Amber Hawken on Stop Striving, Start Thriving

going to hear some f bombs during this one. Amber is a wonderful speaker, teacher, and friend, and I am so glad that she's joining us today. Here we go, you say, Ambert, thank you so much for coming on the Holy Human podcast. I am so inspired by you and your work and I follow you. Everybody should go follow her on Instagram because you have the best videos, you have the best bits of information that always so hit home and just bring a lot of wisdom and

a lot of grounded wisdom to the table. And I am just grateful. I'm grateful for that. The world should be grateful for that. So thank you, well, thank you so much. It's an it's an honor to here. Really. One of my favorite things about you is your groundedness and how you're just kind of no bullshit and you're willing to You're willing to go there wherever there maybe you're willing to go there. And you wrote a book called The Unfunned with the bull Life, which is my

favorite title. I wanted to start there. I want to know what unfunned with the ball means? How does one become unfun with the ball? You know what, Really, it's so much easier. It's so easy. It's really really simple. And I don't mean that to insult anyone or be confusing.

So the basis of the book really, it's got seven different chapters and seven different codes so to speak, you know, to put it into some context, and it's about connection and vulnerability, right to live from a place of inspiration and freedom. And that's that's, you know, that fancy little

title thing underneath it helps explain what it is. I feel like I'm punching out Pinterest quotes here, but essentially the whole thing is about instead of adding ship to yourself, you take it all away and you just become the most simple, unique, pure form of yourself for for lack of a better you know, less fluffy term um. You know, I think it's all of the stuff that we put on and all the things that we think about ourselves and all of the stuff that we think about life

that makes us so uh fuckab fuckable. Oh my god, my mom. Okay, So just just to put this into some context, this word. My mother listened to my first episode of this podcast and she was like, can you just can you? It was great minus bnnus the F word, and I was like, Oh, my mom's gonna love when Amber comes out of here because we're going to just talk about unfunk with the bottle. Sorry, Lean's mom, I

love you. Okay, that's probably like we'll smooth it over. No, that's it's so interesting because yes, you're talking about taking away, and that's one of the things that I want to talk to you about because we're right now a lot of things are being taken away from all of us until it has to happen. We're not really wants to

choose to allow things to fall away. And I feel like I'm just now getting to a place in my life with certain things where life's taken enough for me and I'm actually taking the reins back and like actually choosing to to put myself out there and be vulnerable.

It's taking a long time for me to get there, and it's it's only in certain places of my life because I know in other places it's very hard for me to choose those the breakdown or to choose the upheavaling that has to happen sometimes where we're all sitting right now with things being taken, you know, from us, it does give us an opportunity to rebuild, but the first has to be a breakdown. And I saw something the other day where you were talking about how the

breakdown was so important. Can you talk about that breakdown piece for a moment and why it's so important and how we can start to normalize this piece because I feel like it's something we all want to run from. If it's okay, I'd love to share a story from my retreat on the weekend because it's really relative to this. Would it be okay, please? Yes, I would love that. So my alchemy retreats are the very deep healing places, so we we create a container where deep healing can occur.

And when I say deep healing, it could be on a cellular level, but it can be generational, you know, down the lineage of a feminine energy of women, of the person itself, of the woman in his lifetime, because this particular one was was female only. And on day three is when people start to really really let's say, breakdown day one and two. They've had these beautiful experiences.

You know, they've done a sweat lodge their day two of their juice fast, so but they've already had a cleanse beforehand, so they're feeling light, they're feeling you know, beautiful to connect with these people, they're feeling open, even though they wouldn't normally, you know, be in situations where they're open. So they've been there forty eight hours and then the morning of day three we went for a

silent hike. And by the time that they get down and we land back in the shallah and we check in, people are tired. You know. They want their fucking food back, they want their bed back, they want to go home, they want their comforts, they want to you know, they want to go back to their family. They don't want to keep looking at themselves, they don't want to keep exploring.

