The Rich Roll Podcast - Julie Piatt On Intellect Vs Intuition

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Intelligence comes in many forms. Rational intellect is one such source. But intuition, feelings, and gut instinct have their place, and should not be ignored. Here to elaborate on this notion is Julie Piatt (aka SriMati) returning for her umpteenth microphone communion. For those new or newer to the podcast, Julie takes many forms. She’s a studied yogi, musician, vegan chef, and mom to our four children. She’s also the bestselling author of three vegan cookbooks. She hosts the For The Life of Me Podcast, is the priestess of Water Tiger, her online spiritual community, and is the founder & CEO of SriMu–the best plant-based cheese in the universe. Yes, I am biased. Nonetheless, it is a fact. Over the years, Julie has been a recurring source of spiritual wisdom on the podcast, dropping many a pearl on everything from parenting and creativity to navigating conflict, managing relationships, dealing with financial hardship, and many other subjects. Today she delivers the spiritual goodness you’ve come to love and crave, and then some. The video version of this episode is available HERE. Full show notes & additional information on this episode is available HERE. Enjoy! Peace + Plants, Rich

If you just took your life like a pie and look at the amount of energy that's available, how much of the time are you engaged in intellectual activities, like on a daily basis in this coliseum of life that we find ourselves in now? And how much time have you been in nature sitting with a tree, like dropping in? Life is miraculous. And there are things that go on in this body that science can't explain. There are things that go on in the universes that science can't explain. It's a precious gift to be here. And we all agreed to come here to be part of this transformation. And transformation is happening. It's our job to hold the highest vision.

And it's not about political parties or us and them or masculine versus feminine. It's about integration and the community. The Rich Roll Podcast. Intelligence comes in many forms. Rational intellect is just one such source. It's the default source for most, myself included. But intuition, feelings, gut instinct are often overlooked,

yet have their place and should not be ignored. Here to elaborate on this notion is Julie Pyatt, aka Srimati, returning for her umpteenth appearance on the show. In addition to being my wife and for those new or newer to the podcast, Julie is many things, a studied yogi, a musician, a vegan chef, the mother to our four children. She's also the best-selling author of three vegan cookbooks, The Plant Power Way, Plant Power Way Italia, and This Cheese is Nuts. She hosts the For the Life of Me podcast. She's the priestess of Water Tiger, her online spiritual community. And she's the founder and CEO of Shreemu, the best plant-based cheese in the universe. Yes, I am biased. Nonetheless, it is a fact. As many of you know, Julie has been a recurring source of spiritual wisdom on the podcast over the years. Today is no different, and it's all coming right

up, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online

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It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more.

Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards

recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, so today, Julie and I talk about the diversity of intellects. We discuss heart intelligence, motherhood, the many benefits of yoga. We talk about the power of neutrality, the importance of community in entrepreneurship and many other topics, including her obsession with wingsuit people. Final note, as a gift for all of you for a limited time, Julie was kind enough to offer 15% off

on all Shreemu orders. When you visit shreemu.com, S-R-I-M-U.com and use code SPRING15 at checkout. So let us tarry no longer and enjoy. Here we are once again. In our happy place. That's right. The most recurring guest in RRP history back again to share wisdom. I believe the last time you were here, that episode went up in October of 2021, but we probably recorded it quite in advance of that. So it's probably been like, I don't know, between six and nine months since you've sat across from me. Has it really been that long?

I think so. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. So I'm excited to once again, take a state of affairs of our marriage, talk about parenting, share a little bit of wisdom, catch up on your entrepreneurial Shreemu adventures. But today is a special day because it's Tyler's 27th birthday today, your eldest. That's right. It is the anniversary of when I became a mother.

So when a baby is born, there are two births that occur, the birth of the child and the birth of the mother. And so I was reborn with all of my children, but Tyler is the first being to have made me a mother. So, does that leave you reflecting on motherhood? Yeah. Well, I'm glad that we have him close. I'm glad to have him in my life and he's an extraordinary human and someone who is multi-layered, very creatively talented, musical, loving, thoughtful, insightful, very well-read. He's a very kind,

beautiful soul and I cherish all the moments that I get to be with him. Yeah, I would second that. And I would add that it's been fantastic to have him and Trapper home throughout the pandemic. I've said it many times, but they, the two brothers had moved out and were living in Echo Park in an apartment. And when the lockdowns began and all of that two years ago,

they moved back home, they're still home. And that's been this beautiful silver lining to have them around. And I think it's been very beneficial for the younger kids also. And just for us, like we would have not been able to continue to develop our relationship to the extent that we've been able to, had they been living in town where you get to see them once every two weeks or something. Yeah, definitely.

I mean, it's been, you know, I keep saying that we're going to look back on this and cherish the sort of extra time that we have shared together. And also I think it, you know think it sort of brings back the extended family as a form of community. And in the modern world, it's very challenging to be entrepreneurs, be in the world, be serving different initiatives, creative expressions, have still young kids at home, manage the teenage dragons, you know, navigate, you know, world events without having a strong community. And so, they offer a lot.

And, you know, they did and were a part of our financial transformation and that whole journey that we went through, they were part of our team and without them, we would not have emerged so beautifully. Yeah. I mean, they're old enough that they, you know, have solid memories of every phase of this thing that we've been on. Whereas the younger ones can't really remember what it was like during some of the harder parts. I mean, Mathis probably remembers aspects of it. Jaya certainly doesn't. Yeah. Mathis remembers quite a bit of it from her context of being, you know, six, seven, eight, nine, something like that. But what's happening is the awareness that Jaya doesn't even really

remember those early years, you know, the early, early homeschool years. And most of Jaya's remembrance is, you know, the appearance of social media and what part that has played. So it is interesting also as a mother, I don't know if you reflect on this as a father, but I realized a bit ago that I've been a different mother to each child. Like when you think, oh, I realized a bit ago that I've been a different mother to each child.

Like when you think, oh, I'm a mother and you develop this kind of idea in your mind, well, I'm this kind of mother. But if you really look at it as the evolution of time continues, you're a different mother with every child. And especially if you have four or five children by the time you get to the end, you're a different mother. Like the environment is different. Everything's transformed. It's a different set of variables. And that's been interesting to reflect on. Yeah, I think that's certainly true.

And it's brought up a lot over the last two years as we're trying to usher two teens into young adulthood. It's definitely had its bumps. It's been a roller coaster ride. I just shared on the roll on the other day, the challenges that Jaya has sort of experienced over the last couple of weeks that have brought me as a father to my maker in terms of how to parent a child through disappointment,

extreme disappointment, and the kind of psychic pain that occurs, of course, within the child, but also within the parent, this sense of powerlessness to solve the problem. My masculine energy wants to just fix it. I can't fix it. It's just about holding space and doing my best to refrain from projecting whatever patterning is embedded in my psyche as a result of the way that I was brought up in a way that is potentially damaging for the kid. So it's interrupting that pattern.

And you've been really good with me to try to call me out when I'm doing that or make me notice things that otherwise I would just do automatically. Well, I mean, you're a beautiful father and you've been there for Jaya as you are for all your kids and for all of us. I think that the journey with our children, and again, as every single crisis, every spiritual crisis, every kind of conflict, the answer only resides inside of you.

The answer is only in here. It's not out there. And again, we receive these experiences and they're paralleling our own experiences of our childhood. So what I would say is that in a way, you're trying to manage your own pain from your own pain of being disappointed in school

and being left out and not feeling like you belonged anywhere. And these are patterns that have existed within your life print for a very, very long time. So it's loaded. It's really, really stacked. Right, so when you say the answer is within you,

the problem with that is a lack of conscious awareness of the patterning. Like, yes, the answer. So, you know, my instinctual response is to mimic the pattern and you have to, you have to disassociate from that in order to understand that you're like running a loop as opposed to taking a higher consciousness approach to the issue.

