Know Thyself - E113 - Kute Blackson: The Power of Surrender: Allowing a Greater Intelligence to Guide Your Life

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Inspirational speaker and author Kute Blackson lays the blueprint for learning how to surrender to life and in turn manifest your true purpose. He shares the power of surrender and how our childhood conditioning causes us to be divorced from our intuition and trust with life. He explains the different stages of surrender: from questioning, to accepting, to grieving; and provides actionable steps for going through this process yourself.Through the lens of his own personal experience, he shares the times that surrendering the vision he had for his career opened him up to something far greater than he could have ever imagined. With this in mind, he provides a clear lens on how to trust life's intelligence, face the facts when things aren't working out, and maintain a state of faith within the world's great tragedies.André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books___________0:00 Intro 2:51 The Magic of True Surrender 13:36 How We’re Conditioned Away from Our True Selves23:01 Questioning Phase: When Pain Wakes Us Up27:06 From Avoidance to Acceptance 36:01 Grieving & Acknowledging the Truth 43:44 The True Moment of Surrender51:48 Fake Surrender vs REAL Surrender54:16 Something Greater is Waiting For You1:00:25 Why Things Aren’t Working Out1:12:14 Trusting Life’s Intelligence1:21:23 Learning the True Meaning of Spirituality in India1:36:39 True Path of Selfless Service1:43:43 Navigating the Great Tragedies of the World2:02:25 Conclusion___________Kute Blackson is a beloved inspirational speaker, transformational teacher, and coach to people of all walks of life. Blackson is most famous for his intensive transformative experiences in Bali and India, but he also speaks at countless events he organizes around the world as well as outside events such as Awesomeness-Fest, YPO (Young Presidents' Organization), and EO (Entrepreneurs' Organization). He is the youngest member to have been voted into the Transformational Leadership Council, a select group of 100 of the world's foremost authorities in the personal development industry. He is a winner of the 2019 Unity New Thought Walden Award (previous nominees in his category include Oprah Winfrey and Michael Bernard Beckwith).Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kuteblackson/?hl=enRetreats: https://www.boundlessblissbali.comWebsite: https://www.kuteblackson.com___________Know ThyselfInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/Website: https://www.knowthyself.oneClips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKgListen to all episodes on Audio: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927André DuqumInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

The next level of our life, whatever that vision is, requires the next level of you. In our culture, there's many misconceptions of surrender. If I surrender, I'm going to be weak. If I surrender, I'm not going to manifest my goals, dreams, and desires. What if you didn't get less, but what if you got more? More than you could have even planned, more than you could have goals set? What if it was maybe not what you expected, but what if it was better? What if it was beyond?

I believe that surrender is the most powerful thing that we can do. the real secret to manifestation. Between acceptance and surrender is a phase that most people miss. And that phase is that's when this intelligence that is life starts to flow. You don't have to know where you're going. But if you simply say yes to the most authentic impulse

and then you go all in, life will take you on a journey and force you to evolve beyond your current level of consciousness. Surrender opens us up. to a deeper way of living beyond the mind. Hey everyone, welcome back to know thyself. Our guest today is a spiritual leader and transformational teacher, author of the bestselling books,

You Are the One and The Magic of Surrender. And for over a couple of decades now, he's been really supporting individuals and organizations finding deeper surrender acceptance, aligning them with their intuition and ultimately finding their full potential, Kudlackson. Thank you so much for being here. It's a joy to be here.

Let's make some magic, man. Yeah. celebrate. By acknowledging that there is a greater intelligence in our life that is guiding us, the more that we start to tap into and people listen to the content of this conversation, what can the listener today by tuning in expect to get by surrendering and listening to that intelligence? Freedom. Like real freedom. I think a freedom to flow, a freedom to be themselves, a freedom to live life, a freedom to express themselves, a freedom beyond their mind, a freedom beyond their past, a freedom beyond limitations.

You know, and I think at the deepest level, we all want to experience and feel free. So many of the things that we do and seek and try in life is a, seeking for a deeper freedom. And so I think from the conversation today, freedom is the promise. Freedom is the way. Beautiful. I think when people hear the word surrender, often they associate it with giving up or submitting to an authority. And I would love for you to share your definition of what it means to live from a place of true surrender, where you're not giving up, but you're giving into a greater flow of life and finding that freedom because we all have moments of it. It sounds amazing.

And to live from that place where it's not a philosophical perspective of surrendering, but an embodied deep acceptance and then surrender to what life is asking of us and wants to emerge through us is a completely different place. And so can you define how you use the term surrender? Yeah, I think in our culture there's many different definitions of surrender, Many misconceptions of surrender. Surrender is not necessarily seen as this positive thing. Like we define surrender as giving up, right, as waving the white flag as being passive.

If I surrender, I'm going to be weak. If I surrender, I'm going to be lazy. If I surrender, I'm not going to manifest my goals, dreams, and desires. I mean, based on those definitions, who the hell would want to surrender, you know? I think deep down we know there's the sense that we need to surrender. It's what we're taught. It's what we hear on the spiritual path. But there is a innate resistance to surrendering, which we can talk about.

But there's a misconception of what surrender is. Like if I surrender, I'm going to be taken advantage of. If I surrender, I'm going to get less in life. Who the hell wants less, right? And so I'm actually saying, no, if you really understand the real essence of surrender, real surrender? What if you didn't get less, but what if you got more? More than you could have even planned, more than you could have goals set, more than you could have imagined, more than you could have visualized with the limitation of your conscious ego mind? What if it was, maybe not what

you expected, but what if it was better? What if it was beyond? When I look at the most amazing things that have happened in my life, right? Meeting my wife, one of the most incredible things, having a child. Most of the things we don't plan. We didn't sit there and script out. I'm going to meet my soulmate at the coffee shop on Monday at 7 p.m. and it's going to happen this way. Most of it just kind of happened in the process of living life, in the process of following a sense and intuition, a feeling. And so what I really want people to know about surrender is I believe that surrender is the most powerful thing that we can do. That surrender is the real secret to manifestation, like unlimited manifestation, authentic manifestation. That surrender is the real password, you know,

to freedom. When I look at the great ones, right, people that have inspired me, a Jesus, a Buddha, Mother Teresa, a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King, a Bruce Lee, a childhood hero of mine, right, talked about you have to be like water. This dude was a badass. He wasn't weak, but what he was essentially talking about was surrender. You have to be like water. You have to flow. You put water into a teapot.

It becomes a teapot. You put water into a cup. It becomes the cup. You have to flow. And so this is the essence of surrender. When I look at, who else, Mother Teresa, Mandela. They all, all of these great ones, for me, they were truly great. They were truly magnificent, not because of their own ego intelligence, right, or their own ego brilliance or their IQ.

For me, what made them amazing and inspiring was they all reached a point in their life, I believe, where they decided to surrender. Maybe the idea of the life that they thought they should live or the path they thought they should take. they had to let that go. And I think they had to surrender to the deeper calling of their soul. They had to surrender to what was really seeking to happen and express through them. And I think when we surrender, it often doesn't take us on the path that we expect. It often takes us on a completely unexpected path because I think the real intelligence of life is way bigger than your mind. The real intelligence of life is way bigger than anything that you can see, taste or feel with your physical eyes.

So when I look at the truly great ones that have inspired me, they all surrendered. In the surrender, they let go of, they transcended their own, let's say, egos. In that surrender, they tapped into another dimension of life that was beyond their current comprehension. And I think that's when this intelligence, that is life, that is living you and breathing us all and functioning us all, all of existence,

that's when this intelligence starts to flow. And that's when I think life begins to manifest through us in ways that we cannot even imagine. And so when we talk about surrender, just to define it, okay, it is a letting go, right, of control, or I should say the illusion that we are even really, control in the first place. You know, I think there's so many things that are not in our control. So it's a letting go of control. It is a letting go of the idea of who we think we should be, the idea of how we think our life should look. And I think it is a, it is an opening yourself. It is an opening one's self, opening one's perception, opening one's availability to

allow yourself to become available to life. The old power. The, the old power. paradigm, I think is all about asking the question. It's a limited question. What do I want? What do I want? Your podcast is Know thyself. But if you don't know yourself, how the hell will you know what you want? I think what we think we want is simply what we think we want based on who we think we are. And if we're not in touch with the true authentic essence of who and what we really, really are, then I think what we think we want, our goals, our dreams, our desires, our relationships, our visual, can be projections of traumas and unmet needs and programming from childhood. And so you might achieve everything you thought you wanted,

only to realize that what you thought you wanted is not what you really wanted. It's just what you thought you wanted based on who you thought you were. And so for me, the limited, the old paradigm sort of ego-based way of living life is, what do I want. You've got to know what you want. You've got to know what you want. You've got to know what you want. Write down what you want, go for what you want, which is great.

You can live and create and manifest amazing things this way. But what I have found through my own experience is in living that way, we will all come to the point where we reach the edge or the end of our ego's capacity to make shit happen, to manifest. And I think that realization is the beginning of life. that realization, I think, is the beginning of surrender. And so for me, the question that you could say symbolizes surrender is a different question. It's an unlimited question. It's a question where we ask, well, what is it, what is it that life is seeking to express through me? What is it that life is

seeking to manifest through me? What is it that life is seeking to podcast through me, speak through me, write through me, create through me? What is the deepest impulse of what life is seeking to manifest through me? What is the seeking to do through me, right? And I think when we can open to that and feel what that is and attune ourselves to that, then we can bring our mind and our ego and our personality in alignment with that deeper impulse and then structure our lives, structure our resources, structure our finances, structure our money around the deepest expression of what we feel most true. Surrender opens us up to a deeper way of living beyond the mind.