They're just like, I'm done. And so when we check in and there was about of them that had this pain in their right side, like oh, my right neck or my right back on my right hip, or my my gut feels bloated, and someone um, you know, she had an experience where she was really frustrated. She was so angry that people were talking at the top of the mountain peak because you know, she believed that people

should shut the heck up because it's nature. And you know, so you see this this wilderness come out and these women and they start to get raging and fiery, and it's it's really beautiful to see because at first, like they want to be there and they in and they chose that and they talk about that. But day three, that commitment kind of goes out the window and they

just want their comforts back. And it's a really really unique and profound place to be because it's at that point that they start to see the areas in their life where they had these comforts up. They didn't even know, we're comfortable. They had these created these perfect performances of who they were that created these build ups of strength, of of of almost hardness, but most of all, the micro managing of life and other people and themselves, including

their emotions and it all came down to control. These women just did the beautiful work of having to look right in the face of that manipulative, very very smart part of our intellect that control the manipulated the so so cunning, you know, absolutely, and um, and so the right side is energetically speaking, it depends what lens you're looking through, but energetically speaking as seen as the masculine side of our energy. And every single one of the women who had an acre or a pain was on

their right. And so we spoke to control. And Michael Singer talks about this so beautifully. Um. He wrote the book The Surrender Experiment and The Untended Soul, some of my favorite books. And because he tells stories and I really enjoy the way that he teaches. So he tells a story about a field that this gentleman goes to and he sees this beautiful light in the field and he likes to capture the lights so much that he

builds a house. And I'm speeding up the version, but essentially he puts blinds on the house, he locks himself in the house, and then he gets afraid because he doesn't know how to sustain light. And this goes on over years and how we can relate to this story essentially, is we do this. We we create something or we get to an experience we that we like, that we like feeling a certain state, a certain emotion, a certain way that we're being perceived by the world, a certain

level of acceptance or love or validation. Usually quite primitive, quite very human. Um, it needs that we want emotionally to feel safe and connected. And we've got these sources for them, like these resources that are from the outside. We've got them, and so we create our lives so we can sustain that resource. Sometimes, um, they become well, actually I say this a lot about our our defensive mechanisms when we're younger, or our protective mechanisms when we're

younger become our defensive ones when we're older and destructive. Right, Yeah, So we create these habits and these ideas about ourselves which are also habits, these sources of this sense of control or safety, all love or validation, and then we

don't want to give them up. So in that video that you spoke to, I was talking about when our relationship starts to break down, or you feel a path that you've been going begins to drain you, or such as what happened in the world right now, All of the things that were in place that made us feel stable, that made us feel let's just say comfortable, m we're stripped back and exposed. Where we were outsourcing our sense

of self. We were outsourcing our sense of feeling stable and comfortable and free and liberated and as if we had choice in that matter, and this sense of control. When it is taken away, we realized how dependent we were on other things, including people, to have a sense of self, to have an idea of stability and freedom

and love. When those things are stripped away, it gives us the opportunity to see where we can take back our power in a way, take back where we were giving away our power because we were just sitting in habit We were sitting in complacency, we were sitting in comfort. And this might be the way that we look It could be the fact that we might feel like we're aging. Where things get to this state where we feel, oh, I like that feeling, or I like this money, or

I like this friendship. And when we have not ensourced our sense of deep, deep connection with something greater than ourselves, then we will automatically outsource it, and when that gets pulled away, we noticed that we were attached to it for all of that sense of comfort. And that's when we freak the funk out and we want to hold on for dear life, and we feel like something has

been done to us. We feel like our power has been taken away, we feel misused, we feel almost tricked by life in a way because it's been taken from us. But all that that trigger, all that that spikiness, all that that resistance and that emotional pain is showing us

is where we were outsourcing our own power. And that's why it's so important to let go when things fall apart, because it can show us where we can begin to in source and fill up and reclaim that from within, because we all want to be self guided, self governed, self directed, liberated beings, and we cannot be that if we do not know where we're outsourcing our power. And then there's this piece of like you're basically saying surrendering,

which is like, oh yeah, just surrender. Then that's my favorite word actually that I've really had to come into deep contact with. I still don't even think that I'm I've fully gone there with that word, for instance, just giving you know these this time that we're in, using it as an example if you were going to tell someone to surrender to the process, because I know we all fight it. I mean we fight it tooth and nail. I know my own personality is like I'm going, I'm

gonna latch on. It used to be, it's not anymore because I can be the witness to the experience too, maybe like fifty percent of time, which is which I say, is doing pretty well, and I can see the bigger picture of things when I get into myself, into my this singular being that I think is not connected with anything. When I get last in that story, it's so hard to not fight it. How do you start to loosen the grip? Really good question. Again, even as I'm saying it,

