Sense of Soul - Create the Life you Want

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

Today on Sense of Soul I have  Shaun Randall, Metaphysical Novelist and Manifestation expert. He’s the author of A Peace of My Mind and Words Like Wine, recently released his debut novel, ‘Letters From Lima.’ This book takes readers on a journey inside a world they never knew existed to uncover the truth and discover themselves all over again.  His newest book is called ‘The Manifestation Method,’ and online course that goes along with it, which is a new addition to Sense of Soul’s Network of Lightworkers Affiliate Program. THE MANIFESTATION METHOD addresses our desire to find inner peace while achieving a successful and prosperous life. THE MANIFESTATION METHOD teaches you how to harness creative quantum energy to create the life you were always meant to live. Discover your true self in spite of the many false options that modern life sells us, and build a life of abundance, fulfillment, and joy.  Shaun aims to help people find inner peace and contentment amidst the chaos of modern life. Ancient Latin American wisdom and Eastern philosophies permeate Randall’s work while he employs a dry sense of humor and employs a dry sense of humor and Zen-like deadpan. His unique style encourages us to look inward in order to make decisions for themselves, rather than be swayed by external influences. Through his writing, he strives to help people choose their own paths and embrace the miracle that is reality. Visit www.shaun-randall.com and follow his journey in social media: Facebook Instagram Sense of Soul listeners check out THE MANIFESTATION METHOD online course, use SENSEOFSOUL50 at check out or visit Sense of Soul’s affiliate page: www.mysenseofsoul.com/sense-of-soul-affiliates-page Visit Sense of Soul at www.mysenseofsoul.com Do you want Ad Free episodes? Join our Sense of Soul Patreon, our community of seekers and lightworkers. Also recieve 50% off of Shanna’s Soul Immersion experience as a Patreon member, monthly Sacred circles, Shanna mini series, Sense of Soul merch and more. https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul Follow Sense of Soul Podcast on Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/SenseofSoulSOS    

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world, sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes, monthly circles, and much more. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Hey friends, today on Sense of Soul, I have Sean Randall. He's a metaphysical novelist and manifestation expert. He's the author of several books and he's here to share with us his journey

of how he turned his pain into purpose. He has two new books to share with us. His first book I love called Letters from Lima, which takes you on a journey of two who fall in love and discover themselves all over again. A very sweet and inspirational story. And he also just released his book called The Manifestation Method, which also has an online course to go along with it, which I'm happy to announce that Sean is now one of Sense of Soul's Network of Lightworkers affiliates program. So welcome, Sean. So glad that you're with me. I've been looking forward to this. I loved your books. Well, I'm a sucker for a love story, first of all. I am too.

Yeah, I read your blog and it reminded me a lot of my experience with my dad too. Yeah. It really got me. I, yeah, it took me back because I was with my dad when he passed. Same. So, and he passed seven years ago. It'll be May 27th. Okay.

I'm so sorry for the loss of your dad. Yeah. Thank you. No, it's, it's such a unique experience for all of your dad. Yeah, thank you. No, it's such a unique experience for all of us, but yet we still connect. It's that sense that life is precious. Both my parents have passed. My mom passed just a little more than a year ago. They were almost a year apart.

That's what I realized. Every time it's different, but it stretches you and your personal capacity to heal other stuff in your life and to help other people. And it's this weird situation where it's something that's bad that's happening, but it's not your fault, right? It's easy for us to go, okay, this isn't my fault. I just have to, this is just what's in front of me right now. And I have to deal with it.

And I think that's where there's this real genuine innocence with dealing with it that we all face. That's really healing and positive and it's growth that you just can't get through any other experience. So. Yeah. And actually I carried guilt for ever for years, even up until like a few years ago, because I brought him to the hospital and I just was like, had I not brought him to the hospital, maybe he would, he wouldn't have lived. He probably would have ended up, you know, and that's what I had to come to terms with. He would have ended up dying alone in his warehouse or something. You know, at least we all got to be with him and all express how he felt.

But yeah, I carried guilt forever. I thought that maybe I had done it. Yeah, with my dad, he called me on a Friday morning, I was in Lima. And he called me and he's like, you know, I didn't, I didn't sleep at all last night. I'm really sick. I've been throwing up. And, you know, I'm thinking, okay, you know, it's serious. Anytime, you know, he's, he was 80. I'm like, it's it's serious. But I trust his judgment. You know, he was he was of sound mind. And so he didn't he didn't want to go to a hospital. just gone right away, you know? And what if, right? So what if he had, would they have been able to get to the infection sooner? Would they have been able to, you know, this endless scenario? So I understand what you're saying. I relate to that. And, and that's, I guess that's the helplessness that I think is really important to grab onto and just go, look, there's nothing,

we all spend our whole life trying to fix everything and control everything. And this whole thing is out of our control. And the best way to get what you want out of it is to let it happen and not try to not try to control it. And, you know, so true. Yeah, I had to learn that, that, you know, and also, I started to look at death that, you know, and also I started to look at death differently, you know, looking at death more of a, as a transition and not so finite, but yeah, I mean, it was hard because the relationship that I had with my dad was almost very codependent on both sides. You know, I always worked for him and And he always was my my crutch. And I was his. So when he left, I was like, I'm fucked. I'm fucked. I mean, I don't know what I will do without my dad.

I mean, he was a constant in my life. I had four kids, he would take half of them if I needed, you know, because he owned a sports equipment store. My son was all into sports. And so, yeah, I mean, I didn't know what I would do. And I had to for the first time, like, kind of grow up. Yeah, actually, I always say he gave me birth twice, once in my life and once in his death. Yeah, that's interesting. I had a very similar reflection. So I don't have kids, my fiance and I are probably August, we'll be getting married. We're still waiting on her visa to be finalized and all that. And we'll look to start a family right away. And I thought, how fortunate am I to have the transition you just spoke about? I'm not a son anymore. Both my parents have passed away.

And I'm in this weird place that most people don't get the opportunity, which is the short little bridge of like, I'm not a son anymore and I'm going to be a father soon. And so what does all of that mean? And how do I embrace everything that I've learned, both positively and negatively from watching my parents' lives, how they lived, how they died, all that stuff. And then how do I equip myself as best I can to step into this role of being a father if I'm fortunate enough that the universe provides that. So I feel very, very fortunate and blessed that that timing happened the way it did because most people have kids much sooner before their parents pass away, which I think is great too, that I have a unique situation or opportunity to kind of really step out of one set of shoes and into the into the next which is pretty unique you know that happened to my little brother yeah his wife was pregnant and they named their little one after my dad he's the third and I swear to god that little kid reminds me so much of my dad oh that's great that's me just like him even it's yeah that

legacy right like I know for me and I was very fortunate to have a fantastic dad I mean he did the most which is I mean I was spoiled rotten it wasn't a good thing. However, I wish she was still here because now I have, I still have my mother and I have to do everything. He spoiled her too, huh? Oh my God. Did he like, oh my God, woman, how did you raise me? Well, they had a, I'm sure they formed a great team, right? So he did what he did and she did what she did.

