions, and what we've come here to do and be and who we are and what we've come to learn. That's who we really are. And then we have this small self. And the reason we have a small self is it's the small self. That's actually the suit isn't it, it's the small self that say, knows how to work the work the keyboard to type the book. But it's the greatest self, it will write the book. It's the greatest self that inspires you to write the book, when my coat and red dress, but it's my little self here that had to actually sit there at the typewriter and type red dress. So yeah, this is how normally, people just think that they're the small self, and they forget the greater self. Or sometimes if they're aware of a greater self, they think I am a small self, and I've got a greater self, and it's up there somewhere. It's completely detached from me. And what I'm saying is no, you are this bit, but you have this bit. And when you understand that, like those two parts of you, rather than being in conflict in this duality, you need to do this. No, I can't I can actually work together in synergy.

Brian Smith: 25:31

Yeah, yeah, that was that was so well put, you know, and I did grew up with the religious background. And you're kind of taught that I am a body and I have a soul. And that soul when I when I die, my soul is either going to go to heaven or hell but my soul was something that's separate. And and that's the way I think most people do. We think we're just a body, which is the materials point of view, or I am a body and I have a spirit as opposed to I am a spirit and I have a body in the termites. I've come to us lately as I call this an avatar. So this is like this is like a virtual reality and my my greater self is actually manipulating this. And I always every time I get this conversation, I was set to put in a plug for the ego. Because the ego is gets such a hard time by spiritual people. We have to kill the ego the ego is a terrible thing I need I need to destroy my ego. The ego is here to keep us in the avatar. The ego is here to keep the avatar safe and the ego we need to have the ego serve that greater self. The ego should be in our service as opposed to being in control. And once we understand this duality, if you want to call it duality, once you understand that Yeah, we're this body is this is important and we got to take care of it me and that's what the ego job is to do and I've heard people say, Oh, I shouldn't fear this, I shouldn't feel this way. Well, it's actually, you know, you said it was kind of functional. It's also biological. It's evolutionary, because we look for the negative, because that's our caveman saying, we got to look out for the saber toothed tiger, you know, we've got to, we've got to look out for danger. So we're biologically pre programmed for that. It's not a bad thing. But we just have to learn to get control of it. So I love the way you talked about that. And I really hope people can grasp that concept, because I think it's like the key to really living an integrated life between our ego and our greater self.

Bridget Finklaire: 27:20

You know, I totally agree with you, I couldn't agree with you more. And I feel like the ego is our vehicle of orientation is the ego that keeps us safe. And that keeps us going. And this this small body that actually has to do the work. At the end of the day, we've we've volunteered as well, at the soul level, we chose to come into this life. And we chose the parents we had. And we chose the major traumas, and we chose them to learn and grow at soul level. So yeah, absolutely agree agree with you. And also remember, you know, we didn't need to look after our body, because it's the Temple of the soul. It's the container that we've got right now. It's like having a car, you know, you're not going to let your car rust on your driveway, you're going to look after it and polish it and clean it and put petrol in it and have it serviced, because you want to keep it going. And it's the same with our bodies, we should honor those. Let's just want to pick up on what you were saying about the feelings. Yeah, I think a lot of people think who we've got to get rid of all these negative things, but you're never going to get rid of the negative feelings. And that's not what I teach, what I teach is, it's natural, and normal to have all those negative feelings that are part of our survival that are part of our program, is not to beat ourselves up or feel guilty or shameful that we got them is to just become aware that they're not always a true north, they're not always a true reflection of reality. Because sometimes we can panic, and we can panic that, oh, someone's gonna, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fail at that interview with Brian, you know, something like that, you know, oh, my goodness, he might just been grilling me. And we can have those thoughts. Everybody, I'm sure can relate to those kinds of thoughts and just using that as an example. But it's not about getting rid of those thoughts. It's about going yeah, it's almost like a child, isn't it? And who's asking for a biscuit constantly. And then also, you don't say the cookie in America, asking for a cookie. And you you've got to acknowledge that child and either say, yes, you can have one later or Yes, here is or no, you can't have a cookie in a bag. But I think if you ignore the child that keeps going can have a cookie can have a cookie can have a cookie. And the mind is a bit like that. And you can't just ignore those feelings. You've got to listen to them. And you've got to go, Okay, I acknowledge that's there. I acknowledge that this is going on for you. And it's true for you, and it's real for you. But I'm just here to tell you, you're you've got this, it's okay. And you don't have to act on that fear. Right? You can choose to have a different thought you can choose to say, yeah, of course, you know, I'm scared about whatever it is, I'm worried about whatever it is, and that's okay. And I acknowledge that and I hear you and I understand why. But hey, we've got a greater self. And hey, there's, we can choose to acknowledge that and then choose something different choose to believe something different, just to enjoy this interview, because we've got loads of things in common and it's gonna be great fun. choice.

Brian Smith: 30:01

Yeah. And that's the thing when we're operating from the ego from the pre programmed things, sort of unconsciously, then we don't realize we have a choice. And so what are what are some ways that we can learn to to realize that we have a choice to start to learn to choose our thoughts to choose, you know, and recognize Okay, this emotion I know I have it, but it's not reflecting reality.

