The One You Feed - Kute Blackson on The Magic of Surrender

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

Kute Blackson is an inspirational speaker and transformational teacher. Born in Ghana, West Africa, Kute’s multicultural upbringing as the child of a Japanese mother and a Ghanaian father has spanned four different continents. His unique lineage lay the foundation for his approach to breaking down barriers and unlocking an individual’s true gifts and greatness. He now speaks at countless events around the world, is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, and was the winner of the 2019 Unity New Thought Walden Award.  In this episode, Eric and Kute Blackson discuss his book, The Magic of Surrender: Finding the Courage to Let Go. But wait, there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you! Kute Blackson and I Discuss The Magic of Surrender and … His book, The Magic of Surrender: Finding the Courage to Let Go The importance of connecting with who we really are underneath the patterns and stories we’ve built as we grow up Is what I believe about myself and what I believe about life fact or a story? The value of a guide or coach to help you see things about yourself that you may not be seeing How all lessons are repeated until learned That meeting ourselves with compassion allows us to let go of outdated coping mechanisms The difference between surrendering and succumbing to our feelings All feelings remain present until fully felt When you take the label off the feeling, it’s an energy and sensation that can be experienced in your body How grief can actually break our hearts open to a new way of being, a new dimension of love and strength  What surrender is and isn’t Kute Blackson links: Kute’s Website Instagam Facebook By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you! If you enjoyed this conversation with Kute Blackson, check out these other episodes: Permission to Glow with Kristoffer Carter Finding Grace with Eiman Al ZaabiSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Often we're believing stories that we've made up about ourselves and life as though they are fact when they're not necessarily fact. They're just interpretations of reality that we made up at a young age to just make meaning of the world. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just

about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor,

what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Coot Blackson, an inspirational speaker and

transformational teacher. He speaks at countless events around the world, as well as events like A-Fest, Young Presidents Organization, and Entrepreneurs Organization. Coote is also a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, a select group of 100 of the world's foremost authorities in the personal development industry. He's the winner of the 2019 Unity New Thought Walden Award and the author of the book discussed here, The Magic of Surrender, Finding the Courage to Let Go. Hi, Coote. Welcome to the show. Great to be here.

I'm excited to have you on. We're going to be discussing your book, The Magic of Surrender, Finding the Courage to Let Go. But before we do that, let's start like we always do with a parable. In the parable, there is a grandparent who's talking with a grandchild, and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second and looks at their grandparent and says, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you

what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah, I think pretty straightforward in that what you focus on expands, you know, and you focus on what's beautiful. What's beautiful will expand within you and the world you focus on, you know, what you don't love or you don't enjoy, uh, that will expand. And there's so much that's beautiful about us. So focusing and loving who we are, what we have, will only bring healing and expansion within ourselves. That's a beautiful way to think about it. I want to start with a line that comes from your bio. And I love this. You say, unlike those who promise to help

people simply get what they want, Coot's work instead reveals to people what they have to give. Share a little bit about that and why that's your orientation. Yeah, look, I think many times, and I've worked with hundreds of people, I mean, And I've worked with hundreds of people, I mean, thousands, to be honest, one on one. And what I've seen is many times we can achieve in the world, manifest in the world, succeed in the world. And we sometimes get what we set out to achieve. We achieve the thing, we get the place, we get that relationship, and we're still left with a feeling of dissatisfaction.

Or we get what we thought we wanted only to realize that what we thought we wanted was not what we really wanted. It was just what we thought we wanted based on who we thought we were. But we weren't really in touch with what we really were. And so many times the idea of like, get what you want, I'm going to help you get what you want. It's great, but it can be very limiting because if you're not in touch with who you are, then what you think you want is not going to be what you really want. It's just going to be what you think you want based on who you think you are.

And what you think you want, even when you achieve it, it's not going to fulfill you because it's not what you really want. And so I think it can leave us empty-handed, which is why a lot of people attain goals, dreams, and desires and still are miserable. A lot of people attain wealth, what have you, and aren't really happy. I've worked with a lot of billionaire clients. I've worked with a lot of successful achievers, CEOs, entrepreneurs, have every reason to be happy, and they're not. And that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with wealth and success and making money. Nothing wrong with that in the material world. But it's not the source of happiness. It's not the source of fulfillment. In fact, sometimes our goals and intentions and dreams can be projections of unmet needs from childhood. You know, I wasn't loved. I wasn't valued. Dad

didn't spend enough time. I was bullied. I felt unworthy. I felt not enough. I felt unloved. You know, I didn't have strong self-esteem. But if I can just make that billion dollars or get that body or win that Oscar or be famous, then I'm going to be enough. And nothing outside of us really can make us feel enough unless we feel that inside. And so for me, the orientation is less about helping people just simply achieve. It's more about helping people connect with who they really are. Because I think when we connect with who we really are, underneath the patterns and layers of conditioning, underneath the stories and the labels, the wounds, the hurts, when we

really connect with our true essence, our authentic nature as whole, perfect, and complete, when we connect with our true self as spiritual beings, when we connect with the perfection of our essence, then I think we're less motivated by inadequacy, insecurity, not enoughness, the less we seek that in the world, the more we can come from a place of wholeness. And from that place, I think the more we're able to truly navigate and see authentically what our motivation is and what we truly authentically want, then our ladder is on the right wall. You know, then it's more about this is what's true. This is what I'm here to do. This is who I am.

Then life becomes about expressing that and we're no longer trying to get somewhere in order to feel something. And so for me, all sorts of suffering comes from not knowing who we truly are, knowing that we're perfect. Like as children, you look at a baby or a child that's very recently born, they're in touch with their essence. They're in touch with their aliveness. They're in touch with their joy. You know, a child will jump on a table and sing and doesn't care if it's not Bruno Mars, you know, it's just for the joy of it. And I think there's a reason when we look into a child's eyes, we melt, you know, we're reminded of that beauty, that innocence, that perfection that we all were at one point. A child will run naked and they don't care if they're fat or what people think or what they look like on Instagram.

