“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
- Thomas Paine
Change your mind, change the world
To the extent that each of us looks in the mirror honestly and does our own inner work steadfastly, we begin to change the culture.
As we do this together, we have the power to shift the collective consciousness and affect systemic change.
Because guess what?
Our systems are just made up agreements. So in a very tangible way, changing the world is as simple as changing our minds.
But only if we do it together.
We have been conditioned to believe that changing the world is impossible. Because if we believe the narrative that we are powerless, we aren’t a threat to the prevailing power structures.
So the more we fail to do inner work as individuals, the more oppressive systems can continue to thrive—and the more these systems thrive, the further they throttle each individual’s ability to heal and awaken.
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And self-doubt is at the heart of it. Self-doubt is what enables systems of oppression to continue on both micro and macro levels.
Awake people do not allow themselves to be oppressed.
Because of how deeply our cultural programming runs, often our individual psyches and internal ways of being are a microcosm of the sociopolitical systems in which we find ourselves. And conversely, the microcosm of our individual ways of thinking and being becomes reflected in the macrocosm of society as a whole.
If we can begin to deprogram our cultural conditioning and heal the trauma that wounds our self-trust, we can reclaim our intuition, step into individual and collective transformation, and enter a new paradigm together.
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That’s the infinite game.
In the finite game, more for you is less for me. In the infinite game, more for any of us is more for all of us.
In the infinite game, when one of us thrives, we help others thrive, and as the community thrives, individuals thrive even more and on and on ad infinitum.
This means we are no longer in competition with one another because we recognize that what hurts one of us hurts us all, and what heals each of us individually serves collective healing. Because our individual and collective wellbeing are inextricably entwined.
We’re not really separate.
When we begin to see that our systemic and societal problems are tangibly created by our collective ideas of what is acceptable, we recognize that global problems are not logistical. They’re actually spiritual.
For the first time in history, we have the resources, infrastructure, and technology to eradicate global poverty and feed every human on the planet.
Reawaken your soul and your sense of awe.
Join us for a transformational retreat designed to cultivate awe, beauty, and present moment awareness.
Mostly because we’ve been conditioned to believe we can’t. We’ve been sold the narrative that we are powerless and that these problems are actually intractable.
But this narrative is only “true” because we believe it is. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The problems are in fact intractable if we believe they are. And they are also wholly solvable if we believe they are. It’s like that old saying, “Whether you believe you can or you believe you can’t, you’re right.”
It reminds me of that scene from Elf when Zooey Deschanel starts to sing to make Santa’s sleigh fly. And at first she’s the only one singing so nothing happens. But when everyone starts singing, it takes off.
There’s a reason that scene is touching that is deeper than meets the eye. It speaks to some deep intuition we have about what is possible.
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It’s a metaphor for a deep truth about collective belief and action: When people band together and believe they can do the impossible, the impossible happens.
Think about how many things that seemed impossible historically have been achieved. Walking on the moon was only possible because we decided to believe it was. In a way, collective beliefs have the power of a kind of miracle.
Our monetary, political, and social systems are all just made up reflections of what we all believe is possible and acceptable. And we desperately need an upgrade in our beliefs about what is possible because what is possible has changed significantly in our lifetimes but we haven’t caught up.
When we pull back the curtain, we see that in a very concrete and real way, our shared beliefs are the basis of every external system in our society.
Reclaiming Soulful Living Retreat
Join us for a transformational retreat designed to cultivate awe, beauty, and presence.
By rejecting the conditioned narrative that there isn’t enough to go around, we recognize the inherent abundance that exists when resources are wielded equitably within just systems.
Freeing our minds from the limitations of our conditioned realities allows us to wake up to individual and collective possibilities beyond our ordinary comprehension, and invite others into this awakened state.
This actually makes miracles possible and has the potential to change the world in meaningful ways.
In this way, each of us has the power to substantively change the world. Half of the battle of systemic change is just dismantling the belief that we can’t.
That is why I’ve been inspired to curate a once-in-a-lifetime experience centered around reawakening soulful living by reclaiming our intuition and cultivating individual and collective transformation.
Our latest podcast episode dives deep into these ideas. Foa Kinfyre and I explore topics such as codependency, parts work, dismantling conditioned beliefs and power structures, art as a spiritual practice, creativity and pleasure as activism, and the way personal and collective awakening are interwoven.