Well, and I'm from New Orleans. So that Southern hospitality, that whole take care of your children and your husband, right? You don't really have anything for yourself. I had to work through that. So I'm kind of the first woman in the family to break the mold. And yeah, so which I also kind of related a little bit with the story of I want to call her Carolyn. But well, Carolyn's in letters from Lima. Elliot's my fiance. Yeah. I went on an ancestral journey that really it was about six years and it was a huge part of my journey because it was such a big healing from the root. It's what grounded me because prior to that, I had just discovered

Reiki meditation, and I was living in my head in meditation every day escaping. And so learning about where I came from, and who I came from, and their stories were, it's just, yeah, it balanced me. Yeah, that's, that's cool. Well, and that was the experience I had when I went to Lima the first time is I realized, you know, obviously I didn't have direct personal roots to the people of, you know, ancient Peru that I'm aware of, right. We're all related. If you go far enough back, we're all related. But, but yet when I was there and I'm standing, there's a site in the middle of Lima called Huacapuclana, which is a 1500-year-old pyramid, which is pre-Incan. So it's this ancient, you know, massive monolithic structure, and you're overlooking Lima, and you're overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

And it was like, man, this is crazy. I can see four epochs of human history all laid out before me, all in one place. And I'd never really had that experience. I shouldn't say never, really, I never had had that experience. And I realized standing on top of this pyramid, how incredibly small I was. But I also realized that we're standing on the shoulders of the ancients, all of us are. And so there's this tremendous foundation that's been built for all of us. And there's so much to learn from that. And I think for me, that's when I started to really connect on a much larger, the world

opened up for me in a completely different way. It wasn't so much about Sean and my life. It was like, okay, there's this whole thing that we're part of the big show that's happening. And how do you fit in and play your part? I love your story. It's such a pain to purpose kind of story. So can you tell me, I mean, the road to finding your sense of soul can kind of sometimes be a shit show. Yeah. Well, I think I zigged and zagged a lot. My mother was very religious. And so I had that instilled in me from the time I was a little, little kid, like four or five years old.

I had a sense of kind of a higher power that grounded me when I was really young. I started to struggle with depression when I was 11 years old and I didn't know what was going on with me. My parents didn't really know what was going on with me. And this is back in the 80s. We weren't thinking about, oh, children get depressed. From there and through my teen years were really tough years for me in a lot of ways. Just as a teenager, right, as a 17 year old, I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. What is that? What's causing that? And I had a lot going for me. I was student body president, I was in varsity athletics. So it wasn't like, here's this stoner kid who's not doing anything.

But I just I had this tremendous sense of inadequacy from the time I was really young. That's the point of me bringing that up. And then as I became an adult, I found ways to kind of fill that inadequacy. For me, it was, you know, career. The biggest driving force of my life was always romantic love in a relationship. I felt like if I had that, that was the most important thing. And if that was great, then really nothing else mattered. But I wanted a great career and I wanted material because that's what you do to become worthy of having this great relationship. So that was kind of the interplay in my mind through my 20s. And I was married

in my late 20s and then divorced really quickly. We were only married for a couple of years. And I moved to Chicago and was kind of at the height of my career were only married for a couple of years and I moved to Chicago and was kind of at the height of my career as making a lot of money. And I was having a lot of fun and reliving being a single person again. And so the indulgence was heavy. And so I was drinking a lot. I started to use, I shouldn't say started, I had for years, but I was using cocaine heavily. I was smoking a pack of cigarettes, you know, a night with all this. And so I was kind of that became my lifestyle of this real physical carnal indulgence, right? So it was like, I've got career and I've got success.

And then I've got this fun lifestyle. And that's kind of what got me through, even though there was this big part of me that was missing at that point from a failed relationship. And I was dealing with heartbreak and guilt and that. And so that's when depression really started to kind of, for a good solid decade, I had kind of put it to the side pretty successfully just by being busy. I think with life, it just kind of, it didn't bother me, but it started to creep back in and the drinking and extracurricular activities became more severe. My career spiraled downward. And so then I, all of the feelings of inadequacy,

all of the fear of not being worthy of love that really reared its ugly head. And if you're experiencing those feelings and if you're experiencing depression and then you're using drugs and alcohol, that's like throwing lighter fluid on a fire. And so from 2011 and for the next several years, that's what I was doing. And, you know, I hit rock bottom in about right around 2015 ballpark. I had nothing financially. My electric and my gas were turned off in my place in Chicago. So which is kind of important to have heat in Chicago. And I, I realized at that point, like, I needed to kind of figure this out. Was I either going to take life by the horns and get back on top? Or was I going to kill myself, basically, and I was struggling with suicidal thoughts on a daily basis. At that point, I decided that I wanted to try I wanted to make it. And so from

like 2015, up until 2018, I was trying really, really, really hard, but I had a lot of behavioral patterns that weren't great. And I was just carrying around a lot of emotional baggage. And the biggest thing, you know, the original question is, how did I find my sense of soul? It was like, that was the thing that was wrong that I didn't know was wrong is I didn't have that sense of who I was. And I when I was younger, I thought that I had and as I built my career, I thought that I had and then I reached this point where I didn't have it. And I wasn't even really aware that that was what was the thing that was going on. And I'll never forget April 13th in 2018, I was going to cat sit and apartment sit for some friends. And I walked in and the cats greeted me and they had this note with all the, like they'd prepared a bunch of

meals for me in the refrigerator and all that stuff. And then they left me a hundred bucks on the counter. And I was like, so excited because at that point I'd started a business, but it wasn't paying my bills. So I was driving full time for Uber. And so I was really scraping and clawing to try to get, get back and get right sided in this situation. And so I felt bad. I'm like, I shouldn't be taking this money. This is a favor. I that's what I'd meant it for. But then it was such a relief because it meant I didn't have to go drive. I could just kind of relax and take a night off. And I started to cry because I'm like, how have I gotten to this place where a hundred bucks makes that big of a difference

in my life? You know, something is very, very wrong here. And, you know, at that point, I didn't know how I was going to fix it, but I said, this has to stop. And I'm going to turn the corner here and figure it out. So I quit drinking. I quit smoking. I quit doing drugs. That lasted for about four months and I'd lost a lot of weight. I started working out.

So I started to really take care of myself and get, I got into the self-care movement that we're all familiar with, which is important stuff. But I still didn't have the question that you're asking me is that sense of soul and stuff. But I said, I'm going to figure out how to do this. And I'm going to help other people. I know I'm not alone in this. And to struggle for two or three years to try to put your life back together and not be able to do it. I was like, I'm doing something wrong and I have to figure it out. And then can help, you know, teach other people and share other people. So that was kind of the beginning of figuring out who I was. It didn't, you know, it didn't all happen overnight.