A child will go and hug you and it's just so open. Yeah, what happens? You know, by the time we hit 20, 30, 40, we're all kind of contorted and have all sorts of defense mechanisms and our hearts closed and we're sabotaging and screwing up relationships. And so what happened to that free-flowing, open-hearted, you know, energetic, alive beingness that we were we're born we incarnate into this human experience we meet our parents our parents they're just doing the best that they can do based on their childhood and their upbringing and their grandparents so now we're born into a preset framework and pattern of conditioning from even parents and ancestors

and society and media and religion and, you know, this culture. And so maybe dad was an alcoholic. Maybe mom had mental health issues. Maybe they were fighting all the time. Maybe they just weren't around. Maybe they were great people, but they didn't know how to, let's say, meet our emotional needs. And so what starts happening is we begin to do things. Disconnect, shut down, not feel.

We begin to suppress all sorts of pain, hurt, guilt, shame, all sorts of pain in order to function and survive. And so the unfelt feelings begin to layer and layer and layer and build up. And so our true light, our true essence, what we really are, kind of gets buried underneath the unprocessed feeling, the unprocessed, incomplete feelings and emotions that we've learned to not deal with. And then we develop all sorts of, shall we say, defense mechanisms in order to not feel this pain again. We erect walls and we disconnect and we go into our mind and we become overly analytical and we close our hearts to never feel that pain again.

And so we also learn, I would say, a way of being in the world, the sense of who do I need to be in order to get love, validation, and approval. And we develop roles and masks and personas, and we become this version of ourselves that we think we need to be in order for dad and mom and society and parents and everyone to love us. And we become independent. We become funny. For me, I thought I needed to be the perfect son, get all lays, the responsible one, take care of everybody. And I thought that's who I needed to be in order to get love. And there was so much of myself that I ended up betraying and disconnecting from. And so we can turn ourselves into this version of ourselves that isn't who we really

are, but we're conditioned to believe that's who we are. And now we're not really in touch with who we really are. And from that disconnection, we end up going into life, creating our life, setting our goals, trying to get what we think we want. And it's never fulfilling. And so I think when we can peel those layers away of conditioning and really connect with what we truly are, who we truly are, then we can live life authentically. And I think that is real power. I think it takes tremendous courage to be who we really are in a world that is constantly conditioning us to not be that. And so that's kind of what I mean. Right. Because it's one thing to say, I am perfect and whole and in my being and hold that. But the world is conditional. It's not that like I was wrong that I needed to be a certain way to get my parents to love me. I may have been very right

about that. And I may be very right about the ways I need to contort myself to get my partner to love me. And so what you're saying is that the real courage comes from saying there's something in me that I can connect to that tells me that I'm whole the way I am. And that may externally, as I change more into my authentic shape, externally, I may find that some of the things aren't working the way they used to. And then those are not the things that life holds for me or wants for me. Would that be a way to say that? Yeah, I think from that misalignment, like the degree to which we're conditioned is the degree to which we're not free. The degree to which we're conditioned is the degree to which we're looking out of the lens or the sunglasses, so to say, of our conditioning, and we perceive life a certain way that may not necessarily be accurate. Because from the layers of our conditioning, and we perceive life a certain way that may not necessarily be accurate. Because from

the layers of our conditioning, we've made up all sorts of labels about ourselves that aren't necessarily true. We've made up all sorts of stories about ourselves. I'm unworthy. I'm unlovable. I'm not enough. I'm not this. I'm not that. I'm not smart enough. I'm not creative. And we've made up all sorts of stories about the way life is. Life's not safe. People aren't there for me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's not necessarily reality. But now we're looking out of this lens of conditioning, a kind of goggle, so to speak, thinking and projecting those stories onto reality. So we're not necessarily seeing clearly. And from that sort of misperception of ourselves and life, we are creating our reality. We are creating and reinforcing those stories. And so for me,

it's about being willing to question those stories, being willing to question ourselves, being willing to question who we are so that we can begin to experience something different in life so that we can start seeing who we are more clearly and we can start seeing life more clearly. So we have to start questioning our stories like, is this true what I believe about myself? Is this true what I believe about life? Because often we're believing stories that we've made up about ourselves and life as though they are fact when they're not necessarily fact. They're just interpretations of reality that we made up at a young age to just make meaning of the world at that moment. For instance, let's say I had a client who she was eight years old and her mother ran away and left her with her father.

And her entire life, she had this reality that she thought was reality that I am unlovable. I'm unlovable. I'm unlovable. That was for her the way it was. And she met men in relationships and she kept attracting men that left, men that didn't love her, men that didn't commit to her, men that basically reinforced that belief. See, I'm not lovable because so-and-so left, because so-and-so cheated on me, because so-and-so didn't want me. And so this was her reality that she felt was real. I am unlovable. And so one day I asked her, is it fact? And she

said to me, absolutely, it's fact. I'm not lovable. And the fact was, it's not fact that she was unlovable. It was an interpretation that she made up that she was holding on to. And now from that perception and that conditioning, she's going through life unconsciously trying to prove that to be true. And so, you know, I asked her, can you show me Unlovable? Like, this is a phone. This is a watch. This is a piece of paper. Like, is it a fact? The fact is this is a piece of paper, at least in this dimension, in this moment, in my hand.