Announcer: 30:25

We'll get back to grief to growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian is an author and a life coach. If you're grieving or know someone who is grieving his book, grief to growth is a best selling easy to read book that might help you or someone you know, people work with Brian as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at WWW dot grief to growth.com www dot g ri e f the number two gr o w T h comm if you'd like to support this podcast visit www.patreon.com slash grief to growth www.patreon.com slash g ri e f, the number two gr o w th to make a financial contribution and now back to grief to growth.

Brian Smith: 31:21

So how do I get to that point?

Bridget Finklaire: 31:23

That's a great question. And again that goes back to consciousness doesn't it goes back to consciousness and awareness because most people get caught in the the the turmoil of they're feeling and thought so they're angry or they're afraid. And that's it. They don't consider that they might be missed. Can on something or that it might be generated from inside of themselves. Often I see this, I used to see this a lot when I was a therapist with clients that they'd be angry about something that somebody else has said to them. And then you kind of have to unpack that and stop, stop, hang on a minute. And so I think the only people way that people can begin to even start on that journey of realizing this choice is to first of all become aware of what they're thinking and feeling. That's the very first thing to become aware, I'm angry, I'm angry, because somebody said something that's upset me. So for example, and then you got to stop and kind of take some time out for reflection and go, it's okay to be angry. I don't need to bury that. Or, you know, deny it. It's okay to be angry. But what am i angry about? Why am I angry? Well, because she said, x, you know, war. Why did that make me angry? dig a bit deeper? Why did that make me angry? Well, because there are and you'll always, it always goes back to something is neither to do with what that person said in this moment. Now, it's always to do with something from the past. And then you can uncover it a little bit. So the first thing is becoming aware. And that's really self reflection, self inquiry. And, you know, if it's too strong, because I know a lot of people have been through trauma and those emotions are way too powerful for them to stop and go what's happening because they're going into amygdala hijack. The reptilian brain has basically taken over, and it's very, very difficult and challenging. And that's the point where I would say you know, think about working with someone that you trust and that you like, with the technique that you like to start working through that and do you know what we don't have to kind of go into old school psychotherapy and talking and all of that stuff now because we've got fabulous fabulous fabulous techniques nowadays. You know, NLP hypnosis EMDR EFT the tapping, I mean, there's so much out there that we can work with quickly to just release trauma from the past so we can Okay, that was a really horrible, I've not processed it because the traumas held in the whole of the nervous system so you can get triggered by things. So you have to process that trauma so you can put it to bed then you'd when things come up, you're able to kind of stand and go Okay, what's happening for me and be curious, or work with things will go for a walk movements, great. That's why love the conscious dance and yoga, but even just walking, walking in nature, if you're feeling really angry, or really upset or really afraid about something, you go for a walk in nature, you stop, just stop moving and walking, and your mind will start processing it. So it's always comes back to awareness, become aware, when you become aware of what's happening, then you've got choice. If you're not aware, you've got no choice because you're being run.

Brian Smith: 35:16

Yeah, exactly. And that's something that I found really works. And I know people sometimes really bristle at the word is meditation or mindfulness, you know, just sitting and and becoming really aware of your thoughts and and realizing that you can choose that, you know, just like, okay, here's a thought, I'm going to choose not to have that. It's like, oh, wow, I could do that. Because we not only do we think where our bodies and our egos we also think we're our thoughts. And we literally don't realize until we practice this, this mindfulness that, yeah, I can choose my thoughts, which therefore start to kind of help influence my emotions. And you know what, I learned that anger is a as a part of fear that that it's there. Like, I feel like I'm being attacked. So now when I start to feel anger, I'm like, why am I fearful? What is and it's my ego, is my ego, saying, You're making me feel less than and no one, no one can make me feel that way. I'm choosing that. And then I can choose not to be angry. So it's, it's, it's really cool once you once you start to put all this stuff together. And it starts with just knowing the kind of the cosmology or how we're made.

Bridget Finklaire: 36:26

Absolutely, completely agree with you, with the buttons are on the inside aren't if somebody is pushed your buttons, they're on they go go round with buttons all over you, you know, the buttons are on the inside, and meditation as well. I think that's probably the single most powerful tool that anybody can take up. I've been meditating. For about 21 years, I think I started I read a book about meditation in 1999. I started seriously in 2000. So and we're now 2021. So 21 years of meditation, I could not have gone through the things that I've gone through without that practice. It's such a powerful that it I mean, it's one of those ones isn't it as simple. I'll just sit there and think of it. It's an easy concept is difficult to do. But of course, it's difficult to do otherwise we'd all be meditating all the time. And the point is, you practice just the same as when you go to the gym and you practice and you press up so you practice your yoga posture or whatever it is you're practicing swimming, mindelo whatever you do, you know you practice it, play the violin. You don't kind of play the violin perfectly. First time and it's the same with meditation. It's a practice. It's a practice and a discipline. But Wow, I think that the payoff and the results of that the rewards of that practice are huge in so many ways. And that's one of them is to become aware of your own thoughts.