[Music] hello and welcome to on living with Brooke Sproul I’m Brooke Sproul and my
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lovely guest today is boa kinfire an old friend of mine a dear friend of mine and a very powerful somatic practitioner educator and healer she’s
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also a musician and performance artist and a dream worker and I’m really excited to see what emerges today welcome thanks thanks Brooke for having me so
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where shall We Begin what have you been pondering lately well I’m I’m currently like in a in the suburbs which isn’t a place that I feel comfortable in
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um so that’s on my mind and just feeling the the control the the clear control and
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the simulation of the suburbs and how the design is for safety
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um that they actually make me feel less safe so that’s sort of like the first thing
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that I’m you know that genuinely is sort of living on the surface of my experience
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I’ve been visiting the suburbs as well and having similar experiences I
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remember a month or so ago I was down there and I and a fork course this isn’t
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entirely true this is an oversimplification or over generalization but the feeling I had was
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I can just you know fit myself into what I think I’m supposed to be then I can
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maybe put off the task permanently or temporarily of deep self-examination so
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I don’t know if that’s true that might be a complete projection but that was the feeling that I had along with a feeling of
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just a a lack of cultural value for individuality and individual expression
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a good feeling like because since we both grew up there feeling like I have to show up a certain way to be accepted as opposed to I’m celebrated in my
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uniqueness um interesting yeah it’s interesting to think about design
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and how it impacts our personalities world view
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um yeah because I I imagine that avoiding looking at what’s difficult
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exists in other you know in other Scapes and other sort
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of like City designs but there is something about um the suburbs thought it feels
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it feels denuded it feels like the Wilds doesn’t really exist there on purpose
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um and I you know again yeah we’re speaking in generalizations but
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I also feel like there is something about individualism of like this is my property like this is mine you know so there’s maybe individuality of ownership
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um but there is like this sort of falling in line with um presentation [Music]
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that does feel like a pattern um and sort of formula formulaic
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um it is interesting we both grew up in the context how do you why we became friends
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so Outsiders Outsiders I know if it wasn’t for like Emo music and the in the
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early 2000s [Laughter] it really was helpful
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it’s like everything sucks and it’s painful you know it’s like I needed everything to
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counterweight everything I was seeing around me where everything was fine right right yeah and I agree with what you said
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about of course in every human we all in some ways aren’t looking we all in some
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ways are avoiding it’s not it’s not to make a statement that that’s not present in me even right now in real time there are of course ways in which we all
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don’t look but there’s something I had this feeling about and more systematic or a more
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robust feeling about that like and not not like that that it’s conscious
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um but just like oh there’s that that feels like the culture there and then we
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set about you know the individualism versus individuality perhaps is one way
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of framing it um what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is how
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like each there’s all these different movements you know socially culturally
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um politically and there’s a reason that they that many movements you know even
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where we might look and say oh that’s that’s not the most constructive
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movement there’s a reason that they resonate with a lot of people and it’s because in my from my perspective there’s some truth and some real
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deep value that that movement is speaking to people but the reason that in in my view they
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might be not not be constructive is because they leave out the other side of the conversation so when I was thinking about what you’re saying about
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individualism versus individuality I was thinking oh there’s this really strong
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individualism and it’s not balanced with collectivism you know like it feels like
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it’s it’s individual and then it’s Conformity and it’s not
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like individuality and Collective integration like there’s there’s some
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perversion of what I think is an optimal kind of way of structuring a culture
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which is we we kind of celebrate each individual’s attributes while
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um kind of collaborating collect you know as a collective and finding a place for
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each person in reciprocal service yeah and it’s not to say that there aren’t other places I mean I think it I think in every culture I’m sure there’s ways
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that things can be recalibrated to be more optimal like maybe there are certain cultures that are so collectivist that the individuality gets denigrated
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in some ways that are hurtful of course that exists as well so there are all sorts of ways in which you know we can I think that not only we can but
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we have the responsibility to be looking at where these where that balance is and
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how to recalibrate and create a more optimal way of relating yeah yeah