Where is Unlovable? It's a story that she made up. And at a young age, she made up the story because my mother left. That means I'm unlovable. So we have to be willing to question those stories. So I asked her, could the fact that your mother left, could it have meant something else? Well, no. But could it have meant something else? The answer is, of course, it could have meant many things. It could have meant that mom was crazy. It could have meant that, I mean,

mom loved me so much that she chose to leave because she knew that she was incapable of taking care of me. So there's many different interpretations. And so as children, because we don't have the bandwidth necessarily and the full perspective and maturity to decipher the real meaning of things, we make a meaning in that moment to the best of our capacity and we hold on to that meaning. And often that meaning, we take that meaning into our lives and that meaning determines our reality.

So I think it's important that we ask ourselves, is what I believe about myself and what I believe about life, is it fact or is it fiction? Because if it's a story that we made up to make meaning about life and make things make sense so we could feel safe in a certain way, which served the purpose back then. I think so much of our mechanism was survival, and many of them worked for us when we were 5 and 7 and 10 and 15.

But there usually comes a moment as we move into our adulthood where many of those conditioned defense mechanisms, which mean well, begin to limit us, and they begin to limit our full expression. And they begin to get in the way of our ability to be fully who we are, to fully fulfill our potential. And so I think we have to question, is this fact or is this fiction? Is this reality or is it a story? Because if it's a story that we made up, then we can also make up a different story when we become aware that it's a story, not reality. There's a couple of things I want to dig a little deeper on there. And I think one is you sort of

described how in the case of this woman, and I think it's very true for many of us, we can't see beyond the story on our own. It seems unequivocally true. So there's real value in having other people help us with that. That's the first part of my question. The second part is really around often even when we see, oh yeah, that's not true. We've believed it to be true for so long that we've internalized it to such a degree that it's not like we suddenly see that and immediately 20 years of conditioning throw off our shoulders. Sometimes it does, but most of the time that's not how it works. So first part of my question is, how do we see through things that we can't see ourselves?

And secondly, how do we take that initial insight once we have it, that a story that's defined us isn't true and integrate it into our lives in a deeper way? I think they're both very valid questions. I would say that, yes, many times we are not able to see it on our own. We're just living life and we think the way it is, is the way it is, and who we are is who we are. It's just conditioning and it's not even denial. We're just unconscious, so to speak. And it's not like bad. We just don't know. And so, yeah, I think that's why a guide, a therapist, a coach, like the eyeball can't always see itself. It can't unless you have a mirror. And so a guide, a teacher, a coach, a therapist can really help reflect back to you things

you're not seeing and sneaky things your ego might be trying to avoid. See, that's one. I would say be humble and willing to get the guidance from someone skilled who's able to reflect back to you aspects of yourself. Also, I think in life, one of the most powerful ways to see ourselves, whether we like it or not, this is kind of a side note, but I'm going to come back, is relationships. or not, this is kind of a side note, but I'm going to come back, is relationships. And it's often through human interactions and relationships, romantic or not romantic, but many times romantic relationships, because that's often where a lot of emotion is triggered, can be a profound source,

an opportunity, a mirror to see ourselves. And it's often in relationships that we can't hide our patterns. It's often in relationships that we can't pretend. It's often in relationships, especially romantic relationships that touch into some of the most sensitive aspects of our own conditioning and sensitivities and vulnerabilities that love can bring up everything unlike itself. Love can bring us and show us and reflect back to us all those subconscious patterns and stories and conditionings and how we really feel about ourselves that just come up when you fall in love like boom, take a look, take a look, because it often comes up to the surface in order to be looked at. And so I think relationships can be a profound mirror and profound evolutionary path for us to see ourselves in a really powerful

way if we're willing to embrace it. Because many times we're not conscious and we look at, ah, that person is, no, it's Eric, it's Ku. That's right. But if we understand, wait a second, relationships are a mirror, then we can use it and go, oh, what is Eric? What is Ku? What is Susie? What is this showing me about myself? What is this person reflecting to me about myself, about what I believe about myself? They cheat on me, and they don't value me, and they don't love me, and they don't make me a priority, and they're not committing to me. What does it show me about myself? Okay, let me break up with that person and go to another person. You might find that you still keep attracting the same

dynamic, the same experience, because all lessons are repeated until learned. And so eventually, after a few relationships or a few similar relationships, you start realizing there's a common denominator here and it's me. Then we have to be willing to take responsibility for the mirror reflection of what's showing up in the relationships. I say there's no relationship out there. There's only a relationship out there that's a projection of your own self. You're in relationship with yourself in the people that you attract. And so one of the ways we get to shift is use relationships as that mirror and be willing

to take responsibility for what's showing up so that rather than focusing on what's out there, which we typically do, we start then focusing on what's in here to shift what's in here as a feedback mechanism of what do I believe about myself because I think I found consistently we will attract people that reflect to us those unresolved, undealt with aspects of our own consciousness, those parts of ourselves that we need to heal, embrace, integrate, learn, deal with our own belief systems in the form of the other person. And life too, as a relationship. Like life is often also a mirror manifestation of our consciousness.

I often say, if you want to see what's in your subconscious, and obviously it's a generalization, but if you want to see what's in your subconscious, look at your life. Your life will tend to be a projection of your most deeply held beliefs about yourself, your most deeply held beliefs about money, your most deeply held beliefs about who you are. You will tend to attract that in the situations and experiences in your life. And so then life can become a profound feedback mechanism about, well, what do I believe about myself? What

do I believe about life? How is my life reflecting that back to me? Then you have the opportunity to perhaps question your beliefs about money, life, the universe, God, et cetera, et cetera. Can you clarify your second question? It was about the holding on. Yeah. It was that even once I see, okay, maybe that's not true. All right. I might be seeing this wrong. I've believed it for 35 years. Exactly. Okay.

