“What wants to happen? I love that question—that it can be asked in any moment if we just let go of the busyness of the mind, and we ask: What’s emerging here?”
There is an act of faith woven into the question—a surrender to the spirit and life force that moves through us. It is an act of faith because, in asking, we must trust that something deep within us will respond in a way that will ultimately serve us.
The work of transformation is learning to become intimate with that deep voice of inner knowing, the innermost self and soul. Transformational work is not something most of us have been taught—in truth, much of our education in life has conditioned us to feel alienated from the innermost parts of ourselves.
Living from our inner knowing, rather than the ordinary, strategic mind, is a source of vitality and exhilaration. Our inner compass is our most precious navigational tool.
While most of us have never been taught this way of being, we all have the capacity to learn if we are willing to relinquish what we think we know and listen to this new voice.
In this episode of On Living with Brooke Sprowl, we invited Leon Vanderpol, founder of the Center of Transformational Coaching and author of A Shift in Being: The Art and Practices of Deep Transformational Coaching, to sit with us and share his insight into non-religious transformational practices.
His presence and work offer a grounded approach to spirituality rooted in the everyday experience. This conversation was a reminder that every task, moment, and relationship can open up a new kind of consciousness and soulfulness when we move slow enough to listen to our inner wisdom and allow life to lead us.
During the interview, Leon and I discuss a variety of transformative practices, but we’ve highlighted a few here as a cheat sheet to get you started.
One important element of transformation is questioning your beliefs, deprogramming your conditioned habits of mind, and allowing the parts of you that are not serving you to fall away.
Often, many of the beliefs that we’ve built our identities around are not our own—they are inherited beliefs passed onto us through our families, religions, and cultures.
Some of these beliefs can house the wisdom we need to thrive or protect ourselves, and some of these beliefs can separate us from our perception of our own values and experiences, making it difficult for us to stay connected with our own bodily wisdom and intuitive knowing.
We question these conditioned beliefs, not because they are wrong, but because doing so allows us to approach life in a way that is more vast than what we have known previously—to access a deeper, richer, and more vital consciousness.
Questioning our conditioned beliefs and adopting this new mindset empowers us to reclaim our choice, step into new ways of being, and allow us to access infinitely more information than the conscious mind can process on its own. (The conscious mind processed 40 bits of information per second. The unconscious mind? 11 million).
After close examination, we can choose which beliefs to hold close and which to let go. There is choice, and there is also something autonomous unfolding within us whose truth will organically break down all of the conditioned beliefs that do not also have truth woven deeply into their composition.
To begin the transformational work of deprogramming your conditioned beliefs, start by determining what some of your beliefs are and reflecting on them. Generate a list: What do you believe about how you work? How others work? How life works?
Then, think critically about each one: In what ways does each belief move through you as you interact in the world? How do these beliefs support you and how do they limit you? What feelings do they generate in you? How do they impact other people who live in your sphere of influence?
Transformational work does not happen in a silo. So much of it happens through our relationships. Discuss your reflections with a trusted person in your life and, as you do, notice what naturally emerges in that conversation.
In the episode, Leon and I discuss how difficult it can be to recognize the voice of soul amongst the cacophony of voices that play themselves out in our minds. Leon suggests a facilitative technique he learned from Genpo Roshi, a Buddhist teacher and philosopher, that allows an individual or group of people to differentiate amongst the voices, called Finding Your Big Mind.
Start by calling forth the voices that live in a lower dimension, such as Critic, Skeptic, Doubt, etc. and follow with a statement that each specific voice would say in your mind.
Notice that you can discern these voices from each other and that each one has its own sound or texture. Then, move to voices of a higher dimension: Joy, Love, Harmony, Fairness, Responsibility, Peace. Learning to discern amongst the voices in our head allows each voice to evolve and allows us to better choose which to give authority to.
Another important element of transformative practice is Shadow Work. Shadow work is relating to the parts of ourselves that we would prefer to keep tucked away into the shadows—the parts of us that are ugly, that we repress, or that we hide from ourselves and others.
But to transform our relationship with life, we must love all of who we are, and our shadows are an important aspect of that wholeness. By working with our shadows, we uncover deep truths that allow us to see ourselves wholly and to have a more grounded understanding of the parts of us that are light.
Transformation often happens in the lessons we learn when we relate with our shadows. Shadow work cannot be bypassed. To engage with it is an act of spiritual integrity: when we look at ourselves honestly, we honor all of existence, and we can do so without judgment or shame.
Journaling and meditation are great tools for beginning to relate with your shadows. Ask yourself: What can I be honest about with myself today? What is bringing me to life? What is limiting or draining me? Where is my energy drawn?
When exploring a response, bring in a sense of neutrality and forgiveness. Notice any judgements that arise, breathe through them, and let them go.
Though it may be difficult to hold onto in the moment, remember that there is beauty even in the mess. There is humanity in it. We are all shadow and light together. When you integrate your shadow, you actually expand your capacity for light, compassion, and kindness by becoming acquainted with what makes us all collectively and intimately human.
Slowness is another essential practice for transformation. The soul has an agenda of its own, and for it to emerge, it needs vast expanses of time and space distant from our own agendas.
Most of soul-work happens far beneath the surface. Slowness allows us to redistribute our energy to the soul-work that is happening underground. When we slow down, our soul has the time it needs to deconstruct what isn’t working and reconstruct something new. It allows us the chance to practice discernment and deep listening.
Carve intentional moments of your day where your life can be unplanned. In those moments, ask what wants to happen? And then listen to the guidance.
Slow down the daily rituals of your life, such as eating, walking, or washing the dishes so that you may participate consciously. As Yeats said:
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
This requires slowness. Without it, you don’t even realize how much you miss.
