Sense of Soul - The Lighthouse Keeper

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

Today on Sense of Soul Podcast we have with us Life Coach, Yoga Instructor and Author David Richards. David has intensely studied how the mind works, and is a long-term student of human behavior. David spent 15 years in the Marine Corp traveling around the world, and has worked in corporate America for 13 years with Cisco Systems as a manager in customer support. David has been a Yoga instructor for 12 years, and a life coach for 8 years. Observing human behavior and the struggles of human thought processes led him down a path of analysis and enlightenment. His observations and theories are shedding light on how the mind actually assimilates information.   David’s tools help his audiences decipher and unravel the mysteries standing in the way of their living an authentic, optimized existence. David is a brilliant theorist, speaker, and consultant. His books; The Lighthouse Keeper, A Story Of Mind Mastery, and Whiskey and Yoga are all and found here at his website https://www.davidrichardsauthor.com/books Follow David’s journey @davidrichardsauthor | Linktree Visit our website to learn more about us www.mysenseofsoul.com Join our Sense of Soul Patreon community of seekers and lightworkers. Exclusive workshops, live events like sacred circles, ad free episodes, you can also listen to Shanna’s mini-series about her ancestral journey, “Untangled Roots” and Mande’s mini series about her two NDE’s, Sign up now! https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul NEW!! SENSE OF SOUL’S NETWORK OF LIGHTWORKERS! Go check out our Affliates page, adding new amazing programs each month. Check it out! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/sense-of-soul-affiliates-page

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on the Sense of Soul, we are so excited to have on David Richards. He is an international bestselling author, life strategist and a yoga instructor. He spent his early childhood living in various parts of the United States and three years living on the island of Okinawa, Japan. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in English, he was commissioned as an officer in the Marines. He earned two master's degrees while on active duty and was part of the initial landing force in Somalia Operation Restore Hope. Oh my gosh, David, you have seriously lived

all spectrums of life's journey from being a fighter on the battlefield and boardroom to a yoga instructor and an author. We are so excited and honored to have you on The Sense of Soul today. Welcome. Thank you so much. It is a treat to be here and I'm so excited to talk with you both. I love Karate Kid, and so as soon as I hear the word Okinawa, I think of Karate Kid. What brought you to Okinawa? That actually happened when I was a kid, so I was there in 1979, it was 1982, ancient history, but I was 10 years old when we got there, and my dad just was assigned there. He'd been there once before, unaccompanied. So sometimes military members would go overseas. And so he went to Okinawa for a year. And that was after having been in Vietnam for 13 months. But we were there for three years and it

was life changing. I mean, as a kid at that age to be exposed to a culture so dramatically different from Western culture and what you grew up in for the first 10 years of your life and history and the richness and the texture of Japanese culture. It was, it was fantastic. And I mean, as a kid, their candy was awesome. Their toys were spectacular. Their cartoons were way beyond anything we had in the States. And again, that means exposure too, but it was also just the immersion of hearing it. They have an Obon festival to honor their dead. And at night they would come out on those days and bang these drums.

It was this really beautiful thing. And as a Judeo-Christian upbringing, no perspective on what that meant, but appreciated the solemnness and just kind of the beauty of that ceremony. So it was, it was quite an adventure. Sounds like a, you know, we moved around a lot. We weren't a military family. I do know that I heard you say in another podcast interview that it was, it was hard on you that for a moment, you even felt a little resentful

at your father for like moving around so much. I know my son expressed that to me too. He's 22, but you know, we were moving around so much and so fast that I, I didn't realize how much it impacted him. Can you talk about that? Yeah. And I didn't, I didn't appreciate, I didn't appreciate the beauty of my experience until much later in life and at the time I did it was just because I loved my friendships and you know my first friendships I really remember where ironically we didn't live on a military base we lived just outside of the University of Maryland in a little town called Hyattsville back then.

And we lived among civilians. And that was a weird experience because otherwise a military base is almost a utopia. I mean, it's a really calm society because everybody's on the same team. And so there's there's no problems there. And I had a best friend who was a five year old girl on the street and another five year old boy up another street. Those are my best friends. And when we moved away four years later, that was painful. Like that was hard. And I knew like, and that was kind of my first appreciation of this is what, this is what we do. And so it was this weird relationship where I would kind of throw myself into a relationship, into friendships, even though I knew that they were going to end on the other side of it. And so I kind of developed this aversion. Then I sort of became not introverted, but I just kind of, I withdrew because I didn't like that experience. And by the time we had come to Okinawa, I had my best friendships, you know, my kind of teen youth

and pulling those apart. That's when I turned my teenage angst towards my dad. But I appreciate, you know, looking back on it now, it was such an incredible journey and such an incredible experience. And through that, I learned a tremendous amount of resiliency and the ability to connect with people very quickly. You spent 15 years active duty for the Marines. I did. In the military, it was weird because I resented my dad growing up and had this angst. I went to college and the military helped me pay for college. And then I joined the thing that I had kind of grown up resenting to now sort of professionally get paid to resent my life in this weird way that I wasn't fully appreciating.

But the Marine Corps was fantastic in a lot of ways. But yeah, there's absolutely stuff you don't appreciate. Just getting desensitized. It's not desensitized to the act. It's that you get close to something that can be very violent and at the same time you are held to an incredibly high standard of morality and so there's this it's a that's that's what makes it hard to join the marines because that's a very that's a lot to ask of a human being and the things that i did to pry and you know there was talk at some point that I

would go to Iraq and so the things I did to try and steal myself for that I would never do again because they're just that was not a good place to go to prepare yourself for what you might have to do in those kind of situations um and so when I got out in 2006, it was really, that was my first landing outside of the military, like a period in my life, not just for the military, but for my life at that point, I didn't know anything else besides the military. There were military and there were civilians and that was it. And civilians needed protection because of these things. And that's what the military was there for.