Well, and let's just say like very plainly, like it's been an ass kicker recently. So let's just say that outright so that other people that are going through their own alchemical fire of transformation. I mean, you and I had a couple spaces in the last two weeks where we were literally in the fire and in the fire between the two of us and then in the fire because of what one of our children is going through who we love deeply. And I feel that when I say the answer is within, as parents, as long as we have unresolved issues

within our own being that we have managed to avoid, to deny, to put a bandaid on, to put a boa on, meaning like a dress on, they will, that is yours to reconcile. It's not- Otherwise they will continue to manifest. Yeah, and it's not your child's job to resolve that. And possibly the denial of resolving the issue is what brings the child to create that situation. It's almost like they're

the master gurus, they're the Jedis, and they come into your life and they're more evolved, you know, as evolution goes, they're more expanded. And so, it's almost a gift on a soul level that Jaya's brought this reflection into your experience. Because it's forcing me to look at something that I would much prefer to bury and pretend doesn't exist. That's it. And the thing is, is what can we not avoid? Pain in our children. That we might be able to avoid pain in ourselves, but we can't avoid pain in our children. be like an explorer, an excavator, and really look at those patterns and really get into clearing them

so that the children can be free to have their own experience. Yeah, I mean, I think in this particular case, when I was Jaya's age, when I was 13, 14, I definitely suffered from feeling like an outsider, not knowing where I fit in, being bullied, and everything that gets packed into that. And of course, when I see my child

enduring some version of that, it's gonna bring that up, right? And I feel like I've grown a lot, and yet what it has presented or illuminated is the fact that I haven't completely healed that and there's more healing to be done for myself so that I don't project that kind of pain onto my child and make it worse.

Definitely. And how do we heal those types of pain? We all have our version of this. Of course. Talking about it is one level of identifying the problem, but clearing the pain does not come from talking about it. It comes from meditation, from mirror work, from breath work, from these experiential techniques that you can enter into that will actually clear the energy from your being.

Right. So, if I was to come to you and say, and I didn't know you, and I said, oh, you're this person who might be able to help me with this, here's what's going on, and I explain what I just explained, what would the protocol be that you would suggest? If you were to come to me. Yeah. you would suggest? If you were to come to me. Yeah. Well, this is kind of curious. I mean, it's kind of interesting because I just did two sessions for two individuals for life issues before I arrived here to the interview. And isn't it interesting how I'm living in your house and I have a whole portal of techniques that lead one to these issues. And you have not partaken,

you have not drank from the fountain. I don't like to do this kind of stuff until I'm in so much pain that I have no choice. That's another like meta pattern or broader pattern. Well, again, it could be that I'm not your healer and that could be fine. I mean, there's thousands of beings all over the world. I don't think it would be appropriate.

Well, that's one perspective, but one might also say that possibly I have been your healer from day one. No, you definitely, you have been that. I think you wrote a book about that a little bit. But yeah, that book was dedicated to a certain individual. It was sort of thing. And thank you for that.

But I guess, you know, we're getting sort of to, and excuse me, because my voice is fried. I've been, I was out on a spiritual mission for the last week and my voice is a little tapped. So I'll try to speak in a way that it's not cracking. But intellectual conversation is wonderful. It's amazing. And it really is important for us as humans to bond and connect and be inspired. And then there is a whole other universe of transcendence that happens in the processes of technique. And you cannot transcend by talking about it. It will only lead you to a certain place.

And we see this demonstrated in our sessions of holotropic breathing when we're on retreat, and you see humans go into a breathing space and there are people who have almost never practiced yoga before and they have transcendent experiences. You have witnessed it yourself. Yeah. There, there are literally psychedelic experiences that people are having. And, and again, it's like, I worked with somebody today who came to me who said, you know, my, I feel like my life has almost passed me by and I have failed to access the spiritual part of who I am. And just in one session, she has such an awareness of her spiritual nature. Given the space, humans are connected to their spirituality. We are truly, I heard you say it

recently, I'm a spiritual being having a human experience. Right. But you helping that person unlock that and find a path forward does, I mean, it's a result of you having a conversation with that person. So the talking about it is at least an initial piece. It's a portal. Yeah, it's a portal. And then the other half, my sessions aren't talking. So they're talking, how can I be of service to you? Where are you? What's going on? And I go through family history, physical history, environment, relationship with spirituality,

everything, addictions, sexual abuse, anything. Then after we've identified, then we drop in to the technique. So I'm not like a therapist where you just talk and then I say, time's up, you got to go. So, and, and, and even so, so Water Tiger is a, is this technique, is this portal of techniques, which are designed to lead you into a deep relationship with your own being, because your life is about you and you alone. It's not about my life and it's not about any of the kid's life. It's about you and you alone. And you have,

we all have the opportunity to choose our sovereign connection to our spiritual nature. And what would those techniques be? Oh, they're huge. I mean, they're, they're massive. they're massive. I mean, well, there's like 40 maybe in the portal right now. They consist of, oh, different ones. So, one might be taking your divine consciousness, like the gaze in a meditative state, through the body on a journey where it connects all of the organs, all of the systems, all of the glandular systems, cells, mitochondria, to all communicate with each other. So, you're tracking light all over your body so that it's all on. Because if you ask somebody to think of themselves, they may just think of their head and their shoulders. Or how often are you consciously

aware of the back of your body? Are you living there? Like when you walk in the room, are you embodied in the back of your body? So, that's an embodiment technique. So, there's a bunch that are like that. Then there are more devotional ones that are about dropping into the beauty of life and connecting with the one breath that is breathing us. There are devotional prayers. There are techniques that lead you to drop into the black fullness. It's empty, full space. It's not empty space, but it's the void where you can replenish in that meditative state and gather energy in that state. And others are for amplifying presence, amplifying your presence in your body.

There's a saying that if you don't embody your life print, meaning your physical body and your energetic bodies, something or someone else will. So, meaning you could have an ancestral pattern that is living inside of your life print, because you have not embodied that. You have not claimed your energy back. Right. So to put a finer point on that, an example would be in my own case, me perpetuating a pattern that was imprinted on me by my mother or my father or the way that I was raised such that I'm not conscious that I'm in furtherance of this unhealthy behavior pattern and not totally aware of the fact that it isn't actually me. It's the result of neural pathways that got cemented when

I was a very young person and thus feel reflexive as opposed to consciously chosen. Yeah. It's an automatic pattern. We call it a miasm that is basically running in you. So, it means your sovereignty is not activated. And then you end up doing the exact same behavior that you hated, literally hated as a child to your child. And you're not, you know, this is not a, I mean, this is everyone, you know, this is what we do. And then you're like, oh my God, I'm acting like my mother.

Oh my God, you know? Right. So the point is, is that, you know, I always say of anything that transformed my life in a positive way, in a transcendent way, it was the practice of yoga, physical asana, which you and I met in that environment. And it's not the same as running.

It's, I applaud every athlete and all the journeys and all the incredible people that you have on the show. They're like mind blowing and all of it's amazing. And getting into a yoga practice, which connects you to this consciousness that is holding. And I'm sure that in athletic pursuits, like I saw you at the end of Ultraman, you were in your divinity. One of the most beautiful sights of you is at the end of Ultraman, literally. Like to the end of my days, I will take that glorious image in my heart. Absolutely extraordinary because you were bare raw of anything that was a padding.

And that's when I see you in your period. Right. I mean, the similarities or the parallels would be that endurance sports strip you down because you're forced to confront yourself in your most physically and mentally vulnerable, right? Like it's so hard that when you complete a race or a training session, you've had to burn through all those layers. And that's one of the beautiful kind of growth arcs that I've been on as a result of being an endurance athlete

is that it was this vehicle or this crucible for confronting myself in a way that I hadn't yet, even as somebody who'd been sober for a long time. Yoga is similar, but it's also qualitatively different. And it's a modality that is its own unique thing. And yogic techniques are shelter from the storms. Like Shama came over our friend and she said, you know, I've been practicing yoga.

And I said, you know, the only thing you have to do every day? And she said, what? I said, practice yoga. It's really the only thing you have to do. No matter what's happening, if the world is ending, practice yoga. It's like it creates an awareness of energy that is beyond space and time. It empowers your energetic. It expands your ability to live free. And I'm not saying go into a yogic sect and get into all the lineage and all the teachings. I'm just saying, just get on the mat,

develop a meditation practice and ask ourselves, like those of us who have apps who say they meditate and are running around. I mean, really, like how much are you really meditating? Are you really meditating or are you listening to a podcast? Are you reading more news? Like if you just took your life like a pie and look at your energetic, the amount of energy that's available, how much of the time are you engaged in intellectual activities, pontificating, analyzing, judging, assessing, summing up, like on a daily basis

in this, you know, in this coliseum of life that we find ourselves in now? And how much time have you been in nature? Have you stopped? Are you connecting with your breath? And I mean, being in nature, not listening to a podcast, not listening to music, dropping in, sitting with a tree, like dropping in. Like, are we communicating on that level? Are you talking to me specifically? Kind of, yeah. I feel attacked. No, don't feel attacked.