Notice the voice in your head that tells you that you don’t have enough time. Learn to discern that voice. Then, find the one that tells you that you have all the time you need.
Of all these tools, trust is foundational. Transformational work is an act of faith. Even in the moments when it becomes hard to feel as if we are transforming, we can trust that the underground self is working in ways we can’t always see. We can trust that there is something unfolding deep within us and that we are worthy of it doing so.
While on our spiritual journey, we experience times where we break down. The breakdown is an important part of the journey, if engaged with properly, because it inevitably catalyzes our breakthrough.
But there are also times that the breakdown becomes overwhelming, and it can become difficult to see how to transform it. This is why transformational work does not happen alone. We all need someone in these moments to help us be guided through.
And that’s why My LA Therapy exists: to support you in doing just that.
On this week’s episode of Waking Up with Brooke Sprowl, Leon Vanderpol and I dive into an exploration of soul-work through a variety of transformative practices.
Listen by clicking the link below:
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well thank you for this invitation very much looking forward to what this conversation will bring for all those listening mm-hmm yeah so leon and i before the
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call just did a little grounding breathing and for me just kind of checking in with you know
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what wants to happen in leon’s words you know as we surrender to some of the the deep transformational work um we begin to invite what wants to happen
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rather than our predetermined ideas and so you know as we explore this liam and
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i spoke about being sort of experiential and and playing around with that so
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we we are starting there yeah a good place to start
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what wants to happen i love that question right that it can be asked in any moment
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if we just let go of the busyness of the mind for a moment and just rest and we ask okay so
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in this moment what wants to happen in me what’s that experience i may be desiring
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or in the situation around me what’s emerging here there feels like there’s an act of faith
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in that question right like there’s this surrender um to what is rather than the coercive
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imposition of our will onto what is and for me that’s really a big part of the
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essence of faith which feels a lot like a free fall is you know just that that what wants to
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happen not what i want to happen what wants to happen in this other person in relation to me in life and spirit kind of all of these forces together
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you know how do i just tune into that rather than imposing my narrow-minded ideas about
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what should be yeah that’s exactly it i mean i could not have said it better
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that’s the way it is it’s about my will i want this to happen i have this goal
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or this desire or this need or this want and i go for it and it’s sometimes at
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the expense or of whatever is happening around me because i’m
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focused on making that happen and just loosening that a bit letting that drop so that we can
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i use the word attune attune to so what is happening around me of which i’m a part
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that is trying to emerge through me so there’s this sense of partnership
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with life that happens where i’m no longer as you said imposing but partnering with
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yes that changes the whole game yes and i like to think of it as a conversation like when you start to tune into spirit you start to feel like the world
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is speaking to you and everything is speaking to you and there’s this dynamic relationship with the world and with spirit and sometimes i use the word
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god it’s i don’t mean it with any religious you know connotations it’s just sort of a placeholder for spirit or different words that we might use the universe you
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know sometimes i use these words interchangeably um but for me it’s like oh that’s really
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interesting this dynamic relationship with the universe in which it no longer
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feels like this sort of desold you know material empty meaningless place and i’m this
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lonely isolated you know consciousness trapped in a body
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all of a sudden it’s like there’s this non-dual consciousness that emerges as
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we engage in this surrender and at the essence of that for me leon and this is where you know i
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have you know participated in the um deep transformational coaching intensive and it was so eye-opening for me it felt like this crystallization of work that i’ve
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done over my lifetime of learning which voice to listen to and your emphasis on trusting your inner knowing um really crystallized lessons from
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many years and what i’ve found is that this act of self-trust is also an act of
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faith and it’s all or it’s the essence of faith and it’s also an act of self-healing when i trust myself i’m actually healing myself at the same time
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because i’m saying i’m not sure why that is but i believe it to be true so i’ll let you jump in there yeah it’s perfect and i’ve noticed from that self-trust
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space there’s an extension to what we could call trust in life
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yes do i trust in life life has you know this is the thought life has let me down so many times
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life continues to let me down there have been things inflicted upon me harms disappointments traumas life lets me down what is to trust in life
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and so when we end up there of course there’s a guarding and that’s very much then when it’s easier to just say well i might as well
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just i i know that okay i can trust myself to some degree but i don’t really trust other people
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so i can count on me but i can’t count on others i can’t count on life but there is actually not that much self-trust that’s the illusion
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it might seem like well i’m the only one i can count on but it’s actually not a truth
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the truth is that they’re in there somewhere is a trust a lack of trust in self a really deep profound lack of trust in self and that extends
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into a lack of trust in life exactly when that melts then then the whole thing becomes kind of unified i begin to trust in myself truly deeply in my
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knowing as you said and that extends then into okay this thing called life how does it work to support me how do i work to support it and we begin to kind of
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reflect into that unified way of living and the and then we start to experience it
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and then the trust grows yes internal and external trust in itself
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like others yeah there’s this reciprocity this mutual kind of these feedback loops
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that start to develop as we do this kind of work and uh oh gosh that was just thinking as you were speaking about that oh the
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the reflection principle is uh an idea that i’ve been playing around with and it’s it’s sort of similar to that old saying as within so without as above so below