It took another couple of years before I really found myself and connected. That missing link, right? I think that, you know, I can totally relate. It's like, wait a minute. I did all the things right here. I created like the perfect family in my mind I have the house and all the good things and so it was opposite for me in some way it's like I had achieved my my little perfect box that I was thinking would make me happy and then

all of a sudden it was like it's there was still something missing and it's like what so I think no matter what side of the spectrum you end up on because I haven't drank in 12 years so as part of my connecting more with my soul than my identity yeah yeah part of that was my kids were in high school as well and so I was like you know I'm gonna be sober one. And so I am around a lot of alcoholics. I have done Al-Anon. I still do on occasion. Not that I hadn't, I didn't have any issues with alcohol, but I just wanted to be very sound in my mind and listen. You know, it was really hard for me. I was very Christian too, trying to be the best, right? Just what I thought. And it just, it ended up spiraling on me. You know, in you telling your story, because I also read your poem book, I was actually

connecting with a lot of those poems that you wrote specifically. I think one that I had read early on was about being busy because I think we keep ourselves busy because we don't know how to be still. When did you start writing your poetry and how did you find that stillness? Yeah, so that's a great question. And the book you're talking about is A Piece of My Mind, which was my second book of poetry. And so Words Like Wine that was written before that, it really kind of details all the stuff I was just talking about. It was written over a lot, a lot of years. And it shows me wrestling with drugs and alcohol and wrestling with modernity and all this stuff. By the time I was writing A Piece of My Mind,

I was in a completely different frame of mind. And that was that I was a writer. And so the question you asked is, you know, when did I start? I started writing when I was a little kid. I actually, I just found something the other day. I'd written a greeting card. It was to my mom and it was really awful, but it was like three, it was like three pages. I wrote, I wrote on the front page and then like one of the interior pages and then the back page. And it was, you know, like 40 lines of me trying to be funny as a little kid. But so it's always been there. And poetry was kind of my thing that I've always loved music and songs.

And so I think poetry is where I connected with that. So it's always been something that I've done. It was always something that, you know, in school I got recognition for it. I was published in a magazine when I was in high school. A mentor of mine created that opportunity for me. So it was always there, but I never had this sense of like, that's who I was. It was something that I did. It was that decision I made on April 13th in 2018 to be sober lasted for about four months. And then I spent about three or know, binge drinking and up till five in the morning and that whole thing. And my body shut down on me, I started to struggle with flu like symptoms all the time, vertigo, I was diagnosed with lupus. At the end of that year, I just said, this is enough. And I decided I have to get sober, I have to take care of my health or nothing else is going to happen. And 2019, I was was really a rough year because I was sick a lot my body was going through this transition from you know decades of abuse to trying to be healthy and it wasn't you know it

wasn't a straight line to feeling better and I think I kind of expected like oh if I do all this stuff then it'll just you know take care of itself itself and fix itself. But I struggled with health, but my career started to get put back together and business was going well. And so a lot of the other issues in my life, things were going really, really well. And I went to Lima, Peru on vacation. I met my now fiance, spoiler alert, we fell in love at first sight and head over heels, all the cliches. And I was in the airport on the way back

to Chicago. And I thought, man, this is great careers right there for me. I've got this relationship. I'm going to have to go back and forth, but I'll figure it out. Like, man, the hard work has been paying off. I'm sober. I'm focused on all the right stuff and I'm living life the right way. And like you said, right, it's about, it's this pursuit of kind of like, oh, I'm trying to be perfect. I'm trying to do everything correctly. And I got home in Chicago on March 10th, and then the world stopped spinning on its axis with the pandemic. And so my business slowed and the Peruvian border closed. So I couldn't go back and visit my partner and all this stuff that I felt was like right in my grip, right? I just was on the precipice of everything that I had been working to put into my partner and all this stuff that I felt was like right in my grip, right? I just was on

the precipice of everything that I had been working to put into my life and to create, was just yanked away for me. And that was really, really difficult. And I spent about two months moping around. I think a lot of people did, right? Because it was like, oh, it was quarantined for two weeks. And then two weeks, it was like, well, we're just going to need another couple of weeks. All right, maybe it's a little bit longer. We't know and so you're you like you keep thinking it's gonna get back and go and I just I realized I'm like okay well this isn't changing anytime soon so what is the opportunity that I have right here and the opportunity was that I had time and there was nothing in the external world that I wanted that was available to me at that

point. And so I started to meditate and I've worked up little by little. I spent about three or four hours in deep meditation by about a month into it. And so the next several months, I worked through an incredible amount of emotional and mental issues that I just been kind of carrying around with me and trying to overcome by living this great life, right? Fix life and then this other stuff will work itself out. And that was the gift of the pandemic for me is that the universe gave me what I needed before I got what I wanted because I had to turn inward. I had to figure it out. And so it was during that time period where I decided, you know what? I'm a writer. This is who I am. And this is what I want to dedicate my future to. Whether I'm successful or not is not important. The success

will come with me being who I am. And this is a core part of myself. And so we've taken a while to get there. But that's when I got my sense of soul is when I turned inward and I said, all the stuff that is causing suffering in my life is because of my own behavior. And it's not that things didn't happen to me that started a domino effect. But at the end of the day, I'm faced with myself. And I'm empowered to be able to use my mind and to use my spirit to fix anything that is not right around me. I have that ability. And so, you know, writing is my skill and it's what I do. So I said, this is what I'm going to, I'm going to use this to help other people. And so that book that you're

referring to was a lot of poetry about how do we deal with this chaotic modern world that surrounds us? How do we find peace of mind? Because really what we're looking for is peace from mind. We're all thinking of a million thoughts all the time. And so that's kind of what inspired that book. And the book I'd written before was like something I just had to get. It was like I had to get something that's out of me. But I didn't think, oh, well, this is what I'm going to do with my rest of my life. By the time I wrote A Peace of My Mind, it was like, yeah, this is who I am.

And this is what I'm going to do. And this is how I express who I am to the world around me and how I help other people through writing. So. As I was looking through, cause I was like, I went to which one is kind of like maybe relating to everybody, you know, and I was going to maybe see if actually, if you would even read one, I don't know if you even have a book on you. But I really, really loved the last one. It was one that actually stuck with me because when I turned the page, I'm like, wait, so I leave you with one last thing, the secret to life and the entirety of human wisdom is on the next page.

And it's just a blank page is for you to discover, right? It's for you to write your own story, for you to find that wisdom within. I just loved it. And so it stuck with me and that's been my journey, you know, and very, it's so interesting how kind of, like you said at the beginning, there's, you know, we all go through things in life and maybe they're so different, but yet they're so similar in the fact that, you know, the spiritual journey, like the pain that you experience. I remember I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I mean, my whole entire body was breaking down. I mean, I had a list of symptoms, Sean, I brought to my doctor and she's like, we're not going to be able to get through all this. I'm like, this all is real.

All of this is real. Yeah. And it's like, like, as you start to kind of connect with your soul, your body needs to catch up because it's been suppressing and unprocessing so many things for so long that it just trips out. Every event in our life is stored in every cell of our body. That's just the way that energy works. And so everybody deals with it in different ways, but a lot of causes of illnesses are because we've had traumatic events or we've had suffering that we've locked into our physical

bodies. And then when we open that box, then the symptoms start to pour out of our bodies. And one of the things that I think it's easy to get wrong and the modernity of our medicine and all the wonderful cures that we have is sometimes the cure to the illness is the illness. If you have a head cold, right, you're expelling all this mucus and stuff, your body is cleaning itself out. And so you don't want to take a cold medicine and shove all that stuff back into you. You want to let it out. And so you don't want to take a cold medicine and shove all that stuff back into you. You want to let it out. I was recently diagnosed with Graves disease. And I was like, man, this is not okay. Because I've been I've done all the physical work, I take care of myself,

I eat right, I've been sober for four years, I exercise, my health should be getting better and had been getting better. And I've been feeling better and better and better. And then all of a sudden, it was like, out of nowhere, I got hit with this. And I don't believe that like, if everything is right, emotionally and mentally, you're never going to have a physical ailment. Part of that is because for years we've done things the wrong way. Right. And so speaking specifically about myself, I, when I say we, I don't know, I feel important if I refer to myself in the plural third person, but I did stuff so wrong for so many years that it's like your body has to adjust and recover. And one of the things that I've learned with dealing with Graves is that when I feel it, I don't fight it.