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absolutely yeah for some reason as you’re speaking I was reminded of [Music] um the cul-de-sac maybe
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it’s because you live you grew up on a cul-de-sac and like the design and function of the cul-de-sac was like this filtration system
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to keep you know the Riff Raff out or to see who’s in your neighborhood there’s
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a book about I’m forgetting the name of the author called the wages of whiteness and and white supremacy in in Suburban designs specifically in that
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the cul-de-sac sort of functions as keeping people that symbolize poverty
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sort of out slows them down you kind of get a chance to see them you know get a take on them and um and then on top of that again specifically
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referencing the bio original bio region in which we grow up grew up in thinking about how many neighborhoods were actually built on Marshland
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and how that is actually the ecological filtration system that like helps to purify the rain water
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that goes out to see and so there’s this sort of like simulation of filtration that’s based
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off of ideas and ideologies and then there’s the Erasure of the
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actual filtration system that supports you know aquifers and Marsh territories and and
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ocean territories and I don’t know why that’s coming to mind as I was listening to you
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I think I just sort of like drew me into like an ecological perspective on what’s
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happening in in the where we called home I’d also love to talk about some of the
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things we’ve been communicating about lately separately um because I think something I’m feeling really in touch with right now is my own
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wounding so often I’m speaking to the capacity that we all have to transcend
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our ordinary limitations and you know live our greatest potentialities and make an impact on the world and and Achieve kind of Awakened States Of
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Consciousness and you know all of that is true and I believe it and I think that I also want to just be really mindful of speaking to
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how our wounding is a part of of what opens up our Highest
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Potential it’s anything any way in which we engage with our you know
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limitations is ultimately kind of a part of the process that
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allows us to become the greatest version of who we are and so I’m feeling kind of
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in touch with my wounding right now um and my uh my limitations my struggles
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and kind of you know was thinking about potentially exploring some of the
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conversations we’ve been having around codependency boundaries communication
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um you know would you be interested in exploring that I’ve been dealing as you
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know with chronic pain and being medically disabled since I was 12 and
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I’ve tried a lot of different things to try to make that pain go away and make
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myself different and a part of it is natural you know to it’s natural for us to not want to feel pain
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and what I’ve found recently that just feels so
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deeply aligned with um what it means to be present to my
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wounding is to just allow like just allow the Pain Feel in a
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systematic technique as well to feel to feel all the Nuance of all
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the pain to go right into it and track everything as if I’m a witness to something that’s happening
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um and in that there’s this sort of resourcing that is established that
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allows me to validate what’s going on um and validate that it’s my experience and then also invoke
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um sort of third party in my consciousness that um is sort of an observer in the room
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and it takes away my propensity to coerce in a race
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um and the way that my nervous system responds to that is radical it’s radical because the nervous system feels heard
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um the nervous system doesn’t feel corrected so that’s something that comes up for me in
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response to the the topic of of witnessing and feeling wounding
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um codependency and boundaries there’s sacred coping you know devices mechanisms that
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most of us have learned are useful or were useful
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and as we get older we can see how they are no longer useful
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and don’t necessarily create the safety that we’re looking for which kind of
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leads me into the notion of safety at all and how safety is
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it’s a valuable simulation it’s important it’s not like
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you know I also think it doesn’t exist ultimately but it’s important to create
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so it’s almost like it’s almost like boundaries and codependency are sort of
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the guides they’re the sort of harbingers into the deeper wound they kind of let us know
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um they’re the protectors right and thing that I’ve been noticing is how little they actually protect me and how they
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they actually sort of estranged me from my nature and from
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um what it is that I long to do and how it is that I long to live and like that’s
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okay like they’re here like come in you know come in to the circle and let me learn about you
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and so yeah those are Notions that come up for me around all those things in
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response to your invitation yeah the thread between the two from
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where I was but I was feeling and and pondering was
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this of this idea of being in conversation with our parts you know uh
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with our nervous system with our codependency with our wounds with our boundaries like that these are all parts of us that you know and and as you beautifully
