Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: The world of healing can be treacherous. But suddenly Spiritual aims to provide real, honest, practical spiritual knowledge and wisdom for the true seekers among us.
The goal is to ignite the divine human within each listener, raising the collective consciousness for our planet. We will challenge your preconceptions, push your buttons and encourage deep reflect. We're not here to adhere to the status quo of what the new age spiritual market wants you to buy into and believe.
Consider this your antidote to the woo, woo and a place of woo. You someone who is sort of victim, as we all are, to some extent, of the transactional capitalist society that we've created.
When they're first on their. When they discover they're suddenly spiritual because they're coming from sort of a mentality of throw money at it, let's fix it. What I've seen many times is they'll be auditioning coaches or gurus. And no fault. If you're in that position right now, it's about working through it.
And they sort of become like a tourist, a spiritual tourist, where they're going from one thing to another to another to another. And that's part of the discovery. So no fault.
And at some point there's something that clicks. But for somebody who's on that journey now where. And they may be auditioning too, but I'm talking more about the thing being that they're with a coach, so they'll like go and talk to their friends and go, oh, I'm with so and so. Oh, they were great, but now I'm with this person. Oh, I went to Greece, but now I'm going to Australia or yeah, then we went to Seattle and then we went to Italy. So if somebody's finding themselves in that sort of circular logical spot where they're just hopping from one guru to another, one spiritual coach to another, and maybe at that point they're getting a little bit from each one.
But how can they set themselves up to get out of that sort of spiritual tourism and actually start making some improvement?
[00:02:50] Speaker B: That is a great question. And it's incredibly challenging to get out of it because it becomes a compulsion. It becomes a type of compulsion where you're.
It's like shiny object syndrome.
Oh, wait, what about this person? This person's new. Oh, this person's marketing look, truth be told, full transparency. I've been in marketing for 15 years, so I know the tricks of the trade.
And the.
The creator of modern marketing, Edward Bernays, was Sigmund Freud's nephew.
So that, that is basically the roots of marketing of More modern marketing, but being really, really careful about determining what initially inspired you to be attracted to the person that you're attracted to as a coach. Really sussing out, okay, so I. So Sean is my coach, and I've only been coaching with him for a month, but now Sophia is over here and she is talking a really good game, and her marketing and her social media presence is really exciting and flashy and all this other stuff. I think I'm going to go over to Sophia. Okay, but why?
What attracted you to Sean in the beginning? What is attracting you to Sophia? Is it that you are not giving enough time for Sean and you to work out deep things? Have you gotten to a place where maybe some scary material is coming up and you don't want to face it? Or is it because there is a sense of, oh, maybe newer is better.
So why are you. Why were you originally drawn to the person that you were working with? Why are you being drawn to somebody else?
What's happening internally?
What feeling are you chasing?
Is it the feeling of newness or hopefulness? Sometimes people want something new because it feels hopeful or easier.
They want ease in their lives so they get attracted to things that seem easier. And again, marketing plays a really big role into this because you can position things to make them look easier, even if they're not. Even if they're just fluff. It's. There's so many in much of marketing, there's lots of smoke and mirrors. And I'm telling you, as someone who's inside of that and understands marketing really well, it could be a lot of smoke and mirrors and influencers, specifically spiritual influencers. And coaches in this realm have teams of people just. Just like me, who know how to manipulate people's emotions and know how to create exactly the feeling that they want you to feel. So why were you attracted to Shawn? What's attracting you to Sophia, and what are you actually looking to get? What is the feeling that you're chasing and are you chasing, which is not also not the greatest energy to be chasing?
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Something that popped into my head as you were saying that, and I think.
I don't know if it can be a good thing or a bad thing. I'll put it out there, but the sort of. The whole sort of mirror principle, back to what you were talking about, where you're asking that question, what attracted you to coach one versus coach two?