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and it’s kind of what you’re hearkening to here it’s like the things that we project onto the outside world are really just a reflection of what’s
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happening internally so if we can start to see life i sometimes like to think of it as a little bit of a video game if we can start to see life as this game the
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the series of obstacles and tests that are actually for our our growth for our edification for our development for our ability to transcend
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and become greater than we can possibly imagine um there’s this there there’s
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this dynamic like reflection principle is what i call it there’s this way in which
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everything outside of us is reflecting what’s inside of us and if we can engage with it that way there’s these rich opportunities and our challenges
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rather than life’s out to get me i need to protect myself that guarding thing that you were talking about that distrust itself distrust another and then that
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becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy yeah and it’s also extremely draining
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yes as a way to live right your energy your vital life energy just gets lost
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in the process life becomes hard heavy exhausting there’s stress anxiety worry fear all of
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that just kind of compiles within when all that trust and that unity feeling is is gone
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and then it has to be regained to what you’re calling the reflection principle as you said beginning with the thought okay maybe all of this has
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a greater meaning for me maybe this is all some kind of a lesson that is here for me to learn
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about myself about the nature of life about the way it actually functions beyond my very narrow understanding of it or what i’ve been taught by others to believe
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is true or not true about life and if we can lean in just a little bit and yeah as you said look for that well what is that that lesson what is it that this is here to
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teach me about me or about my relationship with others just in that moment there’s a gap
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a gap of potential and if we can go into that gap we’ll notice it really opens up
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a whole new world of possibility that we may not ever see where we’re kind of locked into that framework of the matrix this is hard this is
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heavy this is yeah the matrix that matrix yeah it reminds me of a line of poetry i
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wrote recently offer your heart to the unknown it is just stating within you a life larger than you can dream um i’ve just i’ve just begun to cultivate a relationship to my own
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limitations and what i can’t see and to find home in that because i can rely
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on my own inner knowing but this brings me to an interesting point where there’s some divergence in our expertise and skill sets that comes up for me because
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you know i wasn’t prepared for this work i don’t think i don’t think that i if i had you know even found you a year previously i don’t think i could have
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i don’t know that this is true but i’m not sure i could have engaged with your work in the same way i had a lot of shadow integration to do i had a lot of
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and your work really allows the space for that actually so i’m not sure that this is
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entirely true but there was a way in which i needed a lot of permission and reassurance that and i think that i personally needed a lot
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of scaffolding to understand kind of the shadow elements of my experience before i was really ready to engage with your work in such a transformational way
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and i think it would have been transformational at any point in my journey but perhaps it’s just
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at the particular moment that i you know began the deep coaching intensive and read your book it was i was so ready for it it was just like pow it felt like
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this very you know what’s interesting for me is that one of the practices that’s been most helpful for me is slowness but it felt like such a quick i didn’t expect it it’s like it felt like such a
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wow i’ve been i’ve been seeking like you know what’s the modality for what’s the spiritual community what’s the peak experience what’s the mystic how do i
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what are the practices and i’ve like experimented and dabbled with hundreds of different transformational and uh you know different kind of religious and spiritual
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practices and none of it felt authentic to me until i read your book and i was like this is so simple and i still get this it’s like the same experience of an
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altered state but an altered state is like a compressed compacted version
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and this is like a slow grounded like it’s the same experience without the
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being out of your kind of ordinary consciousness you you’re out of ordinary consciousness
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but you’re still grounded in your work in a way that a lot of the mystical and spiritual
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practices that allow you to glimpse that just they don’t keep you on the ground a lot of the
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time that’s like the opposite of what they’re designed for and they’re sort of i think designed as as like a compass like hey there’s this thing over
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here have this experience and then go find out how to actually get this into
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your daily life but i think a lot of people become like peak experience seekers in a way and that’s sort of kind of what i was grappling with it’s like
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how do i find a sustainable version of this i know this is real i’m having these experiences they’re quite profound and yet it’s not sustainable to
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be altered all the time right no no and you hear about the mystics that have had such enlightening experiences and they’re basically dysfunctional for
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a couple of years as they learn to integrate that enlightened state of awareness into just daily doings because so much can fall away like the desire to care
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for the body or eat drink so i’ve never myself chased those experiences they never
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maybe it was that they did they seemed out of reach they seemed greatly impractical and i never went about thinking maybe i should travel to india and go to an
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ashram and sit there for nine months until i have that experience yeah there must be some guru that can take me there i never had that i was always much more
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attracted to the idea of well you called it an altered state yeah an altered state by this functional altered state yes where i am maintaining in this lived
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material reality a very functional way of being yeah but one that is it is let’s call it the
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altered state i like to use sometimes the term the the 5d world it’s this altered dimension yes which
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functions very differently than that more we’ll call it 3d world it’s actually our 4d world time in space but that world where everything seems very solid
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and immutable where laws seem very entrenched and then we move to this new paradigm