I just let the symptoms happen and I acknowledge them. And I immediately say, I thank you for bringing this to my attention. And you're free to go. And once I do that, the stress of the symptoms goes away. And then it's a lot easier to manage and deal with. And so there's the mental capacity that we have to deal with illnesses of all kinds. There's a lot of it is just being aware that sometimes we just have to be sick to actually get well. That's physical, it's emotional, it's everything. Yes, on a multi dimensional level.

And I agree with you. I mean, it was that that actually led me to my journey, because I had been numbing it for so long. I mean, I was on antidepressants for like, almost a decade, I was diagnosed with all of these things. And each one of them had a bed to go with it. And I just, I couldn't feel, I got to the point where I could barely cry and I'm like an emotional person. And so I got off all of it, but I had to get some tools. I didn't have any.

And I think back to my dad, he died at like 63. He had no tools. This man died because he never ever knew how he didn't know how to breathe. He had no tools to handle his stress. And that all was just so much and too much on his heart. You know, he never did for himself. And I just looked at that and thought, I don't want to die at 63. You know, I mean, I'm almost 50 50 but I feel young right now so I'm glad I got tools and so that's kind of how I found meditation and mindfulness which I sucked at totally I'm like you I have ADHD how the frick do you think I'm gonna be still and listen to my thoughts but that was that was it

because what I heard was horrible and I wouldn't tell an enemy the shit I was telling myself. It was awful. That was my changing moment when I was able to listen. That's the key is to turn inward. And I think, you know, that's the curse of the modern world that we live in is it's, it's very easy to, to live, right? We don't have to walk for miles to get water, for example, it's there for us. And so, but we have, we have all these other things that we've, we've created as obstacles for our mental health. And so, you know, taking that moment to turn inward and realize that's the point of the blank page at the end of that book is that there is no answer, there is no secret. And so anything that we're seeking in the external world, whether it's a career or a relationship or volunteering, right? I like to use examples of good behavior because

people think, well, if I just give back more, I'll feel better. And it's like, well, you will for some amount of time, but it's the same thing as buying a Ferrari. It's only going to, it's a technique that's going to make you feel good. And then you have to do more and more and more of it. Now, the difference between like volunteering and buying a Ferrari is like, if you genuinely find your work that you're committed to, that this is your life's purpose, and you're dedicated to it, then the reward is in the work. If you know, you're not seeking something at the end of the rainbow. It's I'm being myself. And that's that sense of soul, right? Is that I this is who I am. And I'm flowing with the universe. And I'm flowing with the universe and I'm flowing with the world

around me and I'm making a positive difference. And I'm yielding at the same time. Now I'm yielding these positive feelings and you create a cycle of wellness, you know, mentally and emotionally, but it's because at that point you're expressing who you are. It's not that you're, you're trying to acquire or achieve something else or, or, you know, for so many of us, we want to, we want to do well for our families. And so we put so much pressure on ourselves to, to live up to these expectations. You know, I, part of my deal when I was young is I wanted to, you know,

leap over these expectations that my, you know, to make my parents proud. And it's like, they already were proud of me. And, and I look back now and it's's like no matter how bad my life got, they were still proud of me. And that's like, you know, at that point, obviously, I wasn't proud of myself, nor should I have been. But it was you know, that's it's it's ironic that the people we try to impress the most, we don't have to do anything to impress them. And that was when I met Elliot and our relationship developed. That's really that was such a gift to me because she loved me no matter what. And, and I had a very real sense of that, you know, that I just, she didn't have to say or do anything specific. I just, that was the energy between us. I'm so lucky. Once that's lifted off your shoulders of having to be something or do something to win love, when you don't have

to carry that around anymore you can do anything in the world unconditional love you know for my oldest son and actually many times i thought about him when you're talking he had a hard time after my dad died um he didn't go to college play baseball he had a hang of been in a funk took him years to come back but there was this one moment it was so sweet we went to my little brother's house. It was for his son's birthday. He's turning four and he brings his friend over to my son. And he's like, this is my friend Drew. And he was like, I'm your cousin. And he goes, you are? And he goes, we love you. And he just like hugged him. So we get in the car and my son's like, he's got tears in his eyes. He's like little Michael doesn't, he doesn't give a shit where I work, what college I went

to, you know, what am I doing in my future? He just loves me. And I just felt like love, like I haven't in a long time. And he makes me want to be a better person. He wants, I want to feel that for myself. I mean, it was so powerful. That unconditional love can literally change someone's life. Like it did for you and him. Yeah. I don't think that there's anything else that can, I'm not sure how far I would have gotten. I was off to a good start, but I don't know how far I would have gotten if I hadn't realized that unconditional love exists and that it's available to me. The transformation I'm trying to make is

this person who's been jaded by the modern world previous to 2020. And who has, I have all these preconceptions of who I'm supposed to be, even my conception of how do I help somebody, right? So I can help them by helping them financially, or I can lift something heavy for them or that kind of thing. Whereas the thing that they really need is to understand that they're worthy of being loved no matter what. And I love them no matter what. And if you can give that to somebody else, then the sky is the limit. You know, when I lived in Chicago for a long time, and I've been living in Lima, so, you know, like 15 years in downtown city areas. And so you interact with people or you come, people come across your path who are asking you for money all the time or asking for help. You

know, there's a range of emotions that I've experienced at different points in my life. And I've, you know, I've always been in tune with watching how other people handle that. It's only been recently, but I started to figure out, you know, they need something for you and the universe has put them in your path, but it's not money. And that doesn't, I'm not saying don't give them money. If somebody needs a few bucks, give them money, but there's something else that they need from you. What is it? Because the universe has put you in their path to help them. Now it falls under that umbrella, right? Making sure they know that they're loved no matter what, and whatever the conditions of their life are, are not relevant to whether they're worthy of love and whether they're an adequate human being. And so being able to convey that is really transformative.

It makes you realize, well, this is what we're all here to do, right? So we all have these unique ways of doing it. I try to do it through my writing. There's a zillion different expressions of who we are as individuals. But what we're all here to do is share the love that we're all worthy of. And the positive energy is what makes the world go around. The genesis of creation is that feeling of love and that feeling of adequacy and that feeling of meaningfulness that I am somebody and I deserve to be here. Whatever else has happened in my life doesn't really matter.