Yeah, no, I hear that. I hear that. in my head and intellectualizing things and trying to solve problems with my mind and diluting myself into the idea that my consciousness is behind my eyes, you know, like that idea. And it's a challenge and it's difficult for me to carve out the time and create the boundary for the thing that you prioritize much more than I do?

Well, I think it's very fitting and it's very relevant as a conversation right now, just globally, because I feel there is a war over consciousness between these two camps. And we have had this war in our own house. So it's the intellect that wants to define, analyze, make someone right right make someone wrong come up with a solution and then you you jump on that solution like this is the solution

or so and so said this or this expert said that and so this is the right diet or this is the right view or this is the right country or and all all of that is nonsense. Actually, in the truth of the matter, we all come from one breath. And what I'm saying is both are needed, but the problem in this particular place at this time, a lot of energy is given to the intellect. And once again, the feminine is canceled, is reduced, is made unimportant or thought to be uneducated or unwise or uninformed. And really, all of this feeling intuition, the ability of mothers, the ability of women, of the feminine force to lead, to guide, to lift communities up, to find a way where all are cared for. This is the great shift that we're going through right now. And we're not there. I mean, we're not there, but it's changing.

So there's a lot in that. I mean, this is definitely a recurring thing in our house, because I am that guy who will resort to the intellectual take on issue X versus the intuitive feeling into the heart, higher consciousness version of understanding. Well, not only you, it's both the boys. The boys are highly intellectual and very well read

and they're extraordinary. They know everything about everything. But when there's even like a sort of joke about when someone talks about their feelings, it's like, oh, it doesn't matter what you feel. Like, look at the facts. You know, that's always the trajectory. But the truth of the matter is the real intelligence in the body lives in the heart. And your body knows if something is in alignment, if something is false, if something is trying to prey on you. If you're able to drop into your body, which this is what yoga gives you, right? And connect with your breath, you can understand

that many things in this life might look shiny on the outside, but you have to be more mature than that. You have to be more mature than that. You have to be able to feel into what's really going on with the energy. But your vessel must be pure because I think a lot of people will say, I feel this way, or this is, my heart is telling me X, but they haven't done the internal excavation

to be in a place where their intuition, their instinct, and their heart's messaging is necessarily trustworthy because it's equally impulsed by those past patterns or traumas, pains, life experiences that color what that intuition feels like. Definitely. I mean, there's a spectrum. I'm not saying that everyone who has a feeling, you know, has worked through all of their trauma and that that feeling is necessarily balanced and integrated and merged with their consciousness. But also, that's not for us to judge or analyze or regulate, because each one of us is a completely individual life form.

So that might be a step in that person's journey. So, you know, it's diverse. I mean, the levels of feelings and the levels of intellectual opinions are vast. All I'm saying is in the general cadence of life, if one cancels the feminine aspects of feeling, intuition, sensing, you know, you said to me the other day, you know, I don't think you realize, you don't realize what a crisis, you know, our child is in. And I was like, excuse me,

I gave birth to this child and it's in every cell of my body. I'm well aware of it, every cell of my body, I'm well aware of it, extremely aware with it, keenly aware of the pain. So, my point is, is we got to stop. We got to stop with this impulse to overpower the feminine as if the feminine is not valid. And what I will say again is both are needed. I love masculine energy. I have masculine energy in me. I'm utilizing it right now. I have masculine energy. You have feminine energy.

Everybody has both. It's about both are needed. And without both, we aren't going to be led in a balanced way. That's more what I, more the point. Right. So to ground this in- In intellectual- Now I'm going to intellectualize this. No, I hear you. I understand. I mean, this is an ongoing conversation in our house and it know, a catalyst for my own growth and developing a higher awareness and trying to figure out what a more conscious approach to my life and our children would look

like. So in the example of our youngest and this disappointment and me coming to you and saying, I think, you know, me having the masculine impulse of like, we need to solve this, you know, we need to understand like what's actually going on, how are we moving forward, what's the plan, and you having a very different, not only intuitive response to it, but also a very different manner in terms of how you're communicating with Jaya versus the way that I've approached it. So, I think it's just, it would be instructive to like highlight those differences as an example of what you're talking about. Yeah. So, first of all, extremely painful for me to witness my child with this disappointment. Also because what was also quite shocking is all the members of the family had this absolute certainty of another outcome. So it was shocking to all of us, literally, like not what we thought was going to happen. The pain of seeing your child in pain is real. I mean, I've felt it in every cell of my being the same way that you did. My point is that as powerful universal creators, worrying is praying

for what we don't want to happen. So we have a loved one, child, literally on the floor. And so then if we go in and call out the suffering and then supercharge that with all of our unresolved shit around the same thing, then what that does is that piles on top of the person. It does in fact, the opposite of what our intention is. You're a beautiful father. You love your kids so much. This is not about that. So I rather, even though I'm being burned inside by the fire because it's so intense,

I consciously make the decision to hold an outcome that is expansive. And that is not easy. It takes intention, all the tools that I've developed. That's why they say you should learn to meditate when you're well. Because when your body gets sick or a war breaks out or there's real shit going on, you got to be the warrior. Like, it's not that you just skip through the field and like, you know, smell a daisy and you're not paying attention. That's the work. That's what you have to do. So, my point was, let's hold this higher. I'm like, okay, I'm shell-shocked. I didn't think this was gonna happen. You know, I'm still in disbelief,

but let's hold a vision. This has to be leading to something better. It has to be. And I managed to break through and I got a little closer and we shared in this way. And so that's a blessing. And then I use that as a little step.

And then I say, I was able to cook and my child received my food. Okay, another step. Okay, they're gonna be okay. It's going in that direction. While you're over in the corner calling out the fire and the disaster and the horrific thing that's going on and you're upset at me that I'm not in that state

of horror with you, I guess. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think that's a little harsh. Not horror. Because I was doing my best to be aware of that patterning and not foist it. And I didn't do that perfectly, but I think I could have handled it a lot worse.

Okay, you could have. So I feel like you're being a little extreme in terms of how I botched the job. Okay, no, I'm not. I'm not saying how I botched the job. Okay, no, I'm not. I'm not saying that you botched the job at all. And understand what I'm saying. It's not your actions. It's the energetic memory that was in your body.

Energy is a thing. Thoughts are things, feelings are a thing. So again, you're looking at how did I solve the situation? And I'm saying from the energetic that's unresolved, that adds onto it. Right. Do you get, do you understand? Yeah.

Because no, you absolutely didn't botch anything. This is a process of navigating through relationships with all of our inherent baggage. And I mean, you could also say that I'm too well-meaning or that me thinking something's gonna work out, maybe I need a little bit more action. Right, practical action. I mean, I think that's the tension between you and I. That's why we're here. That's why you have this show.

Yeah, I mean, I can be the planner and make the list and make sure that we have all the email addresses and phone numbers and the people that we need to call and the strategy for how we're going to approach solving this problem. And then I see you like, I'm holding space and it's going to be fine and it's going to work out. And I'm like, yeah, but not without engaging in the active steps required to manifest that. Yeah, but do I have a problem manifesting? No, you don't.

You don't. So that's an illusion. Okay, and can we just say that less than five days since the event that caused this trauma, there has already appeared miraculous solution that may end up being the reason that we didn't go down the other path. Right, yeah, because in the moment when you say,

well, this thing that we had our heart set on that didn't work out, it's because there's something better, right? And it's so annoying. And to say that in the midst of the shit going down and you say it kind of like, yeah, yeah, but do I really believe that? See, I really do believe that.

Yeah, I know. Right? It's not annoying to me. Again, it's perspective. Remembering all events are neutral until perspective is applied. Wait, it's perspective. Remembering all events are neutral until perspective is applied. Wait, say that again. All events are neutral until perspective is applied.