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said about the nervous system um you know when my nervous system is heard it can relax and release you know
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it can it can sort of self-liberate self-heal and there’s something in that
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process that is feeling on a more psycho spiritual level because
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um we are getting out of the dynamic of coercion and Erasure right and you know
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so much of us are so much of our culture is coercive and we internalize that and
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we have these war-like coercive relationships with ourselves and it’s really in the surrender to our own involuntary pain that there’s such a
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great deal of spiritual and psychological Liberation and healing that occurs and so I love how you talked about kind of oh here’s here are these things
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like say with codependency that in in my words would be you know defense mechanisms
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protective mechanisms but it’s like yeah well welcome because I need protection like we need protection and we don’t know ways to assertively
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protect ourselves well that’s fine here we are you know in this pattern that
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might be backfiring and as we become more aware of that we can start to relate in more empowered ways we can gain skills but the beauty of just welcoming in and listening to our parts
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is so healing and transformative and there’s a lot of research actually to back this up internal family systems therapy is a modality that’s really
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about you know naming our parts getting to know them listening helping them feel heard and understood and uh you know there’s a lot of evidence that supports
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its efficacy and Trauma healing as well as even physical health conditions it’s
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it’s quite remarkable the reverberating effects that it has on our system to
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welcome and integrate and listen to all of our parts and the the seminal book in
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in ifs is called no bad parts and so the premise is you know even the things that we think are you know the worst parts of us the most damaging destructive defenses
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they all serve a purpose they all have a positive and intent they may not have positive consequences so they may have you know harmful things but
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they have a positive intent and when they’re listened to they can kind of relax and serve the purpose and and actualize that positive intention
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it makes me think so much of the punitive justice system as opposed to restorative justice
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um I’ve been fantasizing kind of going back to like design of systems like the
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suburbs I’ve been thinking about prison systems and prison reform and I and I have very little education Beyond being exposed to the current political justice
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system because of my family my parents occupations of choice
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um what would it be like to have this sort of language and template laid over folks
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who are struggling with addiction or folks who are violent
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um and tracking the Nuance of their stories of their origin stories of the families and neighborhoods in which they grew up and instead of approaching things with
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punishment approaching things from a regenerative restorative model that allows for their complexity
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to be explored and provides resource in response to the
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complexities that are discovered about that particular person’s biography and biology it just doesn’t make for example like addicts it makes no sense to me
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with someone who is trying to take care of themselves and self-soothe through whatever substance they’re drawn to are sent to prison it’s like I mean I understand
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that there’s Nuance I understand that like maybe they they’re being violent or they’re breaking other laws or violating people’s safety and boundaries
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um in order to acquire that you know attempt to medicate themselves
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but I think that um there’s just room there’s room for this ifs model
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um in the justice system and I’m sure it’s a harrowing Road and
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there’s a lot to do and a lot to implement in order for it to be applied and applicable but
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yeah what if we started looking at things from that perspective as if
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someone isn’t doing something wrong or we aren’t doing something wrong we’re just trying to
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take care of ourselves yes and if we
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if we perspective which is what is true you know like we individually in a way
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we individually don’t commit crimes like I know for example that if I were in
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certain circumstances I am confident that I would have made very different choices but to presume that I am somehow morally Superior is I think the error uh
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you know that a lot of people make is you know that I I made these choices
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you know as an individual sort of decontextualized and it’s really unfair because
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it’s like put in the right circumstances or the wrong circumstances I think we’re all capable
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of nearly anything you know I’m just going to say that I mean in response to what you’re saying there’s two things that come up for me one is
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that the Empire makes money off of people being incarcerated you know and that that leads me to
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wanting to throw into the pot that there’s something about the loss of
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indigenosity that’s in the mix as to why we as a species are dealing with so much
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depression um struggles with regulating our nervous
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systems addiction violence I mean all of these sort of like less Savory
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aspects of The Human Experience are they’re part of the human experience I think regardless
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um and I think that the sheer magnitude of the presence of those different qualities and coping behaviors I feel like really confident and I I don’t