That deeper way of living seems that you're shifting from asking just what do I want of life to what does life want of me. Yes. And I think that if life is going to unfold in ways greater than we could ever have imagined, which I assert we'd all like for that to happen, then by default the events need to transpire in ways we cannot predict that our mind or ego cannot predict. And all those names, all the great people that you admire and who looked up to and that have been inspirations for you, they had their unique essence that emerged through them, which was at times

very challenging. They all had struggles beyond belief at various different points of their life. And I feel we all have a unique essence that is trying to emerge from within us. And an individual finds true success to the degree they made space for that unique essence to come through them. and at the same time we had this conditioning of our personality in the family we grew up in the society that we were born into that pulls us into thinking what we should want versus allowing the space to listen to what wants to emerge and i personally found in my own life that making space for the silence for the stillness to to examine and to see

what comes up because that is the process of what i feel what is truly emergence is that it comes from within. It's like a flower that blooms from within. And where the egoic imperative is like a top-down phenomena, this is like bottom up. And, you know, I think that just like you shared the most beautiful things in your life that have contributed to the most appreciation of life, the most freedom came from that emergent thing from within you. And so as you've worked with so many people over the past couple decades, helping them go from ego to soul, from ego to heart-based living. And unlocking their intuition and finding that place of surrender, what do you see as the process to really make that shift

from being in the mind in the egoic imperative to finding some allowing of what's there to the acceptance of what is to that deep surrender? Like walk us through the process of how you've seen that become an embodied place people can actually live from. Yeah, one thing I want to say is I think just to frame the conversation of what you're saying is that surrender, I feel, is actually our natural state.

It's what is natural to us, even though it feels like this thing that we're a bit afraid of and is far off. And so even though many of us, we are trapped in our ego conditioning and we live from our ego conditioning, thinking that the version of ourselves that we are, the version of ourselves that we are living,

is who we are. This is just who I am, is what we say. It's just me. I'm just this way. But we don't realize that we are actually conditioned from childhood patterns and programming and experiences. And so to me, the essence of what we are is our nature is surrender, is natural. And so the conditioned version of what we are living is actually more unnatural. It's just over time through life has started to feel normal,

has started to feel more normal than the surrendered state that is natural. When I look at a child, I have a 15, 16 month old baby boy, right? And he reminds me of this. He is so free. He is so surrendered. He just flows with whatever arises. He cries when he feels like crying. And then he's done.

He's not carrying that shit around. And so he just follows his feeling. And so I think we were all like that once. We all incarnated in touch with that free-flowing energy, with that free-flowing sense of beingness. You know, you look into a child's, when I look into my son's eyes, I see pure light.

I see pure divine essence looking at me that is unconditioned, no fear. I mean, to the point where he'll jump up a table. He doesn't know. I mean, he'll run naked through the house and sing. He doesn't know that he can't sing like Bruno Mars or, you know, what am I going to look like on Instagram? He's just freaking surrendered and being and life is flowing through him, right?

And so this is what is natural. It's what's normal. It is what is what we are. And so we just, over time happened to lose touch with that innate surrendered essence, you know. We're born. We're born these free, organic, expressive surrendered beings. We meet our parents. God bless our parents. You know, they're just doing the best that they know how to do based on their parents and their parents in generational, you know, lineage and patterns of conditioning. And so here we are, pure light.

And we're born into a preset structure of conditioning. Parents that are carrying trauma and pain, maybe comic stuff as well, dysfunction. Maybe dad is crazy. Maybe mom is an alcoholic. Maybe they're fighting all the time. Maybe they're just amazing people, but they did not know how to meet our emotional needs. in some way. And that was painful. And to not have our emotional needs, maybe that felt so painful that there's a couple of things that happen in terms of the conditioning process. And I think it's important

that we understand the ways in which, in a simple way, the ways in which we're conditioned to have, to really answer the question. So here we are these free beings, meet our parents, the conditioning process begins. We're born into this environment. And so slowly two things happen. The first thing is, We learn all sorts of strategies to shut down, disconnect, and not feel. We slowly start to suppress the pain that we feel of mom and dad are fighting all the time. We slowly start to suppress the anger that we feel, the helplessness that we feel, the sadness that we feel. And slowly layers and layers and layers and layers and layers and layers decades, layers of unprocessed feelings, Unprocessed shame, pain, hurt, rage, resentment starts to build up and begins to sort of cover up our true light, our true selves.

We develop all sorts of strategies and mechanisms and walls to avoid feeling the pain. And now our heart closes. And this becomes a egoic mechanism and strategy of control. because if I can control certain feelings of helplessness and pain and hurt and feeling out of control, then I don't have to feel the pain and I can have some kind of control. And then we, and most of it is unconsciously. You know, it's happening unconsciously. And then we go out into the world and we look around at our caregivers, like when I look at my son, right, he looks at me.

He does stuff and he looks at me. And I realize, shit, he's looking, everything he's looking at me for validation, for what's good and what's bad. And sometimes I don't even say anything, but this is how he's being conditioned slowly. So we look around at our caregivers unconsciously and like, who do I need to be in order to fit in? Who do I need to be in order to have mom love me? Who do I need to be in order to have dad love me?

Who do I need to be in order to get validation, love, comfort? And so we start to contort ourselves into a kind of shape, into a kind of persona. We become who we think we need to be in order to get love and validation and approval. And so we become the nice person. We become the control freak. We become the funny person. We become the independent person.

We contort ourselves into a shape, becoming who we think we need to be to get love, validation, and approval, but not realizing that the version of ourselves that we've become as a strategy of really survival is not who we really are. It's just what we've been, it's a pattern. It's just what we've been conditioned to be, to survive. And so most of us don't realize, right, that who we are or who we think we are is not really authentic. It's not really true. But the degree to which we buy into this idea of the version of ourselves that we've become is the degree to which we are not free.

To me, this is what ego is. Ego is just the sense of identification, identifying with this version that we've become based on our past, based on our conditioning, based on our childhood, based on our belief system, right? And the degree to which we hold on is the degree to which we are limited and the degree to which we are in ego.

So for me, ego is not a thing. It's just a process of holding. And so when we're in that grip, it's hard to surrender. And that's why when you say surrender, surrender for the ego feels like a death. It feels like a death of the version of ourselves that we believe ourselves to be, but truly it's not really a death of what we really are. It's just a death of the illusion, the death of the identification,

the death of this persona that we've developed ourselves into. And so I think we first have to also realize that we are conditioned. And most of us are living in the trance, really, that we are this version, you know. And so is who you are who you really are or is it who you've been conditioned to be? And so I think beginning to just notice the ways, becoming aware of the ways in which you're conditioned, is you could say a first step. Being willing to start questioning yourself. I think it's so scary for us to question, who am I?

Because I know myself to be this person. And by becoming this version of myself, being nice, being the caretaker, being responsible, I have avoided pain. I have gone in love and validation. I've even built a level of success in the world, being this version of myself. and now the world is validating me for being this version. And that gets constantly reinforced by parents and society and religion and life and family and clients and the world. And so the more it gets reinforced, the harder it is to let go.

And that's why to really have the courage to begin to question to look inside, to be still, to look inside and to question oneself can feel terrifying. to the ego because it feels like a death. But I think to start the process of surrendering, we have to be willing. See, first we're kind of unconscious living the life that we're living. We're not conscious. I am who I am.

I'm just this way. I'm just shy. I'm just nice. I'm just fill in the blank. And we don't question. But then what starts happening is I think the strategies that works for us when we were young, five, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc.

We often reach a point where those ways of being and strategies start becoming limiting. And they stop working for us. They start screwing up our relationships, you know. Maybe as an example, you're someone who, mom wasn't around, dad wasn't around. That felt helpless. You felt out of control. that felt painful. And so you learned, as an example,

you learned to take care of yourself. Screw it. I don't need anyone. I'll be independent. I'll do everything myself and I'll meet my own needs, take care of myself. I don't need love and I don't need anyone because to allow myself to need is terrifying.

It's scary. And it's so painful to sit here as a five-year-old, as an eight-year-old, as a 10-year-old, and hope that they're going to meet my needs, but they're not being met. And so we become this independent person, sometimes a hyper-independent person, and it works for us,

but we will always reach a point in life of limitation where that mechanism and that strategy of what works for us starts to limit us. And so maybe someone gets to the point in life where they start, having certain patterns in relationships where they realize, why am I not attracting love in my life? Why do I push people away when they get close? Why am I alone? Because up until that moment, we don't realize that deep down, there's a part of us that is actually not truly available.

We're not available to love. We're not available to relationship. We're not available to relationship. want to fall in love, we want to meet someone, we want to, we want to find our soulmate, but deep down, there might be a part of us that is actually terrified because to fall in love and to open, requires an openness, requires a vulnerability, requires allowing your heart to open and allowing yourself to need again. And so if everything we have learned is to avoid feeling that way again, then to really question oneself is terrifying. And so what starts happening is we go from being unconscious to living life, but then we start to experience the pain, the suffering of patterns and situations and cycles over and over and over again,

and certain things start feeling limited in our lives. And that, if we're willing to allow life to teach us, because for me, life is a profound mirror, life is a profound energetic feedback mechanism that shows us our most deeply held beliefs about ourselves. If we're willing to allow life to show us and teach us, then we go into the phase of beginning to question, who am I and what's really going on? And is this who I really am? I say I'm this independent person. I say I'm this kind of person. And so this process of questioning is what begins to, I think, loosen, right, the grip of our own egoic way of holding ourselves together. And I think that is, you could say, the beginning of an opening. You could say it's the beginning

of a moment of surrender, right? But it's, I think, so scary to let go because, what does letting go mean? What does surrender mean? I'm going to be out of control. You know, for me, the ego's purpose is not really to fulfill you. The purpose of the ego is to protect you, really, to protect you from getting hurt like you were hurt back then. That is the purpose of the ego.