Brian Smith: 37:44

Yeah, yeah, I, for me, I've been, I've been practicing meditation seriously now for probably about six or seven years. And for the last four years, I meditated every day I meditate every day. And I tell people, it's kind of like, it's like brushing your teeth, you don't skip the day of brushing your teeth, you but it's, it's training your mind. And it can, it pays off in ways that, you know, it takes a while, it's like, it doesn't happen, what it's like, it's like going to the gym though, right? When you first go to the gym, you don't come out and you're super strong the first day, but it builds up over time. So it's really like I said, for people when I when I noticed in the notes, you also said there are people want quick fixes. And you know, the books that really sell or the self help books are like 30 Days to a Better year or Seven Days to a Better year, how to whatever in three minutes, you know, but the thing is, that work keeps coming up over and over again. Practice you know, it's it's, it's a matter of discipline,

Bridget Finklaire: 38:43

discipline and practice. Absolutely. discipline and practice. And yeah, the meditation is a slow burn. It's not like you're gonna see real results straight away. But actually, I think people do feel less stressed. And pretty soon on, you know, month or so. But to keep going because it's just is amazing. It's actually something that I put in the in red dress when I wrote that. But the the character in there Katie meditates. And I even actually, say in there, how she meditates because everything in red dress is real. So if people want to just learn a very, very simple meditation can read a novel and learn from it. So there's a lot of things she does, that are great practices. And we're just seeing inside her mind, she's doing it for us so that we can we can follow and learn along and meditation is one of those key things. Yeah.

Brian Smith: 39:33

We've been talking a lot, kind of rationally. But you had you have a quote here from Einstein, which I hadn't heard before. And I love it. And I have to start off by saying, I am a, I'm a, by nature, a rational person, my degrees in chemical engineering, I looked at the universe is no mechanical, deterministic. And I'm coming to this understanding about intuition and how magical everything really is. And I love this quote, Einstein said, the intuitive mind is a sacred gift. And the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a site that honors the servant has forgotten the gift. So could you expand on that, quote, why you like that?

Bridget Finklaire: 40:10

artists think it's fabulous that somebody like Einstein, who, you know, we all think of Einstein as being this incredibly brainy person who's you know, physician, physicists, sorry, mathematician, you know, scientist. And so we don't think about him talking about the intuitive mind, but actually, he was highly intuitive. I think he had another quote, actually, someone read something that said, knowledge is something like 2% knowledge and 98% inspiration. And he was known to meditate towards the end of his life. And I think that's how he became so hugely successful, because he did use the intuitive mind. Interesting that you were saying that you had a rational background. And my father was an engineer, and I grew up with four brothers, and they're all very, very rational. So of course, I'm just the city little girl who doesn't know anything. I'm the one who had the wacky, intuitive mind. And I tried to suppress that for a long time and be very rational. But I think the secret really is we need both, it's again, it's a little bit like when we talk about greater self and small self, we need both, we need to have a rational, logical mind as well to understand how things work to be organized in life for to remember to get on the podcast, you know, to remember to make sure that the earphones work, and you know how to use zoom and all these things, go got to go shopping to get some food, and I know, I need to put petrol in my car, I need to shedule things. And so we do need a rational mind. And I think now we do need to also have an enquiring mind, and not just accept things, particularly with the times we're living in. We're living in very, very interesting times a real opportunity in these times. But we have to sit and think for ourselves, because there's a lot of fake news going on on both sides of the fence. So we have to really kind of like unpack things and use the rational mind. Of course, we need the rational way. But I don't think it's the be all and end all. And we've gone with and this is what Einstein saying that we've created a society that thinks that rational mind is the be all and end all. So even if we're looking now know somebody is more likely to believe a peer reviewed paper about something. There's somebody who gets an intuitive hit about it. Now the problem with peer reviewed papers is it means all of your peers all agree to the same thing. So you've all come to the same conclusion. Well, by the time you've gone down that road to come to that same conclusion, you're very much channeled into or deeply ingrained into the the rational mind. And it doesn't leave any space for insights and inspiration to come in. Because that's what the intuitive mind does. The intuitive mind is creative, inspiring, it grabs ideas, it fits things together, it's expansive. It's I think it's the intuitive mind, that is also the spiritual mind that does connect to that higher consciousness. And that higher mind, it's the intuitive mind, that brings you inspiration when you've been meditating or allows you to see the workings of your own mind. Eckhart Tolle he talks about this and he realizes the I am depressed, there must be another eye looking at the eye. So there's that observing witness, which is part of that intuitive mind. And I think that we we have, as with everything, we have to get everything in balance and get it to work together. So just the same as you've got a greater self and a small self, you have to get them to work together. So the same with the rational mind, in the intuitive mind, you need the intuitive mind in balance with the rational mind. And when you've got that left and right brain, the intuitive and the rational, in perfect balance your balance between head and heart, you're in balance, and then the greater gift comes in, which is the gift of spirits, which awakens us. Yeah, so it's such a powerful thing, because I think we've gone into really, even since Einstein said that, quote, we've gone further and further and further into a society that values the rational and dismisses and belittles the sacred gift of the intuitive mind.