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know if there’s any studies but just through my own observation and work on grieving the loss of my indigenosity as a white person
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um I just feel how it goes back to that you know of this like
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separation from place and how the a place and land in a bio region
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influences my sense of belonging to community my sense of participation in community what clothing I wear you know it’s like the fibers aren’t from the land
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upon which I lived or died with the plants from that territory you know there’s there’s sort of this dilution of meaning
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that is connected with that that intersection of Empire and loss of indigenosity
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um that we’re kind of indirectly referencing in my opinion that we talk about any of the things we’re talking about and which brings a really important
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question into the foreground which I think is Paramount to moving forward as a people
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is like what does it mean to restore indigenosity when we don’t live in the
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place that our ancestors originated from what does it mean to
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create meaning connection with the human and the non-human at the place where in
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which we live yeah it’s a big one
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yeah one of the most kind of helpful concepts for me as I’ve been
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trying to reclaim a non-dogmatic spiritual awareness is around my
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relationship to Nature and the framing of individual or person and nature as
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opposed to individual or person as nature um you know like like that I’m actually
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not separate from the land I’m actually I’m actually not separate from nature we’re actually counterparts and we are we are interdependent and yet not only
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our thinking has taught us to be separate but our um you know are
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our development our our kind of like design like our Urban Design like the way that we’ve designed things has furthered this concept and instantiated it
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um in the way that we live yeah yeah totally I think that’s one reason so I feel weird in the suburbs it’s like I don’t I don’t feel that um it’s difficult to feel that
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to feel nature but it makes me think about are you have you familiar with
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um the author and thinker I think his name is David Abrams he wrote
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um becoming animal that’s the name of this book yeah he has this really interesting
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um lecture series he was doing in Amsterdam that I nerded out on several years ago that’s definitely informed my work as a dream worker specifically but
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certainly also somatic work which is why I call my business movement ecology
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um it sort of plays off this idea you’re talking about of the body as nature
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um but he talks about how like you could go into the like 20th floor of a high-rise
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building and open the fridge and find like some forgotten Tupperware left over
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that’s covered in molds and how like the wild is everywhere Like There’s No Escape no matter how like we’re
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all gonna die which is an example of wild nature like There Is No Escape we can try to convince ourselves otherwise with our gadgets and
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our cul-de-sacs and our you know fluorescent lighting or whatever but
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it’s here and and similarly like that’s something that I talk about
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with DreamWork is for some of us it’s kind of our only access to like the wilderness
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because dreams are feral they do not obey our code of ethics our sense of morality
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um they live in the realm of taboo of violence sometimes of of Terror and
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unspeakable Beauty um so yeah I totally agree with you and there’s something really
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really deeply deeply important about recognizing that we are we are wild
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nature and what is it what does it feel like to rewild ourselves and I think
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that going back to Parts work it’s sort of like allowing all the all the inputs in the ecosystem of our being to be witnessed and present and tracked and
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noticed because they’re there even if we don’t want them to be there you know it’s like
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so tell me about how you how your dreams well
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the lineage that I that I have been studying um with my mentor Matt Cochran for I’ve
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been studying with him for over 10 years it’s actually called dream tracking
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which is a term that he coined that um like in streamwork to tracking
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an animal in the wilderness finding their tracks in the forest floor
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and in approaching dreams that way they become sort of a dynamic territory that
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we get to return to again and again and learn and understand and it becomes a relationship that grows and responds as we continue to respond to them um
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yeah so that’s sort of like the premise of the work is
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is acknowledging that there is no patent way of interpreting dreams I don’t I don’t
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actually feel comfortable with the word interpretation I feel better with tracking we’re relating to dreams
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um it really helps to sort of know a little bit more about the back story of what’s really
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what’s a pers what is whatever person I’m working with what is their experience of their life
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up to this point and what is most pressing in their life and in that particular moment and with those two understandings listening to their dream
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and there’s different tools there’s somatic tools of like understanding
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you know how someone feels in their body when they remember the dream or actually speaking about the dream in present tense so we’re actually like returning