And so I think that's a great thing because many times when we see it, it's not like, poof, magic, you let go. It's awareness is the first step because most of us, we're unconscious. And then what happens is we move into the next phase of sometimes like going into denial. But now we're with denial. And then we move into resisting. We deny and then we resist. We resist by not telling the truth. We resist by going unconscious. And I think what's important to know is that resistance, conscious or unconscious, is natural. It's completely natural. It's completely normal. It's completely okay. That resistance is a normal part of the process.

The ego is resisting. And the ego is our perceived sense of what we believe ourselves to be. Those stories, those beliefs, those ideas, those memories, those feelings, what we've learned to hold on to, you know, I was kind of talking about earlier, that shape, that pattern of conditioning that we've learned to become to avoid pain and to get love. So that version of ourselves that is held by our conditioning and our belief structures, ego, which we believe ourselves to be, and we're conditioned by society to believe that that's what we are, it's not going to let go that easily. That grip, it's not meant to let go that

easily, it's not going to let go that easily. Ego is our sense of identification as ourselves, that sense of perceived self that we are, that we hold on to. And the job of the ego is to reinforce this existence. The job of the ego is to protect us. The job of the ego is to make sure that we never get hurt again like we were hurt when we were five. And so how we do that is we hold on and we don't let go and we don't change. The ego wants everything and everyone else to change, but it doesn't want to change. And we can be mad at that or we can understand like, oh, see to me, having a right relationship with ego, that mechanism of resistance is part of the transformation. It's part of the healing.

So when we can understand what it is that doesn't want to let go, it's not bad. In fact, it's just a pattern of conditioning of how I've learned to function and survive. Then we can understand the impulse behind the holding on. Then we can understand the impulse behind the holding on. Then we can understand the impulse behind that grip is survival. And when we understand that, and we realize, okay, I'm not the ego. That's not who I really am. And this holding on, even though sometimes it sabotages and it's limiting me, is not bad. The intention is positive. Then I think we can change our relationship with it, with ourselves, and meet our holding on with a bit of compassion. And it's that compassion and

ability to meet ourselves in that space of compassion, that space of mercy, that space of understanding. It's like, yeah, I held on for a reason. I can see why I held on. I needed to hold on. There was nothing wrong, nothing bad. It's just all I knew on for a reason. I can see why I held on. I needed to hold on. It was nothing wrong, nothing bad. It's just all I knew at the time. Then I think when we can not just force ourselves to like, let go now, surrender now, but meet ourselves and hold ourselves with that empathy and love and patience and compassion, because underneath that holding on are often all of the feelings that we have been suppressing and hiding from our entire lives. And underneath that holding on are some of those layers of fear that we don't

want to deal with because we're afraid of, if I really let go, then I'm going to feel like I felt when I was five, helpless or whatever it was. And I don't want to feel that again. So the holding on even is such a beautiful intention. And so we don't have to reinforce that. But if we can just have a relationship with that and be patient and understand, then we can start feeling safe within ourselves as we meet ourselves. And then we can kind of hold ourselves with that love and compassion and just a gentle relaxation, a gentle opening can start happening as we feel safer so that we can also start to feel some of the layers of emotion and feeling that we have learned to suppress. Because feeling some of those feelings that we've learned to deny can free up the need for us to hold on because now we're letting some of those layers of feeling go. And so in order to integrate it, as you were saying,

and embody it, there is no real transformation and embodiment in a sustainable way, just logically in the mind. Information, like, okay, let go. Okay, I understand. But in my body, I'm not, because there's all of this stuff we haven't let ourselves feel. So part of the necessary process is the willingness to be compassionate and just gently with a guide, with a therapist, you know, in a safe space, start feeling and releasing and letting go of some of the layers that we have been conditioned to avoid. And that's really why we're holding on. And so when we understand the nature of ego, then we can also begin letting go. So the feeling part, but also understanding the nature of ego as ego is not good or bad. Ego is a process.

It's not a thing. It's just a process and mechanism of identification that we've learned to function and survive. And as we understand that, we realize ego is a vehicle that we all need in this human experience to navigate this human experience, but it's our relationship with it. And so I think compassion is an important thing. And feeling those layers of unprocessed feeling is also a necessary, important step. It doesn't have to be all at once, but in a really gentle way. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth.

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on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You say ego is just a set of patterns that's been solidified over time, and I love that as a definition. So you've talked a lot about feelings, and I want to go there because you've got another line that I really like, and I'd like to go into this a little bit deeper.

You say that surrendering to our feelings is not succumbing to our feelings. Talk to me about the difference between that, because I do think there's a real art in feeling what we feel, not denying, not repressing, but not getting lost in. Yeah, I think to not get lost, you have to realize that you are not your feelings. that you are not your feelings. And many times we believe that we are our feelings. Then we get lost in our feelings and kind of collapse in them. But when you can realize, oh, I'm not my feelings, that also is a shift where you can step back and begin to have a relationship with these feelings and observe them. Whatever you can have a relationship with and observe, you are not that. You can observe that. There's some space. And so, yes, feelings

are so important to experience and feel and allow them to move through. Many times, we're afraid of feeling our feelings because we think that we are them we think if i feel these feelings it will overwhelm me i won't be able to cope i won't manage i'm going to be broken i'll never come back sometimes we don't feel the feelings it could be grief of someone dying pain from a breakup sometimes we don't feel the feelings because our ego is even more, shall we say, committed to being right. And I'm not going to feel this anger because I don't want to give that person the pleasure. I don't care. But we're not aware that we're actually giving more power to the feeling in that person. Sometimes we don't allow ourselves,