my own ego fights and a kicko. It's so simple. We think it's so far away, and we think it's so hard, and that that's what makes you know, that's what makes it really difficult. So surrender is something that the mind grabs onto and makes another goal out of. And we often think that we can surrender by saying, all right, I'm surrendered, but really we're just trying to manipulate life because someone maybe we were read in a spiritual book or we listen to this podcast with LeAnn

and ever and they said surrender. So I'm going to surrender because when I surrender, then what I want will happen, or when I surrender it will all work out, or when I surrendered, then the thing will come. When I surrender, then I won't feel this way. So you can see there's like a micromanagement or an attempt to micro manage the universe and cover it and manipulate life by surrendering. And that's when the universe is just gonna sit back and laugh in your face and say no, no, no, no,

no no, it's just not how this works. Surrender means surrender. Surrender means except the fact that you in a sense you can trust, that you can trust yourself, that you can trust life. So implicitly, so let go let go of thinking you need that thing to come, that you think that you're surrendering for so it can happen, or

that you can't survive this feeling. Therefore you're going to surrender so it goes away, or that you surrender so therefore the thing arrives that you're trying to manifest all that you desire so much, Just let it go because, as you can see, the theme here is our attachment. We want the thing, we want the feeling to go away, we want the thing to come, we want the stuff

to happen. Surrender is absolute leaning into a sense of powerlessness and the irony heling, and it's it's like, as soon as we let go of needing it, it's us for me, I'm I can definitely feel myself learning and

leaning into a deeper trust with life. And it's amazing the things that start showing up and the things that and once again not using like you're saying surrender or trusting as this goal, because you're right about that, Like, oh, if I should just trust everything's going to come, it does, but not necessarily in that way and the way that we think it's going to That's the interesting, beautiful game

of life. Learning to a deeper trust with self, to um and knowing that I have me has been the key for a deeper sense of trust with all that is all. Right. On that note, we're going to take a super quick break that you can trust that will be right back with more Amber Hawkins, see what I get there. Welcome back everyone. We were just talking about cultivating more trust in others and ourselves. You asked before how we actually begin to do it, and honestly, it's practice.

It's like when people ask me, how do I not react when I'm triggering in the middle of a you know, a conversation or a fiery situation where a partner or someone at work. It's what you do outside of those moment that counts. Breath is always my favorite practice that I teach people because if we breathe coherently right through the nose, what it does is it supports our nervous system to completely calm down. My goal always is to

just guide people back to their center. That's it, because once I can guide you there, or once you've got yourself there, maybe a little bit of support, you know how to get there, You know where it is, you know it's infinitely available. You know that that's the safest place where you can trust, and that's where life makes sense even when it looks chaotic outside. So the more time you spend connected to that place of your center,

the less time you spend up here. Because the truest part of ourselves, like the truest part of ourselves will never harm us, and that includes thoughts. M So if we can sit in our center and we can feel complete, just stillness, just calm, just balance, harmony, coherence, presence, and we've connected to that. When we can hear this chaos going up in our mind, we can then observe, oh yeah, if that's it, Like there's not going to be enough

for me, or what do people think about me? Or I'm going to be a failure, or I doubt myself. These are all kind of semi violent thoughts in a way. If we think them enough times, it hurts ourselves. So we can remember, ah, that's that's not true, that's not what's true, and we can connect back to this. So it's the practices that we do in our being, in our human self, that support the surrender of the deepest

part of ourselves. When I was watching some of your videos, something that started to come up from me because you were talking about over consumption, which I would love to get into with you, but of course we're all sitting at home right now and have been over consumed. Me I'm sure, and I see myself doing it. I'm totally watching myself doing it and going, well, I'm just it's just part of it, like there and there in lies

my humanness, you know. But one thing that really started to I started to ponder, and I have no idea about any of this yet because it actually scares me to go sit with this and I sit with empty nous in meditation a certain form of it obviously, but I think what I started to feel like we're all getting at here. For me, this shows up in many different forms. Was though to be able to be empty, to be able to sit in emptiness, to not have constant simulation, to you know, this shows up in forms

for me, like with food. If I don't know where my next meal is coming from, Like I get like so much anxiety because all of a sudden, I'm afraid I'm gonna be empty. If I, you know, don't have work in the future, I'm afraid I'm going to be empty. And it was an interesting thing that started to pop up for me of like the basis of all of this. What I feel like is we don't know how to be empty. You've meditated before, rightly you sing and you feel alive and full, yeah, yeah, and you feel connected