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into the territory of the dream I find to be really helpful it’s difficult it’s it’s difficult to remember to do that I I still struggle
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with it um but it’s really useful way of allowing our sort of cognition to take a step aside
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and not in in not um analyze a dream with our waking mind but actually be
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in the dream and remember how it felt so we can we can really gather the
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authenticity of what the dream is trying to offer how is DreamWork used in service
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of maybe some kind of transformation or change like what’s the purpose of
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DreamWork and and how do you see it relating to people’s goals or you know
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um capacity to uh to change or transform in some way I find dreams to be really pragmatic
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even if the language is outrageous or outlandish dreams really show us what we need to look at
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what’s that Mary Oliver poem about nightmares the nightmare comes and
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tells you that you need to know this it’s [Music] um
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it’s an honest it’s the I feel like dreams are perhaps one of the most honest voices that we have
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and that goes back to their wildness so in terms of like relating that to personal transformation
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um it’s sort of a sacred catalog of what needs to be known either for us or for someone
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else like we can have dreams for other people we can have trains for the land like
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it’s yeah it’s difficult for me to answer that question because it feels like
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it’s so much more of an organic process it’s difficult to quantify
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um and like being with our Dream self
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restores an aspect of our Humanity uh who knows where it will lead us I mean for me personally as you know I’ve recently decided to move to Oaxaca Mexico
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and I made that decision based off of a dream that I had and I that I’ve had I had like six or seven years ago that I’ve been holding
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and not trying to turn it into something right away it’s my mentor always kind of like
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I’m telling me about that because one of the things that he says is how can you let the dream live that’s like a precept of this dream tracking work
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um and sometimes I really like to literalize it right away the dreams dreams tell us what we need to know and then it might be something that’s going
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to be useful like many years from now in terms of like what is wanting to be transformed or it could be something that needs to be turned towards the following day you
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know um but it’s really how dreams participate in someone’s transformation it’s as
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infinite as there are people and experiences
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um which is some it’s like it reminds me of the planet you know it’s
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it’s they’re so complex it’s it’s difficult to know how they will and and
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yeah yeah what came up for me when you’re talking was you know this feeling
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that in a way you that our dreams can be like prayers
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or um or little messages from our higher self or our future self or something
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that’s being born inside of us saying you know over here you know yeah
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invite to look to pay attention to to see um yeah and just from a kind of
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psychological lens you know what you were saying made me think that really our dreams
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in some ways are about integrating our shadow and um and our unconscious uh and so much
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of you know what I believe is transformative is our ability to integrate the disowned Parts the parts that we think are bad you know back to
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our ifs conversation right um to integrate the parts that we don’t
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see and to bring them into some kind of Consciousness so that you know not to control or coerce them but to to be in relationship to them as you say yeah and
33:00
then I I also am thinking about like shamanic journeying Altered States Of Consciousness and this this phrase keeps coming to mind you know dreams are the
33:10
language of God which I’ve heard before I don’t know who said it um but yeah there’s a there’s a way in which it connects us to this Primal uh non-verbal
33:21
um imaginal space that’s deeply spiritual yeah yeah I mean it’s it’s everything all at once
33:31
it’s time stacked on itself it’s it’s the past and the future and the present it’s
33:40
you know epigenetic memory it’s it’s practical it’s applicable
how your dream work relates to your work as a musician artist um yeah thank you so much for that Curiosity it’s it’s fundamental in my work I mean
34:08
so much of even the language that I choose is referencing dreams
34:16
um yeah it’s my art wouldn’t be what it is if it weren’t for
34:24
for the DreamWork so think it’s just it’s endless poetry you know it’s endless imagery
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and it ties into this like deeper Taproot of what um is coming through me that I need to know
34:46
or explore or be lost in or and or for someone else to feel heard or seen or
34:54
access to whatever that Taproot is you know that really um I don’t know
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functions collectively um yeah my my next album is coming out
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it’s been it’s been idling for a minute which is to my chagrin and has to do with covid
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um but we’re going to be releasing it in the next couple months and some EPS called ancient powers
35:22
and the the title and most of the tracks weave dreams into into the work
35:34
um it allows me to trust the work you know like when I reference my dreams
35:40
I know that I um bringing something that is hidden that’s coming through me into the world in
35:51
a way that is um relevant and
35:59
and hopefully relevant for other people yeah how has your creative life and your
36:05
music Been instrumental in your personal development or healing
36:12
oh thank you for these great questions I feel like my first album was really about grief
36:19
and particularly tending to The Unfinished grief in my maternal lineage
36:27
um yeah I think that everybody of work and whether it’s music or
36:34
performance Taps into different layers of my my healing and hopefully
36:43
creates culture of permission for other people to feel inspired to do the
36:49
feeling that needs to be felt um there’s also like a pleasure piece
36:58
um and a somatic piece of like where am I singing from in the