in the example of grief, sometimes we don't fully allow ourselves to feel, let's say, in the example of grief. Sometimes we don't fully allow ourselves to feel, let's say, the grieving because there's a deep fear of, if I really let myself feel this feeling and grieving, then I'm going to have to acknowledge the reality of the situation. Then I'm going to have to acknowledge the reality that this relationship is indeed over, or my mother has actually died. But if I don't deal with the feeling, then I can stay in denial. I don't have to acknowledge what's happening. Sometimes we don't deal with the feeling as a spiritual bypass too. You know, everything is good. Everything is great. Everything is God. I don't have to deal with it. I'm not going to succumb to my feeling. And so I'm going to stay

in a high vibration. And so sometimes that ends up facilitating a spiritual bypass where we're so addicted to being in a high vibration that we're still suppressing the lower even if you have a great high or meditation or what have you, the unfelt process feeling that you haven't dealt with will often bring you back down to that level. And so I think when we can realize that we aren't our feelings and all feelings remain present till fully felt, all feelings have a cycle, no feelings are permanent. So then we can have a relationship with feelings. Feelings are just energy. Feelings aren't good or bad. They're just energy in motion. And they're often a feedback. They're a signal. And I think one thing that really helps people, sometimes people think that they're feeling their feelings. And they'll say to me, but I've been feeling my feelings and it doesn't end. I still feel that

way. So we sometimes think that we're feeling our feelings, but we are analyzing our feelings. We're thinking about our feelings, which is not feeling our feelings. Or we succumb to our feelings and we're like in sort of hyper-emotionality, like, but we're not really feeling our feelings. Like I see a lot of people get emotional, but that is still another layer of subtle disconnection. So to feel your feelings fully with awareness is to embrace them consciously without resisting them, without trying to fix or change it. Every feeling has a natural cycle.

So what that might look like that may help people is take the label off of the feeling. This is something that can help. When you take the label off of the feeling, good, bad, anger, madness, grief, no name, just label. Feeling is an energy. It has an energy. It is a sensation. Then you can experience the feeling without a label or preconceived idea of good or bad as a sensation in your body. Then when you can just be with the sensation in your body, oh, in my stomach, in my belly, in my heart, in my, you know, wherever it is, you can just be with it as a sensation without resisting it, without getting rid of it, without manipulating it away with it. Just be with your

experience of that sensation as it's happening and notice what happens. Something really profound starts happening when you're fully with it, without resisting it, without collapsing into it, without wallowing in it, without trying to push it away, but you're just being with the sensation. to push it away, but you're just being with the sensation. And now you are experiencing really feeling. You're experiencing it because you're completely present to it on all levels. And you will often find that that energy of that feeling of sensation has its own movement, its own energy, and the impulse of that begins to complete itself. Because every feeling, And the impulse of that begins to complete itself. Because every feeling, sensation, has a natural cycle.

No feeling lasts forever. Even the worst sadness, at some point, it completes. And so when you're able to be with the sensation in your body, and really just track it and be with it and notice what happens, fully being with it, you'll find that a layer of that feeling begins to dissolve quite often and i think that's what it is to really be with your feelings without succumbing getting lost in it and we often succumb and get lost in it when we are telling ourselves a story about the feeling like why is this happening to me and now we're in victim and making up a story about and a meaning about it an interpretation about like it always happens to me god doesn't love me life does now we're in victim about the feeling not

just purely with the feeling that's right and i think that idea of being with the felt sense of the feeling is a really great instruction and in practice what i found is that what you say is true. And just like meditation, you have to keep coming back to it because the brain keeps yanking me out of it. Right. It's not like the brain's just like, oh, good. Okay, then go ahead and feel it. Right. Because it's been working for a long time to not feel it. So I drop in and I feel the energy of it for a minute and the brain's just like, hang on.

I got something else to say about this. Learning to do that, I think, is a skill just like learning to stay with the breath and meditation for a minute and the brain's just like, hang on, I got, you know, something else to say about this. Learning to do that, I think is a skill, just like learning to stay with the breath and meditation is a skill. Yes. It's a process. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's a process. And you know, any feeling even grieving, it doesn't happen all at once. It happens in stages. Yeah. I remember for me when my mother passed away, you know, because I had this understanding, I really just let myself have the moments of feeling the grief. And I had this understanding, I really just let myself have the moments of feeling the grief. And I would give myself. So what it might look like for me, it looked like I wasn't like sitting in the grief 24-7, but I was doing my work and going through my day and

just being with what I was feeling. But in the evenings, I would give myself an hour, whatever I needed for that initial few months. I gave myself what I call grief sessions where I just gave myself full permission to just feel whatever I felt. It was really during the evenings where I could write about my grief, cry, whatever, just feel it and just let it move through. Whatever, just feel it and just let it move through. And one of the most helpful, powerful things that happened for me was just feeling my grief. Feeling. And here's the thing.

When there's no story about the feeling, to me that is the key to not succumbing or resisting. When there's no, but I shouldn't be experiencing this grief. I shouldn't have this grief. I should feel a different way. When there's no story that you're running about the grief and you're just giving yourself permission to be with it, it starts moving. Does that mean there's not pain? No, there's pain. Does that mean there's not tears? That there's going to be whatever there is. That's not, we can't predict and we can't necessarily control, but that's how the completion and clearing happens. For me, when I felt the grief, when my mother passed away, it was like there were moments of tears. I remember the first stages where my heart broke. And during these evening sessions, several times for like a month, it was like,

I feel it and just be with it. It felt like my heart broke. And then there were like these tears, emotion. But what was interesting was it felt like the grieving broke my heart open. Yes. To another level of expandedness. And in the moment it broke open, and then it was like, oh, I'm still here. Oh, okay. But the grief gave me access to more loving at the same time.