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and recognize that a lot of what we’ve been taught is just of that world and not of a greater more expansive reality and if we can tap into that not really is the
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exciting journey for people is realizing i can tap into that that there is more that is possible in and through me i don’t necessarily understand it but
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i can go about finding it but keeping our feet really on the ground deeply grounded in the world as it is and that’s been my issue as i i was the
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person kind of looking for the guru and looking for the you know magical thing that was gonna you know help me become enlightened and what was so refreshing about finding you
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as i shared with you when we first met is i wasn’t getting any of the weird narcissistic cult leader vibes which is rare
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okay that’s a good that’s a good first start and then your work is just so ground it’s not like i have a real objection to
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the kind of new age culture that is very head in the clouds without feet on the ground
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it feels wishy-washy and it’s not that they’re not hearkening to some truth or or grasping and you know expressing an element of truth but there’s something
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missing from the picture that makes me feel really unsafe in those communities because it’s so love and light and there’s no room for the shadow and it’s also it’s
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almost like it’s your fault if your life isn’t going i don’t know there’s like this there’s a lot of weirdness to that culture and then there’s that guru thing that like there’s this guru echolite
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sort of dynamic that’s the the narcissism thing i was talking to so in any case i’ve i was so struck when i read your work it was like this is so
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this is feet on the ground this is so deeply grounded and practical there’s no
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weird i have to do this breath work and i have to say this mantra or whatever like focus yeah the magic is there that’s what’s so striking because that’s what i’ve been
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longing for for so long it’s like okay i know i can get an altered state but that’s not i don’t want a temporary altered state i want to enter into this
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non-ordinary reality as the shamans call it um in a way that i can actually
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you know function as you say in the world and so many spiritual people
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you know it’s hard it’s a hard balance because i do notice when i’m spiritually inspired it is difficult to stay grounded sometimes because it’s very you know
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it’s intense it can be overwhelming it can also be very calm but sometimes it can be activating
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because it’s you know it’s a lot of energy well just noticing that a lot of people are
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they’re called to serve the world in some way there’s a desire to help the world many like i was saying people on the spiritual path or people who are at
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least into personal growth and development there’s a there’s a desire to really be
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in the world and to help the world through whatever work talent passion they have
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and they can get very disheartened by what they see on the news and so what i find about this let’s just call it the feet on the ground
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reality where we’re still operating in this altered state of of being an awareness where we’re beginning to understand the this this thing called the unified field
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where life and us are not separate but one how do we support and work with is that it
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allows us to be much more of support in the world like we begin to
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not just want to do it but because it’s such a practical way of existence
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it is happening it just begins to happen our work starts to take on
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meaning and matter it becomes in itself very fulfilling and satisfying no matter
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what work we do that’s the beauty of it we start to find that the form of the work matters a bit less because i’m now able to recognize that
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i am here to partner with life and this is what life has in this moment brought me to this is the circumstance there’s part of me that might say i don’t like it
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but when we can let go of that just a little enough to like okay so but what wants to happen here i move back into partnership i recognize that where i am
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is the perfect place for me to be there’s a lesson here for me to learn there’s a way for me to begin to serve yes to find meaning and fulfillment in
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my work and that doesn’t again mean that you love every aspect of your life whether it’s all perfect there’s going to be a journey of reshaping
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the world around you to reflect more of that emerging inner experience and the more that inner experience becomes joyful meaningful lightful
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so by almost magic does the world around you when you’re in partnership with it but as you said earlier there is that shadow side piece we have to attend to
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if we’re not actively seeking to look at all of that which keeps us from these more expansive let’s call them enlightened states of
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awareness i mean really do the work no bypassing do the work then the movement into these other
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experiential states is far more natural but also accelerated yes but if
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we’re just bypassing it like if i just sit here long enough i’ll be enlightened and somehow i just hold that today magically disappears right
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my ego is magically healed yeah i don’t actually have to look at myself or take any responsibility or feel anything i’ll just be yeah no i just got to get there
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yeah exactly so this brings us to the concept of the perfect functionality of
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dysfunction which is very similar to something that i’ve written about which or and thought
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about that i call transformative destruction so why don’t you share how you define um the
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perfect functionality of dysfunction and the transformative dysfunction or destruction transformative destruction you said
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yeah that sounds about right the perfect functionality of dysfunction simply means that when people do decide to really lean into
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the work of personal transformation which is to really go in and look at that way that we’ve been conditioned really conditioned we
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we just underestimate the scale of the conditioning that we’ve taken in but if we’re really willing to look at that condition part of ourselves that said this is the way the
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world is and this is what you should believe this is what you should value this is how it should be structured if you do that you’ll be safe and secure you’ll make it
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you’ll be successful whatever if you’re willing to look at that really question it as valid
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and begin to entertain perhaps some other ways of perceiving and thinking
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there is naturally going to be a kind of inner conflict between these two worlds these two value sets these two ways of perceiving and that conflict is going to
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create a breakdown because you will start to say i’m not valuing this anymore this is something
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i was taught i never chose it in fact i think it’s a bunch of baloney but i don’t yet know what i’m choosing either i don’t really know