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body like how does it how does the sound and the tone
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um bring liberation um first when I was recording
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I mentioned this to a friend who was interviewing me a while back um about this most recent album that we recorded of one of my design constraints
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was like how is this where is the pleasure you know like does
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this feel right or am I lost in the weeds of my brain trying in like production mode
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um and if I can stay centered in that pleasure um that you know is really also like tied to dismantling the white
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heteronormative patriarchy if I can tap into that felt sense in the music
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I experience healing and I hope that that is like encoded into one of the
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layers of the song um or bodies of work um
38:10
yeah I think I answered your question did I yeah that’s beautiful I what a profound connection between kind of pleasure and dismantling
38:19
oppressive systems I mean I I I find you know where my mind went first and then
38:26
I’d love to pull that thread a little bit more um sort of a new line of thinking for me but
38:32
the where my mind first went when you were speaking about your art is you know I’m also a poet um as you know and when and and part
38:41
of art for me is really just getting present to what’s already alive in my
38:47
imagination and my body and my and it’s just it’s just putting words or music or whatever your you know images to the thing that is already alive in you and
38:56
it’s just being awake enough present enough and attuned it’s for me it’s it’s
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really a healing process to be able to trust myself enough to bring what is
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inside of me into the three-dimensional World in a way yeah in itself is
39:13
a healing process totally and I’ve been thinking a lot about how kind of
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self-trust and self-love are really related in a way that I’ve been quite
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connected before because it’s really hard like for so long I felt so wounded because of
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my mental illness um I felt so wounded in my ability to trust
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my own mind and my own intuitive knowing even though it was very much intact I
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didn’t know which voice to listen to at times or I felt so I felt so compromised in my
39:52
ability to trust my own perception um and and so much of my ability to
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reclaim love and and compassion for myself has been related to my ability to
40:03
reclaim a sense of of my own inner knowing and uh feeling that my intuition that I can rely
40:12
on my intuition in a way that allows me to navigate the world and there’s something healing in that that I’m not sure I can fully articulate but
40:21
I I feel like self-love and self-trust come together I’m not exactly sure why
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um it feels true to me and the Poetry is sort of like the invocation of the words
40:34
coming through you is an exercise in in the soft trust and the way that
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that threads into the self-love and the restoration of instinct
40:48
yeah I love that that feels I feel something really similar in the act of
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creation and and there’s also like this Faith piece you know of like just showing up and
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being like all right I’m here like I don’t know what is going to come through I feel like a lot of doubt that anything is going to come through and then it does
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and there’s something really yeah it’s interesting to think about healing does dismantle systems that you know Thrive off of our self-doubt
41:23
yeah because the systems can exist if if we as individuals trust ourselves our attuned our com you know to what is right and true in terms of like human
41:34
dignity Justice fairness yeah like when when people are fully intact awake
41:42
connected to our inner knowing about what is right and wrong like we can’t
41:47
be controlled and subjugated like we will not allow that and that’s really you
41:53
know so much of why I I am feeling so energized and inspired to live in a time
42:00
where we have the technology to spread awareness about how the relationship
42:06
between personal and Collective transformation like we as individuals when we wake up
42:12
we can together help others wake up and then together we can dismantle this
42:17
whole system that is oppressing all of us even even the people who are in power even
42:23
the people of privilege like we are all hurt by it whether we know it or not whether we’re fighting tooth and nail to preserve the systems that we think are
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in our best interest they are they are destroying us right yeah absolutely and
42:37
I just I feel so privileged and inspired to live in a time where we have the
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resources and Technology to really make a meaningful impact on
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global issues and I think what feels so like eye-opening for me of late is just
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this awareness that it does start with our individual Freedom our individual emancipation uh and uh and a reclaiming of our own intuition pleasure self-trust
43:09
um self-love and then as we awaken to that we say oh my God you know it’s like
43:15
it’s it’s a parallel process right between our own kind of
43:21
self-healing and our advocacy I think of others and for systemic change because
43:27
it’s like because because it’s just like I’m not you know the healing isn’t oh I’m so
43:32
great and this is why I deserve love it’s oh I’m a human being and every human deserves love and so if if I’m going to step into my own ability to love and
43:41
advocate for myself that’s not separate from you know love and advocacy for others
43:48
and so there’s just this really interesting way because I have such a a history and the more individual small micro what’s called in social work the
43:58
micro perspective that it’s been really powerful to see how uh we can think
44:04
about scaling that because what where my heart really lies is like let’s let’s end
44:11
Global poverty like let’s let’s like let’s not let’s not do this anymore like we can change
44:18
the global Consciousness and all it takes is just each of us doing our own inner work and then helping others to self-liberate and and
44:28
pass it on yeah I think that’s where the New Age movement I mean one of the ways
44:33
you know that the New Age movement is like deeply flawed is that it centers exclusively the self
44:40
when you know no one’s free till everyone’s free and you know like we are
44:46
interconnected and Sophie strand one of my uh favorite contemporary thinkers
44:51
talks about how the myth of the hero’s journey is it needs to end and we in what needs to
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emerge is a mycological Consciousness which is like the you know the
45:04
networking the power of the network is um it’s the way forward and so it is
45:11
like this Ellipsis where it’s like finding that Harmony between
45:20
you know restoring the uh degradated Ecology of the self
45:26
that is degraded from the Empire from imperialism currently you know what that looks like is the white heteronormative patriarchy