to something much greater than your ego or fear. And when you're in that space, there is no such thing as emptiness or fullness. Right, Yes, it's all we'll ever find. We will only ever find fullness in that space. Ever, it's just whatever our mind is saying. Like all of this, which we all do, I do. I do it all the time, don't like anyone listening. Don't get me wrong. Just because I know the practice of this and I can teach it doesn't mean that I still don't get

stuck in it. But what I know for certain is that that is all just mental masturbation. Yeah, you're right, it's just mental masturbation. And so my point is is that the idea that that is empty is the thing that's creating resistance, right right. And can I tell a little bit more of ex of the story to to

add to contacts with from the retreat. So that day one of these women, she's I get goose bumps thinking about her, saying that she was so vulnerable, she her face was so red with anger, she had these tears running down her face, and she was almost shaking, and she said, whatever you said. Before Amber and I we were talking about control and we were talking about connection and resistance and all of this kind of stuff, and she's like, made me want to break through, And if

I could reach out and hit you, I would. And it's taking me everything to not dig my hands and my nails into my hand and punch the wall instead. And I might beautiful great because we finally touched something that you weren't willing to see before and what it was, and we, you know, got down to the bottom of it. It was that she was so afraid if she let a little bit go, that the whole house would crumble, and that she wouldn't be able to support her family,

do a really good job. That she works for the government, quite high up in some really high stakes stuff. And she was afraid that if she let herself go, if she let all of that rigidity and what we what we have in this world thought or mistakenly thought was strength, go, she would fall apart and crumble. But the thing I was, and I remember saying it to her, and I was like,

whoever said you were the house? H you know, and we build this idea that all of this is the house, and if we let the walls go, what are we going to find? But just like that story in Michael Singer's book The Untended Soul where he built the house around in the field that he liked the light in to try and keep and retain the light. When you let the walls fall away, you have infinite light. You have infinite availability to whatever it is that we keep

trying to seek by holding the walls up. And so the only barrier between us and that is us telling ourselves that we're stuck, or us telling ourselves that we're empty, or us telling ourselves that this and buying into that. Just drop into your heart, drop into your body with music or breath as soon as you can, and move away from the thought, and you will see that it

is just it was nothing. Yeah, Well that's you talk a lot about the meaning we give things, and I've been really digging into that with my own self after starting to think about that. I mean not that I haven't thought about that many times before. I have, but it was great to be reminded of the sticky places in my life of like what am I making this mean about me? About the world, you know, but mostly

about myself. And I'm finding and I think a lot of people can relate to this Underneath all this is a story of scarcity, that I'm not enough, that it's not enough, that I won't have enough. And that's why I feel like the emptiness that I speak of for myself is so scary to touch, because I've made that empty mean that there's a lack and that there's not enough. And so to sit in that at this moment for

so many people, I think is so uncomfortable. It's so very real, and it's it's understandable because of the things that we've made it mean. It's I know that it's not I'm not the only one that empty means, you know, scarcity, And then people might have another word like a loan or for or not, like it's the same thing, right, It's really challenging to to start to break away from that consensus as a you know, this mindset that we've all been connected to, and to to start to unhook

from that to create our own sense of meaning. And when we do that, how do we how the fund do we make it stick? Because I think give meaning to something all day long, it's like, oh, this has a new meaning, and this is what I'm gonna tell myself about it, Like how the hell How the hell do you make that stick? What makes anything real? How do we know something that's real like any of us? How do we know what's real? How do we know

what thought is real? Our attention given to it for a enough period of time creates a focus on it, and it then creates an emotional stimulation, and then we feel that where in our body. And as soon as we've felt it and we can touch it, our mind says,

now it's real. So our focus and our attention on something enough, it's like, imagine that you have lazy beams coming out of your eyes and whatever you look at, and that might be a thought in your mind or whatever you pay attention to, it's sending all of your energy to it, and it's kind of like the laser beams.

When they touch it. This thing gets bigger and stronger and bigger and stronger and bigger and stronger and bigger and stronger, until it becomes a feeling inside of you, until it becomes a really strong emotion, until it becomes a thought pattern that seems really familiar, and you're like, now it's real. So, however, many times we have fed the idea that we weren't enough or that we couldn't relax.