And so it was like heartbreaking open. What I found is there's a tremendous strength that arises. There's a deeper strength that arises from allowing yourself to feel the feeling, in this case, grief, to feel the feeling and breaking open. And after breaking open, realizing that you're not broken. I realize I'm breaking open, but I'm not broken and I'm still here. And there's a deeper strength that arises from being broken open than holding it all together. And so there was a real power and strength that arose through the process of grieving, which took a while, you know, it took a moment.

And it was a beautiful process that gave me access to more love for my mom, for my friends, for my loved ones, for my father, for humanity, for myself, the compassion for myself and my own humanity. And so it's beautiful. It's a beautiful process. That is really beautiful. I've experienced something similar with dogs passing. I'm not equating my dog passing to your mother. But what I realized was, like you said, when I let go of the resistance, like it shouldn't be this way. It's not fair. You know, why do dogs live shorter than humans? Like when I let go of all that and just went, let me just feel the feeling. The word I have for it, it's just very pure. It's a very pure energy that flows through and it's a really beautiful thing. So I'd love to

turn now and talk about, since you brought up your mother, I think this is a great way to kind of get into the latest book. And I'm just going to read what your mother said to you, if that's okay. Wow. Sure. She said to you, I believe this was after she was diagnosed. She said, Coot, none of us has control in this life. Our demand that life go the way we want is what causes so much suffering. Know that the degree to which you surrender determines the degree to which you are alive, the degree to which life can use you, the degree to which you can enjoy life. It's a beautiful message to get from your mother. Yeah. I didn't know how special my mother was. I mean, I knew she was special, but you know, she's just your mom. But I really realized who my mother was in that year of her passing. I realized her greatness, to be honest.

I realized she was an enlightened being. I really didn't know because she was so egoless. And I think that's part of what being truly awake is, is just transcending your own ego. She was really egoless and in the face of her mortality. You know, it's one thing to say it when we're all healthy and well, but when you know you're in the face of your mortality and you're dying, she was fearless.

When the doctors confirmed, hey, we don't know how long you have to live. There's nothing else we can do for you. You're probably going to die in the next months, but it's not going to be probably more than a year, So get your affairs in order. Shocking moment. We knew it was coming. I looked at my mother and I said to her, are you afraid? And she looked at me and she said, as plain as day, Eric, as plain as day. She said, I'm not afraid because I know I'm not this body. And this body is just a temporary vehicle for my soul. But completely at peace, like she just knew, you know, and that conviction really moved me. And then I asked my mother, is there anything I can do for you in your final days? Like,

what do you need? What do you want? And this is where I think the seed for the book was planted. But this is where something in my soul was activated that I wasn't even aware of. I said, what can I do for you? What do you need? And she said, there's nothing I need and there's nothing I want. All I want is what God wants for my life. And there was such a surrender in that. She wasn't attached to living. She wasn't attached to dying. She was truly surrendered to the highest unfolding of her destiny. And it was honestly an honor and privilege to experience those moments with my mother. Really, really special. It's a really beautiful part of the book. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

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It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move into talking now about surrender, since that's the title of the book and it's what your mother told you. You talk about what surrender is and what it isn't. And I thought maybe we could go through a few of these because I think it's really helpful to kind of get an idea. Because that's a word that a lot of us come to, I guess most words are this way. We come to them with our own ideas about what they mean. And when we hear somebody say them, we may react to that. And so you spend a lot of time in the book saying, this is what I mean, and this is what I don't mean. So what are some of the things that surrender is? Yeah, yeah. There were many

misconceptions about surrender. And I just want to clarify that we think it's given up, waving the white flag. It's not that. To me, surrender is taking the limits off of life. I want people to get the sense of like, we think that when we surrender, we're not going to manifest our goals, dreams, and desires. We think that we're going to lose control. We think that we're going to get less. But for me, just to start the conversation is like, what if you got more? What if in letting go of your limitations on how you think it's going to turn out, what if you got more than you could have ever planned and imagined with your limited ego's capacity and perception. Because the ego in and of itself is very limited in its ability to perceive reality because we're conditioned. So, surrender is letting go of

control, or I should say, the illusion of control that we think that we have. And I think if the last few years have shown us something, it's kind of showing us we're not as in control as we thought, as a humanity. And so it's a letting go of control. It is when we stop manipulating and forcing life to fit into our idea or limited ego's idea of how we think it's going to be. It is letting go of the idea, the preconceived attachment and idea of who we think we should be and how we think life should be. Sometimes we get so attached to a goal, as we talked about, that we think that this is the only way and not realizing that attachment is putting limitations on life and we're not open to

everything else. And so it is to let go of those limitations, to let go of attachment. It's to be open. It's to be available. It's to allow. It's to let life lead you and trust that when you let go, that letting go can lead to more. And that's the beauty. It's letting go of what's not aligned, letting go of what's no longer working, letting go of what is no longer vibrational match so that you can make space in your life for the authentic life that is seeking to emerge and unfold to happen. And so surrender is not force, it's flow. It's living in flow rather than forcing everything, you know, like the old paradigm in self-help is all about make it happen, control, do it, take charge, you know. And you can manifest that way. It is possible.

It's not like it's impossible. But what I found is it's limited. It's limited when you are creating your life from the level of the ego. And so we have to be willing to let go of what is good for what is great. That's when you tap into, I think, the infinite possibilities of life. Like the reason I call the book The Magic of Surrender and not Art of Surrender, The Power of Surrender, it's called The Magic for a Reason. Magic is that which is beyond your mental capacity, that which is beyond the norm.