Just who I am is enough. And so that's my mission all the time. I don't succeed all the time, but I try to keep that in the forefront of my mind whenever I'm interacting with anybody is by the time I'm done, whatever amount of time I have in this interaction with them, I want to make sure they know that that's what the truth is, regardless of anything they think or anything they've heard. That's what the truth is, regardless of anything they think or anything they've heard. That's what the truth is. You know, we all connect to that great, amazing feeling, you know, when you're in love, how good it feels in your body. You're healthy. You feel like you could probably climb Machu

Picchu, right? Yeah, you can do anything. You're healthy. You could, yeah, it's like your superpower and your energy is great. You're hard, so connected. So it's such a spiritual experience, but it can be temporary. If you're not understanding that this love comes from within you, this feeling actually that you're experiencing, this energy is only experienced within. So therefore it's temporary if we're only borrowing it from the love of someone else. So how did you find that love within, you know, that unconditional love, like the thoughts I was not unconditionally loving myself when I was listening to my thoughts. I love you, Shanna. Oh, but you know what? You could totally lose five pounds, you know,

or something like that. So how did you shift from feeling that way, you know, meeting your partner to experiencing it from within? Yeah. So it's still a work in progress. I still get these thoughts like, why is this in your life the way it is? Why is, you know, X, Y, or Z not right? And I answer that question by feeling like, oh, well, I haven not right? And I answer that question by feeling like, oh, well, I haven't done enough. I should be working harder. I should be more focused on X or I should, if you ask the question, why be really careful what follows that? Because if you say, well, why am I in a bad mood today? Your subconscious mind will answer that question. So for me, it's as soon as I do that, I just, I'm just quick to catch myself and go, well,

that's not a bad thought isn't empowering and it's not serving me. And I used to feel bad about that, right? I should have better control of my emotions. I should have better control over my thoughts. I think that's a common experience as you start to turn inward and you start to meditate and you start to experience mindfulness. It's this, well, why don't I have it all the time? Why can't I do this all the time? And so I just, I realized, okay, well, that's just a reminder that you're a human being. And it's a great reminder that you used to feel that way all the time. And you didn't have any answers or any control. And some large percentage of the people that you're interacting with on a daily basis,

don't have any clue how to achieve mindfulness. And they're walking around with this all the time. And so that for me is a really empowering moment where it's like, okay, you've got the tools, you can do this. And the deeper question is that you asked is, you know, that sense of that we're generating love. And it's not just love, it can be anything, right? Like, the sense of happiness or joy that we experience, we attribute it to something that's happened outside. I got promoted at work, so I feel great. I got a new car, so I feel great. I've got this new relationship, so I feel great.

We keep attributing it to this stuff. And I love the word that you used earlier. You said you're borrowing it at that point. But the truth is that that feeling that you're experiencing, you are experiencing with your mind and your soul and that's your feeling, your experience. It didn't come from anywhere around you. So understanding that that is a choice

and that you can generate that experience anytime that you choose to and want to. And the best book, if anybody hasn't read it, called Man's Search for Meaning. It's written by Viktor Frankl. And Viktor Frankl was, you know, living in Nazi Germany and concentration camps. And so he's skin and bones. And in this camp, where he's just surrounded by sickness and death and pain and misery. And the whole time he was there, he said, I'm going to choose to have a consciousness of love and I'm going to have an empowering attitude about this

situation. And so you look at this horrific thing that happened in the Holocaust and Viktor Frankl came out of it and he wrote this book about how do you embrace the power of your own mind and your own attitude and how do you have a loving outcome and he's touched so many more lives than were taken in the holocaust and i i hate to do i don't want to do that trade right but the point is that he went through the worst of circumstances and was able to create and that's literally manifestation is he said i'm going to use my mind to create a positive outcome to this situation and i look at that and like, I can't think of anybody who's really had come from worse circumstances to have more of a positive

outcome. And so to me, his story is always a tremendous inspiration. And that's realizing that everything that's happening around us in our life, even though it may not be good, we choose how we feel about it. We choose to express love. We choose to express forgiveness or not. It's a choice. And so when we think we're experiencing it from somebody else, we're actually just mistaken. And we're experiencing it on our own, but we're attributing it to something outside of ourselves. And I think that that's the trick about being a human and being happy is that it's easy. know like you get hungry and you eat a sandwich you feel better right so all right well when i get hungry i'll eat sandwiches it's the same thing

it's like well i'm i'm kind of feeling a little bit lonely but i'll i'll scroll through social media or i'll swipe a dating application so all of a sudden i in that moment i've got the dopamine going and the serotonin going and i i feel a little bit more connected because of this thing that I've done. And our subconscious gets tricked into thinking, well, that's where those feelings come from. And so we keep turning back to that. The problem is that whatever it is, for me, it was drugs and alcohol. You always need more and more and more and more and more of it. When you turn inward and you focus on meditation and mindfulness, you need less and less and less of it. And I, you know, you were talking earlier about like, you know, having ADD and a lot of people struggle with that. Like, oh, how, you know,

Sean, I can't meditate for three or four hours at a time. Well, it's like, well, you don't have to, if you, if you practice meditation and I don't meditate for three or four hours a day anymore. I was fortunate to have a period of my life where I did that. The rewards were tremendous. I meditate for five or 10 minutes at a time. Now, sometimes it's 30 seconds. And sometimes my eyes are open, you know, if I'm in the back of the cab in Lima traffic, and it's, I can't express to you how stressful the horn honking is in Lima. It's like, it's like, it's like a war zone in my brain. Now, that's an exaggeration. But, but I have the tools now to be like, isn't this crazy? And I laugh at it. And I'm like, you're still letting your body have this neurological response to this stuff

happening around you. And I think, well, but wow, isn't that incredible? The universe has put me in this place to experience this feeling and think these thoughts and work through this situation. Because now at some point I'll share this story with somebody else and they'll have a positive reaction to it. And so every single event is cause and effect, but the meaning we give to them and where we feel about them is a hundred percent our choice. Hey listeners, did you know that Sense of Soul has a network of lightworkers affiliates program? Now you get to work with one of our inspiring guests and I'd like to introduce you to one of our affiliates. Hey listeners, this is Jennifer from The Soul Experience and host of the podcast The Soul Traveler. I'm here to tell you about the most profound method of inner work that somebody

can do while on a spiritual path. It's called quantum healing hypnosis. In a single session, you will revisit your past lives. Your subconscious will come forward to scan your body looking for blocked emotions and health concerns and then your higher self will answer the most important life questions you have. Your session is audio recorded so you can play back all of the advice from your higher self. And you know you can trust the advice because it's coming from that part of you that is connected to Source.

So if you're ready to take the next step on your spiritual journey, then visit me online at thesoulexperiences.com and be sure to mention that Shanna from Sense of Soul referred to you. You can also go to mysenseofsoul.com and in the menu, look for the Network of Lightworkers. Now back to our amazing guest. That's the whole thing is that we have a choice. So, you know, that's what I've kind of been going through over the past few years. And actually, unfortunately, it's been kind of a up and down roller coaster

of emotions and battle because I started to doubt everything that I ever knew, you know, when it came to religion and history and who I am and my ancestry and all of these things. And then I realized how much we had been lied to and how small, you know, we have been intentionally kept without choice. I mean, just the word heresy is the word choice. And like, you're not supposed to have your own thoughts. You're just supposed to believe the system, do the right things. Here's the box that you're supposed to be. So I was so angry. I was so mad. I was going through so much. And then, you know, finding a little piece, I'm not going to lie. I'm still kind of a little, when I get going, I'm like, ah, 2000 years, you know, but when

I would look outside of where I found my inner peace, it was chaos. It was such fucking chaos and people were asleep and didn't want to even awaken to this. Yeah. And there's a lot of chaos around us in the world. And I understand that this is one of your purposes to help people, you know, find that peace within. You know, it's very hard. I mean, don't watch the news. My God. I'm so glad I didn't have to say it. Yeah. So everything in the world is impermanent. And, you know, we get we get a lot of chronic frustration from what happens when we watch the news is we're now able to be aware of every problem happening in the world at all times. And they're not solvable for us. You know, and I look at like a lot of the stuff, you know, people post positive messages

on social media. They're trying to make a difference. Right. And I had no problem with that. I understand why they're doing that and what's causing that. And they get negative feedback from family and friends. It's like stuff that I don't need your politics. I don't need your anything. And so then and then it becomes this even bigger frustration. Like, well, why isn't everybody else concerned about this problem that I'm concerned with? And it's because if you scroll through the news in your smartphone, well, there's a thousand different problems that we all can be concerned with at all times. And so, but the question is, can we solve any of those problems? And it's not just knowing the solution and being a part of the solution.