And so stepping out of that, you know, one of the first things I was just writing this in a blog post the other day, I appreciated, wow, people are out for their own agendas in a lot of ways. Like people, and to the point that they are not looking out for other people, it's like, what's in it for me? And that was like a big culture shock because in the military, you know how to quell one-upsmanship really quickly, like in a way that's going to put other people in harm's way. And so it was the culture shock of transitioning to a life that I didn't really

know. And I didn't have a reference for because I'd never been a civilian. And then it was also grappling with the things that I had seen, been exposed to and done. And that's really, I fell in love with yoga about three days after I got out of active duty. So it worked out pretty well. I can't wait to hear about that. You know, I have to admit, I had some resentment for a long time towards the recruiter that recruited my brother into the army because my brother was killed in Iraq in 2007. And, you know, he showed up to his funeral and he continued to reach out to us as well. But what bothered me about it was, is that I felt like they prey on these boys and girls in high school when they don't really have an identity.

And a lot of them are kind of on limbo on which way they're going to go in life. I understand why they're trying to recruit them. There's opportunity, there's education. But you said something, I think it was in Simon Drew's podcast about how the military kind of gives you your identity. Sure. And yeah. And so then when you're done, you're just sitting there like, wait, who am I?

My son started getting recruited as well. And it pissed me off because I'm like, no, he's too young to make this kind of decision. And of course it was coming from fear within me that he would actually want to do it. And then, you know, he would end up like my brother. Part of it is, is they break down individual identity and they do that in bootcamp. And they do that. I went to officer candidate school, which is boot camp and officer candidate school are very different. Boot camp is for people who are like becoming enlisted Marines or soldiers. And you see people who aren't physically fit. And so it's

kind of like, we're going to help you clean up your life and get organized. And we're going to give you these skills to be in the military. Officer candidate school, you hit the ground running and it's competitive and it's super intense psychologically. It's super intense mentally, but there's still the sense that the individual is not greater than the unit. And there's this unit identity that you need to foster. So you do that by, it doesn't matter what I believe,

if I believe in a different God than you, it doesn't matter what color you are, what color I am, we're on the same team and we have a common purpose. And that common purpose dictates that we look out for one another. And so it's this kind of, it instills in you the sense of, there is something greater than you to serve. I grew up on military bases for the most part of my life. And I would say the military, certainly when my dad was low middle income,

sort of financially. And so you grow up with that kind of mindset. I didn't have an identity. I grew up like my high school is a small town on the coast, you know, next to, or you can't assume North Carolina, but there's a small town outside of that and that's like a little drop in America it's not New York City it's not LA it's not even Raleigh or Atlanta it's really small and so with that mindset yeah I didn't have you know I wanted to write but I didn't have the confidence to write I didn't even want to join the military I wanted to join the Navy because I was like I'm not going to join the Marines i wanted to join the navy because i was gonna i'm not gonna join the brains that'll show everybody and uh and then i took a couple classes you have to take classes for every semester for rotc and they started getting into engineering and i was like i can't do this i'm

going into the brain uh and but so there is there is this kind of shedding of stuff and it's but it's also some like shedding of negativity shedding of you're And it's, but it's also some negative, like shedding of negativity, shedding of you're saying, I can't do this. I can't, you know, it's pulling and demanding that you be more and that you be more for someone else too. And so then as you go through,

you know, as I went through my career, my personality comes back into it and you bring almost an artistry to leadership. And for me, you know, my big turning point that I really remember resonated with me was in 2000, I started working for a boss who painted and I just hadn't seen that kind of artisanship in the military for my first, you know, 10 years or so. And part of it is because I was in the combat arms and you didn't think about that stuff when you're thinking about war. So I started writing poetry after, after working for this, this officer. And that was kind of my awakening to, Oh, look, I can be a Marine and I can write. Wow. What a concept. So.

Oh, I love that. Wow. You know, I don't want to keep piggybacking off of Simon's podcast, but I have to be honest with you. There was one point where I just had this aha moment by a story you told. And it was very, very powerful. And it was about how you came to realizing the true meaning of purpose. And it was when you first landed at Mogadishu and what happened when you first got there. Yeah. So I was part of a six month deployment, what the Marines call the West Packer Western Pacific. And we basically, the Marines send out a small unit. It's a very capable unit. It has helicopters. It's got. Sometimes it has tanks. Sometimes it has little rubber boats,

like Zodiac boats and stuff. And this basically serves as a global police officer in the Pacific. Somalia wasn't in our plans when we left San Diego in October, but we found ourselves off the coast of Somalia in early December of 1992. We were there because of the famine, because of the international crisis. And so we were going to do an amphibious landing, one of the first amphibious landings since the 1950s. And it was really intense because when we got our intel briefing, they said there were going to be a thousand armed Somalis at the beach. And so you wrestle with that the night before. And so you're like, I was lying in my cot and just trying to rationalize someone's trying to kill me tomorrow that never met me there was nothing about me and we're trying to help them

okay so let's go and then you wake up at midnight you get your stuff on and then you end up in the back of the amphibious uh ship on this amphibious tractor about 3 30 in the morning and so finally we get into the water and it's really a really beautiful early, early morning, four o'clock in the morning or so. But the full moon was over Somalia. So you kind of see the coast. And as we start coming ashore, we didn't see anything from the coast initially. But I was one of the track commanders, one of the amphibious commanders for the vehicles. And we started seeing flashes from the beach.

And it looked like muzzle flashes because in the marines they have particular ways where you're not getting hurt but you find out what it's like to get shot at you hear what bullets sound like when they go by you and you weren't hearing any of that and so we didn't elect a fire on the beach but it was again super tense and then we finally got 100 yards offshore and it was all these camera crews and cnn crews and film crews and photographers uh taking pictures of us as we landed and so it was really kind of this surreal moment. And then we got ashore and we had a job to do. And my team had to go set up a roadblock to keep people from coming into the airport with weapons and ammo. But it was, yeah, it was really kind of a transcendent moment for me. It was surreal. I'll say that. It was really surreal. And that was

Operation Restore Hope, right? It was, yep. Yeah. So we got to the point where we set up the roadblock and the first car comes up and it's a Somali person and the sergeant opens the door and grabs the guy and just throws him down on the ground. And I stopped him and I won't say the guy's name, but I said, sergeant, pick him up.