And the purpose of the ego is to reinforce its sense of existence. And so it's the, ego that resists surrender. Surrender is a natural state, but the ego resists surrender as a self-preservation, you could say, mechanism. And so we move into the questioning phase, but then what tends to happen is we start questioning ourselves, well, maybe there's more, maybe I'm not who I thought I was. But then we start moving into a phase of we start negotiating with ourselves. Maybe I don't have to, maybe I can be, maybe I can be, maybe I can experience freedom, but I don't actually have to let go of this way of being.

Maybe I can get healthy, but I don't have to give up the donuts, right? And so we start negotiating. And I think many of us, we end up negotiating our lives away, and life is over. And so there comes a point, I think, in the process, an evolution of surrender where we start to realize that no matter how much we negotiate, it will not bring us the freedom that we want. And I think there comes a point where we have to realize that freedom isn't free.

Freedom really requires a letting go of who we thought we were, a letting go of the life that we've been holding on to. And so we move into a phase then of, I would say, acceptance. right? But acceptance is not surrender. And so we start moving into a phase of acceptance, accepting what is, accepting what's not, accepting who we're not, accepting the acceptance might sound like, you know, I have an issue with alcohol. I'm no longer unconscious about it. I'm no longer negotiating about it. But we start coming to this humble phase. of acceptance.

Wow, you know what? I'm not going to bullshit myself anymore. We start to tell ourselves the truth. There is no surrender with our truth. And so this starts sounding like, yes, I have a problem with alcohol. I have a problem with donuts. You know, I have an issue.

I'm not happy in my relationship. I hate my job. it's no longer working for me i freaking hate my job i'm not living my purpose and it and it hurts it's painful to to feel the gifts that are inside of me and not express it we have to be willing to start telling ourselves the truth about what we feel the truth about what is and start to feel it the acknowledgement without necessarily without judgment action needing yes go if i surrender if i tell the truth kind of creates this sneaky pattern in the mind, in the ego of confusion. You know, the ego plays a game of confusion.

I'm not sure. I don't know. I'm confused. I don't know what to do in this relationship. Deep down, the truth is you already know. Deep down, there's a part of us that knows. If we're really honest, there is a part of us that knows everything. Because I think at the deepest level, we are everything.

And so we know. And so this game of confusion that we play, I'm confused. I don't know. What should I do? It's just an ego strategy of avoidance. And so if we can just take the pressure off of ourselves of having to take any action, you don't have to act. You don't have to do anything.

You don't have to leave. Just start getting into relationship and acknowledgement of the truth. What is the truth? I'm not happy. Feel that. Just feel it. Let it move through your body. Feel how it feels.

Stop resisting it. So many of us, we, you know, in this process and phase, we distract ourselves. We drink it away. We smoke it away. We sex it away. We weed it away. We social media it away sometimes. You know, as a spiritual bypass to not deal with the deeper feelings that we've suppressed our entire lives.

and that just covers up the unresolved issues. And so we stay stuck because we haven't dealt with that stuff. And so we found all of these strategies to not feel the truth and not feel what we feel. So in this phase of acceptance, we have to start allowing ourselves to feel the things we haven't felt, to start letting them go, but also to acknowledge the deeper truth that has always been inside of us. And I think this is a profound phase. It is not a, acceptance is not yet surrender. I just want to make that clear.

And so in this phase of acceptance, there is an opening. In this phase of acceptance, there is a deeper freedom. Yeah, I have a problem with alcohol. Yeah, I am no longer fulfilled in my relationship. It's no longer aligned for me. It's terrifying to acknowledge the truth. Because of what does this mean? What might happen to the life I've created?

I've invested so much in the life I've created. And now what? Sometimes we get caught up in a trap of success where we've been doing something and it's working. We're successful. People love us. And so we keep doing it. And the challenge is, and what's scary is,

we could keep doing it and keep coasting. But if we're honest, deep down, many of us, we've gone into the point with the thing that is working, the thing that we've succeeded at, we are no longer growing in. We are no longer evolving. And so in this phase, I would ask people to sit with a few questions. What lies am I telling myself? What is the truth that I've been unwilling to acknowledge? What is the truth that if I acknowledged would set me free to feel? feel that. What is it that I'm doing that is working, but is actually inhibiting the next level

of my evolution, the next level of my growth, the next level of my expansion? Because I think the the next level of our life, whatever that vision is, whatever that destiny, whatever life is seeking to express through us at that next level. The next level of your life requires the next level of you, which requires that you let go of everything and everyone that is no longer aligned. However, what we tend to do is we tend to hold on to who we were. We tend to hold on to what we know. We tend to hold on to the familiar and the comfortable as an ego strategy of protection, because it is scary to move into the unknown because the unknown is the unknown and in the unknown, we don't have any perceived sense of control.

So the ego wants to hold on to the known because really it wants to keep us safe by having some kind of control. And so if we can move into deep acceptance, ruthless acceptance, sobering acceptance, This is what it is. This is who my husband is. Am I okay with that? Well, maybe, you know, if I just change myself, if I just meditate some more,

if I do some more prayers, maybe they'll change. This is what they are. Can I be in acceptance with that? If we cannot be an acceptance with it, we're setting ourselves up for suffering. But if we can move into acceptance, that creates an opening for a deeper truth and a deeper surrender. So between acceptance and surrender is a phase that most people miss.

And I think this is why many of us we understand surrender. We read about surrender. We watch YouTube videos about surrender, but we don't, as you said, the embodiment, the actual embodied feeling experience of surrender, we don't always feel. Between acceptance and surrender is a phase. And that phase is grieving. When you truly come to a point of acceptance,

this is what is. This is who they are. This is what I am. This is what isn't. It's over. Whatever that might be, the next phase is grieving. There is no true

I would say authentic, real surrender without grieving. Grieving is the acknowledgement of the truth and the willingness to feel and let go. Grieving is the doorway and the portal to true authentic surrender. But I think in our culture today, we haven't been taught how to grief. We haven't been taught how to feel. In our culture today, we're kind of taught that, well, if you feel grief or sadness or something negative, just, you know, pop a pill. Just pop this pill and numb it. Don't feel it.

You know, buy something online, right? So we're taught to sort of numb the grief. But it's grieving that leads to true surrender. And so I think sometimes we're afraid to grief because we're afraid that if I truly grief, I won't be able to handle the grief. It will be too much. It will be too big. If I truly grief, it will never end.

It will last forever. Sometimes the ego plays a sneaky strategy around grieving. the sense of if I don't allow myself to grief, if I don't acknowledge the grief, then maybe I don't have to acknowledge that this situation, this person is really gone. And so sometimes we deny the grief as a strategy of avoidance as a path of denial so that we can hold on to what was,

We can all hold on to the person. We can not really acknowledge that the person is gone. My mother is dead. This relationship is over. Because if I don't grieve, I don't have to have really acknowledge that is done. And maybe I can always still hold on to this situation and this person. But I think grieving is the pathway to surrender. And so sometimes some of us we think, but sometimes people say to me, Koo, but I have grieved.

You know, I have felt my feelings. But it doesn't end. I have found that all feelings, all true feelings, have a natural cycle. No feelings last forever. Grieving has a cycle. And if we allow ourselves to authentically in our bodies, not just up here, feel our feelings fully with awareness and no resistance, surrender to it. Slowly, in layers, it does dissolve. Layers of grief dissolves.

And so when people come to me and they say, But I feel like I've been grieving, but it doesn't go. What I have found is many times We are thinking about our feeling. We are thinking about the grief. Or we are thinking, feeling, but judging the grief, resisting the grief, trying to get rid of the grief in some way. So there's still a part of us that is resisting

rather than truly surrendering and feeling the feeling. And so what I would encourage people to do is take all the labels off of the feeling. Don't even call it grief. And just notice an experience where you feel the grief as a sensation. You talked about embodiment. Where you feel the grief as a sensation in your body. Where do I notice the grief in my body? Where do I feel the grief in my body?

And if you're able to just allow yourself to examine. experience the sensation fully without labels in your body. And notice what happens. What I have found is you will start to see that the layer of that grieving energy begins to dissolve. And so the more we are willing to allow ourselves to grief, the more we're able to let go of what was. the more we're able to let go of who we were. Because if you're truly surrendering, surrendering a relationship,

surrendering an old way of being, surrendering a phase of your life, it is a death and there is natural grieving. I remember when I met my wife, it's a whole other story, but when I met my wife in Brazil, we were together for a few months. And one day I realized

there was a part of me that was so sad. You think, what the hell? Like, I met my soulmate, you know, the love of my life, beyond what I could have imagined. I surrendered and this is what happened. And I kept telling myself, could, you should be happy. You should be happy. Like, come on, be happy. But there was a part of me that was deeply sad.

It was almost as though I realized there was tremendous grief in the connection. I mean, overall, I was overjoyed. But as we were moving towards the point of getting married, the grief got more and more present. And I began to realize that there was a part of me that wasn't conscious that was that had to grief the end of a phase of my life. That had to fully grieve the end of a sort of single man way of being, you know, an identity. It's not who I really am, but it was just a. persona, an identity, a way of being. And it was only through not judging myself, but really allowing

myself to grieve the end of a phase that I could truly open and surrender into this new phase of togetherness and union. And so I think grief is that portal into surrender. There is no true surrender. Surrender is the open-hearted participation. Like, you can be an acceptance, but I accept what it is, but I'm still pissed off. I accept who my spouse is, but I don't like it, and I'm kind of, you know, subtly going to withhold love. I accept, but I'm mad. I accept that it's raining outside, but I wanted to go sunbathing on the beach, and I'm mad that it's raining. So I'll begrudgingly, like, accept.