And it got me thinking about, you know, back in the day, hunter gatherer, we're all community, and we need community to fit in, to survive. But Ben, who was the person you would turn to would be the elder or the person who went through it before you. And when we talk about the mirroring principle, where, hey, you know what? I'm this age, my coach is the same age, we have a similar background, but they're more spiritual than me. Yeah, let me emulate them. Maybe that's what attracted me to them, where, okay, I want to have their life.
And basically what I've seen people do is they've just tried to transpose who they are and emulate or mirror that person. I see quickly that at some point they realize, yeah, I'm not this person. But how beneficial is that? Maybe for a kickstart, I've seen people do that. But sometimes they shake themselves out of it a little bit too late or the damage gets to the point where they fix themselves, quote unquote, or gotten better or undone some stuff. But then it goes in the other direction where you completely lose yourself back to, you know, a coach putting their own problems aside and helping people.
But as far as maybe finding a coach who's similar to you in circumstances, when you're talking about, why am I attracted to them?
And I know we've talked about in previous episodes, but what should somebody who's starting out first of all know that, you know, there's going to be marketing, like you said, and all that stuff. But what should they be looking for?
I guess we all go through this where you're looking for a coach or guru, and the first thing that attracts you is like, okay, I'm actually attracted to them, okay? And we talked about that before. You. You can go and listen to those episodes and then, well, hey, I want to be them, okay? Because they're similar to me, because I don't like who I am, but let me be them.
How can people navigate around those feelings? Because I think, you know, it happened to me. I think it happens to everybody at some point. How do they navigate around initially wanting to mirror the person and then realizing you can't do that?
[00:09:02] Speaker B: I think by acknowledging that that even exists and not attaching shame to it. Because we have, in this culture, shame that we build around being attracted to people in positions of power and, or authority. There is, you know, the cliche of, let's say you're working in a corporate environment and you have a supervisor. Oh, you're, you're physically attracted to your supervisor.
And there's. There's some weird shame attached to that. So I think by acknowledging it, or people who are gurus like Having a physical attraction to them, or again, as you said, wanting to be them. I think that acknowledging that that exists and accepting it for what it is without attaching shame to it, this is kind of the secret for everything. This is the secret for life. Everyone, I hope everyone is listening. I'm going to say it once.
When you demonize something, a feeling you have, an impulse, even a thought, a situation that you're in, your shadow, which we're going to talk about the shadow in upcoming podcast episodes.
But the more that you demonize a feeling that you have, the more power it gets.
And so I always say, you cannot fight darkness, evil, however you want to put it, whatever language you want to put around it, you cannot fight it with the weapons that darkness and evil have created on its own, because it knows those weapons better than you do.
So don't use the weapons of what your opposition uses again, they've created those weapons. Instead, find acceptance in what is in the moment, what is in the present moment for you. So if you have an attraction towards a guru, let's say more than likely you've put them on a pedestal and you've created a. This idealized version of themselves. And you've also created a vast chasm of separation between you and that guru because you've put them on this pedestal. So you are of course, by virtue, lower in the student position, sitting on the ground, and they are up on the stage, sitting far away and higher up than you. So bringing people back down to earth, seeing people as actual humans versus these idealized, fantasized deities, which people are not, but accepting, accepting that those accepting and acknowledging that those feelings exist in the first place and not attaching shame to them. Because as you said before, it is very natural to feel that way about somebody who potentially again, is in a place of power or authority or knowledge, has more wisdom than you. It's very, it's common. I think it happens to everyone, even to the people that we see are in those places of authority or power.
Those people also have people that they put on pedestals and maybe want to emulate.
So acknowledging and accepting is the first step.