And I looked at the Marine. I said, we're on a humanitarian mission. We're here to help these people. Ask him to get out of his car and tell him we're going to search it. And that's, to me, the role that I was supposed to play in that entire mission. That was the most important thing I did, because what I did was I set the tone for all the other Marines, because this was the other senior person besides me. So they knew how to treat the Somalis, because if they start roughhousing, that's how you kind of start a civil war or an insurgency or those kinds of things. I loved that story. And let me tell you

why, because talk about how someone's energy can affect the bigger picture, right? And then also talk about how your purpose and being aligned with it was able to be the leadership of this group. And then also it had me journaling last night about how we can get into this, making these fear-based decisions, you know? So here we have the media always like, you know, or you hear something that's going to happen and it hasn't even happened yet, but you have to prepare for it in case it does. But you have this fear setting in all night. And so as a leader, you were able to come off and bring down that energy and make decisions that weren't based out of fear. And that was a powerful story. No, thank you. And that's the irony of it, too, is that, I mean, we are armed to the teeth.

We have helmets on, we have flak jackets on. The Somali probably weighed 120 pounds. He's like 5'5". I mean, this small, diminutive figure. And you have these guerrillas. I mean that with greatest fondness because I love Marines. But we're good at what we do. Like, that's why we're Marines. And so it's, you're absolutely, I love Marines, but we're good at what we do. Like that's why we're

Marines. And so it's, you're absolutely, I love what you said because it is, it's, I was certainly amped up doing everything and thinking and trying to rationalize this whole thing and having a job to do. And then when you see something that is absolutely out of place of the integrity of what we're supposed to be doing, that's the responsibility of the leader to step in and say, we're not doing this. We're not going to do this because every little transaction like this we do with another human being in this country is going to result in disaster if we treat them the wrong way.

And that's just reality. Do they teach you that? Because I mean, I just see like, this is a perfect example of the pause. You know, you're able to pause in that moment, kind of bring yourself very present, say, okay, I have a choice and this is what is right. And, you know, in that pause, you change the entire energy then after that with, with just that shift. Is that something they teach you? I mean, just because I think it should. It's not something they consciously teach you, but we talk about command presence and

presence of mind and situational all the time. Part of it is you have to understand the atmospherics of the situation. And in a weird way, it's that's a tough lesson for any military to learn because Somalia lasted, you know, 13 months. But our unit was there. We kicked the door in and we left after two months. Operation Desert Storm, the big thing with Kuwait, that lasted four days. And so you're not going to necessarily learn those kinds of things when you have those kinds of successes and victories. When we got to Iraq, that's when we learned because our strategy was flawed, at least from a U.S. standpoint. And we didn't realize that we could have gleaned tons

of stuff from history. I did my thesis, my master's, one of my master's on the post-war occupation of World War II and compare that to kind of what we were failing to do in Iraq. So, but one of those things in Iraq much more quickly, because the first time you are in a crowded, you know, place that's normally a crowded market and it's deserted in broad daylight, your, your spider sense starts to go off because you know, something's off. Yeah, it was, it was just, I mean, I had to pause it and sit in that story for a moment because I was, I was just really thinking about how one person's energy can shift an entire situation. And I, you know, I don't know if you know this, but we're energy workers and people don't realize that their energy isn't just stuck inside of this, as Shanna calls it, meat suit, that our energy is like, our auras reach up far. triple effect of something that could have gone completely wrong. And, and so it was, it was just a powerful story. And then also, you know, as humans, as Shanna said, that's what we need to do to make sure we're not making fear-based decisions. We have got to come up with a way to

pause. And I know that yoga has probably brought that pause into your life and that more mindfulness. And, you know, I have to be honest, I think the thing that's so intriguing about your story is you went from military to corporate to yoga. And by the way, you can say cuss words on our show because I know you're on the way. So when I read your story, I was like, who the fuck does this? Who goes from the Marines to corporate? Like what were you? IT for like Cisco or something? And then. Yes. Yes. Well, it wasn't by design, at least not that I was consciously aware of. Not your design, right? I got, I got exposed to, to just the idea of stillness in Japan as a kid and I remember when I got back when we got to I got to high school in North Carolina in the early 80s and I would meditate

because I read a book on Shambhala this mystical city um and I was like I want like that there is something resonated with me for that like this idea of Bushido and the samurai culture, this code of honor kind of resonated with me. And so all my friends would be out at football games on Friday nights or whatever, or parties. And I would be home trying to figure out what meditation was and trying to stop thoughts in my mind. And I use, it was weird because I used it.

I didn't use it as much in high school as I felt like I kind of broke away from it shortly after that. I kind of stayed away from it college because college was completely different experience. And then I brought it back in the military. I remember meditating in Somalia because it was just one way to deal with kind of everything that was going on. And I knew I had no, I didn't, I couldn't spell yoga in the Marines Corps. I don't think I ever remember seeing a yoga studio. I just consciously, it wasn't on my radar. And yet I got out and I read a sports illustrator article about football players using it to strengthen their midsections. And I was like, oh, that sounds kind of cool. Okay. And so I, this is the day after I left active duty. I was up in North Carolina at my parents' house and went to their gym, did a gentle yoga class. I was like, this is kind of squishy, but I'll

give it another shot. Two days later, different class, different style teacher. And I'm drenched in sweat. Like sweat is just beating off my head. I'm like, what is happening? I am moving and I'm out of breath. My, my sweating profuse, like ridiculous from moving around. This doesn't make sense. And then we did our first, like first real Shavasana. And I had this kind of that first spark of awareness and of clarity. And I was like, what is that? I want more of that, whatever that is. Yes, please. And so I became a yoga instructor. I didn't fully immerse myself. I didn't go full, like let my hair grow and just kind of get into it. But I, I dabbled,

but I dabbled in a way that was comfortable for me and what my experience has been to that point. And then I just wanted to kind of make yoga my own, but absolutely. I mean, yoga helped me with whiskey and yoga. Obviously it helped with the lighthouse keeper was the basis for the lighthouse keeper. And it certainly helped me understand the idea of being present, really being present with people as I've progressed through my journey with it. It can be very difficult your bath at first it seemed impossible and now I've been standing on my one foot for a good 10 minutes and I don't know how this is happening do you know I do that almost daily because I feel like it is the one thing that grounds me and I don't know if I was a flamingo in my past life or something once. But you know, I also find it interesting

because my little girl, my youngest, she used to always want to be on her head, right? Whenever she'd be upside, I'd always catch her like upside down. She still is like this. And then I noticed also when I got her these yoga cards, like that was always her favorite stuff. Was it anything on her head?