Brian Smith: 44:17

Yeah, absolutely. 100%. And it's interesting, because as I've studied, those scientists around Einstein's time, Einstein, Tesla, Max Planck, those guys, Borg, Bohr, Heisenberg, they, it was an IT WAS intuition that led them to these big leaps in knowledge. And then they worked out the details behind it. And they looked for beauty in nature, they look for simplicity, they looked for balance. And when when man first started developing the scientific method, it was because we believed in a rational universe, we believed the rational guy would create a rational universe. So we thought these things can be found out. And then we went so far down that rabbit hole that we threw out the whole idea of God or creator, source, whatever we're doing to us, and said, it's all about the material. But these guys made these huge breakthroughs, like, you know, 100 200 years ago, they were still very, they were still very intuitive. And you mentioned earlier that we value peer reviewed papers over over intuition, I go even farther, we valued that over our own experience, we can have an experience of the Divine, and then we'll dismiss it because let's say it's not possible. But we'll get a sign or we'll have we'll even have a vision or something you will say, Well, that was just my, that was just my imagination. That was just wishful thinking. Or people like yourself or myself, people will say, well, they're woowoo. You know, they're, they're really out there. They're, they're not they're not rational people, which I believe that intuition actually goes beyond rationality. It's not, it's not irrational. It's not sub rational. It's actually super rational. It goes beyond what we can understand with our minds. And when people talk when science now tells us well, for example, time is an illusion, there is no time. That makes no sense to me, rationally, it's like I experienced time every day. But that's really tough. That's beyond what I can imagine where they talk about different dimensions, third, fourth dimension, fifth dimension, there are theoretically 11 dimensions, you know, we our minds can't even grasp that. So the rational only takes us so far, I guess is my point. It only takes us to a certain point and then we've got to take a leap of faith and understand that there's something beyond the rational

Bridget Finklaire: 46:31

completely I completely agree with you even if you go back further with science we go back to Newton who discovered gravity When did you discover when you sitting under a tree in the apple fell? You know when he's in a contemplated space in his intuitive mind? Yeah, now like how you said it's like the super rational for me it's like almost like super consciousness. The intuitive mind is like super consciousness. Yeah, all wonderful things. There's lots of things that I could we could go into that with it turns eternality and time is an illusion and different dimensions which are all kind of areas that I love to talk about that yeah, I

Brian Smith: 47:09

would I want to touch because I saw in the notes again, that Gavin sent me your publicist sent me there's so much again, people will look sometimes look at people like yourself and myself and say we're not being rational. We're not we're not being realistic. But science I look at I actually have this vision Scientists coming up the mountain, and they get to the top. And there's the philosophers and the theologians sitting there going, we told you guys this like 1000 years ago, because we're starting to come back around to it with things like quantum mechanics. And the idea that time is an illusion. I mean, Einstein even talked about that it's, you know, he envisioned the universe's everything is happening at once or everything has already happened, however you want to view it. And we just kind of go through it with this different perspective. So I noticed one of the notes, you had one speaker science and the science of spiritual I love that term, the science of spirituality.