And then finding ways and commonalities between you and that person, where they are human beings just like you, it's getting them off the pedestal and again back down to earth. I think those are the first really important steps. But acceptance, acceptance is key. The more you accept who you are, what you're working with, your shadow, what you would perceive as good and bad, the more you accept that, the better your life will be, the more flow your life will have, There won't be as much friction.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Over the last few episodes, we've been talking about your purpose and we're breaking down a bunch of stuff. But for someone who's hearing this, who's listening to everything we're saying, but if we could bring it back around to sort of as far as internal guidance, because I know a lot of people depending on the stage they're at, and I obviously I went through this, that's why I'm speaking on it, where I'm thinking, well, if me and the thing that where I'm at now and all the decisions I've made now has got me to this point where I'm not happy, how can I trust that same mechanism?
How, how can I. Because we're all talking about, we've been talking about internally and you just mentioned we have all the answers.
And how can I trust that? To me, the tools we have, obviously heart, head, and then our intuition.
And when you're at the point where, okay, I know where I'm at, something's got to change so I can be better, relatively speaking.
Some advice for people on how to access those things, because I think we're obviously the head is probably number one without choice. But how would we access our heart and our intuition when we're trying to navigate all this stuff?
[00:14:36] Speaker B: That is a great question, and it's an ongoing question that I have with people that I work with and people that I talk with and my friends.
I think first is becoming still and quiet. You can't tap into your heart if you're constantly multitasking. If you're on a phone and a computer and you're listening to the radio or TV all at the same time, and then you're closing your eyes, your computer saying, okay, what does my heart say?
It's not going to work. It's not going to work.
So clearing away distractions first of all, and multitasking. And I think there's some sort of statistic where I saw that like 90% of people who think that they can multitask actually can't. Only a very small percentage of people can actually multitask effectively. So we're over indexing and thinking we all can multitask when we don't even do it efficiently.
So really clearing away digital electronics and becoming still and quiet.
And I know many people will say, but I have so many thoughts racing in my head all the time. Yeah, I'm sure you do. It's because of the patterning and the training that we have in our society, in our culture, I don't think that that's actually the natural human state for human beings.
I think that they, the ominous, they have sold us with really good marketing, the hustle culture and the productivity and this, this and that because they need good workers in the world. Right? We need to be productive and capitalists. So we need to have all these thoughts and we need to be distracted all the time so we can buy things. So it's a whole, it's a whole scheme going on. So I, this is gonna be real basic.
Stare at a wall, sit.
I'm laughing at myself because I used to do this. I used to do this during the pandemic, actually.
I would sit cross legged and I would sit maybe like two feet away from the wall and I would just stare at a white wall.
You'd be surprised at how quickly thoughts start to dissolve and how much emotion comes up.
And the emotion will surprise you. It will surprise you. And it may potentially. I can only speak for myself. It scared me when I started to be sobbing at just looking at a white wall within five minutes.
And it's because all of those distractions of thoughts and things and multitasking went away. Where my true feelings started to come up. Because they had space, they had actual space to be free and to express themselves.
So if your heart doesn't feel safe to express itself through emotions, then how is it ever gonna show up in your life if you don't give it space and safety? Because that's what the heart wants. It wants the space to express itself. So a clear and open, free of distraction place.
And it's also time. So time and space and safety. Human beings, a basic, basic human need is safety.
And if there's constant thoughts and noise, that doesn't typically make people feel very safe. And it's certainly not going to make your heart feel safe.
So stripping away, again, free thing that you can do.
You could even get a chair if you don't want to sit cross legged, get a chair, pull up a chair to a wall and start staring.
It's unorthodox, but I'm telling you it works.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: So I'll take your white wall and raise you anything.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Anything. You can just look at anything.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: So this is what I've been doing and I'll give everybody the back end of it as far as the purpose of it, which is exactly what you were saying.
For me, it was staring at a wall, but I had to pick a point on the wall. Like there'll be a little fleck or like a little dot or something on the wall. Like, it can't be completely blank because I need something to focus on.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: And then I graduated from that. So during the day I would catch myself being distracted. So I would just sit and like, look at something. But it has to be a point somewhere.