Is there, is there reasoning behind that? Do you know? All the blood rushes to the head. I only teach gym yoga now. So it's, that's kind of where my vibe is. Oh, that's cool. I don't do a lot of inversions in class because. Yeah.

Gym yoga. But there's something serene about being upside down. Certainly. Yeah. Well, you like those inversion tables, you know, that help stretch you. But you know what? I never liked being upside down. Certainly. Yeah. Well, you like those inversion tables, you know, that help stretch you, but you know what? I, I never liked being upside down. Really? Maybe she was a bat in her past life and you were a flamingo. I was a flamingo. I'm totally good at that. And maybe I was like a super lazy seal on the San Diego boardwalk. That's my favorite position, sleeping.

Who doesn't love good Shavasana? There are people in my class who leave before Shavasana. And I'm just like, I know where you are in your life. And I'm sorry, because Shavasana. My favorite one. It's the best pose. So David, I was thinking about the day my husband came home from football practice at UNLV and he was like me and the the football team we have to do yoga now and he's I was like really he's like what the hell do I even wear I'm like I don't know and didn't he wear like something tight that would yeah he was like dreading it. So the next day he comes back and I'm like, so how was yoga? And he

was like, well, most of the team loved it. Cause the instructor was super hot and had on, you know, tight leggings. Um, he was like, I have to be honest with you. It was so hard and it was much needed for him because he always had lower back problems from his hamstrings being so tight. And it's probably one of his favorite things that he's done. He loves like, especially hot yoga. And it's really helped him with just being more mindful, being able to slow down from his corporate job. That's fantastic. Well, and it's interesting to see, I feel like men are getting more comfortable with yoga, but it's, I look at that as simply men are so used to trying to dominate the external world. I've come to learn

over the course of time that when you really connect with women, women have mastered the internal domain, like the wisdom that comes from within. And that's really what yoga is. That's why I think men are so averse to it generally, but ultimately if you, if you believe in a higher power, if you believe in the universe, at some point you have to take an internal journey to, to elevate yourself. I mean, that's just true. And, and that's why a lot of times I look at men as having that much difficulty because they don't have a good compass for how to navigate the internal

journey. It's certainly not a miracle. Hey, Sense of Soul listeners, sorry for the interruption, but we have some exciting news to share. Shanna and I have decided to offer an affiliates page on our website to our guests that we have had on. Then it makes it easy for you, our listeners, to find programs and professionals that align with you. Yes, it's so easy. Just go to our website, mysenseofsoul.com, and on our homepage, click the Network of Lightworkers Affiliates. Then scroll and simply click on your favorite guest. Sense of Soul will earn a commission for our endorsement and recommendation to their product or their service from this affiliates page. Your purchase will help support Senses Soul in our purpose, bringing amazing episodes twice a week to our listeners all around the world.

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So you mentioned a higher power in a universe. Was there a moment like a Kundalini where you felt like, boom, you knew there was something bigger than you? Was this something that came from, you know, maybe the basis of that Christianity when you were growing up? I mean, was this like a slap in the face spiritual awakening or was it a long journey? That's such a beautiful question. I would say there is two things came to mind when you talked about that.

So when we lived in Maryland, we lived off base. It was early 1970s. So 74, 75, 76. So Vietnam war is just ending, not a popular war. My dad in the military, we went on vacation one summer and came back and there had been a cross burned in our yard. Oh my God. I just heard that this morning and something. That's so weird that you said that.

What? That is horrible. Oh my God. It was a really it was just a weird time and i say that because it was the time i had the most injuries that required stitches and one of those was um my best one of the best friends i mentioned earlier who's my age he had an older brother of my brother's age and then they have an old brother on top of that and we're all playing in someone not even our backyard that was in the 70s like you didn't play in your backyard you went to someone else's backyard wasn't any of your friends and just like terrorize them or whatever um i did that too yeah that's so nervy but we were five or six and so it

was time for us to go home and my best friend didn't want to go. And for some reason in this backyard, like in most backyards, there is a hammer lying on the ground. So he picked up the hammer through it. Everybody starts running. He starts to wind up, throw it. Everybody runs. He throws it, hits me in the back of the head. So knocked unconscious. But then I remember seeing his brother take me down to their house. I clearly remember it from outside my body. So that was, that was a big moment when I was five or six and this is going to sound crazy, but in April of 2020, I saw a picture of a woman that made me question my belief in God. And a picture. And that picture is the inspiration for this,

the third book that I've been working on now for 20 months. Yeah. And so she's a French woman on Instagram, but this picture was in, she was in a black dress and a golden field of wheat and just looking off into the distance. And I saw that picture and it transformed my life absolutely wow she must be amazing well so part of what I've come to discover as a writer is when you imagine something or you like go down that path okay I'm going to question that's kind of what my my third book is about is again broke christian so old testament is kind of the story of creation and all the bad stuff that happens and why people are bad and the new testament is jesus and i was like what if so you got god the father you got jesus what if the third chapter is Mary the mother of God and how she shapes like the

world to create heaven on earth kind of thing and this woman inspired that picture in that story so that is good shit and so you try to like you try to comprehend okay how am I going to tell that story? And that's what the last 20 months have been. I have, I can look at on either side of my desk. I have 10 journals that I have basically filled trying to work out the story and work at all different angles of it. And I just started working with a results coach. So I'm like, okay, I got it. I got to get the story down. But it's, it's beautiful. It's got,

I've gotten to the point where I'm much more comfortable with how I'm going to tell it and, and the story behind it. And it's kind of like, okay, I gotta get the story down. But it's beautiful. I've gotten to the point where I'm much more comfortable with how I'm gonna tell it and the story behind it. And it's kind of like, what's the story behind, what's the romance behind the Immaculate Conception? And when you think, at least historically, when I always used to think of the Immaculate Conception, you think of Jesus's birth. That's not what the Immaculate Conception is.