So we can be an acceptance, but surrender is the open-hearted participation. with the process of life that is happening, where you're willing to not just sit on the sidelines and be in acceptance, but to jump in fully to the experience of life, to whatever is arising and surf with it and dance with it and embrace it, where you have a willingness to trust that everything is happening for your highest good, even if your ego can't currently see it right now, And even if you don't understand what is happening and why it's happening in this moment,

because the ego can't see the entire picture of life. And so often when things don't happen, we get depressed, or we feel we're a failure, or we feel we're mad. And so surrender is the willingness to trust in the intelligence of life that everything is happening for my highest good. And to participate fully in that, right? To roll your sleeves up. And it's that willingness to say, I will use every experience for my soul's growth and evolution. And even though I don't understand what is happening now, I trust that life will show me.

So in another sense, surrender is the willingness to allow life to lead you. Most of us, we're trying to push life. But when you really are surrendered, you're willing to allow life. this intelligent energy that is functioning all of existence itself, is digesting your food, is processing, you know, what you and I are talking about right now, right? You and I, we're not sitting here going, digest, digest, digest, it's just, there is an intelligence that is functioning trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions

of cells inside of us. And so I think surrender is, trusting this intelligence and allowing yourself to allow life to show you to allow life in its intelligence to lead you and I think if we are really willing

to sort of relax to stay open and participate fully you will see that life has its own energy life has its own current. Life has its own innate intelligent flow. And I think part of life and part of living surrender is you following, becoming skillful, becoming accune to following the flow of life.

And so in surrender, you become a follower of this sense, of this feeling. And so surrender is the open-hearted participation in the process of life. Look, ultimately, we are souls, right? We are consciousness. We incarnate into this human experience to learn, to grow, to evolve. I kind of feel like life is a school, life is a university for our souls evolution. And then to me, everyone is our teacher. Everything is a classroom.

And so that being the case, the purpose of life is really for the evolution of our souls. And if we, I think, understand that, that we are not just this physical mind, body, limited three-dimensional mechanism, that who we are is an expression of this infinite intelligence, then that being the case and life being this sort of cosmic university for our souls evolution,

then no matter what we're going through, Even if it's difficult, even if it's challenging, even if it's hard, even if it's sometimes traumatic. If we're able to then ask ourselves the question, okay, if everything is happening for my evolution, how do I surrender to this situation? It's not surrendering even to the situation because some situations are freaking challenging. It's about, I think, surrendering to the lesson inherent in the situation. and if you're able to surrender to the lesson inherent in the situation, then you stop resisting the situation. You learn the lesson for why you may be attracted that situation,

that dynamic, that experience, that lesson. And I think when you learn the lesson in that situation, in that experience, that's the key that unlocks the door to the next level of freedom, the next level of life, the next level of manifestation, the next level of relationship, the next level of possibility. So I think surrender, man. Surrender is the most powerful thing that we can do. Thank you, man.

Thank you. I really, there's just so much to unpack there and so much value and so many amazing things to reflect on. And I know your story just goes deep. And I'm excited to unpack some of that stuff further with your life, with your parents, with your wife, all of it, man. You gave some really important things that I just want to kind of reiterate.

I think that first in that process of acceptance, which is like first needs to come before the deep and bodyed surrender that you were referring to, I love how you invited their perspective to just first admit to the things you're pretending not to know. Yes.

And if questions are the genesis of focus, those questions you gave earlier, which I invite everybody to maybe rewind and write down and actually reflect on internally, but where am I currently lying to myself? Where have I not admitted to my current reality that things are the way that they are, whether or not I'm going to change them immediately is a separate side topic. And then finding eventually to the deep-bodied surrendering is, you know, metaphorically, but I do feel that it is literally a death of an identity. And you look at the

cliche of the caterpillar that before going to the chrysalis literally loses its head in the process of becoming something greater than it previously was, birth is often a messy process, you know? And birthing the new version of ourselves often is a messy process as well. And so the perspectives you're inviting here are really, are really important, man. I think we all at different points in our life, and we surely know people that set out to become an actor and it's not working out, or they're looking for this relationship and they're really striving and it's not working out. and whatever the thing is we're trying to go after that we want, right? And it's not working out.

I want to reflect on that just a little bit more because it's tough when things aren't working out the way we want it. We want things to work out how we want them to. That's part of the problem. And the trust in the unknown and the uncertainty is a beautiful place to arrive to often difficult to work our way through. And I think in the face of that, uncertainty, it can be tough to navigate. When is it time to double down? When is it time to let go

in the process of going after what I want to go after? And I think the place we're coming from when we ask those questions and form that decision a lot. And when we're actually in a place of surrender and we've let go, our egoic comparative of what we say we want from life, and then we're like, okay, but then there's still a part of us that kind of expects it. I feel like in the death of the expectation of what's going to come in, can something new be born out of that experience, right? But when we say we've surrendered and let go, and then you're like, okay, but like now that I've surrendered, like, where is that thing? See, it's like there's fake surrender and there's real surrender, right? And you're hitting some really key themes. So pick up on wherever you wants you

from that, but also, man, I would love for you to share a little bit about the process with your mom. Sure. Anything that really feels true for you to share in your own journey of having to practice surrender when it's not easy. I would love to hear. Look, fake surrender and real surrender. Fake surrender is like, and we've all done this, right? There's just bust, I've done it, we've all done it, we all do it in some ways. But this can just bust yourself forever, right? Fake surrender is like when you say, okay, I know I need to let this relationship go as an example. I know I need to let this thing go and, you know, let it go so that it comes back to you. So I'm going to let this go, but I really like, so that they come back to me.

So there still is this part of you that is attached to some version of an outcome that is still based on your identity. Whatever you manifest and create from your sense of ego identity will be limited because the ego is conditioned from past experience. So it doesn't see the totality of life. So fake surrender is when you say, okay, I'll surrender so in order that, so, that I can get the gold so that X, Y, Z happens. So there still is a kind of attachment or limited expectation in the surrender, fake surrender. Real surrender is different. Real surrender is when you know, you know that something needs to shift. You know that if you're honest, yes, it's terrifying, yes, it's scary, but I need to let this go.

Like if I'm honest, if I put money concerns aside, if I put what people will say aside, if I put everything aside in my soul, yes, I need to let go. If you feel that, real surrender is the willingness to follow that impulse, to follow that directive, without any future projection,

analysis of what might or what may not happen when you surrender. Well, if I surrender maybe this way, if I surrender maybe, it's like, I know I need to let go. This is the guidance I'm given. And if I'm honest and don't BS myself, yes, let go. True and real surrender is the willingness to follow that without any projection into the future of any possibility. because what I have found is whatever you project into the future will likely be a projection of your ego mind. And that creates a certain limitation on the flow of the infinite intelligence.

And many of us, we are, because we can only see so much with the ego perception, and now we set our goals and then we get attached to the goals based on our limited ego perception I'm going to manifest this, it's going to be that, it's going to be that if I surrender that. But many of us don't realize

that we are trying to manifest peanuts. I really want this peanut, Andre. I want this peanut. This peanut's amazing. I'm going to visualize this peanut. Give me this peanut. Open my pineal gland and see this peanut. It's going to be the peanut.

But we don't realize it's still a freaking peanut. And maybe like we're so attached. to what we think should be and how we think things should be this little peanut, the peanut could be a relationship, the peanut could be a career, the peanut could be a business partner,

the peanut could be, you know, the way you think your career is going to go. When life is actually trying to bless you with so much grace. Give you a peanut factory. A buffet, right? Of a peanut factory, a buffet. But we're not open to the buffet

because we're so attached to the fricking. in peanut because the peanut is all that we know and all that we believe. So look, I'm not saying it's not helpful to set a goal. Set the goal. All I'm saying is move from goal setting to soul setting. Have a shift open to the deeper impulse, align with that deeper impulse, set the goal that feels most authentic, go 100%. Go all in with the vision. Go all in. Surrender isn't just, well, I just sit back,

lay on the beach, meditate all day, and it's just going to show up on my doorstep. That's not how it happens, right? You go all in with what you feel is most true. This is what's most true. This is what lights me up. This is what sets me on fire. And it's not because my parents wanted or my friends wanted or the religion wants it.

It's just this is what is my truth in my soul. Go all in on that. But don't attach to the outcome and don't attach to the pathway and don't attach to how you think it's going to manifest and how you think it's going to look. Because sometimes the goal that we have, which is based on our current level of consciousness in a given moment, The goal that we have is sometimes really the cosmic carrot that takes us on a journey. The real purpose of a goal is not simply for the manifestation of the goal. The real purpose of a goal and the process of manifestation is not simply for the manifestation itself. The real purpose of a goal and manifestation is for the process and the journey that the pursuit of the goal takes you on.

becoming in that process. Who you're going to be forced to evolve into, the lessons that you're going to be forced to learn and who you're going to become in the process of the journey of that goal. That is the real purpose, the evolutionary purpose of the goal, so you can say any real, real goal, any, I don't say good goal, but any real goal will take you on a journey and force you to evolve beyond your current level of consciousness. And any real goal that you are guided to do when you're following your soul most of the time, you will have no idea how the hell you're going to manifest it.

Because it will be beyond your current ego's capacity of manifestation. And so many times, here's what I found. We ask ourselves this bigger question, okay, what is life seeking to express through me? And then maybe we're giving the guidance. and many times the intuition that we're given, intuition which is the unconditioned energy of our beingness that flows through us into conscious awareness, right?