So it can be like attack on the table. And I would just look at it and concentrate on it. And then I would pick something. If I were, let's say I was going out for the day, was on the bus, I would pick a screw in one of the handles at the top because it's something like a point I can focus on. For me, the wall, I needed a point, so I would pick something on the wall. But here's the whole point of all this that I discovered through various means is for me to change my circumstance. Where I was to where I wanted to be and realizing it wasn't finite.
The concentration, definitely, and the will.
You deciding to do something, that's a muscle. And when we talk about the shiny things and the distraction that atrophies, this muscle of will, concentration and wanting to actually do something.
So me concentrating on. On a dot on the wall or concentrating on something, the practice of that is I'm looking at this cup on the table.
But now I'm going to decide to move my awareness from the cup and then look at the pen on the other side of the room. So it's not the actual looking at the cup or looking at the pen or looking at the wall. It's when I decide to. When me. When I decide to move my awareness, my concentration from looking at that cup.
Okay, right now I'm going to decide to move it to the pen. So the more I decided to move it from one thing to another, that was the muscle getting stronger of will and deciding to do things. And this is what I'm going through right now in real time. I've been doing it and it's been amazing where it's contrary for me. It's the tool to fight this stuff.
And I mentioned this before where, okay, why am I just sitting here looking at this movie? It's not benefiting me at all, but because the strength of that muscle to change and just go, click, turn it off.
Now I can go do this. I'll go for a walk, I'll go meditate, I'll go stretch. And over time, exercising that muscle of moving the concentration from this thing to another, not the actual things, but the movement of it And I'll tell you straight up, initially, I could only do it for 30 seconds or a minute.
But then over time, you're able to concentrate more. And to your point, and this is something I discovered too, we all know our body, our bodies are phenomenal because it's always got our best intention. It always wants to fix itself, and it is always fixing itself. And all these things are getting in the way. And when you talk about the emotional welling up coming from the heart, when you're not distracted, yes, our body's fixing. You know, we get a cut, it heals itself. It's always in the state of healing to get it to a perfect state again. And if you give it enough time, the body will heal itself.
And when you talk about the heart of the emotions, it's the same thing. If you give it enough quietness, it's all these thoughts and all these things are going to come up from long, you know, the beginning of your life, you're like, why is that coming up? That was five then.
But it's trying to fix it. So it has to come up. You have to go through it, and then it'll fix itself. But you need to give it time to fix itself.
And at the end of the day, when we talk about, yes, it's internal and, you know, you can do the work.
For me, it was about trusting my higher self, trusting my body, trusting my heart, and knowing that if I give it what it needs, it'll give me exactly what I need.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: I completely agree with what you're saying, Sean. And I actually would have one small twist to it where our bodies, our emotions, our hearts, all of that, they crave equilibrium. And they claim they. They really want cohesion and incorporation, so they want to synthesize a trauma.
So a trauma happened when you were five. Okay.
They want your body and your heart and your mind wants to create sense and incorporate it within the system in a harmonious way.
But if you don't give it the time and the space and the ability to do that, then it's not about fixing. It becomes almost like this piece of the puzzle that doesn't quite fit.
And then it becomes inflamed. Something becomes inflamed because it's not in the harmony of your body or in the harmony of your mind because it wasn't fitting just right. And so you need to find the spot that it actually does fit.
And again, your body and your mind and your heart needs time to be like, okay, I'm going to look at this piece of trauma and I'm going to give it the time and the space and the acceptance and love that it needs so that I can in my own time, not in the time that the human ego wants me to complete this task in my own time, find the proper place for this where it can be harmonious, where it can bring equilibrium and where it can bring cohesion. We're not linear. Healing is not linear. And I've said it before, our minds tried to make things linear so that we can understand them as human beings. But time isn't linear. We're not linear.
It would benefit us to not impose linearity to our hearts and our minds and our bodies and just give them the time and space on their own as you said, to heal.
And so start focusing on walls and screws and inanimate objects is the point. That's the goal of this moral of the story is start focusing on inanimate objects just to clear your.