Right. So we know half glass, half full, glass half empty, right? So again, it's what, this is the demonstration of that. It's how we choose to apply our perspective to events that give them energy in one direction or another. So when people are in need, we need to apply the higher perspective, not denying the pain,

but saying, okay, I'm to put my energy in the rising yeah i mean i think in terms of how i was processing this particular situation internally uh is that when i and i I said this, I sort of alluded to this earlier, like when I was that age, I experienced a certain type of trauma. And I think in the back of my mind, as we've gone on this parenting journey, a huge priority for me was to do everything in my power to ensure that none of my children would experience that thing that I experienced. And then when this event occurred,

that was a version of that, that I think activated a lot of that unresolved pain that I think in my mind, I felt like I had, I know that I've gone a long way towards resolving, but it revealed to me that there are still more layers of that. Yeah, and again, how well does that go for any of us as parents when we do everything we can to make sure our child doesn't suffer

the thing that we suffered? It's a projection of our unresolved issues onto our kids. Your kid is your own individual, it's a different life form. It's not really, it's not living your life. It doesn't wanna live your life, actually. It doesn't even want. That's for sure.

That's for sure. But this is the pattern that continues. And when I was trying to convince families to unschool with me when the kids were little, this was the thing that blew it up, was parents' projection of their own issues into the children. And I think education is a bigger hot button than politics or religion.

Explain that. Meaning that when you're dealing with education of someone's kids, the emotions run really extreme and intense. What I'm saying is we're not the only ones. What I'm saying is that this is like a very, you know, a very sort of universal, I think, condition. But again, getting back to here we are in a landscape

where there is a war that's highlighted. Of course, there's wars all over the planet going on all the time, but this particular war is highlighted. And it's like what I was asking myself in my meditation and in my spiritual group, Water Tiger, was what is the luminary's prayer to suffering? As a luminary, if I consider myself a luminary or one of the ones that came

here to hold some fractal of light, like millions of us, what is the luminary prayer to war? I mean, what can we do? We're horrified. We're suffering with, you know, we're not, we're suffering in our hearts with our fellow humanity. We're seeing this, you know, we're not, we're suffering in our hearts with our fellow humanity. We're seeing this, you know, horrible play unfold while also hopefully recognizing that this is going on in many parts of the world. And what is the luminary's prayer? So, based on what I just shared in the family lens of relationships. So what I can do as an individual is I can dedicate my meditation to expanding the power in my energetic field. And this could be through breath, through presence, through dropping into the state, the void. And what I'm doing is I'm

amplifying the amount of light that I'm able to hold. And then I bring into my heart this feeling of peace, of humanity, of love, of where every human has a safe place to live, food to eat, place to love their children. And I amplify that as much as I can. And then I say to the one breath, hear my prayer. May all my brothers and sisters who are suffering feel my presence, that I am with them and that I hold this vision for a more expanded life experience together. And that is a luminary, a version of a luminary prayer. And as I just told you, that could seem trite and silly and ridiculous to an intellectual, you that could seem trite and silly and ridiculous to an intellectual, but thoughts are things. Energy is something. And so, when I counsel people who have said goodbye to their loved one,

our culture goes into grief and denial and no, don't go, don't go, don't go. And really what we want to do is support them in their journey to their next life. So what we can do is send them blue light, say thank you for this lovely life we had together. Have a safe journey, a well journey. I'll meet you on the other side, go, don't stay. And I'm gonna send you help. It's like you're gonna jump out of an airplane and what's gonna help you? Someone's screaming at you, don't stay. And I'm going to send you help. It's like, you're going to jump out of an airplane and what's going to help you. Someone's screaming at you. Don't go, you know? No. What's going to

help you is someone going, you got this. I'm with you. Like when my dad died, you did great. You're going on an amazing expedition. Thank you. We love you. Thank you. you go but we aren't taught how to do that and so here we are in this landscape of this world coming off of you know covid and covid brought up these polarities and this war over consciousness right it heightened everything it made everything just feel all the more acute. And I think that enhanced my, you know, my reaction to what Jaya experienced because it's been a difficult two years for this kid, right? Like these kids in the rooms, on Zoom, for school, deprived of things that we have always taken for granted,

experiences that I think are crucial for young people to have. And that's like its own pain body, right? That makes me feel like just this one thing, why couldn't that just that one thing work out? Yeah, definitely. I mean, and it's a lovely care that you have. It's beautiful. And we wouldn't want to

take away the adversarial challenges that our children have. We talk about it all the time on this show, how you become from your hardships, from the, it's the adversarial experiences that shape who you are. And so we have to find the faith within that. And we have to color it with faith and devotion and hold the higher vision, hold the vision of a world where we have transcended many of these systems that are coming up for reclamation. And I don't care. I mean, listen, nobody knows how it's going to go. No one in any camp, in any place, intellectual, spiritual, nobody knows.

And when you get into the 11th hour to the, I don't know what term would be, to the critical moment, the critical moment when you leave your body, all you have is this. I don't have the fact I was married to Rich Roll and we did this or that, or I had Shreemu or I raised four kids or I, whatever. All I have is this. This is the technology and it's this connection to consciousness, to spirit. And we all have it free from religion, dogma, dogma isms, science, free from all of it. The life is miraculous. And there are things that go on in this body that science can't explain. There are things that go on in the universes that science can't explain. It keeps changing. You get to a certain status quo and then everybody goes,

that's the reality. And then you wait a few years and then that reality is a different reality. And that's fine. And it's amazing. And humans are extraordinary and all of us, all of us matter, all of us are needed. And we need to acknowledge the feminine frequency, which is 50% of the human experience. It's not just, you know, intellectual quantifying of circumstance. of circumstance. And, you know, in Tantra, which is, you know, an ancient Vedic lineage, the student asked the master, is, you know, are dates good for you to eat? And the master says, for whom and when? That is the answer to every intellectual question. It's for whom and when. It depends. How old are you? Where do you come from? What's your constitution? What's your life plan? What's your instruction set for your life? What type of body do you have? Are you healthy?

Are you not healthy? Are you a large, happy being? Are you a skinny, angry being? Like all of these things matter. How old are you? What is the stage of the life that you're in? I feel like humans are not hardwired to inhabit that disposition. And that's why it is a practice and things like meditation and yoga are so crucial for developing that internal connectivity because humans in our minds

are disposed to pattern recognition. We're looking for patterns like, oh, these things are always like this. And so that's the way this is. And, you know, we observe things and we listen and we hear and we assemble experiences and we try to extract greater truths out of them. And the practice is about detaching from that and understanding that that's just a very small piece of the story of reality, which is another way of saying what you just said. It might not be reality at all, actually, quite honestly, in either camp. Any ideas that I have about meditation,

it's probably not that. So I'm just saying like, it would benefit us to develop some reverence for the great one breath, the ancient force that is inhabiting all life and to return to some of the ways of the indigenous of listening to the winds and the trees and the earth and the air and the fires and the animals. Right. And we're talking about this with respect to how we parent children and also in terms of our relationship with ourselves. I think it would be valuable to spend a few minutes talking about how that operates in the context of a relationship, a partnership or relationships in general.

No, I thought you said our relationship. Well, no, just extrapolating on these ideas in the context, not with, extrapolating on these ideas, not simply in the context of parenting children or our relationship with ourselves, but in relationship with our partners. We can use our relationship as an example of that.

I mean, I speak from personal experience. That's how I'm able to offer the best. The best. Yeah, me too. Experience, yeah. So it's curious, isn't it? You and me recently, it got out on the internet that you sleep in a tent and it sort of became like a shit storm.

Created a news cycle. It's like, we were getting offers to be on certain news shows that we just said no to. But isn't it curious how you and I found each other and we've been together for 20 years. So, remarkable period of time and parented, raised four children and have done

businesses together and creative expressions together. So it's curious that it's an interesting union when you think of how we're together, when our cadence of how we walk on the earth is completely opposite. I would, I would say the way you put your foot on the earth and the way I put my foot on the earth are completely different. It's different to the level of our digestion. The foods that nourish you are different than the foods that nourish me from an Ayurvedic standpoint. The temperature that you need is different from mine. Um, you know, you worship the sun and I need to go to the mountains in the snow. So it's been, um, a beautiful, uh, gift of life that brought us together that allowed us to have this extreme opposite sort of combustion.