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what i’m saying yes to i just say oh i’m saying no to that so this is the beginning of a kind of breakdown which can feel internally confusing disorienting there’s trepidation there
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and that feels dysfunctional because the known world the world that i’ve known my whole life within me is now cracking and breaking and falling
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into pieces that can’t be right this can’t be right there’s something wrong
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so we try to cobble it together in some kind of way but some way we know that cobbling it back together is not the way forward but we don’t really know
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the way forward so we’re in that dysfunction but i see that’s the functional part is that that’s that’s the function of it that’s the function of transformation there’s a breakdown
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emergence of something that’s more authentic and real exactly i think of it as you know we have to wreck the old you know structure to build something new that’s
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you know can hold more that can that can go higher um and it’s an iterative it’s an iterative process
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right it’s it’s something that keeps emerging in different forms throughout our lives and we can
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sort of learn to have faith in the process even in those moments and you know of the dysfunction or the destruction
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and i think it’s you know it’s a really old mythological idea death and rebirth the phoenix from the ashes um jesus on the cross you know all of these are you
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know mythological representations of this age-old process of refining our
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character and finding transcendence that’s what all of those images represent and yet i feel like we’ve sort of lost the language of the spirit in our
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modern culture in the post-scientific revolution we’ve been taught to think of our ourselves as lonely consciousness you know trapped in a body you know
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separate from the world and throughout history that’s not the way that people experience themselves that’s actually a framing that we’ve adopted and we’ve
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we’ve created this operating system that is actually we don’t even realize it’s
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not our own because it’s it’s so deeply ingrained and so i think your work you know for me personally has allowed me which i’ve longed for for so long and
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like i said i’m just like you know i’ve been in the transformation space for a long time so it’s not like i haven’t tried stuff before and things have been
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helpful it’s not just this is what is it stage four is it stage three or stage four in the um
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the stages is it i can’t remember the stages the six six stages of real real power or personal power yes yes yeah the stage of real transformative work seems to be
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what we call stage four power by reflection which simply means that there’s going to be a period where we move from the known world into the
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unknown world where we have to go in and do that reflective work in ourselves and
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that’s the part that is deeply transformative but also the part that feels deeply dysfunctional until we’ve started to learn the ways of
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this new paradigm this altered state of reality which has its own dynamics and
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patterns and ways of existing in it but it’s not something that’s taught to us up front we didn’t go to school and get taught patterns of transformation
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you get taught patterns of you know the 5d world so to speak we were just taught to live in this 3d world to succeed to get the grades to
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whatever so we don’t know this so this feels that dysfunction again you mentioned the destruction
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of it because it is a kind of destruction and i and i just want to say for me it’s not that we have to go about with a sledgehammer and tear down everything we’ve been taught it it’s more
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organic than that it’s kind of happening of its own volition as a natural part of transformative yeah yeah life just will naturally present us
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with the lessons the precise lessons that we need you know in order to
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transform and become the best versions of ourselves and that’s the idea of the reflection principle you know eckhart tolle says rock oh
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no this is jk rowling rock bottom became the solid ground on which i built my life um and eckhart tolle says every challenge is a disguised opportunity for salvation
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it’s kind of the idea behind the obstacle is the way isn’t it yeah even eckhart tolle wrote i think at the beginning of power of now
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something about the night of his well let’s call it enlightened transcendent experience
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was a night of suicidal thoughts wow of wanting to end his life
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so you know at that moment he was rock bottom now it’s hard to know what was the
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catalyst for that extraordinary shift most of us don’t go through such great evolutionary leaps within the span of an evening and those who do he spent two years
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on a park bench apparently just trying to integrate the what just happened so you can see it’s a little disorienting but frankly most of us it’s a more gradual journey
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but we have to really pay attention to the journey we we and we still have to live our lives like
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it’s kind of like this everyday awakening kind of thing like how do i awaken how do i live into this
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when i’ve got bills to pay food to buy cook yeah all of the the
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things of life weighing on me why do i have to eat it’s like a lot of time and energy it’s really
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exactly oh i got to do the dishes again you know these things exist
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for all of us and so how do we attend to this deep you know inner movement
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at the same time as we have all of this worldly stuff that we’re responsible for
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to continue so that we you know we honor that because it’s part of our life so again
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this is why feet on the ground feels so right for me and it is right for so many because it’s not about having the luxury to just pick up and
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you know travel to some ashrams somewhere and do the work there yes it has to happen here and this brings me to something that
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you know it’ll be hard to talk about on this call because it’s a very visual model but something i’ve been working on for a while and i’d love to have you look at at some point
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is what i call coherence theory and the idea is that integrity is fractal right
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like integrity the smallest moment of our day is reflective of you know
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the largest kind of like this few of our lives are refl are reflected in each moment of our day and
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kind of at every scale in between and so you know there’s this way in which we try to bypass we try to skip steps we try to get out of jail free so to speak
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and it always comes to bite us in one way or another and that’s these lessons that life keeps presenting us is like no no you’re still not in integrity