Bridget Finklaire: 48:01

Yeah, because it is, it's where quantum physics starts meeting science. And, you know, we can just to talk about the rash going back into the rational mind, and then judge when you could look at that, say, in a spiritual way, and you could say, the sixth chakra, or the third eye, is really to do, okay, it's to do with seeing, but it's also the rational mind. But we need to jump beyond that into the crown chakra, which opens up to the higher mind. So you could look at it that way. Or you can look at it with science. So I think there's a project out at the moment called the piece of scientific study that came out recently called the blue, I think it's called the blue brain project. And this is scientists leading edge. And they've discovered that within our minds, we have multi dimensional geometries going on in our minds, and you go, Okay, well, why is that? Why do we have multi dimension geometries? And it's because we do, we are able to go beyond time and space. So look, you were talking earlier about past life regression, when you go into a past life regression, you're going back in time to another life. And how's that possible? This time is an illusion. So one of the ways I used to try and explain that to people is, when I know we've kind of we will stream things off Netflix these days. But for those of you remember, DVDs, or even just flash drives with, with with films on the entire film is on there, isn't it beginning, middle and end, the whole thing's on there. And but we have to watch it through time and space, we have to watch it from the beginning, two hours of film, to the end to get the whole story. But yet, it's all there. And it's I think, that's kind of analogy we could use for for time and illusion in the mind that it's all there, your past life is there, you know, and our present life is there. And it's all happening at once. But it would drive us bonkers if that happens. So it's veiled for us. So we don't see that. But we're actually able to tap into different times and spaces, and then what you reveal in that past life or healing that past life actually affects you in the present, which then affects the future going forward. So it's not just a DVD. It's like an interactive DVD that you can reprogram. So I find that fascinating. And the other scientific use, I think of looking at the this thing of a, you know, a multidimensionality. And also, this higher mind is when we talk about remote viewing. So remote viewing is something that's very scientific It was. It was a book by Dr. Elizabeth rauscher, which if you want to read it, and good luck with it, because it's extremely scientific, and it's called mind dynamics in space, which was written by her and Dr. Her attack. And it talks about their experiments with a guy called Russell target, I think it was at MIT, where they were most viewed and they put they had these three guys that were really brilliant at doing it. And they put them in a room and they give them some so called coordinates somewhere. And they'd go and they, you know, they'd be in an office, someone, they'd be able to read the files in the filing cabinet, or they'd be able to draw with what something looked like in another in another part of the world. Or then they've discovered that sometimes they draw something that wasn't there. And then they go and investigate and find out that thing that they drew that wasn't there used to be there in the 1930s or something. So you think how is this possible? So there's so much more. And so yeah, I'm really fascinated by the science of spirituality because I think it is then bringing together the rational mind and the intuitive mind. So because you see, people can think we're a bit woowoo Can't they can only be a bit airy fairy, you know, and, you know, if we talk about sort of angels say or angelics, or the divine or past life experiences or near death experiences, it's it's sometimes too much for people to take on board. And that's because of cognitive dissonance, they've got a belief that's very inculcated in them that this, these things don't exist and you're giving them evidence that it doesn't it, they can't equate the two so they'll reject it, and they reject it out of fear. Because it would have to mean that they'd have to unpick what they believe, to be gentle with people and those who have ears to hear will hear. But I think there's a rising and there's an awakening going on and more and more people are coming into this space. So it's really nice to also To be able to look at the science of spirituality, and look at what's happening in quantum physics, what's happening with the blue brain project, what's happening with multi dimensional geometries in our mind, and that all these dimensions, there's some fabulous mathematicians at the moment who are saying, the, the unit, the physical world creation is so perfect, it had to come from a divine mind. Because there's perfection in the geometries in the numbers in the mathematics. And there's one guy like, I'm sorry, I can't remember his name, but he just sees the whole world is just this perfect mathematics and logarithms and, and that's mind blowing. So it's wonderful to be able to go full circle, if you like, with, you know, we've got the science this side and the spiritual side, and it kind of goes full circle and touches. And I find that really fascinating to delve into.

Brian Smith: 53:15

Well, you know, I find interesting is we as, as mankind have such a short memory, so we think that we've been materialists forever, you know, we've been we've been materialistic atheist is, which is kind of the dominant mindset of the day. But for most of mankind's history, we've been very spiritual, but we've been tapped into these things, and we've taken them for granted. And I find it interesting because as woowoo people, a lot of us are turning now back to old practices, you know, shamanism and yoga, and, you know, studying these things that have been around for 1000s of years. Because we've looked at, we've kind of lost our way. And, and we've, we've come into this mindset that says, If I can't see it, if I can't touch it, if, if I can't test it in a lab, and it can't be real, whereas that's very, that's a very modern mindset. We've only had for a little while. And but we're all now some of us are like, so excited, oh, science is going to prove this now. Whereas These are things we've taken for granted for most of our existence. So again, as a scientist, myself, I'm excited when we can prove it, but I'm not waiting around for them to prove it. Because there's just way, way too much evidence. And, you know, I was talking to someone, and they're like, there's no evidence for any of this. And I said, Okay, let me give you a couple things to read, go look up Dr. Gary Schwartz, and his research on mediums and go look up Dr. Julie bicyle, and her research or mediums, and they get back to me, because I've written peer review papers that have shown that mediumship is at least tapping into consciousness so we can understand. And the guy comes back to me after about 15 minutes and goes, Oh, this is talking about mediums. mediumship isn't real, therefore, I'm not going to bother reading it. And I'm like, that is not a scientific approach, as scientists would examine the evidence. And when you examine the evidence, there's just tons of it out there. There's, there's so much and you've touched on some I've touched on some. So when people you know, call us woowoo, or say your wishful thinking, I just kind of just kind of snicker. And I'm and I've taught people, you know, I, I will give you reasons to why I believe what I do, if you want to hear them. But you're right, most a lot of people just aren't open to it yet. They're just, they're caught up in this, this paradigm that we've we've fallen into, which I believe is the root at the root of all evil. It's the idea that we've forgotten who we are.

Bridget Finklaire: 55:32

Absolutely, yeah, completely. I think it's sort of probably come from things like the Renaissance period, and then the Industrial Revolution. And then it's sort of pushed us into that very, very rational mind. But we are rediscovering ancient wisdom for a modern world, aren't we? And I think we can also look to the indigenous cultures because they carry the sort of like wisdom teachings with them. And we can learn a lot from that. And again, something else that people dismiss, but I think, you know, they probably laugh, a laugh at the Western society and the way that we we live. So there's a lot of wisdom there. And I think people need to just be open and curious. You know, they were talking about the books that you recommended. It's just about going okay, well, I do believe in mediumship. But I'm just going to be open and curious and read this book anyway. And then I'll make a decision at the end, rather than shutting it down before it's given a chance.