One that I have worked with for quite some time is I can only relax when I have X amount of stability in money and growth and this and this and this, and then I can finally relax. You know. That was one that I've worked with for years to switch around and so here's what I tell This is what I tell my people, and all the time you find the opposite of that. So I so to give you guys some context. Um, I'm an n LP Master

practitioner and cognitive behavioral therapist. And back ten years ago when we did that, it took me two years to do this course, and I remember getting at the end being like, so we just choose a different thought. And that's I realized in two years of study. Oh so

we just we just choose a different thought. That's it. Fuck, really, And even in healing, even in regression therapy, when you get to that point where someone is in that situation and perhaps they've got their mom, their dad, their dad who they were never good enough for, their mom that never showed any emotional love, and they're going through this experience and they're seeing this experience differently, and when they're reliving it differently, gives them a different perspective, which is

essentially a different choice to see the situation differently. But in regression, you get to feel it in your body. So what's the difference between me doing a regression session with someone and someone doing it themselves? They go, you know what, since I co created with the universe based on what I choose to see and how I experience life and the energy that I embody, why don't I

choose a different thought pattern? As in, when I sit with myself, I feel so full and alive and I know that I am infinitely supported and there is always enough, And right now it feels like I'm wearing, you know,

a jasting for the first time. That feels like a lie, really uncomfortable because I've said the other thing for a really long time, and so Amber, You're just you're just telling me to lie to myself, and I'm saying, yeah, I am, because you made up a lie before anyway, right, it was a lie anyway, So let's just choose a different one that makes us more aligned in flow with what's true for our deepest self, that I am always infinitely supported and that in emptiness I find fullness or

in emptiness I find extreme love, or in spaciousness and stillness, I find myself and that fills me up. I just get them to keep going and going and going and making these big, you know, things that they want, and then they write it, they breathe until they get themselves into a subconscious liminal state. They think it, they visualize it, they write it again, they dance, and they move to it until it is in their body and in their being. I get them to look in the world where it

already is. Because our mind is taking information and it chunks eleven million bits of information down to five to seven and whatever it was we focused on before, our brain can only take in so much. So it's going to take in what the goggles were, you know, So that's all it can do. So we have to consciously change those goggles. We have to consciously shift them by choosing to look somewhere else and feed a different story.

What we do with the old feeling and the old fear that that you know, I can tell comes up when any of us sit in this sense of emptiness, and that means you've got to touch that, You've got to touch that deeply, and you've got to let yourself feel that fully or open to it, because then the energy will move through you, so you're not just trying to shove another thing over another thing, you know. The

practice is to remove, disproof, reframe. That's all n LP and CBT ever is and that's the fun bit of the mind. We get to choose, and then we also have our body and our being and our breath and our feeling, and that becomes the marker or the magnet where we become the set point of what we pull in and what we see, and that's where it all begins. So we just kind of have to throw out all the rules, make them up, realize there never were any, and we get to we get to make them now.

And that's it. I would love to give an example to people so that they can feel it while they're listening. Would that be would be? Okay? And I a guinea pig, I love it, okay? So what would be a thought that anyone who was listening could relate to and benefit from? How it's like, I'm always supported, There's always enough, there's more than enough, there's more where that came from? Yeah, yeah, And we can think about love, all money or relationships

or whatever it is. So do something that brings you joy first. That's your first thing you do. And it might be like dancing too, I don't know, lip syncing Bohemian Rhapsody at you know, volume a hundred or something around the house, in your underwear, out and care like whatever. You're like, phoom, you're out of your head, you're in your body. It could be just doing ten minutes of breathing.

And when I say ten minutes of breathing, I use the practice of grounding in your body, doing your scan and coherent breathing, even rhy meat breathing because it harmonizes your nervous system. And then when you're there, get out of pen and paper or and or close your eyes and right down. There is always more where that came from. There's always more where that came from. There's always more than where that came from. I'm infinitely supported. I'm infinitely supported.

I make money at the drop of a hat. It's easy, it's effortless, and I love it. It's happened, it's happening. It's easy, it's effortless, and I love it. And you can be thinking about the thing that you want to pull in or work towards and when you've done that enough times and you're in a state of quiet presence and sentedness in yourself, it's impossible to not begin to

feel that. Impossible unless when you're writing it, you're letting your mind focus on what you don't have or what you don't want, Because people will say, as soon as I feel that thought, I feel freer on my body, like a fucking bet that you're focusing on that it wasn't there, or that you couldn't see it, you thought it wasn't there, because of course it's there. Of course it's there. It always is. But the mind when I don't see it, or I don't believe it, or I

don't try. That's why we've got to get into the body before we do this. I can see you giggling. Yeah, interesting, Yeah, No, that's exactly what I do. It's a I've been playing around with this a lot and just recognizing that that judge in my head he's become that it's a guy. It's a guy and I named from accident. His name is Tubby. And he looks like the Michelin man, like the big yeah marshmallow dude, and and he totally. He's such an assholt um, but he he is very loud.