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gotta gotta look at this gotta integrate that gotta you know you can dodge that here but
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it’s coming back over here and so you know my sense and this goes back to what you said about kind of the acceleration which is you know a word i’ve used around it
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it’s almost like there’s a gravitational pull to integrity and as we bring each element of our lives into greater integrity there’s this like self optimizing it’s
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almost like an algorithm that teaches itself you know things that we don’t even know how like we we start to like learn and experience things that we don’t
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feel like we’re do like the ordinary strategic mind isn’t doing it’s more like that spirit that life moving through us and you know like when i
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write poetry for example i don’t it almost doesn’t feel there’s no effort it just feels like it’s flowing through me and there’s more and more as i engage
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with you know your work and your practices and and like live into this this experience that
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we’re talking about more and more elements of life just feel like i’m simultaneously falling and flying it’s quite a remarkable experience and all the old
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cliches about faith and you know what’s the uh the all the you know falling flying
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i don’t know jumping off a cliff and then finding the net a leap in the net will appear all these sayings that i’m forgetting right now you know all of them just like you’re like oh that’s
27:50
what they were talking about and that’s what’s been so powerful for me is i knew all of these things were possible but until i read your book i didn’t know how
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to live them out and until i you know and it was also your book and it was also really working with you know you and i had a session monica and
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i had a session carolina as my coach through dci really through the it was the combination of the the book and the you know the actual practical sessions
28:13
that really just crystallized all of this for me of i can really trust that inner knowing i don’t have to keep yes i’ll i have the metacognitive
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skills to reflect step outside of myself look at myself honestly but that doesn’t mean i have to constantly put the voice of the strategic ordinary
28:32
consciousness on the same footing with my inner knowing because the only things i’ve ever regretted in life are things that i’ve done from up here david white
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uh who as i said is a mentor of mine someone who’s really inspired and helped me
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in in crystallizing this work and um kind of living out his unique destiny in the world has really helped me feel permission to do the same myself so
28:56
he’s a poet and a speaker and just uh really really admire his work and he says you know whether the soul fails or succeeds it doesn’t care it only cares that
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it did in its own way that it you know the soul only cares that it it it was living
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its own unique journey it doesn’t you know the outcome isn’t relevant and that
29:18
you know is really what i feel i don’t i’m no longer i used to be so like this has to go this way and you’re just always trying to force an outcome
29:26
whenever we’re coercive about things it’s it never actually it it serves the opposite purpose of what we intend typically right so there’s this you know as i kind of
29:36
realized how much that wasn’t working in the perfect functionality of dysfunction and transformative destruction you know it was like oh this isn’t working let me
29:45
you know let me reevaluate this and the more i started to just surrender to and listen to the inner knowing however crazy and irrational it seemed you know
29:54
while still you know again reflecting it’s not like we we lose all reason or anything but just learning which voice to listen to has been one of the most
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healing and transformative experiences of my life because i used to just not know which one’s the
30:08
right one so one of the things that i learned some years about which was an interesting way of hearing kind of all those voices in our head that we have competing for our
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attention you know you’re talking about hearing the voice of the soul and i’ve noticed that many people really can’t discern that voice
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amidst the endless cacophony of voices that play out in their minds and so this
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technique from gempo roshi he’s a buddhist teacher philosopher
30:36
brought forth an old buddhist technique i think his book is called big big mind big heart but it’s a facilitative technique you can do with an individual or
30:43
you can do it with a group and so basically the idea is that you start with the kind of what he calls the lower mind voices where you just call it forth
30:53
so let’s say for example the voice of the critic so you invite everybody in the room to speak from the voice of the critic
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within them and sure enough everybody can quite readily access the voice of the critic
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and speak from it nobody in the room is not speaking everybody’s speaking and we all
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see not only do i have that voice but so does everybody hear they’ve all got a critic voice
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he then can call forth the voice of the skeptic or the voice of the doubter
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or the voice of anger whatever it might be and just keep inviting people to speak from that voice speak from that voice so we’re being consciously invited to find
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that voice give it voice and to notice it’s different from say that voice or that voice
31:36
you can even invite in say the voice of your father the voice of your mother anyone that had an influence upon you as a child whose thoughts perhaps are still
31:46
underlining the way that you live and think about life and to speak from that voice i think oh that that’s the voice
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of my father coming through right that’s the voice of my mother and them saying this this this and this about me so you can access these different voices
31:59
this is a really valuable technique because again we’re learning to discern and i noticed one day i was sitting in my car and just thinking about whatever and then it was
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that’s that voice that’s the voice of that part of me and now i see it it wasn’t just
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autopilot anymore just a thought passing through that i’m now feeling tense around something
32:18
that i was automatically criticizing or judging that’s the voice of that okay that helped then he calls forth the bigger mind voices which are say the
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voice of the higher self the voice of spirit the voice of great joy the voice of great love and invites us to begin to speak from those voices so let’s call forth the
32:38
voice of great joy speak from that it takes a moment for people to access it sometimes but then
32:44
they finally access it it’s like yeah i too in me have the voice of great joy i have the voice of harmony the voice of great love so these are the big mind big
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heart voices that we have in us but often get buried amongst let’s call them the more egoic uh lower mind voices that can dominate and so ultimately it comes to
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this point well how do we access the voice of the soul and live more from that because as you were saying when you live in relationship to
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and in harmony with the soul it doesn’t matter what you were doing so much it was i was there with it and whether i was doing something
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mundane and routine like cleaning the toilet or whether i was serving a client
33:30
in my practice i was with that part of me because i know that part of me and that part of me
33:36
is allowed to shine forth at any moment in my day but if you’re not connected to the voice of the soul or great joy or great love and we don’t recognize it as an
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endless potential that’s always there we just get trapped in the regular flow of thought
33:52