That is Mary conceiving, even if she's told by an angel, but that is Mary conceiving that I have the son of God inside me and no man has ever been with me. And so you kind of look at it that way and you're like, that's a powerful story. And then the question becomes for me, the most romantic thing I can think of is sort of when Mary looks at Jesus, who does she think of? of like who does she think of as his father like what is what's the love there what does she feel for Jesus's father and so that's kind of where the story goes all triggered by a picture all triggered by a picture she knows about it too she's a this beautiful amazing French woman uh I've told her and then I'm kind of like okay I'm not gonna say anything else Let me just focus on the story.

Well, yeah. And you can't fully expose her because then everyone might think she's married and she's going to have people lining up outside her door. Right. That is truly beautiful. I feel like you're, is it coming from you or do you feel like you're kind of channeling something bigger? Absolutely something bigger. So I started, I started writing this. So it's, this is kind of, this adds to the weirdness of the story,

if you will. But I went to a mastermind with Jack Canfield in March of 2020, right before, right when the pandemic was starting to shut things down, if you can imagine. And so like my flight to LA was, there were 20 people on a 300 person plane. Some of us were wearing masks. Some people weren't, but drove up to Santa Barbara. We couldn't meet with Jack in person. So we're doing it over video. And if you've never been to a mastermind, it's where you come together with a group of like-minded people and someone shares their expertise about something. And the idea is that you all come together and create this mind that's bigger than one of you individually. And so Jack was sharing his knowledge with us. There were only six of us because the other 11 people didn't want to make the trip because of the pandemic. And so you spent about 45 minutes

in the hot seat and I spent 45 minutes and I was telling him about the lighthouse keeper because they wanted to hear about that. But I really want to talk about this book and at this time I didn't know I hadn't seen the picture yet so I didn't know uh what it was going to be but I knew the book I wanted to call it being b-e-i-n-g and it was the idea that who we are is more important than what we do and so Jack gave me some good advice and at the end of my time he said you've got a year and I was like, okay. And then I thought to myself, what the fuck does that mean? But I didn't say it. And so it just kind of hung there.

And I was like, I've got a year, got back from LA. I started writing the book on a computer and I said, you know, I'm not going to do this. And I grabbed a journal and I started a conversation with two different color pens and it was like almost like a text conversation but one was the voice of conditional love and one was the voice fun conditional love and they just started having this dialogue whoa yeah and then I got to the end and I grabbed a third pen and it was a combination of the first two pens and it was just this purple pen that said i remember you and it was what i remember you thinking about it going back to that but um and then i saw the picture of this woman on april 4th

of 2020 and i was like what is happening because this i like it made me think of the movie gladiator and if you've seen gladiator you know russell pro loses his wife and son to the romans and then goes into the afterlife to search for them but that's how the movie ends and it just took me on this tremendous journey to okay how do i get to tell this story how do i tell this story and kind of make it real and it just took me to we have so barely scratched the surface of how powerful human imagination can be and and that's like if you really if you believe there's a god of higher power like use your imagination to see how close you can get because that's like ultimately again it's that journey internal like you're not going to externalize this journey at some point it has to be internalized so it's um it's been it's been

a test there were some certainly challenging times uh during the course of the pandemic with everything that we mentioned earlier the political upheaval the social unrest going on in the country the pandemic um and getting to tell the story, but it was the most powerful spiritual awakening for me. But I go back to that. The only picture I have is the picture of that post on my phone of her is the picture she posted on April 4th of last year. What is it that got you choked up? Because that's a powerful sentence. I remember you. What does that mean to you? Well, it's the idea of oneness, right? It's the idea that whatever, if I believe in a creator, but I also believe in order for

us to all know how deep love is, there has to be some suffering that we all have to experience. But I believe that creator created this kind of coexistence of two separate beings. And those beings have danced in and out through time. And if you look at history, there's a repetition, certainly from a military perspective, there's a repetition where societies fight and clash and evolution takes place. People get conquered and new things come in. And that's when i look it's kind of the the wokeism if it's called that in america about the resentment about what happened to the native americans or what happened to you know the civil war and how we like those are terrible lessons but we all had to learn them that's part of our history we can't downplay it by saying it didn't happen i'm not

saying we need to glamorize you know the south or like that, but it's part of who we are and we have to understand it because you can't hate the experiences that formed you. And we were all, if we all come from one creator, then all of our experiences are related in some universal way. Have you ever had a past life regression before? Uh, I did one through a guided meditation, but it's funny because, so I mentioned gladiator in the Romans when I was with Jack Canfield, that was one of the other things he said, we're on a break and he was on video and he talked about how he'd gone to Costa Rica on retreat or like an ayahuasca retreat. And he had found out that he had been a Roman soldier and I was the only one

he told that to. And I was like, okay, cool. I was like, but I, I've had one that was Romanesque. I've been fascinated by Roman history because of when you appreciate the power of words and we can look at history of people who've given important speeches, you know, whether it's Martin Luther King or Hitler or whomever, the power of words to incite feelings and emotions in people, I go back to think of the power the emperors had. These people who created Rome, the power that came from their mouths because they were the smartest people, or at least had the biggest view of things. And so I did one for being a Roman soldier, but that's been it. I just was wondering, because as soon as you said, remember, I was like, oh, wow, you were definitely, you know, in biblical time. And that's why you're so called, you know, to the story of Mary.