Sometimes when I start to move toward the thing of the new thought or the new the thing of change, that piece of me has gotten really cunning and very smart about analyzing everything and that obviously it's not showing up like it immediately needs like instant gratification or else it's not going to believe. And yeah, that voice is loud, and I'm sure so many people get related to that.

And this is why it's and every day thing. You must do it every I don't want to say you must do this every day, but when you're starting to realize that you have depended we we me too. We all have grown up in a world where we were encouraged to depend on urline. And that's why you can hear the controlling part come in. It's not there. It's not there. And so what I do is encouraged people too and myself to actually go, oh, you're scared, we're

not going to have enough. Maybe I got you, Like we're all good, we're doing this, this is what we're here for. Like I really hear you. I go, I know you're trying to protect us. I get it. You're super good at that. You're super good at making sure we're going to survive. Thank you so much. What we're going to do now is focus on where we're going, and we're going to create that energy within ourselves. Now, Okay,

I got you. You're safe. Chill out, because there are infinite possibilities in the universe right now, and and you're just fixated on the one that we don't want. And just like the tree, we're going to hit the tree if we keep looking at it. So can you come with me? And I kind of coax it, like just chill out, you know, because whatever we resist expanse and if we try and shish that part of ourselves, try and get away from it, it's going to run faster

and it's going to come at us harder. So I try to turn towards and then just acknowledge it and then like after that, don't fit it, you know, like a little kids like cool. I hear you. I'm present with you, but I'm not going to keep enabling you. Yeah, I hear you. Let's go back to what we want to create within ourselves, because we've depended up here and we think the only way to get somewhere is if we figured out how to get there. I think people think they need to understand it in order to make

it work, but we don't. But the control, the figuring it all out of having it all the details in the answer, it's control and the control part of us. It's the part of the manipulative mind that doesn't actually understand that whatever it wants is already available and infinite right now. M So we've got to be compassionate with that part of ourselves. Does that make sense it doesn't know? Yeah, absolutely, it makes sense. Something I found that's really helpful for me.

Sometimes it's not only to turn to word it, but to go straight into it and give it a voice. I have learned sometimes that actually, for me, that energy actually needs a voice for a moment to be heard. And then it starts to dissipate, it starts to get quieter, or the energy the energy itself because I've moved the energy all of a sudden, there's freedom in my body sometimes for me being compassionate, Yes, is I feel like compassion and sometimes also like I just have to let

it out. I have to let it be an asshole totally totally. And you know, it might be screaming into a pillow or like as you hit the ball, or it could be gosh, anything and you're you're totally right. Could be tears, could be dance, could be whatever, but yeah, you're spot on. Yeah. And for me, I mean, what I've learned is sometimes it needs words. And it's interesting because when I start to go into that place and actually give it words, like all of a sudden wants

to hide, like and it has nothing to say. I'm like, oh, you have planted to say, Hey, you've got the mic, now come on. Yeah exactly, that's totally it. And it's like it wants to run away and hide. And I think that's what's so interesting I've learned about that piece of me. Is it actually it's scared. There's a that's all it is. It's it's a I mean, depending on what it's based around, like for instance, this podcast. For me, it's it's the fear of being seen fully. It's the

fear of not having it once again. You're saying control, not the fear of not having control, the fear of not having it all together. Because like you know, when I've when I used to when I walk on stage it's like I've rehearsed, I know what I'm doing, Like no one sees the process, and so this for me is interesting because it's people get to hear the process, and sometimes my process is like thinking and talking as