What is beyond your wildest dreams? And so everybody says, yeah, I want more magic, but nobody wants to surrender. And the password to the magic is surrender. And so we want to hold on to who we were and what we have, but we want the magic. It doesn't work that way. And so surrender is a letting go. It's a letting go of what's not aligned so that we can be truly open. And I have found that when we do that consistently in my life, and I have many experiences because I've kind of experimented with this thing of surrender as a scientist, so to speak, as an adventurer, as an experiential sort of Indiana Jones of surrender. I'm like, let me try to see if this shit works. And I've seen in my life, in ways I couldn't have imagined or planned,

things work out better than I could have imagined. So I would ask everyone to just consider for a moment, think of all the things in your life. Think of the best things in your life that happened, meeting that person, going to that thing. Did you plan it? Most of the best things, we didn't plan. They just happened. Think of when something didn't work out in your life. Didn't work out according to plan, but it turned out better than you could imagine. Now, someone might be devil's advocate and say, well, no, I had this situation that worked out worse and I ended up homeless or what have you and I had to move back home. But I would say, if you really look back at many of the things that you thought didn't work out,

in the moment, from the perspective of the ego, it seemed like it didn't work out. But if you didn't move home and didn't go back there and didn't have to get fired from that job, perhaps you wouldn't have been put in that place where you met your soulmate in the coffee shop, you know, in your hometown. Or perhaps that other thing wouldn't have happened. And so often what seems like the worst thing from the ego's perspective is really grace from the soul's perspective. And so part of surrender is the willingness to trust that even if you can't see it right now, the universe is always working for your highest good.

The universe is always working for highest good. And when things don't work out, it's a trust to say, okay, life is going to bring me something better. And so surrender is not an abdication of responsibility. Surrender isn't just sitting around at home saying, okay, you know, I'm going to surrender, sit here and just wait. Like the old paradigm is all about what do you want, what do you want, what do you want? The new paradigm, I believe, that we're being invited into as humanity is to ask a different question. And that surrender question is really about what is it that life is seeking to express? What is it that the universe is seeking to express? What is it that

the divine innate intelligence, my soul, what is the deepest impulse of what life is seeking to express through me? And to feel that, to align your ego, align your personality, align yourself with that most authentic impulse. Then when you align with that, like this is what's true, this is what is in my integrity, this is what my true purpose is, not what I think I should be doing, then you take action. Then you go into strategy. Then you bring your ego to help you fulfill that. Then you plan, then you market, but now you're working in alignment and in harmony with nature, with your soul, with your essence. And so I think when you surrender, you might end up working harder than you've ever worked

from one level. Because now you're on a mission that is authentic. Like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, you know, Buddha, Jesus, the great ones. These people worked. They weren't sitting around being lazy. Like Gandhi was non-stop of going around the world, the great ones. These people worked. They weren't sitting around being lazy. Gandhi was nonstop going around the world, going around India, but he was in alignment. And so I just don't want people to think surrender means I just sit there and be lazy. No, no, no. That's just called laziness. That's not surrender. And so I think surrender is the most powerful thing that we can

truly do. And that's when the magic happens. So I got sober in a 12 step program a long time ago. And right, we start with powerlessness, right? With the surrender to some degree, which did not mean doing nothing, obviously, right? There was an enormous amount of action that went with that. How do you think we go about determining what we surrender to in life and what we don't? Or is that not the right way to think about it? What we surrender to or what to surrender? Just to clarify your question. Well, I'm facing a situation in my life.

Let's just pick a situation I don't like in my life. You know, how do I know? It's sort of the serenity prayer, right? What can I change? What can't I change? I know it's sort of the serenity prayer, right? What can I change? What can't I change? You know, how do you know whether something is asking for you to surrender and let it sort of be, or when it's asking you to take action? Well, first I'll say, if you feel some level of pain in your life, that is a signal that likely a level of surrender is necessary. And so if there's pain,

I love pain, not because I want more of it, but pain gives me feedback where I'm holding on tightly. And so if you're feeling pain, that's feedback that you're probably holding on tightly that you get to look at that and go, okay, what am I holding on to? What do I need to surrender? And so, yes, there are two levels. There's the what is happening in the situation. Here's the situation like someone, you know, stole money from me. And what surrender is just saying, okay, it's fine. I love you. And I'm just going to move on with my life. But they stole, let's make up a number, $50,000. And I'm just supposed to be great about this situation. You know, Eric let's be clear that's not necessarily surrender what surrender is is though let's say an injustice

could first you have to acknowledge that it has happened you can stay stuck in well it shouldn't have happened it shouldn't be happening the experience that's happening is not the experience that should be happening suffering you can stay in that and for the next five years be in the resistance and you're going to be mad, angry, resentful, stuck, bitter for the rest of your life. And that person who did that so-called injustice is going to move on and you're pissed off and they've moved on. That doesn't make any sense. And so you can't necessarily control what that person does, what life does, what the government does, what whoever does. You can't control that. But what you can control is yourself. So the first

place is what surrender looks like. It's not like, okay, let's all hold hands and I just get over it. No, it's to acknowledge that this is happening. Because whether you like it or not, it's happening or it's happened. That is a fact that you cannot change. So surrender is to completely accept they took $50,000 from me. They did X, Y, Z. It is what it is. It is happening. It's happening.