You know, we're evolved to solve problems. That's the nature of who we are. But those problems, when we started our evolution, were like finding water, finding food. And we don't have that anymore. We can sit in our bed and click an icon on our smartphone and somebody will bring us anything we want at all times. And so that's really the trouble with modernity is that life is too easy. And nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to hear my life's not easy. What are you talking

about? I've got X, Y, Z. And yeah, it's like, yeah, we've created all we've put all this stuff into our lives. Well, the way to combat that and to fight chaos and to fight modernity is start to take things out of your life. That's how you find inner peace. So you start by taking thoughts out of your life and you start by taking attachments out of your life and you do it little by little and you start to realize, well, I don't need any of these desired outcomes I have, whether they're global

or whether they're about my family or about me and my career or any of that stuff. All of it's irrelevant as long as one thing is true. And that is that I'm being myself and that I'm here expressing myself as the person that I was designed and created to be and that sense of soul, right? And so this is who I am and this is what I do. And anything else that happens outside of that, it doesn't mean that I'm not going to have an emotion about it or a reaction to it, but it doesn't affect me the same way that it used to affect me because my work and who I am and what I'm committed to

doesn't change regardless of what's happening on the news or what's happening in the world around us. And the reality is that there's all kinds of bad things happening all the time. And that's our perception. But the truth is we don't really know what's good or bad. And there's an ancient Chinese proverb about a horse farmer. He had this prized horse that ran away and his neighbor came over and was like, I'm so sorry that you lost your prized horse. This is terrible. This is a tragedy. And he said, maybe. Yeah, I don't I don't we don't know that. It's no, you're crazy. This is you lost your best horse. This is terrible. And he said, I don't know that yet. Two days later, you're crazy. You lost your best horse. This is terrible. And he said, I don't know that yet. Two days later, the prized horse comes back to the land, and he's got another beautiful horse.

It's faster, and it's more beautiful than anybody has ever seen. And the neighbor comes back and says, you're right. This is amazing. What a miracle. How great. Your amazing horse brought back another. Now you have two amazing horses. This is incredible.

And the Chinese farmer said, maybe. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. And the neighbor said, you're nuts. You have twice as much as you had before. Well, the farmer's son decided to take this new horse out for a ride and check it out. But the new horse didn't want to be ridden. So it bucked him off. And the son fell to the ground and severely broke his leg. And the neighbor comes back over. I'm so sorry. This is terrible. I can't believe this happened to you and your son and the Chinese farmer. Simple. Maybe we don't we don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. And the neighbors said the neighbors had at this point, I can't keep doing this with you. This is obviously a tragedy. I'm so sorry. And leaves.

And then a couple of weeks later, the constable comes to recruit all the young men because the emperor has declared that there's war that everybody has to go to and every fit, able-bodied young man has to go. But his son with his broken leg, who's no longer able to walk and run normally, doesn't have to go to war. And the neighbor comes back over and says, man, I'm so glad that this worked out. And the Chinese farmer said, maybe. And we can keep going on and on and on with that proverb. But the point of it is that the things that we think are bad, maybe they aren't as bad as we think they are. Maybe that they're creating something. And what I've learned in my life is that the universe gives us what we need before we get what we want. And we have to let go

of our expectations for specific outcomes to happen the way we want them to. I think one of the tricks with modern life is that you can set out all these plans. I can't find anybody in the world who doesn't know how to set goals. Like, you know, honestly, 20 years ago, if you asked somebody, what's good goal setting, you'd get a, you know, you'd get a lot of weird answers, right? People wouldn't know. Now it's really hard to find, like, you can ask somebody who couldn't tell you, like, the nature of the solar system and how many planets are in it and what a galaxy is. But they could tell you how to set goals and get what they want. Because that's the nature of the world we live in is that it's constantly being bombarded to us of success and achievement and getting what you want. The truth of the matter is that I think that we can

all make our dreams come true. I don't have any doubt about that. And I think that goal setting is a positive thing to do so. But as soon as you set your goals and as soon as you make your plan for what you want from your life, let go of the way that those outcomes will be achieved and realize that the universe is going to unfold life for you on your behalf and that everything that you think will happen won't happen that way. And the power of my story is that I promise you the way that I wanted my life to turn out and the way it has, man, I'm so glad it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. What the universe had in mind for me is so much better and it's so much more powerful and it's so much more rewarding. And I get so much more joy and fulfillment and experience just so much more abundance on a daily basis than if it

had worked out the way I wanted it to. And that requires faith. That is important to acknowledge that if you don't have the faith that it will happen that way, I promise you it won't. It does require a belief that, yeah, you know what, everything that happens is working out on my behalf. Well, it's like that proverb, maybe it will, right? You know, that proverb actually taught, I have heard that before, taught me, you know, the lesson of impermanence, but also if my son never has to go to war, I'm going to break his frigging leg. And we don't know if that's a good idea or not. We don't know. Right. But, you know, and I also kept on hearing the serenity prayer. Right. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference. You know, it's so true. So how can we make change in our life, right? That is purposeful for ourselves rather than just continuing to chase after somebody else's dreams, America's dreams, our parents' dreams, our teacher's streams. So I think of a child, a little girl picks up an insect,

and this insect is in her palm, and it's crawling up her forearm, and she's looking at it, and this pure joy across her face, right? So picture that, that little girl. And then picture the other little girl who picks up the same insect, crawls up on her leg unexpectedly, and she screams, and she shrieks, and she's scared by the bug. Well, there's nothing wrong with either of the little girls and there's nothing wrong with the bug. It's that we're all created differently, right? We're all created uniquely. And so when we're kids, we instinctively kind of intuitively know what those things that we're interested in and the things that we enjoy doing. As we get older, a lot of well-meaning people, our families,

our communities, tell us we need to go through certain steps and do certain things to have a good life. And so, and particularly our parents, a lot of well-meaning, well-loving parents, tell us a lot of things that they want us to do or give us advice. And it's based on a safe outcome of us not experiencing pain or suffering. Well, I have bad news for everybody. Pain and suffering is what the universe uses to help us grow. We live in an existence where we have creation and we have destruction and it's happening all around us at all times. It's all part of the same process. And so trying to live a life where you don't have harm come to you or those you love is a futile effort.