Yeah. And, you know, and you're having these triggers from a vision that you happen to see in a picture, but it's triggered something within your soul so deeply. Beyond this life, right? I mean, that's not of this life, you know. And that's been some of the challenges, especially, you know, in the spirit of transparency, I looked at the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all related. And yet most people think they're not talking about the same God. And I say, maybe we're not talking about the same God. They're talking about the same story. And so doesn't God change and evolve? And if you look at the Old Testament God, he made mistakes, regretted making humans, flooded them, and then started over. Jesus comes along, does his deal. But then

Mary, as mother of God, has to have a story too. And that story has to be tied up in between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And so when you look at Judaism, the Star of David, well, the Star of David is the pagan symbol for male and female inverted on top of one another. And then each one of those is also the female is, you know, a triangle with a line through it is water and upside down triangle with a line through its water upside down triangle is earth. And for the male, the triangle is fire and I believe the one with the line above it is air and so you see okay so what do the Jews believe who who's the identity of God then for the Jews well it sounds like King David based on the Star of David they're saying that might be the first

star um so then because that's where my path is going is okay is the marriage is the real romance between King David and Mary and how you bridge that story from a thousand years between their existences. I'm really interested. You know, this is like one of my favorite topics because I have had to grieve my religion over years and I used to be so angry. I can honestly say I'm not angry anymore. I'm really not. I've come to peace with it because I was so angry because I, I just thought, oh my gosh, for 2000 years, you know, we've been in some way brainwashed to think a certain way. But when I picked up the

Bible and I read it without conditions and just reading the words, right? Instead of having someone tell me the words and what to believe in, I read a whole different story, which is kind of like what Thich Nhat Hanh did in his book, Living Buddha, Living Christ. Have you read that book? I haven't. I just finished a few months back, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. Oh, wow wow there you go similar huh it's about this young Islam man or Muslim who went to college and became friends with a Christian and they had these healthy debates and through the discourse the young man realized oh my gosh like I converting to Christ like I'm gonna make this conversion and and i think the

message that gets lost and a lot of times and part of it is i've been i've started to research if you look at what happens at the end of jesus's life as a drama like a play then everyone's kind of got a role in it so like what's the role of pilot when he says what because the pilot represents the government and truth and then you can say everything else about, you know, what the Jewish people represent, what the Gentiles, but when you look at history, kind of holistically, it speaks to me that there's so much beauty in diversity, and I think really that's kind of what Jesus' message is. It's not about, don't judge other people, pick up your cross and follow me and see where it takes you and that's all you have to do you just have to kind of worry about yourself and go on that

journey yourself because getting into heaven isn't a group exercise it's like this is my journey that i have to take and figure out how to transmit that into like to me that has nothing to do with what your gender is or what your belief is like like i think if if there's one god who created us all i'm pretty sure they value diversity like i'm pretty sure they don't want everybody to be white anglo-saxon because that's pretty they would have made us all yeah that's that's the thing that i think people get lost on is the beauty of our world is that there are so many different people. And we're only seeing that kind of expand now. Like it's kind of this expanding lotus of yoga, if you will, because of what we talked about with technology now and the ability to identify myself more uniquely earlier in my life.

You know, I just had this vision I wanted to share with you. It was a vision of you, you know, holding the gun and walking into diversity. And then it was a view holding the cross and walking into the diversity. I mean, you know, what if they handed, what if you were handed a gun again and told to head into that diversity? What would that look like for you? Is it something you could do again? Or do you feel like your integrity and your beliefs were instilled with you even then? Can you ask your question differently? Are you saying would I pick up a weapon to fight again? I'm just saying, like, you've changed a lot. You've gone through such a powerful transformation. Certainly what's come out of me now has certainly felt my most authentic self. And I think that was, but I mean, that's also part of my journey. And I wasn't

kidding when I said, like, I've always believed in a higher love, but I, for the most, for the, certainly the better part of my life, I viewed that strictly through a romantic lens. And it was just about like, there has to be, and it was kind of this idea that, which has led me to this book. There has to be one story where there's actually two people who are designed to be together. Because that's the story of Jesus's parents. Like, and if you believe in that, then okay, there has to be, he has to have a biological dad. But I never, did I have that presence of mind when I was 15 and trying to figure out how to date girls? Absolutely not. Did I have it when I was 30

and going through my first divorce? Nope. It took me till this point in my life to just be inspired by a picture to be like, you know what? I want to be whatever love I have been inspired to write because of this photo. I want to embody that with every part of my being. And so if I were to go back into a situation where I had to lead in that kind of, you know, in a military sort of environment, could I do it? Absolutely. When I do it completely differently than I did, I would have the wisdom and the experience of the pain that I've caused myself and pain I've caused others to guide me to making sure that it was a very different experience for everybody involved.

Good answer. That's really good. You know, we did an episode with, you would like this one. Maybe I'll send it to you. Harry Rosenberg. He's a Jewish rabbi who lives in Israel. He just really brought a lot of wisdom because as a Christian, how they tell the stories are totally different how we do. And one of the things that shocked the shit out of me, and I'm still shocked, is that, and it's still something they do. But like when you're going through, when you're becoming a rabbi or when you're connecting, they follow what like Moses did and those before Moses. Is that they go into this cave and there's like a ceremony where they light this, well, it used to be back in the day at the Akasha tree. And they would stay inside this cave and connect with God and get all this wisdom and answers or whatever.

And after all the smoke was gone, they would leave. And many times they would write scripture. And the thing is, is what he said, he's like, and they've known this all along, is that many of the stories in the Bible was actually in that realm. And so I was like, wait, are you telling me that much of the Old Testament is like a hallucination? Because the acacia tree is also a psychedelic and so it was very interesting and he was like yes absolutely and i'm like wait what and he's like of course like in part that makes sense because they talk about there's so many different authors for different parts of the old testament

but i still contend is if you think of the force and the power of a creator to do all this, it's kind of traveling at the speed of time, the speed of consciousness for a lot of people. And, you know, in the beginning was the word. Well, what is that? Well, that's universal intelligence. It's every word, every thought, every sentence ever been structured. So then we're just vessels to which those get poured out what i come back to is you know the alignment that the three major religions around uh you know the three abrahamic religions have with one another and they all have a different view on jesus but to me

there's always that just tells me there's a story that someone gets to tell to connect them and i didn't set out to be that person, but I'm going to certainly give it my best attempt on the story that I'm working on. Well, Mary is speaking the fuck up, let me tell you. She is like using so many people as a vessel right now. We've had this consistency of guests on that are talking about feeling the need to, to connect with her and to tell

her story. And it makes sense that age of Aquarius, you know, the feminine energy that's coming in, like she's speaking up and she's using people to connect with. Wow. And do want to talk about your other books as well. You know, let's go to the, the, the, how did, what did the lighthouse mean to you? What does the lighthouse symbolize for you? Yeah, so it was born, so I mentioned it in Whiskey and Yoga, and it was just something earlier in my yoga practice, probably, I don't know, seven, maybe even five or six years ago, I used to really kind of conceptual about how my students could look at their life. Like, think of your life as a movie.