It's raining outside. It's storming outside. There's a hurricane outside. Let me not go into like, please let there not be a hurricane. There shouldn't be. There's a hurricane outside. Let me not go into like, please let there not be a hurricane. There shouldn't be. There's a hurricane outside. Now, with that complete embrace and surrender to what is, that moves you into relationship with what is. Then you can go into, now that I'm accepting there's a hurricane and not pretending that it's sunny, you don't go outside in a bikini or, you know, some swim trunks, now you can get prepared based on your

acceptance. So surrender is first step, accept reality as it is. Then, as you accept reality as it is, then you can ask yourself, okay, what is in my control? Okay, it's raining outside. Well, what's in my control is I can get an umbrella. Okay. That's one. What's in my control is I can call an attorney. Okay. What's in my control is I can get a consultant. What is in my control and what is mine to do? Yeah. That's the next step. Once you accept that, then you can acknowledge what feelings do I have about the situation that I need to deal with? I'm freaking angry about this situation. So now you get to deal with those feelings so that those feelings don't run you and control you and keep you off balance, keep you from not seeing the situation clearly and not being able to act

in alignment. Then I think part of the surrender, the real next level of surrender that will energetically unhook you from the situation, once you've done that, it's okay, this is what needs to happen, this is what I need to do, this is the situation, okay, clear, is the real surrender is to the lesson, not just the situation. If you stay stuck at just the level of the situation, you will often feel resistance to surrender. Surrender is the open-hearted participation in the process of life that is happening, whether you like it or not. And it's hard to say,

I'm going to roll my sleeves up and just embrace the situation. The only way that really happens typically is when you can say, okay, let's go spiritual for a moment. We are souls incarnated into this human experience. To me, life is a classroom for our university, for our soul's evolution. That means every single experience, every single situation,

every single relationship is part of the curriculum and the teaching, the syllabus for our soul's evolution. If we understand that we're souls and all of life is our evolutionary classroom, then on some level, everything is serving our soul's evolution and awakening and helping us remember and awaken to who and what we are. Then if we understand the real purpose of life, which is your evolution, rather than being used by a situation, you can then use the situation to learn, grow, and evolve. And that happens when you say, okay, I'm going to learn from this situation. So it's a different focus. What is my soul seeking to learn from this situation? What is my soul

seeking to learn from this seemingly messed up dynamic, seemingly unfair situation. I attracted the situation. I'm in the situation. It is happening whether I like it or not. I'm going to propose that if I'm a soul, there must be a reason that I'm in this. And so what is my soul seeking to learn? What do I need to see about myself, my beliefs, my unconscious belief system? What do I need to see and learn and let go of as to why I'm in this classroom right now? When you can then surrender to the lesson in the situation, then you start focusing on a whole different evolutionary possibility that learning that lesson in that situation

with that person can unhook you from that situation. That learning that lesson in that situation with that person can unhook you from that situation. And that is often the key to unlock the lock to the next level of experience. All lessons are repeated until learned. So if you stay a victim and then move on, you will tend to attract another situation, similar pattern, similar dynamic. But to me, the real surrender is to learning the lesson. That's for me the surrender in a situation. You talk about purpose in a great way, and I'd love to talk about that. You say, what if seeking your purpose was actually an avoidance of it?

What do you mean by that? I think the ego wants to seek and seek and seek and seek and seek. The job of the ego is to reinforce its existence. So the ego wants to seek and seek and seek and seek. The job of the ego is to reinforce its existence. So the ego wants to seek and seek and seek and never find and not find. And so how the seeking is part of the ego's dynamic to stay active, to stay alive. And so sometimes we want to keep seeking our purpose because if I keep seeking my purpose, then I don't have to live my purpose and I can keep seeking my purpose. And it becomes an avoidance from just living, just being. So the ego is constantly trying to reinforce its existence. Seeking is one way. And so for those

that are trying to find their purpose, I just tell people, stop seeking it. We're often trying to figure out our purpose from our current level of consciousness, which is limited. Firstly, on a spiritual level, your purpose is to evolve. That's it. So your purpose isn't so much what you're doing. Your purpose is your evolution and the degree to which you learn the lessons where you are with who you're with. So in any given moment, regardless of what job you have, so long as you are learning, growing and evolving, you can live your purpose every single moment. Now, in terms of an individual purpose, instead of seeking from the sidelines, trying to figure it out, just move in the direction of what lights you up. Move in the direction of what turns you on. Move in the direction of what inspires your soul, your being,

where you feel the most energy. To me, that's a signal. Because what I found is when you move in that direction, rather than just trying to find this ultimate purpose, Oprah didn't wait to find her ultimate purpose. Obama didn't wait to find their ultimate purpose. But they went in the direction of what they felt, of what turned them on. And so when you move in the direction, you take a step, life then reveals to you the next step in the process. And then you take another step, life reveals to you another step, then life reveals to you another step. So your purpose is not something to figure out, but is a revelation of what life reveals to you another step, then life reveals to you another step. So your purpose is not something to figure out, but it's a revelation of what life reveals to you in the process of living. And when you take a step, you go on a journey of growing and evolving. That journey of growing and evolving prepares you even more for the next step. And then you

grow and evolve even more, then that prepares you for the next step. And so if we sit on the sidelines trying to figure life out, figure our purpose out, we never grow. We never evolve. We never learn. We never expand. We don't learn the lessons. So we never become truly ready for the ultimate purpose, so to speak,

because we're sitting on the sidelines and we haven't taken the steps necessary to develop and grow into the version of ourselves that's capable of reaching a million people, that's capable of starting that thing, because we're on the sidelines. And so I just tell people, don't wait. Part of surrender is your purpose may not be what you think it is. Your purpose may not be what you think it is. Sometimes we think, oh, it's to be a TV star, it's to do this thing, it's to achieve that thing. And you know, the reality is your goals are evolutionary and your goals will take you on a journey. And the real success in life to me is not the achievement of that goal. So don't confuse the goal and achievement of that

goal with living your purpose. The real success in life is who you become in the process of the pursuit of that goal. Who you become and the real purpose of that goal, who you become. And the real purpose of the goal is who you become. That is real success. That is evolution. That is the purpose. I think that is as good a place to end as I can imagine. Koot, thank you so much for coming on. I've really enjoyed this conversation. The book is called The Magic of Surrender, and we'll have links in the show notes and where people can get access to all your work into the book. So thank you so much. Thanks very much.

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