But go back a step and say, well, if I didn't have to live this safe life, right? So if I didn't have to pay my mortgage, and if I didn't have to pay my rent, and if I didn't have to get my college degree, and if I didn't have to make sure everything was perfect, whatever that picture is, right, we all have them. And I could just do what I wanted to, and I could just be who I am. Then what would it look like? So that's to me, that's the starting point of the question. Because unfortunately, life works this way, where we generally get into our 30s, 40s, sometimes younger in our 20s, where we start to realize, all right, the life that I've been pursuing to make me happy isn't making me happy. And it doesn't matter how much stuff I get, or how much doesn't matter if I have four kids, I still don't feel more love, right? It's,

it's this endless battle of more and more. And so then we stop and not everybody, but many of us stop and ask, okay, well, what is it that I should be doing? And the hard part is that we've gotten so far away from who our core person is, and what our sense of soul is. You've manifested the life that you're living. Yeah. And we've worked hard to do that. And we've done it believing that it'll create all these feelings. I mean, that's why people pursue material wealth. Nobody wants to sit in a room and pick up pieces of paper with dead presidents on it. That's not it. But they want is the feeling of freedom. They want the feeling of power. They want the feeling of social status of all that. And so here's the thing that's cool is by simply being the best at who you are, right? Because life does require effort. I think there's an easy mistake that can happen with like mindfulness and with just being true to yourself and kind of

letting go of some of the external world stuff is that, you know, you can't just sit on a mat and pray all day. That will not bring you fulfillment and contentment. Disclaimer, there is a small nth of a percentage of people that that really is what they want to do, but that's not what's going to make most of us happy. I had a student I was working with and they were like, man, I wish I could just be a Tibetan monk. I'd like to see you do that for five hours and then try five days, let alone five weeks or five months or five years, or that's what you want to do for your life. You would go absolutely berserk and nuts. So we have to have meaningful things that

require effort and require us to struggle and to grow. That's what makes us happy. Progress is what makes us happy in life. And so it's connecting with what is this thing that I'm willing to do and fail at, right? So if I could do anything in the world and fail at it for the next 15 years, would I still wanna do it? If I could do something for the next 15 years and not make a dime doing it, would I still wanna do it, right?

When you start to ask those questions, what is it that makes me feel most alive? What is it that other people see in me, right? So me as a writer, I get a sense of gratification when I'm engaged in the process. But through my life, you know, starting when I was young, people would be like, man, you should be a writer. I can't tell you how many times between the ages of say 14 and 40. So that's 26 years. I heard it hundreds and hundreds of times from different people. You should be a writer. And every time I thought, yeah, that'd be cool. That'd be great. But I also need to do X, Y, or Z, right? I didn't know, how do I go from, okay, I have this talent to,

it's also going to pay my bills. It's also going to be my career and all that. The truth is that you have to step off a cliff. You have to say, okay, there's this big canyon down there and it's really scary, but I want to go to the other side of that canyon. And you take the first step and I promise you there's an invisible bridge. You cannot see it, but if you take the first step, your footing will be solid and you'll take the first step, your footing will be solid. And you'll take the next step and your footing will be solid. And you're going to hear a lot of noise behind you of people saying, don't do it. You're crazy.

Be practical. Be realistic. What are you doing? And that's because those people are still on that side of the canyon. And they want you to stay over there with them. They don't want to lose you. As you keep taking steps, you'll get to the middle. And all of a sudden you'll start to see people on the other side and you'll hear their voices cheering you on saying, don't look down, don't look back, keep going. You're on the right track and come on over here. It's great where

we're at. Trust us. And so that's my job now is to be on that other side of the cliff and tell people take that next step. And there's an invisible bridge that will catch you and will guide you to where you want to be. But you can only find it if you're true to yourself and you're true to that thing that you want to do. That thing that you're scared to do because you don't know how it'll pay the bills or you don't know if you'll be successful at it. Whatever scares you the most, that's the thing you need to go and do. That's the thing that will make you feel alive. And that's the thing that will, when you start doing it and your definition of what, all the things you thought were success that you wanted to, you'll get past those and go,

man, that's a bunch of worthless crap. It doesn't mean anything to me. The power and the joy is me being who I am and expressing myself. And so finding who that person is, is a process. It doesn't happen overnight, but you get it by trying and you get it by doing scary stuff. And you get it by saying in no uncertain terms, I am going to live my life. I'm not going to live anybody else's life. No matter how much they love me and how well-meaning they are, I'm not going to do what they tell me to do.

I'm going to do what I want to do. And if I screw up, if I fuck up, that's okay. Because I did it and I'm going to learn from it. And it's part of how I'm going to become the person that I'm always meant to be. I'll do it my way. That's right. Well, I know you read my story when my dad passed

and he loved Frank Sinatra. And it was my older brother put on all this great big band music and story when my dad passed and he you know he loved frank sinatra and it was my older brother put on all this great big band music and stuff that my dad liked and when the song stopped and that last note faded into complete silence my my dad went with it and transitioned and it was a very powerful moment for me because i was like yeah he was he chose this time to reinforce this thing of like, to be you and do who you are. And I'll, I'll never forget, you know, not that long ago. And before he died, when, you know, we were talking about, you know, he's been checking in on my writing career, you know, how it's been going over the last few years. And, you know,

when letters from Lima came out and he was asking me how sales were going. And I, you know, when Letters from Lima came out and he was asking me how sales were going and I shared some of the good stuff that's been happening and he was so happy and so thrilled. And he was like, you're a writer now. I got to experience his joy in a way that I hadn't ever because he knew that I was doing what I wanted to do and I was living life on my terms finally. And he had seen me go through all the ups and downs. And, you know, I thought about that with my dad of, yeah, man, he sacrificed his dreams. And it didn't mean that, you know, he had a career that was successful and he got to do a lot of really neat stuff. But at the end of the day, his world became around providing for the family. That was what the most important thing was. And there was some unfinished business in his life, that stuff that he would have liked to have done. There's no doubt in my mind about that. That's the gift that I have is like, well,

you don't have to trade. He could have still been a great dad and done all that other stuff, but he had this sense of fear, right? If I do this and it doesn't work out, I'm not going to be able to provide for my family. And that's a that's a normal response. And it's part of what made him a great dad. And it's part of how he expressed that he loved his family. And so I wouldn't change any of that. But it's just really empowering to look to look at his life and go, all right, well, take it to the next step. Take it to the next level. And at the end of the day, that's all you have is yourself. And it doesn't mean that you don't have other people that you care about and commit your life to helping and being a part of.

I think once you find out who you are, the best way to develop it is through your intimate relationships and through your family. That's when you really know if you're living your life the way you should be or not. But yeah, it's just being who you are. And it's one of those things that's like, I can ramble on about it forever because it's so simple. I want to keep using more words to try to make it sound more important or be some sort of magical thing. It's not. It's just be the fuck who you are and don't try to do anything else. And that's not easy. So that's what's tricky is it's a simple concept that's the hardest thing in the world to do.

And it's because the modern world, consciously and subconsciously, is working night and day to make us be like everybody else. And we'll only be happy if we can, I shouldn't say happy. We'll find true fulfillment and joy that lasts if we maintain our unique identity. And that's we'll find true fulfillment and joy that lasts if we maintain our unique identity. And that's when you create something special for yourself in this life.