This intuitive energy, the energy of intelligence, often does not make sense to your conscious mind. It is like, what, do that, go here, go to Brazil, do that, launch a podcast, what, I'm not qualified, what? And so what happens is the mind, the ego kicks in and starts to, like question, like, what do you mean? And how is this going to happen? And when and how? And so the ego starts kicking in, trying to understand this intuitive guidance with logic.

And that over analysis to try to understand it, which is really a strategy to try to have some control, ends up blocking the true flow from happening fully. And so what I would really encourage is that when you feel this flow, when you feel this intuitive nudging, you don't have to know where you're going. You don't have to know anything. But if you simply say yes to the most authentic impulse and you take a step and you follow it and then you go all in, as I've been saying, without attachment to the outcome, you will find that life will guide you. you and life will reveal to you exactly what you need for your higher souls growth and evolution in the process of living life. And so when things don't go according to plan and when things don't work out, I think is grace is a higher intelligence, right? Okay, let's pick an example.

I just like to pick just everyday examples. If you think back, you, me, all of us, right? You think back to a relationship. We've all had those relationships where you met the one, right? And you know, I met the one. She's the one. He's the one. He's the one. You couldn't imagine not being with that person. You were sure like this is the person. And then a few years went by, it didn't work out for whatever the reason. It happens. It's life. And in 2024, as we're recording this interview, if you look back, if everyone, if you look back to some of those relationships that you were so in love, you were so sure about, you were like thanking the universe, you were like, this is the person. If you look back to that person now,

how many of you, you think back to yourself, thank God, thank God that didn't happen, right? So, what happened? Right? And so often in the moment we're not able to see why something's not happening. There's a few reasons why things sometimes don't happen. Number one, the goal that you are pursuing, the thing you're trying so hard to manifest, is not the highest impulse or expression of your soul. It might be just what you think you want based on who you think you are. And many of us, we look around on social media

and we look around and what other people are doing, oh, I should be doing that and I should be doing that. And we're not living. don't know ourselves, so we're not living in the highest integrity and alignment with our unique essence and our unique Dharma. And so when we're not living in alignment with our unique essence and Dharma and flow, then often life gives you feedback, course correction in things don't quite flow and happen according to the way you thought you wanted. And so for me, this is not failure, this is just feedback. What most of us do is we try.

try to force life. We double down. We work hard and we try to make something into something that it's not. But trying to force something to be something that it's not doesn't make it so. And even if we do force ourselves to be something that we're not, often it would lead to us feeling unfulfilled. You know, how many times have we manifested something and we're like, this doesn't quite feel like me. It doesn't quite feel right. Doesn't feel aligned. And so if things don't manifest, first thing I would say step back, be still, and really ask what's true, what's real? Is there something more authentic? Is there something more in alignment? Let go of attachment and go, what is more, is there anything that's more in alignment with my soul

that is seeking to express? Is there a deeper truth? And so I think if we can come to that and flow from there and bring ourselves into a deeper alignment with our use, unique nature, our unique soul print, so to speak, then you will find that things tend to flow and manifest even more. I remember when I was 21, I came to the US when I was 18 and without going into the whole story, like I wanted to be the next Oprah. This is before social media was popular. I was like, I want to be Oprah, man. You know, and bro, I literally, people say, I did everything. I did everything. I mean, I harassed every agent at William Morris and CAA and UTA.

Like, I, on the street, I found Steven Spielberg in a park and pitched Stephen Spielberg in a park. I mean, you name it, Richard Branson, David Giff, I found them, pitched them. I got so much rejection. I was so sure, so sure that my destiny was to have a TV talk show. To the point where I was sleeping on a friend's couch, I went all in, risked everything, went broke, pursuing this vision. Long story short, one day I got, I met these managers.

They represented Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton, Backstreet Boys, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Lawrence. And I sat with these managers after like 500 rejections. And these guys finally said to me, you're going to be a star. Really? Yeah, I know that. I've gotten so much rejection.

They said, you're going to be a star. We're going to make you a star. These two guys had a company called The Firm. They said, here's a contract. Come back tomorrow. Sign it. And let's get to work. Within 18 months, you're going to be on TV and you're going to be a star.

Everything I had been seeking, everything I'd been working towards. I go home, Andre, I go home. Okay, let me meditate. And I meditate on it. all I heard was no the entire feeling in my body in my being

like if I could have bullshit in myself but if I was really honest all I heard was no I knew this feeling before so I knew what yes green light felt like and red light this was a no and I was crushed

because I wanted this thing man I wanted I wanted to have impact. I wanted to have fame. I wanted this show. I dreamt about it. I visualized it. I slept it.

I dreamed it. I shit it. It was my life. And now my soul is telling me no. What the hell? So I knew that whenever I don't listen to my soul, things don't turn out well. So for some crazy reason, I can't even tell you why. I decided to listen.

and I told these guys the next day, I can't do it. And they chewed me out in Hollywood style. And I went into a funk. I went into a grief, depression moment. But the truth is, that set me on such a profound spiritual path because it forced me to surrender. And I said to God, God, I don't know what the hell you want from me anymore because I've tried everything to manifest my life and my goals

from the limitation of my ego. but I feel like I've reached the end of my ego's capacity to make shit happen. Show me. And that's when I was guided to walk the Camino. That's when I was guided to go to India. That's when I was guided to go to Thailand, study with monks, Israel,

you know, meet rabbis. That's when I had some profound awakenings. And that really was the beginning of another level of my spiritual path. And I see now, looking back, that probably at 21, I really was not ready. I wasn't ready for anything. But I also see now that it was grace because I wouldn't be doing,

I would not have done and wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now at the depth of transformation that I'm doing had a had a show. And so it was a blessing now, you know, can really see it's a blessing. And so sometimes life is often not able to be understood from the level of the mind while you're in it and while you're living it. It's often, we're only often able to understand it in looking back in reverse going, I see how all of the dots of my life fit together

and how the infinite intelligence is this cosmic chess grandmaster moving things around to bring everything into perfect, synchronized structure for us to live our destiny. But it's often we're only able to see it looking back. And so the second reason I think things don't manifest is, it's timing. It's not time yet. You know, sometimes everything has a season, summer, autumn, winter, spring.

And you can, you might say, but I want a mango. I want to eat it now, but it's green. And you can force it. And most of us, we force it and we pick it and I'm going to eat this damn green mango and I'm going to turn this mango green. But the truth is, everything has a natural rhythm. And I think the more we can bring ourselves into the flow and the trust of the natural rhythm, we live in harmony with nature.

We live in harmony with life. And I have found that nature supports itself, the fulfillment of itself. And so sometimes it's not that things didn't manifest. It's just not manifesting right now. I look at my life and meeting my wife and, you know, wanting to meet my soulmate. for many years and all of the relationships I went through, it's like, it just wasn't time. It wasn't timing. So I think we have to learn, but what we tend to do is we tend to, from the ego's perspective,

is we want it and we want it now. It's like, damn it, I want the mango now, Andre. And many of us were eating unright mangoes, you know, the unright relationship. It's like, it's not quite right, but I'm going to make this person my soulmate. You're not my soulmate, but I'm going to make you my soulmate. It's like, what is your? will be yours. I really believe that what is truly yours will be yours

and what is yours can never be yours even if you try to make it so. And what is not yours? You cannot force it. Now, that doesn't mean, oh, so I'm just going to surrender and what is mine is mine, what is not mine is mine. So I'm just not going to put any effort and I'm just going to flow. We have to not confuse surrender with laziness. Yeah, I want to reiterate that, man, because a lot of people conflate, surrender with an activity.

And I think of an athlete at the highest level in a championship game who's at the brink of exhaustion, like MJ or Kobe, who's got an injury or a sick. Surrendering in that context means surrendering to what's being asked of you in the moment. And that might be giving everything you have in all of your physical exertion. And in different instance, it might be something completely different. look back a little bit of my own path and having those moments of confusion, right? Because people see someone like yourself or maybe, you know, myself who are like having some sort of relative amount of success maybe and forget that there were so many moments of deep confusion being blinded by ego, not seeing how things were going to work out. And I remember distinctly

at like 19 when I was maybe earlier than most, but I was having this kind of existential moment. I was splitting an $800 rent apartment with two other people, like just crying in my bedroom because I felt like I was not living life. I knew I was capable of living. And, you know, people don't see those moments where you can't see what the trajectory is going to be. We can't, like, we just spoke to you. If it's going to unfold better, then we need to have the courage to let go of a good life so that we can receive a God life. A God life, you know. And we can connect the dots looking back like you're saying.

It makes sense how that relationship didn't work out because it put me here and went there and then did this. And so cultivating faith is living with the wisdom that we will be able to connect the dots in the future looking back to our present moment. But in this moment, we have to have trust and faith because it's worked out 100% of 100% of time. We're here.

We're alive, you know. Which I kind of joke sometimes. It's like we trust Siri more than we trust our society. soul. Siri says turn left. We don't question. Like, I came here today. Siri said, go here, go up a man and go down, go around.

I was like, okay, Siri could have taken me to Tahiti, right? But here I am. And so we trust Siri more than we trust the guidance of our soul. You know, and I think life, in so many ways, life is proving to us, this trustability. In so many ways, like your breath is happening. you wake up every day, has there ever been a day that the sun wasn't shining? It's like he woke up and it was pitch black at 10 a.m. It's like, oh, the sun forgot to shine today because it just forgot to wake up.