Brian Smith: 56:27

Well, it's interesting, you say, because people will call themselves skeptics when they're really cynics. And the difference is a skeptic, is slow to come to conclusions, but they'll examine the evidence. And so speaking, I have another friend Stacia hurt her actual job was to disprove things. She was a debunker. And she and I became friends on Facebook. And she came to me, she said, I know that mediumship is not real. I don't believe any of it. Tell me the best medium, you know, and I'm going to go to her and I'm going to prove it's not real. I'm going to give her a fake name. I'm going to pay through a third party, and I'm going to prove it's not real. She comes back to me, I gave her my friend. Because she's like, Wow, she blew me away. And she is a true believer now. And it's funny because she even said the other day, she said, I said there was no evidence for any of this out there. And she does. There's so much evidence but people don't know it. You know, they don't know all the research. They don't know that the government did research on remote viewing. You know, they don't know all the experiments have been done on site. I mean, sighs been proven in the lab over And over and over again. They can't explain how it works, but they know that it works. If people do have psychic abilities, Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Beisel, you know, they've shown that mediumship that mediums can get information about deceased people that there's no rational way that they would know. These things are just their facts do not opinions. They're not.

Bridget Finklaire: 57:47

Yeah, absolutely facts. And I think this is really what inspired me to write red dress, because a lot of people won't go and read those kinds of books. You know, there's this fabulous, obviously, there's some fabulous, fabulous books out there. But you've got to have the motivation to read them. And so what I wanted to do was put some of this into a fun novel. So people could just like go on holiday and sit on the beach and read their fun novel. And, you know, the woman in there hasn't, you know, ended up having an affair. And there's all kinds of and she's stressed out. And there's always this but there's all these learnings as well. And it's interesting what you said about you know, people, your friend and the, the the the medium, there's, there's a scene in the book where there's a love interest that she has ends up going along with her, the main central character Katie to have his soul contract read, and he thinks it's a load of old rubbish. And he's hoping that nobody spots him going, going on, you know, and it's like, nobody sees me doing this. And he goes into have a soul contract, right? And he just thinks, Oh, well, I'll get this over and done with just a pleaser. And then the lady that's doing the soul contract starts talking to him, and she starts telling him about his past. And he's like, his jaw is dropping, because you don't actually know that how did you know that? She, she's kind of been searching me. You know, she's, she's she's tagged us to tap me or something. So just wanted to kind of show that as well within the different characters that there are, there are characters in there that think that the central character is going mad in these whoo, whoo. And then she has to find her niche and find her, her soul family if you like. And there's a lot of that kind of, there's, there's a lot of things like that where people don't believe things, and then they get shocked when they when they see it. So I hope people take that to heart when they read it. Because this is what I wanted to do is to kind of get that out there in an easy, enjoyable, light hearted, entertaining way rather than somebody having to plow through a fabulous book. But you have to have the motivation and want to plow through some of those books, which for you and I are great, because we love it. But not everybody does. So well. Yeah, people to get their toes into that world.

Brian Smith: 59:51

It's funny, because I read a lot, but I hardly ever read fiction, because I just don't have time. There's so much other things, you know, because I'm basically researching all the time. But for other people, as you said, they don't they don't have that that mindset of that motivation. And frankly, some of the stuff is boring. And some of it's hard to understand. So let's talk about how you weave these these themes into the red dress into red dress. So how do you weave these things in?