45:36
and mono in my opinion the monotheistic influence it’s like in the mix certainly
45:45
um and then also exploring like what does your heart feel called to outside of yourself where you see the degradation get degradation and the
45:54
um the the destruction of the other’s dignity whether it’s you know poverty
46:03
um whether it’s like super fun sites um you know the list goes on and on with
46:10
the human and the non-human and we each have our particular genius that we can lend to what we feel called to help in the Regeneration and restoration of and
46:20
they can’t they have to coexist in parallel individual and societal change
46:25
are inextricably interwoven there are counterparts you know again we have this
46:31
way of parsing and separating dichotomizing but really like as
46:36
individuals we are incomplete if we do not you know if we if we are not in some
46:42
way in service of the collective um if we like our destiny is
46:49
in some ways to self-liberate so that we can you know offer that gift to others not
46:55
just as you say with the New Age movement you know this there’s something so incomplete and and um I almost want to say masturbatory
47:04
about that approach to self-development like it’s all about me just living my best life like that’s like I’m the like that’s an incomplete life that’s not
47:14
about your best life is not lived simply for you part of you living your best life is you figuring out your unique gift and how you can offer it in service
47:22
so you know there’s just yeah I totally agree I have a lot of problems with the
47:29
New Age movement that’s not not the least no that’s just one I love the Deep
47:35
design for us well that’s that’s kind of I think another reason why I’m feeling
47:41
you know excited to create content because there’s such a spiritual hunger right now
47:46
there’s a hunger for meaning and purpose and and spiritual consciousness but there’s not a language around spirituality that isn’t new Ag
47:54
and that isn’t dogmatic or religious and so I’ve been really kind of you know
47:59
that has been a very healing and empowering part of my journey is was
48:05
starting to listen to thinkers who were having conversations around spirituality where I didn’t have any alarm Bells where I didn’t like feel that protective
48:12
like oh this doesn’t feel right to me like it’s either coldsey or it’s narcissistic or it’s new agey or it’s dog with you or whatever it was like
48:21
like any time I was interfacing with people around spiritual actuality one of those things would come up in such a way that I didn’t feel safe engaging deeply
48:31
and it’s like spirituality is such a deep steep process that like it requires
48:36
a lot of safety and tenderness and so um you know really wanting to normalize spirituality and kind of offer a framework for how we access you know our
48:48
Birthright which is our connection to Nature to our Oneness um and and we we are most alive when in a way we are at least um self-focused right
49:02
[Music] there is some coming together that needs to happen between some sweet spot
49:08
between how we identify as individual beings and function in the greater whole and um
49:21
the systems that are really thriving right now don’t want that and they want us existing in a binary they want us existing in either or they want
49:30
us to exist in results instead of the Meandering process which is the
49:36
truth of what it means to be and the Mystery of this Dimension and planet
49:43
um yeah it’s an interesting time and like with climate change and like all of the
49:49
just like documentation of outrageous oppression that is happening it’s really
49:58
how do we how do we facilitate change like very real change
50:04
and acknowledge that like we’re a part of a process we’re part of a lineage that like it’s not
50:11
gonna all happen in our lifetime there’s just like way too much work to do so what does it mean for us to do our
50:18
part and keep it’s almost like seed saving you know it’s like what is our refinement
50:24
that we have to offer to give to the ones coming in after us
50:31
you know and my belief is that if we can take you know when we take as much
50:36
ownership and responsibility for our own internalized oppression pain suffering
50:43
shadow um that as we transmute that and heal that that organically and naturally we begin to
50:51
wake up to how we we can uniquely serve the collective so I think that yeah you
50:56
know that it’s so important because I’ve struggled with for such a long time that’s like how do I help the world how do I help the world and you know I think it’s
51:04
like well you you you really have to do a significant amount and not always I mean of course you’re always helping the world at every stage in your
51:13
journey but I think there’s I guess I just want to give people permission to be where they’re at in
51:20
their process that like if right in this moment you are focusing on your own healing trust that in the long run that will be in service right right
51:30
that’s a really important distinction yeah and like people like we all are in various ways just going through a hell of a time it’s so hard
51:41
and it’s so it’s so overwhelming all of the inputs that are coming at us that need
51:49
tending and I totally appreciate you speaking to that that’s um because the exceptionalism is another way that we oppress ourselves you know so
52:01
yeah thank you for speaking to that that feels really important
52:07
it’s really a compassion piece yeah and a surrender piece it’s like
52:14
you know for me I I’m constantly kind of struggling between the aspirational and the actual and you know that
52:24
when I’m in right relationship to my aspirations they fuel me but when I’m in
52:31
um wrong relationship they they just create shame and actually [Music] drive me away from you know my ability to birth what is what is true for me
52:45
yeah and that it’s okay to be where you’re at and thank you so much any final words you’d like to share thank you and I just want to send
52:58
love to everyone tuning in thank you so much for for being here and
53:06
sharing your your gifts and your perspective thank you it’s fun to chat
53:12
take care [Music]
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Author Bio
Brooke Sprowl is an industry-leading expert and author in psychology, spirituality, and self-transformation. Her insights have featured in dozens of media outlets such as Huffington Post, Business Insider, Cosmopolitan Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Spectrum One News, Mind Body Green, YourTango, and many more.
As the founder and CEO of My LA Therapy, she leads a team of 15 dedicated therapists and wellness professionals. Brooke has been a featured speaker at prominent universities and venues such as UCLA School of Public Affairs, USC, Loyola Marymount University, the Mark Taper Auditorium, and Highways Performance Gallery, to name a few.
With a Master’s degree in Clinical Social Welfare with a Mental Health Specialization from UCLA, a Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from USC, and certifications in peak performance and flow science from the Flow Research Collective, Brooke has helped hundreds of prominent leaders and CEO’s overcome anxiety, relationship difficulties, and trauma and reclaim a sense of purpose, vitality, and spiritual connection.
With 15 years of experience in personal development and self-transformation as a therapist and coach, she has pioneered dozens of original concepts and frameworks to guide people in overcoming mental health challenges and awakening spiritually.
Brooke is the host of the podcast, Waking Up with Brooke Sprowl. She is passionate about writing, neuroscience, philosophy, integrity, poetry, spirituality, creativity, effective altruism, personal and collective healing, and curating luxury, transformational retreat experiences for high-achievers seeking spiritual connection.
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