You are the director. What are you filming? What are you paying attention to? Are you making a comedy? Are you making an adventure? Is this a tragedy? my students could look at their life. Like think of your life as a movie. You are the director. What are you filming? What are you paying attention to? Are you making a comedy? Are you making an adventure? Is this a tragedy? What is it?

Because you ultimately have that choice. And so one day I went into class and I just said, your mind is an ocean and that's where all your memories are. That's where everyone you've ever met has ever existed. And your awareness, where you put your attention

is a lighthouse. And most of us, through patterns in our lives and through conditioning and habits, we create this lighthouse pattern that goes around around certain way. And we call that our life. Well, when you get stuck, you have to break the pattern. And so what I proposed was through meditation, willpower, through focus, through knowing kind of where you want to go with your life, you can start to direct the lighthouse into your mind to where you want it to go. And so instead of responding with fear, you can choose to respond with delight, or you can choose to respond with

happiness or joy or enthusiasm. And getting really kind of directive about I want to design and orchestrate my life. And in order to do that, take control of the lighthouse. And that, I sat on the story idea for about 18 months. And then I read, or I saw a YouTube video from Don Duponti, amazing Hindu monk. And he talks about the same thing where your mind is this empty canvas of space and your awareness is a ball of light and you can put it over anywhere in your mind you want. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's the lighthouse keeper. And so I knew then that I had the story that I wanted to write and just started going down that path. And I knew I wanted to go where Whiskey and Yoga had been a self-help book, like just sharing me, sharing my experiences. I wanted to tell a story

because that's ultimately what I really liked about writing was creating something and getting people to imagine it and doing that in a way that excited people and invigorated people to want to read my work. And so that's what the lighthouse keeper became was a story of a young man who wants to break away from his father's patterns and establish his own identity in life. And he goes to a lighthouse to learn how to be a lighthouse keeper's apprentice. And then while he's there, he goes on a journey in his mind and he has to get out of it you know whiskey and yoga is an awesome title it's very catchy you know people are like oh you know i mean so i have to ask do you like we know you like butter pecan ice cream do you like whiskey you like some whiskey

i haven't had a drink in about five months because of the diet, the nutrition, and not wanting to be slowed down by it. I will say, so whiskey and yoga for me, someone in 2016 gave me a whiskey and yoga t-shirt for Christmas. And I love the irony of it because I was big into whiskey at the time, obviously yoga instructor. And then in 2017, in January, I read Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. And in that, he asks you what your life's purpose is. And that was probably another certainly seismic event for me in my consciousness was my life having purpose. And so I knew I wanted to call the book Whiskey and Yoga, but for me, it was how do I tie those two together? And I just kind of did some research around, realized, okay, well, whiskey is the story of

a spirit in a cask because they age whiskey for a long time. And yoga is the story of a spirit in this human shell. I was like, okay, that's pretty good. So I went with that. And then I told myself when I launched Whiskey and Yoga, if it went to number one on Amazon, that I, uh, I bought a 42 year old bottle of scotch and I would have a glass of that if it did. And I think eight 30, the night of the launch, it went to number one in two categories. And so I've never tasted something in slow motion. Like I did a 42 year old bottle of scotch, but it was the coolest thing. How much did that bottle cost you? It was about 500 bucks. Well, you well-deserved, well-deserved. It was worth it. It was, I'll never forget tasting what that tastes like. Well, and you want to know what, right when you were tasting it mindfully, those two combined the whiskey and the yoga.

It really did. Yeah. You slowly mindfully drank it and consumed it and taste it and felt it and celebrated i did it was i feel that my physiology right now so absolutely yeah i love that it's awesome wow i love your analogy on the lighthouse when we were first thinking about names for our podcast or i think it was for the podcast i the lighthouse was one that I liked because I always felt like what was happening with sense of soul or prior to it being actual sense of soul was that Mandy and I somehow in our own journey had like lit up and people were like attracted to our light because they wanted that too. And so then we were constantly talking about our experiences and they're like, yeah, me too, me too.

It was like a lighthouse, finding that light and then other people's lights and them becoming their own lighthouse. I love what you said, because to me, it speaks to who we are is really shaped by our thoughts. You can certainly spend time on how you look and obviously want to feel good, but who we are is shaped by our thoughts and who we are to others is shaped by what comes out of our mouths without question. And when you start to really kind of get

into a higher truth that I know, I'm sure with the guests you've had over the past 18 months, I've heard so much about spiritual awakening when I do podcasts. And I realize it's two different worlds because you go to the news and this pandemic, there's no spiritual awakening on the news. But in the world we live, tremendous spiritual awakening. And what I believe is when you really get in touch with your higher self, that's when your words start to come out with this kind of truth that you maybe experienced before. And that brings you together with like-minded people, but it also attracts people to you because you're saying a truth.

And whenever someone hears the universal truth, they gravitate towards it. There you go. This needs to be five o'clock news. That's exactly right. And, and, you know, I, I was thinking, I used to think of a lighthouse as I would stand back and look at the lighthouse and use it for guidance. And then I I would stand back and look at the lighthouse and use it for guidance. And then I realized through my journey that I am the lighthouse and, and that, that self-love and that self-trust, you know, I looked at it as being outside of it. And now I

know it's within me. So that was, you know, I, I always loved the lighthouse too, Shanna. I just did an art, a card just last night of the lighthouse oh you did i just we're making a deck and and that was the card that i was on and i created a lighthouse because of that you know you're one but yet you're trying to reach you know everyone and anyone like you said earlier it doesn't matter what sex you are what color you are you what color you are, you know, where you come from, even what language, because when it comes to the soul, you know, there's none of that. True words, true words. All right, David, here's, here's the big question. Okay.