Bridget Finklaire: 1:00:16

Well, I get the central character central character, I think a lot of women will relate to her. She's in her 40s. She's got two teenage children, and her marriage isn't great. And the guy that she's married to is a bit of a power hungry, probably narcissist, possibly slightly psychopathic, but he's definitely dysfunctional. And she's trying to hold it all together, and she's a therapist, and she's lost herself. And, you know, I know a lot of your work is about grieving and I think grieving sometimes is about somebody dear to you that you've lost, it's then it's this intense sadness. Sometimes you can grieve about the loss of yourself, or who you are or life you had. And that can sometimes be a kickstart into a spiritual journey. And really, that's what happens to her. So the fact that she's lost an empty and she feels guilty that she's lost an empty because she's actually got a successful life. materialistically she's got a nice house in West London, you know, she's, she's successful. But she just feels a something more, she feels lost, she feels empty. She feels quite depressed. And because she's a therapist, she has the courage to go for therapy. I think it does take courage to say, I'm going to go get some help. I think it test takes enormous courage to do that. And that's what she does. And she, she, she's because she's a therapist, she has a supervisor and she says, Can you give me some sessions, I think I need to explore some things. So through the sessions, and they're not too long and boring through those sessions that she has periodically throughout the book with her therapist. We get to understand some of the workings of her mind and what's going on. But she also embarks on the spiritual journey because she she's a Reiki healer. She's a Reiki Master, she meditates and she's got these parallel paths of being this kind of the rational psychotherapist and the intuitive healer. And she's trying to keep them apart and eventually they actually come together these parallel paths come together, but so we can follow her so she's she's an interesting character and she's sort of funny so she she's she's not Jesus herself is not sure about this. journey. So she's almost criticizing herself as she goes and go, Oh, this is just a load of rubbish. I've just wasted all this money on this thing. And it's can't be real, you know. And so she's questioning herself all the way, which is, of course, what a lot of people do. So because of that, she gets LED on intuitively to all kinds of things so that she actually probably not giving too much away by saying right near the beginning of the book, she hands over to God, and she doesn't even really believe in God. She's not religious, she's spiritual, but she decides that God is on you know, omnipotent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipotent, all knowing, all powerful, and everywhere. And so she's just, she has this kind of moment where she giggles and she goes, Oh, that means he knows that. I'm thinking about it. And then she ends up in the spur of the moment. Because she's so fed up with her life, just handing it over to God, she, she does it almost as a joke, she's going to go and let's see what happens to see if he exists, the seventh thing happens. And that sets in motion, a whole series of events, which take her through this journey of awakening to who she really is what's really true for her, she's really lost sight of herself. And she starts finding herself and she starts finding like minded friends. And she starts going on reading spiritual books, and learning about Tesla, learning about vibrations and frequencies and chakras. And she has a soul reading and, and now she's got she goes on a journey. And in fact, it's the first of a trilogy of books. So that trilogy will follow her. The first one is really and this is, I think, how people change. So the first book, red dress is about her, waking up, becoming aware, becoming conscious, saying, hang on a minute, there's more to life than this, my life's not working, she then starts to go on, on a journey of self awareness and self discovery. And through that journey, she's learning and she actually ends up there's a, there's a voice that's talking to her and I never quite say what the voice is no, probably God, it could be the divine, it could be her that I do. I never say it's just the voice. But the voice is giving her all this amazing wisdom, like, you know, you can choose your thoughts and your thoughts and feelings, create your reality. And so it's giving her all these wisdom when she has these moments with the voice which you know, peppered throughout the book. So the first red dress is really about her becoming aware, becoming awake, dipping our toe into this journey, which she does with some trepidation because she thinks everybody else is going to laugh at her and think she's Woo, and she's worried about other people judging her. But it's really about letting go of the structure of her life that's held her in this place or taking her to where she is, which hasn't worked. And it's that thing, the ladders against the wrong wall, she's climbing the ladder, and she found it's against the wrong wall is not the life she wanted. It's not what she thought it would be. So she's got to dismantle that. So the whole the first big red dress is about dismantling that and becoming aware and awake and deciding to go on this spiritual journey. And then the second book, which I'm kind of like about a third of the way through writing is about old structures completely crashing down around her and then her going further into herself healing and rising like a phoenix from the ashes as a very strong person within herself, who believes in herself and who found who she is and what matters to her because I think that's what we all must do find out what are we passionate about what matters to us? What do we love doing what lifts us what feeds us and that's what she does in the in the in the sequel to red dress and then in the third book will be really her stepping into her power and authority and doing what she's come to do in the world. So it's a whole time of transition thing. So yeah, then there's lots of stuff in there like you know her going on holiday with their kids and walking and going to the pub and eating food and she's a wine expert and she's a food buff and she loves dark chocolate she can't stop eating chocolate from the fridge and she's very human you know, she drives too fast and gets a speeding fine and and then she's got her dog died that tells to slow down and then she slows down just in time for the you know that speed camera she doesn't get the ticket and there's the stuff there's a there's a whole scene where she's listening to Eckhart Tolle The Power of Now in her car while she's driving somewhere and she's thinking about what she's gonna have to suffer. She got to go read what's going to get the kids and did she need the gas, you know, all things that people do. Eckhart Tolle is droning on in the background about the power of now. And then she finally she finally goes into the now and what happens is she's caught by the beauty of the trees in the mist overhanging the English countryside as she's driving. And she just looks at it and she's arrested by the beauty of it. And in doing so she overshoots or turning and then she has to kind of career off the off the highway and all these people are beeping her and so just very, very human and funny and light hearted. But if you want to you can take a deeper level. So that's how I have unfolded that journey with In a novel,

Brian Smith: 1:07:26

yeah, that sounds awesome. I use a phrase that I've never heard before the ladder against the wrong wall like that.

Bridget Finklaire: 1:07:33

It's stolen it from someone, I can't remember who it is. But one of the sort of motivation people Forgive me, I don't know whether it's,

Brian Smith: 1:07:43

I thought it was a British thing. So you could, you could have taken credit for it.

Bridget Finklaire: 1:07:47

Well, I wouldn't do that if it wasn't my, but I just, I do love the analogy, because that's what so many people do is that they, they climb the ladder, and then they get them to go, Oh,

Brian Smith: 1:07:57

yeah, it and I like the fact that, again, a little bit different, because, you know, it's kind of like your life, she she's living a good life, you know, but she's awakened just by, you know, it's just like this is just not this is that everything, some of us need a knock over the head, some of us can do it with a more a gentle nudge, we're kind of running out of time. But before we cause them to ask you about the bone circle, tell me about what the bone circle is,