Like it creates a friction that creates an alchemy that then produces something extraordinary. And without the friction, it's not quite that way. And I'm not saying this is just in this type of relationship. And I think very fitting for the last 20 years. And in my awareness, we were brought together to hold this space for others as an example. And I think that many have received a lot of benefit

and expansion from us sharing these very private experiences because we are so different. And other people, I think, find themselves in that experience. Yeah, there is a unique alchemy that ends up being the crucible for these creative expressions that we've shared together

and have pursued independently. I still think even though we're not as integrated professionally as we've been in the past, our relationship still is the foundation from which our individual creations are still germinate from that. And I think that there's so much beauty individual creations are still germinate from that.

And I think that there's so much beauty and wisdom to be gleaned from that, but it also makes it, it's a challenge, it's a dance too, because we are so different. Like how do we respect each other and understand each other and allow each other to have our own independent experiences while also being together and coming together to cultivate that alchemy. Yeah, definitely.

And I think now, and you know, we've talked about it the last couple of times is like everything and everyone and every relationship alive on this planet, we're all going through an evolution. So, nothing's ever staying static. We're going through evolution and finding how are we going to evolve and how is that going to look exactly. And so I think applying to relationships, one of the great opportunities is to be open to what is on the horizon, be open to new possibilities, not be identifying only with the framework of maybe how past relationships were viewed. And I think our children are displaying that in all this gender evolution that's going on. You know, like our kids are like, you know, mom, no one's

straight anymore. Like you so don't get it. Like, you know, so everything is sort of up for evolution. And so how do we navigate in the stages when we're in, like we're in the cocoon or the caterpillars, we're in the cocoon and we're kind of like jelly now. Like everything's all jelly and maybe we haven't really become the butterflies yet. Well, I think it's a series of caterpillar to butterfly moments. Like I certainly believe that I've emerged a butterfly from a certain type of caterpillar to butterfly moments. Like I certainly believe that I've, you know, emerged a butterfly from a certain type of caterpillar, but on that subject or theme of continual, progressive evolution, change, the illusion of stasis,

you can always, you know, go back. There's just, there's always more growth to be had, right? So no matter how many times you become a butterfly, you're still a caterpillar with a butterfly within you, a more beautiful butterfly within you, if you're willing to engage with that. It's eternal forever, like eternally, we'll be evolving. Right, so are we gonna make it?

We're making it, we're be evolving. Right. So are we gonna make it? We're making it. We're making it right now. There is no make it, we're making it together. Yeah, to make it implies a destination and an implicit understanding that there is a stasis that is not reality. Yeah, and sometimes, you know, you're just in that state. Sometimes you are in that stage

before the next thing has been presented. And so how do I navigate? I navigate by recognizing that every life form comes from the one breath. And that allows me to cultivate compassion and love for all life, including my lover, my partner. I mean, that's really the only thing, the only answer, again, it's within, but the main answer to every transformation is more love. More love. Because it's not about keeping, if you're in the illusion of keeping a relationship in a static point, you're in huge illusion. So, it's about

having the faith to know that the evolution will arise and happen, and that we will be led in the right places at the right time in the right mandala. Sure. And what is the balance between the energy of allowing or surrendering to that versus consciously trying to manage it in a direction of growth and expansion? Well, manage it, I would say you could have a vision for something beautiful that you wanted of your own vision. You can have, what are the feelings and the emotions that you want to experience in the relationship? That's really the key. What are the feelings that you want to experience in the relationship? That's what you need to identify because the outward structures are crumbling and falling and transforming in the world at this moment. So if I was to put that question to you

in our relationship, how would you answer that? So I wanna feel, I wanna feel received. I wanna feel seen. I wanna feel loved and celebrated and nourished yeah maybe that and if I asked you those well let me just respond to that

I mean I think I can certainly do that to the extent that I haven't lived up to being able to do that for you. So I hear that. Thank you. And I will keep that in the forefront of my mind. Thank you. Beautiful.

I mean, mine's not that much different. I would say I wanna be loved and accepted with all my flaws. That's really it. You got it. So again- Because what else is there really? What else really is there? And those are feelings, right?

They're not thoughts. They're not labels or titles or a house or a boat or a, what if not that I get seasick? Like, I don't know why I said boat. But you know, it's not a thing. It's a state of being. And when you're talking about emotions, you get into the state of beingness,

which it's in the beingness that we can experience miracles. I would also add to that, that those emotions or experiences that I want to be on the receiving end of are really a function of the extent to which I'm giving it, right? Like I am not going to be feeling the way that I want to feel unless I'm exuding that towards you and to other people. Right? So it's like what you want to cultivate within yourself, you have to, or what you want to be on the receiving end of, you have to cultivate within yourself and share it with others, right? And again, I would point to, cause it's your karma yogi coming out of you of service.

And I would just dial click it a little bit different. You need to embody those emotions. That's what I'm trying to say in elegantly. Yeah, no, perfectly, perfectly. So, you know, really it's this thing of, you know, as humans, we like to have consensus or opinions or attitudes or, you know, things that you know about your partner, you know,

well, I know this about you and it creates a cage. And so how can we practice being in the moment? And what would it be like if every time you walked in the room, you saw me for the first time? Because you really are not the same woman that you met in that yoga room all the years ago. So I'm the transformation and the evolution of everything that we've experienced. And so it's not the same.

Same way that in the yogi system, if you're eating ashram food and like the student says to the master, like, how do you eat the same food every day? And the master says, it's never the same food because he's alive and connected to the moment. And so, listen, we have a lot of things that are inciting fear in the world and there's a lot of systems that we um believed in or maybe we're an illusion over that we have put our our trust in i guess and what i would say is the the only thing you have the only thing you have is your connection to consciousness

through your own heart. That's it. Everything else will fall away. This relationship will fall away. The kids will go their own way. People come into your lives, they go. Careers come in, they go. But what do you have?

You have your consciousness. And to understand that we are all part of this sacred life, all colors, even the ones that seem like the bad colors, all of us are. And you can at least respect a life form. You don't have to allow that life form to wreak havoc in your life, but you can have a healthy respect

for this play that we're in and understand just how precious it is to have a human life right now. You know, if you're still here, if you're listening to this podcast, if you have a dream, if you have a desire, if you have breath in your body, really, really embody that. It's a precious gift to be here. And we all agreed to come here to be part of this transformation.

And transformation is happening. But it's our job to hold the highest vision. And it's not about political parties or us and them, or masculine versus feminine, or it's about integration and the community. Beautifully put. Beautifully put. Let's switch gears because there's not much.

I mean, you just put up an emphatic period on that subject matter. I wanna talk about your recent travels and what's going on with Shreemu and your burgeoning career as an entrepreneur. But before we do that as sort of a segue, as you know, Voicing Change volume two just came out and I thought I would just highlight your section in the book is these photographs of you

and that photograph of us two together, I can hold it up for the camera here. I mean, that's my favorite picture of us and you in your strength and your beauty. These images were taken by and graciously allowed to be published in this book by the wonderfully talented Magdalena Wazinski, Wazinska, right?

Wazinska. Wazinska, who is a Polish American photographer who photographed us. I think we talked about this on the podcast before for a magazine cover and images in this book. Yeah, human shift and the images in this book are images from that shoot. And on the subject of,

you were talking about the energy that you hold for somebody as they're passing out of this life. Magda took these unbelievable photographs that ended up in the New York Times. And also she has shared multiple times on her Instagram account of her mother as her mother goes through that process. And it's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

Stunning, absolutely stunning, profound, remarkable relationship. I think we did speak about this before, but if you missed it, follow her on Instagram. I'll put the link in the show notes. And look at these images. They're very raw and very brave and courageous and a wonderful opportunity for us

to start to get devotional about death. So she's great. And I love those images. Those images, I think, make us look sort of statuesque in a way. Like the way she photographed us was from, of course, her own perspective, but from a very kind of raw way. And they're really beautiful. And I really, I love them. I think our wisdom shows, an aspect of our wisdom shows.

Right. It's sort of us as elders. Yeah, but it was cool, you know, but I felt, I really enjoyed that fractal and really enjoyed that lens. And then I think I've included a story from, that was written for me by a distant relative, Becky Davidson. She has a platform called Lodimus, which is a collection of stories.