so let’s call fourth great joy what does great joy sound like a great love great soul i love giving force yeah that’s so interesting the parallels between
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traditional psychology and these old psycho-spiritual you know psychotechnologies as they are called sometimes because i mean really modern-day
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psychology is an extension of these old spiritual traditions and the more it evolves it just comes right back to the where it started right and so you
34:17
know so much of what you’re talking about is work that i do with clients in terms of discerning whose voice is that but more recently i’ve been studying
34:23
internal family systems therapy which is also you know parts work and it’s almost identical
34:29
to the process that you talked about with big mind big heart you know calling forth different aspects of the self speaking with them asking them
34:36
questions getting to know them understanding each of our parts has a positive intention even if they sometimes have negative consequences but there’s always a positive intent between
34:45
all of our quality of parts that it’s normal to have different parts and then they call self-energy like the soul you know what you and i might call soul
34:53
and and um sometimes you know my clients and i call it like soul self you know kind of this merger of like the higher self and the soul um but you know it’s
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different language sometimes but it’s a lot of just the same truths and the same processes um and that self energy is the playful creative you know just joy it’s it’s the
35:13
real authentic the true self right is is the way that us frames it and uh so
35:19
yeah what you said i also was struck by um you know you said it’s always there that great joy or that harmony that’s always there you know it’s kind of like all the
35:27
parts of ourselves are always there i just created a little video that i call the symphony of selves and it’s like when we can hold kind of all of the
35:36
plurality of our parts you know the symphony of selves as one great you know
35:41
piece of music as opposed to this is bad this is good you know this is the face i show this is the face i hide you know um you start to see that there’s beauty kind
35:51
of in all of your different faces even though you know some are not pleasant and some are painful but they they all have some kind of constructive purpose
36:00
when we really take the time to listen to them and there’s a real transmutation when we engage with ourselves in ways that are you know invite
36:09
understanding and curiosity of our different parts rather than this is bad i need to make it go away what’s paradoxical right like the more we
36:17
try to shun those parts the more they sort of get locked in a closet and become funeral you know and then when we invite them and come into the living
36:25
room have some tea let’s let me get to know you it’s like they they grow they can grow
36:30
up but they can’t actually get their needs met they become you know like developmentally stunted when we when we keep them aside and so this
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this invitation this communication this welcome of all of the shadow is a necessary aspect of this you know ability to engage spiritually in the process of
36:48
faith and orchestration that we’ve been talking about and that’s what’s challenging sometimes in these conversations we sometimes just
36:54
have this tendency to emphasize oh how great it is to have this experience of this five-dimensional reality and you know and it is it’s all beautiful and also
37:04
you know sometimes i’m paralyzed like sometimes i mean i’m in the destruction sometimes i’m in
37:09
the death part of the rebirth so it’s easy to talk about it sort of from the mountaintop and to kind of not that we not that we have but i i don’t want to gloss over how
37:20
um ugly it is sometimes how pain really painful it is and then people don’t need to see
37:27
themselves as broken because they’re in pain that actually as you say it’s perfectly functional it’s a necessary part of transformation transformation
37:35
cannot happen without certain aspects of us dying so that they can be reimagined reconstructed optimized it’s like it’s like an operating system on
37:43
your computer if we keep the same operating system forever you know things are gradually going to become obsolete we have to be constantly updating our internal operating systems and
37:54
that process is really from my perspective the a process that is defines our character am i willing to face life and be changed by it am i
38:04
willing to you know engage with life and such in this relational way
38:09
um that allows me to be constantly upgrading so that i am you know more and more equipped to face
38:16
my own terror to face my own limitations to face my own weakness to face my shadow to face my paralysis to face all of these parts you know if i engage with
38:25
them in a you know in this way they have this transmutative power and yet at the end of
38:34
that transmutation it can be easy to go oh yeah you know now i’m over here and that yes it’s very easy to forget what what it took
38:44
to get there very easy to forget right all the struggle and challenge and heartache and
38:50
frustration disappointment that it can take to move beyond all of that into that place where those pieces no longer have much of a grip and not
38:58
much of life’s energy is is lost to them but a tremendous amount of time and energy is given
39:03
to them to arrive there and there’s nothing wrong with that like as you said that’s the
39:08
functionality of it it’s the nature of the journey and if we can really accept it and as you said
39:14
the symphony of selves comes into that except that full kaleidoscope of selves that we are then that eases the path it doesn’t make it easy it doesn’t make it
39:24
straightforward but it eases things because there’s less resistance built into the system to a natural process of change yes it just reminds me of i i’ve
39:33
hiked half dome three times and it’s almost like you you look back on it’s like a 20 mile hike in northern california you look back on hiking halftime you go oh
39:42
the view and it was so amazing and you laugh at all the moments that were hard and you you know you tell stories and it’s all like rosy in retrospect
39:50
and then but like and then you’re on it again and you’re like what the hell was i thinking like getting on this yeah before like how did i forget this part yeah yeah
40:03
you know and that’s where the cultivation with you know of trust and faith you trust in life trust and self trust in others and and the faith
40:10
that emerges from that is a result of like okay i’ve been here before i know i can you know i know i’ll be on the other side where i’m telling the story that it was you know not so bad
40:19
um but in this moment it’s really okay and this is i think the thing that you
40:24
know is important to pause on and just remind ourselves and remind others of like it’s really okay when you’re in the breakdown the breakdown is a vital
40:32
element of the breakthrough it’s like whenever i think i’m stuck and i it
40:37
never feels this way i mean it rarely feels this way again i’m cultivating more faith in it but in the moment it’s like i’m just stuck these are my only
40:44
options none of them are working there’s no other way to do it i’m hopeless i’m powerless right and then inevitably in those experiences in which i feel like
40:53
there’s no options this other way emerges because it’s necessity is the mother of
40:59
invention right like if i feel like there’s no possible way to move through this
41:04
um except for the options i’ve used and they’re not working inevitably if i’m
41:09
committed to my own work i somehow you know or i life spirit whatever something
41:16
you know allows me to change in such a way that i find new possibilities that i
41:21
didn’t imagine and that ultimately empower me and equip me to face future challenges
41:26
in ways that allow me to be more resilient more balanced and um and just to feel stronger and to feel that trust even in the in the difficulties yeah as i
41:38
was always i like to say don’t let the breakdown break you down because if you can see it as that natural functional part
41:48
of a journey into a more resilient resourceful connected alive aware self
41:54
then it’s all going to be worth it but if it breaks you down if the breakdown breaks
41:59
you down it can be very very difficult because now it feels like there really is no light there is no meaning to this there’s no purpose here there’s no value
42:07
in it it’s just hard and painful so i love that we’re having this conversation because i do feel that again we’re not taught this stuff in school
42:17
this is like the most valuable information that we could ever impart to humanity right and we’re not taught that in school but we were taught you know which
42:26
how to read a map you know we weren’t the map of ourselves we were not taught so here we are teaching that there is this extraordinary process to
42:37
be had that can be hard and heavy it is a breakdown that we don’t need to let it break us down and sometimes we do need to turn to support