Every day the sun shines. Every day the moon comes up. Every day, the stars. Every day, nature. I mean, it's happening. The process of life is happening. And so I think to cultivate the trust is just look in your body and look at all the processes that are happening. meditate on that. It's amazing when you think about the trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of

processes that are happening right now for us to even have this conversation and you and I are actually not doing any of it. It's just happening in spite of you. It's just happening and happening. When you're asleep, it's happening. When you're awake, it's happening. When you're driving, it's happening. Like, what is that? I think if we can bring ourselves into relationship, with our body and just tune into noticing the miraculous nature of what is happening. It's like, wow. If we can go, I mean, nature, if we can go out into nature and just take a moment to observe the rhythms and the cycles of nature.

It's like, what is functioning this? And to feel that, you know, so in so many ways, to me, existence, life, manifest life, is living proof that we can trust. But in many ways we don't see. We're not observing. There's a cloud in the sky. And we don't trust. There's a freaking cloud in the sky.

What is that thing that is floating in the sky? It's a miracle. And so I think there's so many miracles that are right in front of us every moment that if we just began to acknowledge the miraculousness here, the miraculousness here. If we started to acknowledge

the miraculousness that has happened in our lives, if I think back to my life, all of those moments where maybe I should have been dead, all of the moments where I could have just not met that person, all of those moments, it's like,

wow, there's something that is intelligent, you know? And so even though things don't seem to work out in moments and timing, I think we can learn, to be patient, but in the patience cultivate the gratitude. And I think that is key. Well, we can really cultivate the sacred appreciation for life, surrendering to the sacred acknowledgement of all that we have and all that is, you know, gratitude for what we have. It's like we have

so much. Gratitude for what has happened. Amazing things have happened for us. Gratitude for all the things that didn't happen. It's like, thank God they didn't happen. Gratitude for the lessons that we've learned. I mean, so much, so many of us, we've learned so many amazing lessons. When I think back of the richness of the lessons of my life, that for me is my currency, even if the thing isn't manifested. It's like, I grew so much from that process, like giving thanks for the lesson, giving thanks for the people in my life. It's like, wow, so wealthy with amazing humans and people, giving thanks for who I am. You know, just. being myself, giving thanks for incarnation.

You know, a human incarnate, when you really, when I really think about a human incarnation, because many times I don't. I'm just busy living life like we all are, right? It's like life, life, life, what's next? But when I really, when we really sit down and think about a human incarnation, what the hell is this thing? I mean, come on. It's like a human, we just manifested as energy into this physical form, into this incarnation, in this world, to see, to touch, to taste, to feel, to taste ice cream, to experience orgasms.

We experience pain, hurt, shame, guilt, you know, all levels of life, the totality of life and existence in this. this incarnation to really feel the blessing and the grace of a human incarnation. Yes, it's not easy. Yes, it's not perfect. Yes, it's sometimes hard and challenging and difficult. But I think when we can allow ourselves to feel how amazing it is that we get to just be here. It's like we just get to be here, you know? I think the angels or beings on whatever dimensions, all they get to experience, is freaking bliss, you know? And here we are. We get to experience the piss and the bliss,

and we get to experience everything. It's like, wow, a human incarnation, it's amazing, you know. And so just to feel that, even if things haven't happened, to be able to feel that, I think, is a blessing. And I really do feel that the universe gains a completely unique, one-of-one, irreducible perspective of itself through our being.

Yes. that the universe never will have another experience like you and it gained something new by having a acute experience versus a Chelsea experience versus an Andre experience versus a Donald Trump experience versus a Kamala experience versus a Hitler experience you know and I think giving that just creates almost spaciousness

at least within me to view people as phenomena as life doing its thing and how the most horrendous tragedies that are happening around the planet to the most blissful ecstatic moments the spectrum is life doing life. And we can put our egoing judgment on it shouldn't be a certain way. And yet, like you said, there is an intelligence of nature that has the cycles moving in a certain way. And I believe the Oxford Dictionary actually delineates humans outside of nature, which is really interesting.

And you look at all the cycles, you know, farmers have a fallow season in roughly every seven years where they don't plant. You know, they need to give the soil time to rejuvenate and get the proper nutrients and elements that it needs for the upcoming seasons. And I think that sometimes we have our fellow seasons where it's a period that appears like inactivity on the surface, but there is that soil is being tilled. And we're getting prepared for what's to come. And so I think we're doing ourselves a major disservice by not allowing us to be in the current season and cycle of life that we're in. and that might be super ecstatic and that might be super grieving, you know? And so, man, I know you've had so many experiences

on that full spectrum. I think the more that we just lived life, the more that we have experiences of the different textures of life, there's so many things I want to ask you about your own personal story, and I want you to feel free to just take it where you want. Sure.

But I was really interested to hear a little bit about, in one of your moments of confusion, and where you were completely blinded and you didn't have sight of where you were going next to you. in life and you said no to that contract. He started to travel and you went to India. You met an enlightened master at one point, right? Many.

Yeah, but the one you talked about in your book, The Magic of Surrender, I found very interesting. So between that and the Santiago 500 Mile pilgrimage, man, there's so many amazing things. But I think that when I look at my life, some of the biggest defining moments are meeting individuals at pivotal times of my life that provided a perspective shift. to get me out of my own bubble of conceptual understanding of how life should be and brought me back into a deeper acceptance of the present moment and reflected things to me. And so do you want to share a little bit about that experience that you had with that individual where you came to him frustrated through light with current life circumstance and how he helped

guide you back into the state? Yeah. Look, when I was in India, I spent a lot of time with amazing enlightened beings. I wanted to meet an enlightened master And this was a guy called Gangoli And I found him in the middle of Carolina Mountains And he was a profound man And I got to sit with him and ask him and talk to him

And he just shared about life Shared about existence But what I will say Is there were many people that I met on the journey In India that actually touched me even more. Because I was looking for enlightenment in this mystical, higher, you know,

enlightened guru with a beard, you know. I had this sort of preconceived idea of what the form of wisdom was going to come in in this package of. And as amazing as this enlightened teacher was, this enlightened teacher was, this enlightened teacher was, I want to share a story of a guy I met. After about three months of traveling throughout India,

meeting all these enlightened people, I was exhausted. I mean, they all get me this profound wisdom, nature of consciousness, nature of life, we are souls, we are this. I mean, all of it's true. It was profound. I was in Bodhaya where the Buddha got enlightened by the Bodhi tree. It was 120 degrees. And there was this one day where I was exhausted and I sat down

and I'm like, in the pursuit of happiness, I was suffering even more because I was just constantly seeking something. And I sat down outside of the temple and I'll never forget the day where I saw these ten beggars. And every day I would see these ten beggars. But this particular day, maybe as my exhaustion, I saw this one guy sitting down on the floor.

And he was singing. Like singing. I have no idea what he was singing. singing praises to the divine with a little drum singing, singing, singing, everyone else is begging. And I look at this guy and I seen him every day, but I didn't notice him because he was not enlightened, at least in my perception.

He was not some great guru, right? Big ashram, big following. Why am I going to listen to this guy? But I sat there and I just observed him singing this day. And I'm like, wow, this dude is singing like with his whole heart, His whole beingness, his whole essence, like putting all of him. And it was like the energy field around him was projecting out. And he was so free in a way that was so surprising because I did not expect this guy to be this free.

So I observed him for another 20, 30 minutes, and I started to cry. Because as I saw him singing, there was such a purity in his heart in the way he was singing. he didn't care he didn't care about anything whether anyone was there whether anyone was giving him money he was just freaking singing and so

I realized that this man was not a beggar in fact I looked at him and I realized I think I'm more of a beggar than he is and so I went up to him he couldn't speak English so I got a translator and I went up to this man and I realized

he was blind so he couldn't see he couldn't see if anybody was watching he couldn't see if anyone was appreciating he couldn't see if anybody was there and I thought of myself and all the things I used to do for fame all the things I used to do so that people

would notice and appreciate me and like this guy couldn't see one person a hundred people and then I looked at him and I saw that he had no arms straight up no one arms. And here he was singing and he was beating these drums. With his feet with his hands, like stumps. Oh, stuck. Yeah, these stumps. So he's beating these drums. Right. And he was just

beating these drums and just ecstatic, truly ecstatic. This is what got me. I'm like, wow. I have no idea what he's saying, but I could feel him. And he's no eyes, no hands, couldn't even eat by himself. No legs. No legs. legs, you know, legs are mangled. That's why he was the only beggar sitting down. No eyes, no hands, no legs. And he is singing, giving praises to his creator freely. And I realized he'd been doing this all day, every day,

for the last two weeks I'd been there. I just didn't notice. Because he didn't come in this enlightened package I had imagined. And I sat there with tears in my eyes with a translator. I'm like crying. And I said to him, How do you manage to sit here every day? You don't know if anyone is looking, appreciating, clapping.

You don't know if, you don't even know how much money you're making. I have every reason to be happy and you have every reason to not be happy. And here you are, free, happy, ecstatic. I felt like the beggar. And so I told him this. And it was as though he looked at me, couldn't see me, but it's like he looked straight through my soul. And here I am expecting.

I got my journal out ready to take some notes from this guy. And through the translator, I said, how do you manage to do this every day? Give your heart, give your love, you know? For me, my friend doesn't call me back. I'm pissed off. I'm mad, right? They don't text me.

I'm upset. And you just keep singing. And he said, what else is there to do? I'm like, well, what else is there to do? Then he kept playing. Then he turned back to me, looked into my soul. And he said, look, sometimes life will give you what you want. Sometimes life will not give you what you want.