Bridget Finklaire: 1:08:20

oh, my goodness, I think we're gonna need a whole new session for the bone circle, because it's huge. It's actually quite difficult to describe what it is. But it's an entire transformative training. And some of the things we've talked about today, around consciousness and around becoming self aware, are included in that bone circle. So it starts with the premise or the truth bomb that I'm that I would call it, that we are all powerful creators. And we we create, whether we're conscious of it or not. So either we create misery for ourselves, and everything we don't want, always choose, that goes back to choice, choose to create what we do want. But a lot of people don't know what they do want their ladders against the wrong wall, but they don't know actually which wall they want to be against, they've got no clue because they're so stuck and trapped in what society expects of them that they have no idea. So it works a lot with we do work a lot with intuition to train people to actually train people to use their intuition at will, to be able to see their truth, and to then be able to bring that to life. So there's a lot of work around creating how we create. So we can either be in the what I call the reactive or responsive orientation, where we're reacting and responding to things that are happening. So we're reacting to, I'm late for work, or what I'm stuck in traffic or whatever is going on externally, or what's going on internally, arm frayed, or I'm angry or whatever. So and we react to those things and respond to those things. Because we're in that small self. So it's about understand. So this part of the circle is about understanding that and understanding how that small self plays out. And what it does, and what your beliefs are and what your enneagram is and what it does and what your patterns are, so that you can become aware of them. And then make a choice to be in the creative orientation, which is where you're not trying to fix problems, you're not trying to respond to what's going on, you're choosing to create something. Now that could be a thing like a book, or a podcast, or website, or it could be a relationship, a good relationship, or it could be stillness, or a practice of meditation, or something like that. So it's about just going for end results and visions which are true for you through at soul levels, there's really understanding your sole purpose, what you come here for what you love doing. And the purpose isn't some great big thing, it's probably something you've always done because you love it. And you haven't realized that. So it's it's an awakening, the bone circle isn't working. The reason it's called bone circle as well is because it is a circle. So people help and support each other. Because it goes back to that African proverb, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far go together. So we go together so that you've got a whole load of people supporting you, because it's extremely difficult to pull out of that conditioning and do things that your little self is screaming at you, you can't do it. You think you are writing a book, you know, so you have your you this whole sort of fellowship or sisterhood that was helping you through that, which I think is so important, we need to all support each other and help each other because we are all connected. So together we rise. And this has happened together with powerful and it's time it's time now at this time. So both circle is partly about creating an intuition. And so purpose is partly about a little bit of therapy stuff that I give people if they need to unhook stuff in the past process trauma, get little, you know, be free of things. And also a little bit of metaphysical and spiritual stuff around things like you know, eat well drink water, exercise, spend time in nature, meditate. And all of those things. And I also bring in I really love working with Sacred Names and sacred chants because they carry like the most incredible vibration talking about vibration and Tesla and those Sacred Names and sacred chants, whatever language they're in, carry just the most beautiful and sublime vibration. And when you work with those that raises your vibration and you can use them for protection. You can use them for guidance, you can put them in a lot of people call upon Archangel Michael, for example to protect them if they're going into hospital right now or if they're going anywhere, you know, we can we These are real, I would say their mind forces that their huge collective mind forces. But if we want to see them as an angel with wings, that's fine, because that's how we understand it. But we can also call upon the divine, and call upon these names and work with those. And that will shift our energy and shift our perspective and shift our consciousness open it. So it's kind of a combination of all of those, but the entire training works on these sets of truth bombs about life.

Brian Smith: 1:12:57

Yeah, so I'm sorry, we've actually we probably are running out of time. I could talk to you all day, we got through about half of what I wanted to cover. So what I want to do is give you a chance, how can people find out more about you more about what you do? How can people reach you?

Bridget Finklaire: 1:13:14

The best place to reach me is on my website, which is www dot Bridgette Finn claire.com and Bridget thing. Claire's, B ri d g e t. So it's like bridge with the T on the NBR. It g et f the Freddie i m KLAIRE. It's not usually. So I'm the only one. There's I think my family The only thing Claire's in the world. So you will find me Bridget thing. player.com. I'm also on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter. I'm on Instagram I'm on I've got an author page on Facebook as well. And if you can't remember that name, john, john hunt publishing.com is my publisher. And they're probably easier to remember and you should be able to find them from there. The dress, the book is red dress, the training is the bone circle. And it's all there on my website. I think that's the best place to get me.

Brian Smith: 1:14:05

Awesome. Awesome. And I will definitely put links to both in the show notes so people can see it there. And I'll put it in the in the YouTube notes. Also brilliant. And it's been an absolute pleasure meeting you and having this conversation. I wish we had a couple hours to talk but if you want a definitely like to have you back to continue, we can talk more about the bone circle and other things we didn't get to.

Bridget Finklaire: 1:14:26

I would love that. Thank you so much for having me as your guests. And I have so enjoyed it. It's been brilliant. Brilliant to meet you, Brian, thank you so much. And look forward to talking to you again because I think we could we could easily fill another hour I've got so much in common.

Brian Smith: 1:14:40

Yeah, without a doubt I have a great rest of your day. And you. So that does it for another episode of grief to growth. I sure hope you enjoyed it. If you like this content, make sure you subscribe, so click on the subscribe button here, and then click on the bell to receive notifications and click on all that way you'll be notified whenever I release new content. Thanks for watching and have a great day.