I'm thinking, so I'm figuring it out. But yeah, no, that's the I think for a lot of us, the that control piece isn't not allowed for obviously, the flip side of that is freedom, and so like we've missed out on so much freedom. And I mean, for me, I think that's the ultimate goal is not the right word, but if there was ever a sense of like what I'm working toward in my life, I think freedom is the bigger picture to be able to be sovereign in in our world, to have to realize we have choice,

because we always do. You know. The illusion about freedom is that we think we're not already free, right, that's the part, you know, And again it's just still mental masturbation of the idea of control's illusion anyway, it's it's it's a made up construct of ideas and thoughts that were like if this and this and this and this and this and this is in place, then I'm okay, we put conditions around our sense of ability to feel content and relax. And this is back to aid the

control part, but be the outsourcing. Right when my blue print of what I think needs to happen in order for everything to go the way that I needed to go in order to feel okay, you can see we put a condition like in order for me to feel joy, I must this in order for me to feel free, this has to happen in order for me to do I remember speaking at this event once and this person asked me a question around like yeah, but I can't feel free until my mind stops being quiet, and I

was like, well, you're fucked, because it's never going to shut up, you know, like in jazz obviously, right I love I say this all the time, like like life and presence and bliss, all of this, this, this, this stillness, this this absolute centeredness within ourselves. That's all what we're searching for. And it is right here, and right here is where we're going to take a quick pass, but we'll be raped back. Welcome back, loaves. We are talking

about uncovering what's already within. Most of my work is trying to tell, you know, is trying to tell people to sit down when they're already sitting. It's like you already have what you're looking for. You just got to go in and that when you access that and you choose to tap into that, and you trust that this idea of control is laughable again, and you've just got to visit there more than you visit your head m hm.

And then you will begin to build a relationship with yourself that you abandoned and pushed away for so long. This work of contacting that part of ourselves it's like an orgasm. You push too hard, you try too hard, you stuff it up. You just got to relax, you know that's funny. Well, the relaxation piece is so interesting because we haven't been taught to relax, I mean we it's just the complete opposite. And so it's I mean, this is all retraining our being, like completely rewiring and

disconnecting from our unhooking. Like I said, from what we've been taught our whole life. And it's not just what we've been taught you you mentioned earlier, like the ancestral lineage, that the things that are passed down within ourselves that we That was kind of one of my really big aha moments um when I first started on this journey

that I've been on was no wonder. I feel like I have all of these these pieces of me, these energies and me um that aren't mine, like they've always kind of just felt like there's so much trauma from from my mother, from her mother, and like how much gets passed down. It's quite crazy how we have to start to separate what is mine to be able to heal all of that um for not only ourselves, but

for our families. Whoever awakens in the family lineage, they have a big responsibility if they so choose, you know, yeah, because you can keep passing it down. I mean you can, Okay. So I have this true belief that healing doesn't have to be hard and heavy. That for me is my my choice of how I want to experience life, and because I want to hold that energy when I go into process with someone that this doesn't have to be hard and heavy and respond like responsibility. Yeah, that might

have been the wrong. It's liberating. No, I think it's liberating. I really do. I think it's so liberating. And when you were saying it, I was more just reflecting than anything that I was like yeah, and I think it should be seen as the way it is, which is actually ease again with the orgasm, you know metaphor, if you push, if you try, and like you know, you get all the things in place. You set it all up.

You've read the stuff you do, the things you say, the words you act, the way you move your body. It's robotic, it's all control. But when you actually just let go and you come back into what you are anyway, you will know exactly what to do and say and be. You will know it in your being. It will be in flow and again, so that's what we're trusting. And it comes back to that. It's like parts integration when you're talking about your mom and your lineage, where you

had to meet those parts and greet them. And it's really what where we can do in our everyday life, which is when you feel that energy rise up and it feels really afraid or tension or exhausted or scared or small or tiny or doubtful or nasty or manipulative, pause, close your eyes and ask what do you want to say? Like if you had a voice, what would you say? If you could speak words, what would you want to say? And when you allow that part of you or maybe

not part of you. And I think we don't need to know as long as like, if it's there, it's there, we do it. M M. You know, as long as we meet it, we either give it a voice or we breathe into it, or we just simply acknowledge its presence instead of like being afraid, we're no longer pushing anything away. Therefore we won't project anything, because when we're pushing something away, we're projecting. It happens simultaneously. Like it's

like the it's like standing bow in yoga. You hold your foot with your hand and you have the other one out in front of you, and you stretch and pull, stretch and pull, and if you relax either it will collapse right your collapse out of the posture. So when you relax, you're pushing away. You relax your projection at the same time, and all of your energy comes back into yourself. And when you've done that, you can see it.

It just comes back in and lands. It's like okay, cool, we're back, or if it needed to move through it will. That's a huge piece for me, especially when anxiety raises. And yeah, the first thing that, and it's taken me a long time. It's taken a lot of practice to actually have this accessible to me. When it happens to allow it in like, that's the first The first thing is, oh that's here again, Oh welcome, and you can be here. There's a there's a place for you here at this moment.