But you can always give life who you are. And he just kept freaking singing, man. And it was like something hit me in that transmission, the simplicity. No esoteric chakra. It was just the pure simplicity of a man who was living his spirit. Rituality, living it. No philosophy, no theory, just demonstrating love every day through his form. And I saw all the ways that I wasn't, waiting for some special moment in my life, waiting for some special break, waiting to meet Oprah, waiting for an audience, waiting for something. And I saw

that I was suffering. And so that really impacted my life. In so, that really impacted my life. such a way because I started to see an experience that real spirituality is not in a temple or in the words I say or in my ability to open my pineal gland or in my yoga posture or in my lotus position but that real spirituality is just how I live my life is who I am with you each moment is how I show up it's how the degree to which I just dare to be love moment to moment to moment and love everything and everyone to the best of my capacity as the divine in each moment. And so for me, it's simple moments like that that really impacted me, you know, it's like I was

staying at a mentor of my Ashram in India at the time. A man called Duakouji is quite well known, but he passed away at 100 and something. I met him when he was 80. This is a man who served the underprivileged kids This is why I went to Boggaya In the first place to meet with him And I had these, I'll confess I had these visions of like

I'm going to be like Mother Teresa You know, it's going to be like this romantic thing And so he builds schools for the underprivileged kids And so he has an ashram An ashram as in an orphanage Where there's like 300 underprivileged kids So I went there to serve them And these are kids that he finds

in the trash, just living in the trash. They have no parents. They come, they live with him, and he serves them. And this is what he's been doing up until that point for 80 years. So I got to be with him and serve the kids. After two weeks,

I was exhausted. This is what led me to roam the streets and meet this singing man. And Duacoji was a beautiful man. And I said to him after two weeks, hey, Duacoggi, I'm exhausted, man. Like, these kids are crazy. They don't appreciate me, that I'm trying, like, they're not socialized.

I'm tired. I'm going to go to the temple and I'm going to pray. I'm going to meditate by the Bodhi tree. And these two sort of two experiences came together for me because they happened a few days apart. And this 80-year-old man full of wisdom, he looked at me and he said, it's beautiful that you go to the Bodhi tree and pray and men. meditate, but just make sure that whilst you're meditating, your heart doesn't turn to stone. Because right here in this very simple ashram, it's an orphanage, are 300 living Buddhists, living Christ's waiting for you to serve them.

It's like, oh. And so it's moments like that that really changed my life to realize that real spirituality, you know, is loving. Well, spirituality is the degree to which we love and serve and serve others as myself. And for me, that's to embody it, you know. Love is the embodiment of spirituality. for me there is no real spirituality without love in action.

And so those moments in India changed my life. I came back from India and I was sitting. I used to live above Air One and on a friend's couch because I had no money, you know. And I would sit outside of in Pan Pacific Park and I'd pray God, God, God, universe to show me my mission. Show me what I'm here to do. show me like, give me the clarity to know how I can be of service to many people every day from like months, just back from India. Okay, show me the way.

And I remember seeing this old woman, Andre, crossing the street. She'd go to Air One, cross the street, go up, struggle with her groceries every day. And it was like I heard this voice that said, you're full of shit. This was in my meditation. It's like, not the voice you want to hear in your meditation, right? So hear this voice and said, you're full of it. Look across the street. So look across the street and I see this old woman, 70s, 80s.

And I heard this voice as every day you sit here praying, praying to God for guidance as to how you can be of service. And every day you see this old woman struggling with her groceries and you won't get up off of your ass and help her. And you want to serve millions of. people. I got the message. And I realized in that moment, I need to stand up and serve. If I want to truly be of service, if spirituality is real, if I really believe that we are one, then I need to serve. And so I'll never forget, this was for me, the beginning of something. So I just stood up and

carried her backs. And we couldn't talk because she didn't speak English. I didn't speak Russian. But every day for the next months that I was living there, I'd meet her around 9 in the morning and help her with the shopping. And for me, this became a way of serving and starting and living and putting my spirituality into practice. So for me, it has to be lived. And so these were the moments that really were transformational coming from India on those journeys and coming back into life and living life. and I think many times we want to serve thousands, but we won't serve the one. And I just say we have to start where we are

exactly as we are with who by responding to the need in the moment, you know. And so yeah, love, love, that's what I got. Love is the real essence of love, not love as a mood, right? Because anyone can do it when they feel in love and many times what we think of as love is just conditioning.

love as a feeling, but love is the real essence of what we are. It's our nature. It's the energy that is what we are. And I think when we know who we are truly, we realize that there is no separation really between me and you and you and another. We are one. And so love is that recognition of our oneness. and to express that and live that, for me, is what is spiritual.

And so, yeah, I mean, I could tell you more stories, but... Man, yeah, it's so powerful, so potent. I just think of the times where we get lost and suffering because we're only serving our own personality. Only ourselves. And our own small, limited desires. lowercase self, instead of serving life. And I think I've had the experience so many times

when you actually just start serving those around you, the suffering that's associated with self-centeredness starts to dissolve. And I think it's because that's our nature. Our nature is to be of service in that way. And those are just such potent reminders. And I think that life amplifies your capacity to serve, the more that you show up with that heart of service, you know?

And any thoughts you have on the shift of our spiritual journey going from service to self to service to others? Because it manifests in so many different ways for each of us, right? Whether it's more in the quiet acts, which are, I believe, in terms of how it echoes in eternity is very loud serving these kids or, you know, things that are humble that you're not posting on social media, you know? Or, you're more in public speaking or podcasting like us. You have to be careful to guard your ego from, you know, making things about you.

So just in that process where we all desire to serve and really serve and show up on the planet, how you help people make that shift. Yeah, you know, there's a few things I will say and let's see how they come out. But what I will say is for me, the world and the planet, the world that we see, is really a mirror manifestation of ourselves. And the world that we see is the collective projection of the totality of all of our consciousness combined.

So in a sense, there really is no world out here. The world out here is a reflection of all of our worlds together, projected out here. And so I think on one level, on a deeper level, if we really want to change the world and make an impact in the world, then serve the world, not everyone is going to be Oprah.

That's her path. Not everyone is going to be a Gandhi. That's his path. Not everyone is going to be Elon Musk, a Tesla. Not everyone's going to be a president. Not everyone's going to have a podcast. It's your path, my path. So everyone has a unique path.

But that doesn't mean you can't serve. And so what I would say is if you really want to serve humanity, if you really want to make an impact, I think what we can all do is in realizing that the world is a reflection of our consciousness combined, we can all change ourselves. to truly start with ourselves, not on an egoic level in that sense,

but to start with knowing that if I heal myself and I transform myself and I forgive. I mean, how do we bring peace on the planet? We want peace on the planet, but I won't forgive my sister. You know, wars happening on the planet

that also reflect I think the war that is happening inside of ourselves, the hatred inside of ourselves, the ways we drop bombs of self-hatred and judgment inside of our own consciousness every single day. And so I think if we're willing to look inside as a first step and realize that, okay, if I can bring myself into more harmony,

if I can forgive, if I can let go of my pain, my trauma, my childhood conditioning and patterns, with my essence even more, raise my vibration, raise my frequency, that will energetically shift the projected reality of the world out here. And by doing our own healing consciousness work at this time in changing ourselves, we actually play our role in shifting and serving the world. And so I think that's one level, you know, which we can all do where whether you're a mother, whether you, just by being a human being incarnated at this particular moment in time, I think we have all incarnated at this particular moment in time to play a

role in the evolution of consciousness on the planet. It's no accident that we're here. And so just the commitment to doing that inner work, not for the fulfillment of one's ego, but for the purification and the evolution of all, right? Because as you shift, I shift. And then in terms of being of service, I think in the development of a human, at first we are very self-centered. And we start off only thinking about me and my and everyone is separate from me and your success. It takes away from me. And so we're very much self-centered, self-focused, which creates a sense of suffering. But I think as we shift and we have awakenings, our sense of.

perception and self expands beyond, oh, I'm not limited to just this physical three-dimensional body. It's like we're actually not separate. So my sense of self starts to expand beyond myself to include more and more and more and more and more of humanity to my cat, to my dog, to my children, to my wife, to my spouse, to my friends, to my, and so we move from self to, shall we say, we move out of sort of survival and self-focus to a sort of next level of community, right? And maybe that sense of service can begin with seeing how can I be of service to just those around me immediately right now, starting there. How can I serve my wife? How can I serve my children?

How can I serve my friends? How can I serve those around me? because I think everyone is providing a sacred opportunity to be of service. And then I think it also starts expanding as your sense of self starts to expand. We are truly one. And so if we're truly one, right, then I think there's a natural impulse desire to serve more and more and more and more of the dimension of life and humanity. It moves from me to you to we,

so sort of the closer community than the outer community and the natural expression to the world because there really is no separation between me and the world. I am the world. The world is me. I am the children. There is no separation between me and the people in Palestine and Sudan and Russia and Israel.

It's like we are one. And so I think there's a natural progression as one evolves with a impulse to be of service in a certain way. How do you make sense of those immense tragedies that are happening? When you feel there, and a lot of this conversation has been very focused around the greater intelligence that is weaving between life and guiding us to where we need to be, and then we reflect on the realities of a lot of individuals and children and mothers that is like so painful, how do you how do you how do you wow yeah that's a tough one that's a tough one look um i can only share

from my experience my understanding um the tragedies are difficult i think there's nothing that can really speak to the sensitivity and the heartbreak of what one experiences when they go through those tragedies. And to be honest, I could not imagine going through certain tragedies myself. I've been through difficulties, you know, we all have. But when you look at some of the extreme tragedies on the planet, it breaks my heart to feel what my brothers and sisters are going through. And nothing, I say, will alleviate the pain.

And so before I say anything I say, I just want to acknowledge the pain. of what we go through as a human incarnated being. It's painful. It's hard. It's like, wow, when I work with my clients and I see like, they've been through what? What? Like stuff that I don't know. I don't know if I could actually deal with that.