42:45
to get support for that this is why i do the deep coaching work this is why you do the work you do because people need to understand that there are those who can support
42:55
the breakdown so you don’t get broken down but you used it as a way to allow this emergence of that higher reality that higher selfhood that greater way
43:04
of knowing and living to come through because in that in you know in the old metaphor the butterfly which i love so much the butterfly breaks or
43:12
the caterpillar breaks down into kind of a death goo and that death you is the nutrient
43:18
by which the butterflies cells can begin to emerge again so the butterflies
43:23
emerging cells are born of the death of the caterpillar
43:28
they’re born within that primordial goo again we don’t see that in our lives that that breakdown is what is needed it’s a necessary kind of soil for the emergence
43:39
of these new ways so they’re there they’re kind of little lights that pop up
43:45
and for a while they can be almost invisible until they get enough strength to kind of connect and turn into something and that’s why we have support for that process so we can sit and say okay
43:56
here is here’s the breakdown here’s what i’m leaning into here’s the shadow work that i know i need to do here’s where my ego dominates my life here’s
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where things are hard and yet here’s the light here’s the other light here’s that
44:10
emerging piece of me how do i connect those two so they become stronger and we can do that work through conversation in held spaces yeah with others yes and i
44:20
love that because that was another sort of illusion that i had or false belief that i had around spirituality it was like i need to go be in a meditate in a cave
44:29
for three years three months and three days and then i’ll you know that’s the only way and and really to become enlightened right and really what i you know part of what i
44:38
took from your program was you know spirituality authentic spirituality emerges so
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organically from a certain way of being in relationship with others and you know it’s
44:50
something i i sort of know and have experienced in different ways but there’s a way in which your coaching style really crystallized
44:57
that for me in my experience uh you know working with my coach and working with you know many of the coaches at the center that i mentioned earlier yourself included of course
45:06
um it was like oh you know this different kind of consciousness is happening and it
45:12
doesn’t feel like it’s something i’m doing it feels outside of me it just feels like when the con and this is you know brings us to one of the most important
45:20
concepts in your book to for me and the most important questions you ask which is you know what are the conditions that allow for transformation to occur naturally
45:31
and with the greatest amount of joy and ease because for me i always felt like there was this effort i got to work so hard and i got to
45:37
meditate this many days today and i’ll figure it all out in my head or
45:43
whatever and it was like oh this doesn’t have to be work actually this is the opposite of work it’s just an allowance and allowance is a helpful concept for
45:52
me because the buddhists say acceptance and i think they mean the same thing but
45:57
for me personally what acceptance connotes is effort i have to accept this i have to like it that means a positive feeling about but i don’t have a positive feeling
46:07
and it creates this tension in this inner war in the experience of like trying to accept myself and i’m mad at myself because i can’t accept but then
46:14
i’m like but i don’t accept you know like there’s this whole thing that happens but allowance there’s not i have no baggage of allowance like oh
46:22
this is what i’m feeling cool it’s like the opposite of the bypass that can happen with words like acceptance or even compassion like yes of course you know
46:30
we want to you know compassion is a natural kind of emergent property of you know
46:36
arranging our lives in certain ways as we do this work but to force yourself to be compassionate with yourself before you’ve actually integrated the work can
46:45
actually be across purposes with what you’re trying to achieve yeah
46:51
yeah that’s just it the conditions within the self that allow this journey to unfold with the greatest amount of ease and joy and what are those conditions that’s the question people ask well
47:00
what are those conditions that i can foster for myself that allow this journey to unfold and as you said as it unfolds of its own volition there
47:07
is a natural orientation to understand the way of life the way of spirit the way of the dynamics of the world beyond the world that we’ve known before that
47:16
naturally comes into it either through learning from others from personal experience but it naturally shows up so always just can we come back to what those
47:25
conditions are because if we create the conditions then we are naturally going to facilitate allowance it’s going to come with greater ease there’s going to be more joy in the
47:34
process more trust we started our conversation with trust there’s going to be more of that attuning to what is trying to emerge here what is life calling
47:42
forth from me what is my role in this as a partner of life with that person with
47:47
that person rather than fighting them how do we partner together to create the life that we desire or the world that we desire and one of those conditions
47:55
you mentioned early on about slowing down right and you said how hard that was that’s just that’s the first of our conditions if you will those optimal
48:03
conditions it’s like how do we even slow down life enough to allow more
48:09
reflection time more alone time more time for that inner work because as we talked about that’s that
48:15
fourth stage powered by reflection is often when people start to withdraw from the world they’ve known to create that time and space
48:21
but the imposition of the world they’ve known the responsibilities the duties the busyness the go go go get in the way so slowing down just creating spaciousness in your
48:31
life spaciousness in your mind and your activities is so hard for people but so life-changing like you get so much more done with so much less time
48:42
when you’re not spread so thin i mean this is also an aspect of my peak performance and flow neuroscience training it’s like the way that we
48:50
orchestrate our lives in this scatter plot sort of orientation to everything
48:57
is not only you know unpleasant but it’s also inefficient and we’re trying to get more done you know we’re spending more energy doing less and there’s this
49:05
incredible thing that’s happened for me that that i was trying to cram everything in i was trying to get so much done and achieve all these goals
49:12
and then all of a sudden when i start i you know before i engage with your program and started reading your book i just knew like when i read your book i
49:20
was like i this is what i’m called to right now this has to be more important than everything else and i made that the priority and then when i did and i
49:28
slowed down all of the things like i’ve been wanting to start a podcast for two years and now and here we are yeah that would have been possible you know if i
49:37
hadn’t slowed down because things were out of alignment for me and so they they weren’t sustainable they couldn’t just creatively emerge organically it’s authentic
49:47
and i don’t do you know i don’t like to do things that don’t feel authentic and integrity so it’s like i couldn’t get anything off the ground
49:53
because that piece of my life was not an integrity and even though you know it’s not like i i’m sitting around doing nothing all day but there was a way in
50:01
which the next steps that i knew i was called to i couldn’t actually live into
50:07
because that that piece was missing missing excuse me so i have you to thank for that
50:12
and um it’s been a great joy and honor and privilege to speak with you today leon and i i see that we’re running out on time but just really
50:21
appreciate you your time and i hope we can do it again sometime excellent it’s been really good really good and i am available anytime people can reach out to me
50:31
center for transformational coaching if they’d like to contact or learn about our programs at the center everything this book is called a shift in being
50:40
you you you’d say it i want it i don’t want to get a shift in being correct a shift in being available on all online book retailers
50:55
and a really powerful book really transformative for me personally and as someone who’s been in personal psycho spiritual development for 20 years
51:03
it has probably been the most influential book that i have read that has had a lasting influence on my life and
51:10
and that’s saying a lot because i’ve read a lot and i’ve been working in this space for a long time so i’m just really really grateful to speak to you and i
51:18
hope we can do it again sometime anytime i am here thank you [Music]
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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