I'd like to give her a shout out right now. She's a beautiful mother and her children suffered from anxiety. And so she would create these stories for her children that would take them on a journey and deposit them in sort of a problem, a challenge, and then lead them out of it. And so this is now called Lodomus. It's online platform. And Becky and I have been long soulmates over many onion dip in the deep

valley over the years. And she wrote a beautiful journey about being a water tiger, but it's not only about being a water tiger, it's about embodying different animal forms and what that would feel like. So you're the person journeying through this journey of becoming animals, which allows us to drop our judgment of others. Because when we drop into our sort of primal blueprint,

there is no need to, you know, convince an elephant that he should be like a tiger. Yeah. I think we talked about that last time as well. Yeah, I think we did talk about it. Yeah. Well, let's get up to speed on Shreemu. We have this incredible spread in front of us right now. I'm so proud of this thing that you not only created, but have mothered, honestly, as it continues to kind of mature. And it's so cool to see so many people out in the world

enjoying it and watching you build this amazing team and this company that has, you know, of course, these amazing products, but also is really from an aesthetic point of view and an energy point of view, this manifestation of everything that you are. Oh, thank you. Oh, Shreemu, she is beautiful. She just touches me so deeply. So a couple of things. We were invited to a wedding, very dear friends of ours, Doug Evans, the Sprout Master. Yes. Who is just one of the most dear energies he he is such a love

lovely lovely human being and he got married to his love um and um uh savan and uh she's savan b on instagram just in case, they asked me to, they wanted to have Shreemu at the wedding, and their wedding gift was Shreemu at their wedding. So I styled some beautiful boards with our new flavors that I have here and created this love offering for them. And it, again, you know, they had me stand up.

They're like, the first speech of the rehearsal dinner, they're like, Srimati, stand up and introduce Srimu. So there's such huge supports and dear, dear, dear friends. And so I introduced the Srimu and the Srimu just became the nectar of the dinner. Everyone devoured it. These were a lot of people from Holland and from Europe who came in. And it's always lovely to see all the people enjoying the food so deeply and so completely.

Including three or four past podcast guests, Darren O'Lean, Mike Posner was there, Robbie Barbaro, so lots of friends of the pod. So sweet. I mean, so amazing. And we were there on two, it was 2-2-2-2-2. So super spiritual. Right, which is why you didn't get married on a Tuesday, right? Yeah, and the number 22 has been connected to their relationship in crazy ways. And now they're expecting a baby who's due on a 22nd. So it's, and 22 actually is the number of community. And so we were really blessed to be with a group

of like-minded individuals, all doing amazing things together, sharing. I met a beautiful man from the UN, met just all kinds of amazing people from the UN. He works at the UN. But anyway, Shreemu was a huge hit. And I told Rich kind of afterwards, Doug came up, there was an extra board left for the actual wedding and it just got devoured. And then Doug texted me, he's like, Shreemu was the hit of the wedding. But I said to Rich, I was kind of just so blown away because it's food, it's plant-based cheese, but the way that it's

communicating with people is quite beautiful to behold. So directly from there, I actually met my two managers, Chloe Stein and Becca Reif, who are my flow masters. I'm mother arc and they are extraordinary, extraordinary humans who have been beside me through this entire journey. So we hopped on a plane and flew to Memphis and we went through, uh, on a, on a complete sort of whirlwind tour of Memphis, Tennessee as a possible home for SriMu. Explain why. Well, SriMu model is extraordinary in every way. The margins, the ingredients, the preparation,

the scalability, the production, the community, the taste, the formulations. And I have one challenge and that has been East Coast shipping because I'm shipping a perishable product that has to go one or two days shipping most. So the costs are very high. And Tom Lawrence and Ellie Lawrence, who are our lead investors for Shremove and My Sacred Finance Raise, current round, who live part-time in Memphis and part-time in Telluride. We were talking one night about Memphis as a possible location that could be the solution to Shreemu's shipping woes. And of course, Memphis being the FedEx hub and then Kemp, Conrad, who spoke at the wedding and actually is a fan of the podcast.

Tom and Ellie's wedding. Yeah, Tom and Ellie's wedding. Yeah, lots of weddings here. Tom and Ellie's wedding. So anyway, they just set up this sort of first class red carpet tour of Memphis. But before I left, we received a letter from Sabine Langer, who is, her husband actually funded the resurrection of a very famous Sears and Roebuck building in Memphis called Crosstown Concourse. And back in, I think the fifties, it had a Sears Rouck, multi-level, a thousand employees. I understand

from the documentary that you could order a pair of pants with a certain waist size and length, and you could arrive and they would deliver it to you in two hours. This was a big community gathering place. In the beginning days, it was segregated, later became integrated. And there's a beautiful documentary showing all the personal relationships and life experiences that came out of this building. So Sabine and her husband bought the building and refurbished it. And they have created a vertical community called Crosstown Concourse. And this is one of the places that I toured. Sabine reached out and was like,

I'm a fan of the podcast. I just can't even believe that Shreemu might be coming to Memphis. And Sabine has a restaurant called Global Cafe and it is women owned and refugee run by women refugees. She also has an Italian pizzeria and they employ from within prison reform. So I was very excited to meet her at the beginning.

I didn't really know. I mean, I kind of knew what to expect, but I felt I might feel the energy to be a little too much, like all in one place. And I was interested in my own freestanding space. So Kemp did an amazing job and just, you know, blessed me and did all these amazing things for me. So we found some just great places. One was sort of more suited for production, but gorgeous three levels. It would have been up the bomb, like incredible. Then one was like a two-story brownstone with like five bedroom Airbnb in the top. You're talking about places that aren't Crosstown that you toured.

Yeah, that I toured. And then we went to Crosstown and I experienced this vertical community that absolutely floored me in every aspect of anything that I've ever imagined. They have teaching kitchens on the first floor. Well, first, let me just say, they won the AIA award this year for architecture. They are vertical communities. So they have residential and Airbnbs in the top floors. They have a YMCA on the second floor.

They have a New Thought High School on the second floor. They have a listening vinyl library with 50,000 vinyls. They have artists in residence studios where you can apply and do a residency there for three months. And then your art is displayed in their beautiful atrium. They have a woodworking shop, which there is an artist there that was making,

you know, like contemporary art wood forms, like that level. They have a printing play, printing studio. Printmaking shop. Printing lab where they do huge photographic prints, like as big as this table. They have art exhibits in the concourse. They have a performance theater, 500 seat theater with wood poplar on the walls. They have, what else have I left out? A recording studio.

They have a state-of-the-art recording studio with a Grammy, a guy named Matt, who's a Grammy-winning producer. They just finished it. And in the bottom, they have restaurant production and really restaurant. And retail. It's really, yeah, really sort of more restaurant.

So of course they have one space left. It's number 13. And it's my favorite number. And it's like 3,800 square foot space. And so Shreemu would be able to have her first wine kombucha and Shreemu cafe in the front 22%. And the back 88% is going to be production for our scaling. The space is five times the size of my space in LA for less money.

Right. for less money. Right. And, um, there's a community of people that are, you know, all care deeply about the same things that we care about. Uh, so I am, uh, extremely excited, uh, working to find a, an alignment with them now. And, uh, unless there's something better for out, out there for me that I haven't seen that arises, we're gonna be moving Shreemu's entire facility to Memphis. Yeah, it looks incredible. I mean, obviously I wasn't with you on this trip, but you took a bunch of videos and showed me.

It's very impressive and super cool. A very unique situation, of course. I hope it works out that you can move in there. And it kind of highlights the contrast between what it's like to be a business person in California versus being somewhere else, right? Like they just make it so hard here. The taxes are crazy. The real estate is insane. The bureaucracy is bananas. All the permitting and everything that you have to do just to get a small business up on its feet is incredibly onerous and discouraging to most. And to go to Memphis and have this experience where everything just feels so like facile by comparison. And on top of that, to be where the FedEx hub is, to reduce the price of what is right now,

like it's a premium product. Sure. To be able to deliver it more affordably for people is pretty cool. And to have a retail space and all of that, but are you moving to Memphis? And am I gonna be alone in the tent? No, I'm not.