What is your soul's purpose? What do you think your soul's purpose is? Oh, I just wrote yesterday about my life's purpose. So now I've never thought about my soul's purpose. I'm not sure if they're the same, but I'm going to yesterday about my life's purpose so now i've never thought about my soul's purpose i'm not sure if they're the same but i'm gonna go with my life's purpose is to be a force for progress speaking and writing with passion and sharing life's joyous moments speaking and writing with a passion but now i'm gonna have to go see if my soul's purpose is something different because yeah sorry no you're gonna have to get you might have to get

one tattoo or two tattoos and wait and a past life regression is my suggestion yes how do you do that what's the best way to do that well i can give you a number of you know past life regressionists specifically reena coomer singham who is she's in the uk, but she's amazing. And yeah, has worked within biblical times. She wrote a book on, she wrote a series actually on some of her clients. They were recalling during sessions being there at the crucifixion. She, she was actually Indian from Sri Lanka, didn't know anything about Christianity. And she's like putting together all of these like the story from all of these different clients and she's like holy shit they're all talking about the same thing and she did some research on a historical level academic you know history and she was like holy

shit they're telling the truth and they don't even know each other they're all from different countries have you ever seen and i don't i don't recommend it because it can be it's a it's a tough movie there's a movie called antichrist well now you know i'm gonna go watch it because you know yeah me too the movie tells the story of a man and woman who lose their their son through you know unfortunate circumstance and then it's the psychological torment that they go through in their marriage if you step back and obviously with a title like antichrist it's going to get attention but if you step back and look at it as another version of the creation story you come away with a very different meaning because what it means is basically in order to create this kind of eternal mother the first kind of had to be sacrificed so all

these other mothers could be created and it's it's really it's a it's a wild story because it's got like witchcraft in it like there's some spells that they come up with but but in some ways it's beautiful because you realize in order to accept the beauty and the diversity of our world you have to understand that whatever we call god or the higher power has to accommodate everything it's not a question it's not a question of what you like i can go to people and say well i don't believe in witchcraft it doesn't matter witchcraft exists people believe in it so it exists you can't discount that so then it's like okay well then god has to be all encompassing to cover all this stuff. And I think when we get to a place where we have a better understanding of the

power of kind of a universe, like you think of great teams. And if you think if we could ever align globally on one beautiful idea, the idea that Jesus died, so all of us could have eternal life is not a bad idea to align on. And that's just that, how do you convince people that that's actually a story? And I think with the awakening that's happened, that's what we're going to see. We're just going to see this all make sense. And it's going to be this really beautiful paradise.

Have you ever done any research on the other stories of Mary? Basically, you know, they have the same story of Mary in the Indian culture, as well as I believe the pagan, the Immaculate Conception, they're actually older than Mary, the stories. Yeah. Which are, they're so similar. Just, it's like, wow. Just like you said earlier, though, there's a lot of times where history is kind of like repeating itself in many ways. And I'll tell you, you would love that book by David Wilcox called Synchronicity Key, where he actually has like this mathematical, that's my word, mathematical process of figuring it all out and how like it's still happening,

right? It is. I mean, look at the pandemic. This isn't the first one. I studied in my ancestry much about yellow fever and it was very similar because kids weren't dying as much as adults. And it just seems history does kind of repeat itself. Two things. One is I am going through Karen Armstrong's The History of God. And she looks at how kind of monotheism came into existence through the lens of Judeo-Christian Islam faith.

But it also talks about how the beginning, the people that became the Israelites were worshiping all these different kinds of gods. And Yahweh comes in and starts negotiating and starts cutting people off. And then still you get down through the old Testament. The other thing I was going to say that I find really fascinating was I just, uh, my daughter was out over labor day from school and was reading Frankenstein and Mary Shelley, my favorite book of all time. It's just a beautiful story. I had no idea until this year though, that Mary Shelley was 18 years old when she wrote it. Yeah, she was, she was 18.

And so you think about, I mean, what the story is really about. My first experience or exposure to Frankenstein was the old black and white TV show. And it was a movie and it was Frankenstein, the monster is clearly the monster. But as you read the book, what you realize is it's really about abandonment. And you're like, how did this 18 year old woman have this presence of mind to capture something so poignantly? Because what it is is the idea that a creator abandoned its creation. And so when you look at what was happening in England at the time,

in Europe at the time, the age of enlightenment was giving way to the age of romance. Then you see that it was a reflection for women. Her mom, Mary Shelley's mom was a huge, you know, female empowerment advocate. It was this reflection that men were just looking at women. That was kind of, I think the initial objectification of women phase and her writing of Frankenstein is a reflection of that you just think like if that's not God speaking through someone I don't know what is because that is a powerful that's amazing it's lasted for you know almost centuries now so I think people often miss the meat of the stories like Phantom of the Opera we miss the meat of it unless we're present with it absolutely well and for me that you know i think

the meat changes uh you know it started out as like a piece of chicken and then it evolved into like a pork chop and then it became a filet um you know it kind of i feel like god meets us where we're at god met you through that beautiful photo that you looked at recently. I'm going to pick up Frankenstein and reread it. Thank you for sharing that. David, you're freaking awesome. We could talk to you for hours and hours. You have been so awesome.

I feel like we've known each other for years, like just through what we've talked about. We probably have known each other before. And just the back and forth, the balance you have is so organic. So this has been an absolute pleasure. I'm so grateful we connected. Where can our listeners find your book? Where can they learn more about you? Books are available on Amazon, davidrichardsauthor.com, my website.

I do a weekly blog. And then I haven't been active on social media too much lately, but David Richards Author on Instagram and david richard's author on instagram and david richard's a2 on twitter and now it's time for break that shit down i'll go back to roman history and marcus aurelius one of his meditations was the happiness in your life is determined by the quality of your thoughts. And we are all products of what we think. Certainly we're products of our experiences too, but it's our, it's up to us to translate those experiences into meaningful action that help us grow. And that is just the most powerful thing that I can leave anybody with is own your voice.

And when you own your voice, you'll own your truth. Awesome. Well, David, you've been absolutely wonderful. We love what we do. We love it because of people like you. Oh, it shows in the questions you ask and how the conversation flows. So again, thank you so much. This has been an absolute treasure for me. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up.

Thanks for listening.