And that song just came to me just now. That was pretty amazing. That was the goal when I wrote that was to everybody experiences it, losing a loved one. And so to me, it was like, I wanted to tell the story of what my experience was, but also, you know, do it in a way that gets people to kind of connect with themselves and think about it. And what's the universal truth of life and death? And at the end of the day, it's we have one of these and we could talk all day about what the afterlife might be or might not be. And anybody who says that they know what it is, is not being honest. And so we have this sense. And for me, it's like, I know it's in my heart, right? My dad lives on in my heart. I think sometimes that feels trite, but it's not that

there's a very real powerful essence of his being. I have a more powerful sense of my dad's presence in my life now that he's passed on than that. So I'll just leave that definition of the afterlife as pretty powerful. But he only got one chance to live this life that made this impact. He can't go back and do it again. And fortunately, he's left a tremendously powerful and beautiful impact on my life. So I think of my life and what's my afterlife like in the hearts of the people that I love and the people that I care about and even people that I don't know. That's

what drives me and that's what keeps me focused on the work that I do. And the lesson that I've learned is the truer I am to my instincts about who I am and what I want to do, the results of that work become magnified and have so much more powerful of an effect than than when I try to craft something to make somebody else happy a certain way. In that space, when you're truly living from your authentic highest self, you can see in the presence, synchronicities, signs, things are guiding you you're leaning into it you're manifesting very easily in this place too because you're aligned and that's how it feels it's like if I am aligned with that passion that I came here with like you with the writing and so if you can connect really with that fire that

was burning within you as a child that's how I always look back at it. And I must say that you said something also that really hit me because my youngest is 11, very shy, very quiet. And she always says, I'll do it, but I have to push myself to do it. I really want to do it, but it's so hard. And I have to just push myself. I'm always pushing myself. So the other day I said, let's change that word. How about instead of you feeling like you're having to push yourself, that you're just taking action towards something that you really want. So just that perception, I mean, sometimes you just have to look at life differently because that was so huge for her. She stopped seeing it as something that she was forcing herself to do because she really wanted the end goal, but she felt it was so difficult

that she was having to, it was a struggle and she was making it harder on herself. As soon as we shifted it and now it was an action of pursuing, you know, something that she desired. I mean, it was just really interesting. I don't know if it's going to change her forever, but just this week. Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's just a shift in language or how you see things. Oh yeah. The words that we choose and the way we speak to ourselves has a tremendous power. Our subconscious retains it. You know, our subconscious mind is the world's most incredible hard drive. It remembers every single thing that it's ever heard, everything that's ever happened, and it stores it. And so we have these behavioral patterns that get created. And

that's the nature of how we are as humans. So there's nothing wrong with us. And I think that that's really important to understand is that it's an opportunity to kind of figure out. And here's the other cool thing is, right, the language that works for you, it might be different than the language that works for your daughter or the language that works for me. But just the exercise that you did with her, whether that specific thing, you know, lasts for the rest of her life or not, it may, but it might not. But the exercise of going through that and connecting and saying, hey, let's just shift our perspective. that's a

lesson that she'll carry for the rest of her life and be empowered to use. And that we all should, because anytime we think that something's not going our way, it's just a shift in perspective. It's just a quick to realize, especially, you know, it's like close to a billion people live on less than $2 a day. Right? So, you know, I, when I went to Lima and you see poverty, one of the things I said, well, man, I there's, there's places in Chicago that are like this too. Right. And so it doesn't matter where I am. There's still work to be done, right. There's more for me to give. And there's, there's people who struggle and there's people who suffer. Everything is not equal all the time. And there's so many questions that just don't have easy answers. And that's the beauty of life is that we get to work on that and we get to figure that out.

And when we embrace that, all of those things that kind of stir our passion that we want to do. I love what you said. It's like, it's not, I don't have to push myself to do it. I'm just going to take some action to move this forward because that's how we learn who we are is by trying things and doing things and pushing forward. And I think that's the real joy in life comes when you engage in that struggle. And I think so much of what plagues mental health in the modern world is that we're constantly bombarded with entertainment. We're constantly bombarded with all these things that are designed for us to not take action, for us to just sit and consume and absorb.

Everything that we're doing, we're either creating or consuming. That's the nature of the universe on a very quantum level, is that energy is either creative. There's a positive impact and a negative impact to everything. And particles pop in and out of existence all the time. So the actual way that the world works and the universe works is very, very, very mysterious and murky and weird, but there's always energy being created or energy being returned. And everything is in constant motion and constant vibration.

And I think we get, especially when we talk about mindfulness and peace, we have this perception, like if I could just sit in a nice grassy knoll with a blanket and I could just relax, then everything would be great. And it's like, yeah, it would be for an hour and then you'll be bored, right? And that's the worst fate of all in our modern world is feeling bored. And so it's understanding that we're working on something and the universe has formed the atoms in our body that's created our consciousness. And the reason that that's there is to become something. And so it's one of the, I think the cool things about life is once you accept who you are, fully, truly accept,

this is who I am. And then at the same time realize, but it's not who I want to be right now. I want to grow into this other person, right? I have this ambition, but I'm still good enough, right? I'm good enough as I am, even though there's this stuff out there that I, in my mind of who I want to become, that's a real powerful place when you can, I call it the conflation of contentment. It's when you realize I want this other thing for myself. I want to become this person, this best version of myself. But who I am is good enough as I am right now. It's good enough if I don't make any progress

towards the person that I want to become. And it's also good enough that I'm confident that I can make the progress that I want to become. And that's living is I'm going to enjoy this moment. I'm going to enjoy anything that's happening around me because life is literally a miracle. The fact that we can have this conversation as human beings to one another is miraculous. And so just take that in and then realize that all this desire you have and this instinct you have to progress and improve and do stuff.

That's a really neat thing about our existence, too, that we get to craft and we get to create. But I can promise you what won't happen is like, oh, everything's wonderful in the perfect moment. So I'm just going to sit here and chill out and it'll be cool. That won't work, I promise. Man, Sean, all of the things that you've gone through have just brought you so much freaking gnosis. Can you share with everybody how they can work with you? Because I know they're going to want to. Yeah, absolutely. So my website is www.SeanShaun-Randall.com. And then my book called The Manifestation Method.

I have an online course that's going to accompany that. So people will be able to kind of do that on their own. Goes along with your book too. I think that's great. And also listeners, if they wanted to take your course. So the promo code, SenseOfSoul50. I appreciate you being an affiliate. And then you do work one-on-one.

You know, I work with students one-on-one. I think when I talk about determining who you are as a person and creating your destiny and manifesting your true self, that's a one-on-one conversation. You know, there's room to talk about that stuff in a group forum. There's principles and stuff like that. But the teaching and the work that I do is to help somebody, you know, find themselves, discover who their true self is and then build a plan that works through that. And then work through the part of allowing life to unfold. And we like straight lines,

but that's not how life works. And so one-on-one is what I do best. I truly am here to serve in any way I can. So my email is info, I-N-F-O at sean-randall.com. Those are the best ways to find me. And yeah, I'd love to hear from anybody that has any questions or wants to talk about anything. So that's what I'm here for. Thank you so much. And thank you for being so vulnerable with your story and sharing your pain, you know, to help others. I think it's just truly what humans should be doing.

Again, why don't you throw out your website one more time? Sean, S-H-A-U-N-R-A-N-D-A-L-L.com. Thank you so much for today. I really enjoyed it. Yes, thank you. Thanks for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. And thanks to our special guests for joining me. If you want more of Sense of Soul podcast and thanks to our special guests for joining me. If you want more of Sense of Soul,

check out my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com where you can work with me one-on-one or help support Sense of Soul podcast by donating to my coffee fund. Thanks for listening.