Well, you're always alone in the tent. But no, the thing is, is again, you know, it's like we have big visions, you know, and we have to move and it's like, this is undeniable. And also just want to shout out Todd Richardson is who is the- Crosstown. Yeah, Crosstown, like, you know, creator and he's an, was an art history teacher and also fan of the podcast. And, you know, they just welcomed me with so much love. The other thing that I need to say, the whole time I was there, my heart was pulsing love. Like I was almost exhausted. I was at Tom and Ellie's house just like, okay, I can't take any

more love. Like the people in Memphis, just on the street, the conversations that I had with people there, it was a clear fit for me and what I'm looking to create. In addition, a few things that I found out that I didn't know. One is that Memphis is the largest employer of people of color in the country. It is the largest employer of women in the country. And they have a pristine water source that is an aquifer that comes up from the earth. And it is literally a

food corridor, like a pristine food corridor waiting to be developed. And I talked to Tom because he's interested in regenerative ag. And so it was really exciting to be having conversations about planting trees and creating the vertical integration. And even if I couldn't plant enough trees for it to supply everything that I needed, for me ceremonially to plant the trees and to engage with the trees in a sacred way,

a ceremonial way, this is what amplifies the taste of Shreemu. And this is why when people eat it, they feel so good. So that is a very, very exciting expression that's happening right now some time ago you came to me and we were talking about this evolution of our relationship you know we have been together for a long time and and we both have our respective passions right now. And you said, look, I want to be in a place where we're supporting each other and we're allowing each other to express ourselves at the highest level. And you expressed to me, like, I'm here to support you in whatever it is that you want to express. Like, you need to go out and do that. And I just want to say to you publicly, similarly, this is so exciting and I'm here for you to support this expression at the highest level and, you know,

to see it beginning to blossom and this opportunity coming up that will really allow you to step into manifesting this at the level that you wanna manifest it is really a cool thing. Thank you for that. Yeah, it's awesome. Appreciate that. And I've never been to Memphis.

Yeah, I hadn't been. We were gonna originally go, we met Tom Shadiac at the Nantucket Project. We bonded with him. I wanted to go visit his space, make a little movie of the kids that he works with and the climbing gym and all of that and do a podcast with him and then COVID hit and it just hasn't happened yet.

But that was another, did you go look at his space as well? That was the original. Yeah, we went to the climbing gym, which is actually like a $10 million climbing gym. Right, Memphis Rocks. Yeah, Memphis Rocks. and Tom, my Tom Lawrence is on the board there as well. But yeah, we'll get you there for sure now. Right. Yeah. So it's extraordinary what, what Tom Shadiac has done. And I met a lot of the kids that are there and just lovely human beings. And, and, you know, let me just also say like, whatever attitudes are projected onto Memphis of it being, you know, less than LA or New York or whatever,

what I saw at Crosstown was first class. I mean, they just blew me away. Like I'm completely blown away by what they've created and being a multi-dimensional entrepreneur, at least in my mind, you know, I have a big desire to work with the refugee issue. I have a whole other thing that I won't talk about that I've worked on. And also I have this new education model that I considered burning in the fire when our children became teenagers. I considered burning it. But walking in across town,

both of those things were suddenly in the front and center conversation. Because other people are doing it, like instantly Shreemu could be on three menus. Like, you know, instantly I could work with Sabine in this refugee mission. So, and it really is all about community and that is a community.

So they do events. I'm very energized, as you can tell. It gives a lot of energy and a lot of opportunity and I'm very energized, as you can tell. It gives a lot of energy and a lot of opportunity. And I'm excited. Yeah, it's exciting. And you got some new flavors here. I have some new flavors. So we launched wholesale fourth quarter.

And so you're looking at, we have a flavor called fire, which mimics pepper jack. That's really a favorite. Also, we have something called everything, which is similar to an everything bagel, but in delicious aged cheese. And then the blue wheel is called imagine it's butterfly pea powder. It's more pure. It's so interesting how experiential we are as humans because it's got the purest taste and I've served this and more men come up to me and tell me they love the blue one.

And it's interesting to me because you would think it would be sort of more of a, I don't know, a feminine choice or something. No, I love the blue one. Like men love blue. I love the blue one. But they want to eat blue, which is really amazing. I like the pepper jack too,

because I like the spicy tang to it. So, but then we have a new- But when you say, sorry to interrupt, but when you say wholesale, what does that mean? I mean, this is a direct to consumer model. Oh, right, sorry. If you live in Los Angeles, you can get it at Air One, which is a fancy supermarket that we have here.

But outside of Los Angeles, short of ordering the subscription box on the website, it's not like a retail item. Well, we're opening up specialty shops and such, so there may be stores in your area. But what I failed to talk about is the two-wheel box, this box here, also we have an offering for what we call the eternal, we call it eternal. And it's the three smaller wheels, three four ounce wheels in the eternal box. And then in the other offering that I'm extremely excited about is I have the best mozzarella that you've ever eaten on the planet. It's called Cloud9. And up until now, it's only been part of our most luxurious box, which is called Sacred.

And now we have new packaging. We've moved our packaging domestic. And our new packaging comes with an add-on of one jar of Cloud9 and one jar of Bonfire, which is the smoked almond cheddar, not your grandma's cheese ball, but very, very delicious. Now the Bonfire, the smoked almond cheddar, you can make it into small, no meatballs and add it to a pasta. You can make toasties out of it, which is extraordinary. You can crumble it into like tofu scramble. And then the Cloud9, we have made like a caprese salad and you can see it on the deck.

Right, the mozzarella balls on the tomato and basil. It's really good. It's also insane like in smashed potatoes, like in a grill, and then you put this on top. I have a video on my Instagram for that. And it's also insane spread as a cream cheese. But anyway, we're really excited about the new offerings and we're gonna offer a 15% discount to your people.

Spring 15. So shreemu.com and then code. Spring 15. Spring 15 code at checkout. At checkout. Thank srimu.com and then code. Shri, spring 15. Spring 15 code at checkout. At checkout. Thank you for that. Yes. Offering. I'm excited for you guys to try the new flavors. Yeah, that's super exciting.

It's amazing. And I know you have like a million other formulations. I'm just waiting. You just have to get to a place where you can really scale this thing up. But you're raising money. You've got this round, you're raising money. You're off to the to a place where you can really scale this thing up. But you're raising money. You've got this round, you're raising money. You're off to the races with all of this,

the plan, like the runway. You can see the runway ahead. And it's inspiring to bear witness to somebody who just had an idea and is really executing on it. When a lot of people told you it wasn't a good idea or it wasn't possible or or it was too complicated, or why are you doing this? You should do this.

And you held true to your convictions and here we are. And we're just, you know, it's like, I see all the progress and yet you're still just at the start line at the whole time. Cross down is gonna be an amazing, amazing move. And I'm, you know, I'm gaining traction. The, the, my guardian circle members who are the people that are investing are an amazing group of humans, of humanitarians. And, you know, it's a little, you know, it's a, it's my own unique way and what I could offer to anyone who has anything that they want to do is it's really important that you do it the way you do it. You do it aligned to who you are. Yeah. I mean, that was the question I was going to ask you. Like you've obviously,

you know, had your struggles and made mistakes and had successes, et cetera. And although I would dub you a natural entrepreneur, like you know how to build a team and lead a team, and you have a very good sense of what to do and what not to do, what are some of the things that you've learned? Because suddenly you're playing with the big boys and you're meeting with venture capitalists and all these private equity people. Like it's a very disorienting thing. And I'm sure there are young entrepreneurs listening to this who are in the midst of trying to figure out how to start a company or grow a company. Like what are some of the lessons

that you could impart that you think would be helpful to those people? Yeah. I mean, I think it's about embodiment. It's about creating something that is coherent with your life print. Meaning, I didn't create Shreemu because I thought it was gonna be a great business idea because I wanted to get my share of the billions of dollars that are gonna be in dairy, that are in dairy alternatives.

Yeah. I created it in a very organic way. You know, there was a journey. There was a journey through self-healing of a cyst in my neck with Ayurveda, you know, against all odds that everybody told me I couldn't do. And then, you know, then the journey came to your journey,

to your transformation, and really sort of brings it back to, this is a result of a love offering that I gave you, that I decided that I could love you and fuel you in your races by creating plant-based foods for you. You're the one who went plant-based first. I was Ayurvedic.