And as soon as that happens, then I think my tools start to come back online. I can start to work with that energy. Um. But sometimes, yeah, sometimes I feel like I've built up this whole toolbox, my whole you know, for the last eight years, and it's like all of a sudden, everything starts to fire, and um, I get really triggered, and it's like where did they all go? Because we get into that really primitive part of our brain and it's like nothing's really accessible anymore.

And the first, the first thing that I've that makes those things accessible is to allow, allow, Allow, Allow, Because you're right, resistance continues the cycle, it continues to keep it in play totally. Control will always use the buffer of blame, shame, guilt, criticism, judgment, projection, improving to protect itself. M hm. So we can there's one thing we know for sure if we're feeling fiery and triggered, there's a

part of our self that feels afraid. Mhm. So if we can know anything for sure amongst anything that when we're like that, there is something in us that needs our own protection and love. And that's really as simple as that. We can do that with presents. I like to make things so simple for people. You can know for sure right now there's a part of yourself trying to protect itself. That part of itself is an illusionary idea,

your shadow as an illusion that controls it all. But we don't need to go into that natural and intellectualize that. There's just a part of you right now that's trying to you know, that needs protection and all love, and we can just do that through presence. Keep coming back, keep coming back. I love the simplicity of that, And that's exactly That's exactly what I did this morning. And it's so funny that you just spoke to exactly what

I was telling myself as I was coming home. I was talking to my husband about it from tennis, and I was like, I just kept I just keep reminding myself come back into the present moment, like into the present moment and I go, it can't be that easy. That's literally said to him this morning. I was like, I can't be easy, and so thank you. You just like debunked that for me. Yes, it's that easy to come back like it is, isn't it. I love that. I'm so glad you shared that. Thank you, because I

want everyone to hear how easy it is. I know you're going to ask about over consumption, and that's how it's fucked right, because we're like, we're gonna do all these things to heal. It's like, actually, just you, our mind needs to keep being fed. That is what the mind does. And if we can come back to that every time, just the simplicity of that is that is the practice. Really, and now that we've discussed all of this, what we're telling you is just come back in the presence.

It's just really that exactly. Listen to Leon's new album, It Will Take Your presence is bloody amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Speaking of music, I love to ask people because I think that us it connects so deeply. What's your song book? Whether that be like in this moment in time or throughout your life, Like, what are five what are your holy five songs that you just like love Jimmy Hendrix, Watchhower, Oh yeah, so good, Queen Bohemian Rhapsody. I love that you love that song? So

awesome love, I know everyone. That's my karaoke song. Guys um Um, Red Hot Chili Peppers, other side sad. Oh that's a good song. I love them. Is there anything that for the present moment? Yeah, that's what I was like, Can am I allowed to look at my Spotify spot if I most played? Okay, okakay, all right, I'm cheating. The other day I saw my top songs and I was like, stop, it so good. So it's so great.

I really really love Florence Machine Hunger. Oh yeah, like yeah, it's it's only new and and it's been on repeat. I've really loved it. And that's a new one. She's an amazing life. She's so good. You have to if you ever get a chance to see her life, she's incredible. I will. And the other one, oh that I would put on, I would have to say Gravity by John made Gravity just work at me. I love that song

so good, very good choices highly I highly agree. It's so interesting to see what everybody brings to the table anything with some solid bass guitar or rock and roll, because I grew up with my dad and he, you know, grew up listening to Jimmy Hendrix in getting ready for school. So it's it's like, does something to my nervous system, which is funny. It settles it in some way immediately, Calm. I love it. Thank you so much for coming on here. I so, I'm so grateful for your wisdom, thank you

for sharing it. Thank you for guiding us back to a place of simplicity. So I think we're all in desperate need of that at this moment of remembering that. Thank you so much for having me. Truly, you're so deeply, profoundly impeccable with what you're doing, how you're showing up, and it's so inspiring. So I'm really honored to be herely, thank you. Thank you. All Right, that is it for

this episode. Please share it with anyone you think might benefit from listening, and I would love to hear from you too, So leave me a message and a rating wherever you get your podcasts. On our next Holy Human, you will meet a man who just might challenge the way you see our world. And yourself. My dear friend, Shaman Derek is on a mission to bring the ancient practice of shamanism to modern times, and he'll share why

he thinks it can change your life too. Listen and follow Holy Human on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. M HM