I mean, I haven't, and we often don't know until we go through it, but it's like, wow. And so, It's interesting. When I was in India, I would see all these handicapped people and people just one after the other. And it would just get worse. And I remember, and this is one level of my response, I remember one day being in a train station and seeing this guy who walked in to the train station, literally so, so deformed that it was like a spider upside down and he was walking with his head up. And I started to cry.

I was feeling so sorry for this guy. like talk about a tragedy of existence like how what kind of life is this you know i don't know his whole story and what happened to him but i felt so sorry for him and i was crying weeping at the suffering of what we go through and he was at the train station and i was at the train station and i was looking at him there crying and i remember this sense this intuitive feeling come through me the voice that said you look at this man and you feel sorry for him Because you think on some level, maybe you're superior, maybe you're better. But the truth is, if life is a school, and this whole existence is an experience that is really an evolutionary process for our souls growth and evolution, to grow, to evolve, to realize more and more of who we really are.

Everything is serving our souls growth and evolution. And if life is a university in a metaphorical sense, then perhaps this man is in the PhD program. You're the one in kindergarten. And so while you feel sorry for him, have empathy. Have empathy, of course. It's difficult. Do what you can to serve. But when we look through the lens of the ego, we look through a limited lens at someone.

human incarnation and experience. But I think when we look through the lens of the soul, we're able to see a different dimension of life, a multi-dimensional dimension of life versus the 3D realm of like what is, right? And then the sort of multidimensional realm of like the soul line of what someone's soul is actually seeking to learn as they're going through this realm of two-dimensional,

three-dimensional experience. And so I never forget, when I looked at this man, it was like, what if he was actually in the PhD program of life? And I was in kindergarten. And I saw that I was not seeing him as a soul. I was looking at him from my own ego perspective as another separate ego, which caused me to collapse down and just feel sorry for his existence,

tragic existence. But when I was able to step back, it didn't shift my compassion and empathy, but when I was able to step back and not just see him as a ego person that is born and then dies, but as an infinite stream of consciousness that happens to be

in a very challenging high-level classroom right now. It changed my perspective. And for me, I was in awe. of his soul choice. It's like there was a whole other level of respect that I actually saw him through and held him through.

It's like, wow, you chose a higher level of the video game, a more difficult level of the video game. And so that just shifted how I saw him. And so now when I see people, I don't just see a person, an ego. I see a soul on a journey that happens to be in a costume called this personality that is evolving in this experience. And so I look at people differently. And so when I look at people that go through tragedies, I think for me I see, I look at them as souls.

I have profound respect for what their souls have chosen to. navigate through and learn through in a very challenging and difficult classroom and situation that is life. Now, that doesn't take away the pain. That doesn't mean certain things are okay and certain things are right. To me, this physical human experience, you know, we live in a three-dimensional realm of duality. This is not transcendental bliss here.

I think this domain, this realm of experience. we incarnate to grow and evolve. This realm of experience is a realm of limitation. To me, this is not a realm of infinite bliss. You can't necessarily jump off a building and then fly. You jump up a building, you splat, you're going to be suffering, right? So this realm is a realm of three-dimensional duality, interdependent polaric opposites. That's the nature of life, plus and minus.

It's physics. It's the Dow, up and down, left and right, good and bad, positive, negative. And so I've stopped looking. I think a whole other level of freedom happens when you stop looking for infinite freedom, infinite bliss in this realm. It doesn't exist here. I think the true dimension of freedom and bliss and joy exists in here. That's why Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven. heaven is within.

Didn't say, hey, the kingdom of heaven is in Lamborghini. Lamborghini is a nice car, don't get me wrong. Kingdom of heaven is in a mansion. It's great. The kingdom of heaven is within you. But most of us don't look within. We look out here. And out here, as amazing as it is, as beautiful as it is, it's all beautiful.

I'm not anti-material and world, experience at all, celebrate it all. But it is impermanent. It is transitory. nothing lasts forever and it is a realm of limitation so I think when we can understand the nature of this dimension there's always going to be plus and minus

there's always going to be light and dark I don't think there's ever going to come up to a point in this 3D realm here everyone's going to be a billionaire everyone's going to be enlightened that's not the purpose of this realm. To me, the purpose of this realm is so that we incarnate, we learn a lesson, we evolve, but in the structure of limitation, right, there's limitation. You can't just eat four million

donuts and be healthy. There's limitation. You can't just drive wherever you want on the street. There's certain limitations. And so I think for me, part of the purpose is we incarnate not to be limited, but we incarnate to become masters in limitation so that limitation forces us to access through our spiritual practice, the true nature of who we are, so that we can tap into and experience the true nature of our unlimitedness and live in the realm of limitation connected to, in touch with, that which is not limited. To be in the world but not of the world. And I think that is part of the game of awakening, the game of remembering,

the game of the cosmic game that is playing out. And so it's when I went to India, hung out with the guru you mentioned on the mountaintop, When I really started to understand, oh, part of my suffering is because I want to be blissful all the time. Part of my suffering, I mean, look, there is a nature, there is a dimension of our being that is eternally blissful all the time. But part of my suffering is because I'm expecting life to be a certain way all the time. I want to be happy all the time. I want certain things to be a certain way all the time.

But this 3D realm of duality isn't that. It's the Tao. And I think when we can accept the light and the dark, the light in the dark, and the dark in the light. And we no longer resist it. We can see it for what it is, accept it for what it is. We cultivate a whole different relationship to life. And so on some level will tragedies happen?

They will. Will there be some poor people? They will. Will there be pain in this realm? They will. It's the realm of the 3D. It's the realm of the limitation. But for me, the tragedies, the difficulties, the hard times are not there just to create suffering.

But I believe that their purpose is to create the friction that forces us to look inside, to question. Who am I? Why am I? Ultimately, I think at that deeper level, it's all serving. Everything is serving our souls growth and evolution. And the only thing that is happening here, really. Yes, we wake up, we go to work, we do all these great things. But the only thing that's really going on is the evolution of our consciousness. And so some experiences happen to be more challenging and more difficult.

And that doesn't mean they're okay. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do something about them. That doesn't mean we don't protest. That doesn't mean we don't take a stand, right? But I think when you can accept the nature of what is and from a place of acceptance, you might have to take someone to court, you know? From a place of acceptance,

you might have to take a stand. From a place of non-resistance, I believe that because you're not reinforcing the energy of what you're trying to change with the same energy, you're much more likely to be effective in shifting and changing a circumstance, a situation, a dynamic. And so life is up and down. It's plus and minus. It's light and dark. It's the nature of things. you know and so yeah as people go through tragedies and heartbreaks and difficulties and you know it's like wow wow what what a what a courageous soul i have so much when i see my clients and friends and it's like i look at the experiences they go through and i think when you look through the lens of the

soul like you look solululily just making it word you know when you look through the lens of the soul and not through the lens of the ego, your perception changes in how you view life and how you view people. I feel like it ignites you to take actions differently. I think some of those individuals you mentioned earlier, like Mother Teresa,

would want to serve the poorest of the poor and show the reflection and give the dignity and humanity back in people's eyes, you know? And she saw those starving children and deform children as souls, And I think the ego does put things in a hierarchy or development or whatever, you know. But it takes away from the heart of service.

And same Victor Frankel, you know, it's tough to imagine a more dire, tough situation than he was in. And in that man's search for meaning, he was able to come to such a profound perspective and place within himself. And Captain his family being killed and still arriving at that place of understanding, which I know has supported so many people. And so, yeah, I think it's important to take away our lens of judgment of how someone's life is unfolding. Look at Mandela. Yeah.

Look at Oprah. Because should Oprah not have gone through some of the things in her childhood? Should she have not? Now, obviously, I don't wish that on anybody. Right. From the outside in, it's like you can't assert that. But from an individual internal perspective, from that person's journey, you know, some of the greatest people,

often the greatest people that we all admire and revere and have impacted the most have gone through the worst stuff. Yeah. Yeah, man. And I just want to appreciate you and thank you for this coming. I can go on for hours and hours and I'm sure we'll run it back in the future, man. But I often think about the ripple effect

of the choices that we make in life. And when you take the courageous leap to go and to find that place of surrender, like that embodied surrender that we were actually talking about earlier, and you let how life is trying to emerge from within you, out into the world, the ripple effect that does

and how it gives other people permission, the unconscious permission to really shine their light and to walk in that path as well and how that affects how they raise their children and how those children, it's endless. It's unquantifiable really in terms of the change it makes in the world, but I'm just so grateful for you for walking that path courageously

and surrendering in those difficult moments when you didn't want to and trusting, you know, really trusting that life, life has life. You know, I just, one thing I want to say is I felt like, the deeper I go, the less choice I have, the freer I feel. The more an ego I was, the more choice I thought I had, the more limited I was.

And so, you know, as we wrap the conversation, I just, when, what I have found through my experience is when, we surrender, things may not go according to plan, but it will often be beyond your plan. And when you surrender, what I have found is you will always end up, always. This is a promise. You talk about promise. You will always end up in the right place at the right time with the right people doing the right thing, even though the path that you take may not be the one that you most expect.

this mic drop the mic right there thank you man so many potent reminders this whole conversation for myself and i know our audience i'm sure everybody that's been tuning in like let us know how this conversation has been supportive for you and your own process of surrendering as the infinite different ways in which life is expressing itself through the community that's building here at know they self and people that are tuning in it's so inspiring to see people courageously live from this place. And what a beautiful thing to do. So, so good.

Thank you so much for coming out today, my brother. Blessing. Yes. And for everybody that's tuning in, until next time, take care. Be well. Surrender.