That means I was vegetarian, you would say, but in a healthy way. So this is a result of all those thousands of hours, you know, of us going to Kauai and me being in the test kitchen and creating thousands of recipes like over and over and over and over again, and then the plant power way and then deciding that I wanted to do cheese. And so it's like, when I meet with entrepreneurs or established business people, like my presentation is always profound because it's me, it's who I am. Like you can't, I'm not making anything up. I'm not giving them, you know, figures or facts or trying to sell them or try to convince them. I'm telling them who I am embodied as Shreemu

and what this means. And coincidentally, it's in a sector of the market that completely has a timeline to become a billion dollar entity. But I didn't start. No, it's funny, because you'll come back from these pitch meetings with big time mucky mucks.

And you're like, yeah, it was hilarious. Like I told my whole story, and they're just like, they're staring at you with eyes wide open, like, well, I've never heard a pitch like that before. It happens daily. But the thing is, is that the ones that don't get it, like, I don't care.

Right, because it's like, that's negotiating from a place of power, because you don't need them. Like you're looking for the people who are gonna resonate with what you're trying to achieve. No, and what I realized is, the path that you choose for your brand, it's your life. Like it's the moments of your life.

And I had a meeting with Becca and Chloe a couple of days ago and we talked about a certain environment that they went to. And I was like, I didn't want to go to that environment. And they went and I was like, how, how was it? And we talked about it. And one of them was like, I said, do you think it's important in the future? Yeah, I think it's important.

The other, the Becca was like, yeah, I don't know. And I said, was attending that event a beautiful experience of life? And then we're all like, no. And I'm like, let's not do that again. So Shreemu is a beauty brand. It's actually a beauty brand. Beauty is the first tenant of living a spiritual life.

We are sensory tactile life forms. Even masculine men want that blue color. They want the color in their life. They want, they want the, we want the romance of life in a way. And so we try to create experiences that lead to a beautiful life. And so we made, we made not cheese better for our animals, We made not cheese better for our animals, for our bodies, for the planet, and ultimately for our children. And it's better than cheese.

So that's why I say it's the next evolution of cheese. But for an entrepreneur, again, if you look at Shreeming Branding, if I had gone out and like looked at other food companies, that's the thing that I don't really, a lot of people will say, well, go out and see who your competition is and take an accounting of, and I know that that's useful to some life forms. But to me, I just had to go inside my heart and work with my dear friend, Brian O'Hara, who did this branding that without him, I would not have my baby.

Like, I don't know who else could have done this branding. And he did the branding on your book. He did the branding on, created my logo and the artwork here in the studio and the, you know, design template for the voicing change book, like brilliant, brilliant artists. But I think, sorry. No, I just wanna say, Brian is a master of logo creation for anyone that is starting a business or wants to create a mark. His father was a decoder in the war with Japan. The guy will take your phrase

and the letters become something different and i promise you if you commission him you will get something extraordinary i'm i'm i'm not stopping working with him he's going to be doing the retail design in memphis um he's extraordinary so if we can put his uh link in the show notes. He just redid his website, right? What is his website? It's O'Hara Glyph. O'Hara Glyph. O-H-A-R-A G-L-Y-P-H. Right. O'Hara Glyph.

Okay. We'll put that in the show notes. And the reason is because I always say his stuff is like a modern hieroglyph. It's in... Right. O'Hara Glyph. Right. O'Hara Glyph. It's in- Right, a hieroglyph. Right, a hieroglyph. So anyway, okay, so what was I saying? Okay, so going back to the knowledge that each one of us was made in a unique life print,

that means anybody listening is unique. There's not another one of you. And so your most heroic mission is to know yourself, to love yourself, and to express that which is within you. And that does not entail comparing yourself to other people. It entails knowing yourself. And so, I knew if I created Shreemu at this level as an art form, that if I died the next day, I was good. Like just because the quality of the product and what I've created has the energy and the frequency that I can lie down and I'm proud of her. I mean, I'm not, I'm fulfilled in her. And so when I start there,

then I have the whole universe to come off of that and do a million different things. And, you know, anyway, different lines. Yeah, I think what I was getting at earlier is this idea of you walking into these venture meetings and people saying, well, this is how it goes. And like, we don't wanna give you X, we wanna give you, you know,

the hundred X amount of dollars for your company. And you having the awareness and the wherewithal and the respect for this thing that you created to not be lured into what could be considered to be a trap. Like we all know entrepreneurs who have taken a lot of money and then they're not living the life that they want to live because they're sort of trapped in this paradigm where they can't express the company in the manner in which they originally wanted to, because it becomes about this board of directors

and big money and all the pressures that come with that. And I've seen you time and time again, decline people who actually wanna give you a bunch of money so that you can grow this thing organically and solidify it in the manner in which it lives in your brain before too many other people have, you know, the power to kind of control you. Yeah, well. Is that a fair?

That's fair. Yeah, that's fair to say. And I guess what I would say is what I'm offering my team of guardians, I call them guardians, cause I'm inviting their wisdom and their humanitarian heart to aid me to be a friend to Shreemu. Right, so the people that have contributed financially,

who the early investors in the company are all very like-minded people. Yeah, and it's key. And what I tell them is I'm not, I don't promise them a percentage ROI. I'm promising them a deeply meaningful life experience, which will include a lot of money and a lot of energy flow in that way.

But that's not gonna be the most important part. It's all the other community building and transformation with the planet and our animals and the relieving of the suffering and the expansion of more love in our lives and just the opportunity to create a humanity where we're connected. And that's what I'm offering.

And I was willing to wait and to risk missing something in order to stay true to that. Excellent. Well, I can't wait to see this thing continue to unfold and unfurl. Thank you. In the most divine alignment.

And I'm super proud of you. It's really beautiful what you've created. It is an expression of who you are and it's magical. So- Thank you, babe. Very cool. I appreciate that so much. I think that's a good place to end it for today.

Okay, thank you. You feel expressed. I feel very expressed. You do. And I feel seen, thank you. Good, I'm already fulfilling that. You are already. If you are interested in learning more about Julie,

you can go to her website, juliepiet.com. She's at Srimati on Instagram. And it's S-R-I-M-A-T-I. And the Srimu Instagram account is- Srimudulife. Srimudulife. S-R-I-M-A-T-I. And the Shreemu Instagram account is- Shreemu Do Life. Shreemu Do Life. S-R-I-M-U Do Life. And shreemu.com, S-R-I-M-U.com is a website

for the plant-based cheese company where you can see the offerings and get on board the subscription box situation. And the code, what's the code again for the discount? Spring 15. Spring 15 for 15% off. any box try the try the new flavors and if you're in la you can you can find it in air one markets and you cannot find cloud nine or bonfire in air right only a couple of the the wheels right um and if you go to Julie's Instagram account,

she's very fond of sharing reels and video clips of the flying squirrel people. That's like your obsession. I'm so delighted by that. I just- You shared one today of the guy, he's like on a snowboard on his stomach, sliding off the snow off the edge of this cliff and then just flying.

So cool. I love those. In a different life, are you a squirrel person? I think I'm definitely flying like that in a different life for sure, for sure. What is that account? Is it all one account? I think it's squirrel.

Oh, I feel bad. Is it squirrel TV? I don't know. Maybe Jason can find it. We'll figure it out. So we give him a shout out. And then also green flying dude, I think is one of them.

It's just- How many flying squirrel accounts do you follow? I follow at least three and I can't remember the other one, but it's so intense. You know what I mean? And it's like, when you think of like your challenges or like even just thinking of mysticism

and like what we do in other realms, or we can like a lot of people have flying dreams. Like I posted it flying. So, and it's just so, I think it's so gorgeous. I love it, I'm delighted, it's exhilarating. And I just, I find it an awesome human expression. And I'm bowing down to all those people that do that. Right, but you're not gonna do it yourself.

No, probably not. You have to do a certain amount of- I've thought about it, but I think I'm much too delicate. I mean, at this point, maybe in another life. I don't think I could. Although, I mean, I don't wanna, I'm not gonna say anything because. Who knows?

Yeah, who knows? Who knows, maybe, maybe. Well, I'm sure you'll be back on the podcast at some point in the not too distant future. So thank you for sharing today. Thank you for having me. And to be continued. Thanks, babe.

Love you, babe. I love you. Peace. Plants. Namaste. That love you. Peace. Plants. Namaste. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive as well as podcast merch,

my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and or comment. Supporting the sponsors

who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake.

Portraits by Davy Greenberg and Grayson Wilder. Graphic and social media assets, courtesy of Jessica Miranda, Daniel Solis, Dan Drake, and A.J. Akpodiette. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon.

Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.