The Rich Roll Podcast - Julie Piatt: Seeing The Divinity In Everything

Episode Date: December 12, 2019

Welcome to the latest installment in my ongoing series of mind melds with my wife and in-house spiritual guru, the wise and ethereal Julie Piatt, aka SriMati. Longtime listeners are well acquainted with my better half. For those newer to the show, Julie is very good at many things. In addition to being an accomplished yogi, healer, musician, and mom to four children, she's also the bestselling author of three vegan cookbooks. She hosts the For The Life of Me podcast. She lords over Water Tiger, her online spiritual community. And she's the founder and 'Mother Arc' of SriMu, her recently launched plant-based cheese start-up. This conversation opens with an update on SriMu. How Julie manifested her vision to create the absolute best artisanal vegan cheese on the market. Start-up founder life behind-the scenes. The values she is building into her food and work culture. And the broader mission she holds for the future. We discuss the hows and whys behind my decision to take my first ever extended work sabbatical (don't worry the podcast will continue as scheduled). And we explore strategies for navigating the perilous emotional and financial land mines that accompany the holiday season. Finally, we close with thoughts on weathering the judgment of others. Maintaining a growth mindset. Approaching others with humility. And the benefits of choosing to see the divinity in all things. The visually inclined can watch it all go down on YouTube. I sincerely hope you enjoy the divine offering. Peace + Plants, Rich

If we really care about the planet and we care about our life and we want to lift this experience higher, it's about the interaction with many diverse life forms. So I think in soil regeneration, diversity is a key underlying foundational power which creates a healthy environment. We have to bring that awareness of diversity into our own life forms. There are billions of life forms that are interacting here. And so how can we come to each other when we're not the same? And instead of be in judgment and analysis and separation, what if we just said, please show me more of who you are. Show me. I'm so interested. I'm so curious. Show me more of who you are.

Show me. I'm so interested. I'm so curious. Tell me who you are. Why is it that you feel that way? How is it that you feel when you experience and express your own divinity or whatever your life mission is? We need to soften these edges and understand that we all share this planet. We're all riding on this planet together.

And the controller forces that want us to fight and not rise up, they are putting these diverse energies into the population. They want us fighting. That's Julie Pyatt. And this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey people, welcome to the podcast. This is Rich Roll.

I am your host and I appreciate your attention. Okay, today marks yet another installment in my ongoing series of deep mind melds with my wife and in-house spiritual guru, the wise, the ethereal, Julie Pyatt, aka Srimati. the show. Julie is, suffice it to say, much better than me at many, many things. In addition to being an accomplished yogi, healer, musician, and mom to our four kids, she's also the best-selling author of three vegan cookbooks, The Plant Power Way, The Plant Power Way Italia, and This Cheese Is Nuts. She also hosts the For the Life of Me podcast. She presides over Water Tiger, her robust online spiritual community. And she is the founder and mother arc of Shreemu, her recently launched plant-based cheese startup.

Lots of sagacious wisdom and goodness in this one. But first. goodness in this one, 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

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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. 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 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. 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. 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, Julie. So this conversation is many things. Okay, Julie. So this conversation is many things. First, we catch up where we left off in our last episode, RRP465 back in September, with an update on the progress of Shreemu, Julie's plant-based cheese company, how Julie is manifesting her vision to create the absolute best artisanal

vegan cheese on the market, what startup founder life behind the scenes looks like, the values she is building into her food and her work culture, and the broader mission she holds for the future. We also discuss the hows and whys behind my decision to take my first ever extended work sabbatical, which by the time you hear this, I will be already well into, but don't worry, the podcast will continue as scheduled. And as we always do this time of year,

Julie and I explore strategies for navigating the perilous emotional and financial landmines that accompany the holiday season. And finally, we close with thoughts on weathering the judgment of others, maintaining a growth mindset, approaching people of varying perspectives with humility and grace and the benefits of choosing to see the divinity in all things.

And with that, I once again give you the one and the only Julie Pyatt. All right, here we go. Hello, my darling. Hi. We're long overdue for a long form podcast just for the sake of maintaining the health of our relationship. We are. You just called me my darling. Have I ever said that before? Never, like in 20 years.

Hi babe, that's my normal greeting. How is that, where did that come from? I don't know. Let's unpack that. We don't need to unpack that. I'm kidding. Lots to talk about today. It's been a while since you've been on the show.

And I think a good place to kick it off though is bring us up to speed on what's going on with Shri Moo, do life, not cheese. Let's do that. Because there's been a lot of activity around your burgeoning vegan cheese empire. Yeah, well, first of all, thanks for asking. First of all, I just wanna thank everybody

who has been an early subscriber. You guys blow me away. You've been amazing and you've been so supportive. And even as I've had to send a couple updates with sort of a shift in schedule, just the overwhelming amount of love and support from podcast listeners. So thank you, beautiful tribe. I totally love you guys. It's really super exciting.

Things have been going amazingly well. I have an amazing facility in Southeast LA and it's a gorgeous kitchen facility. It's within another kitchen village or kitchen facility of many, many, many- It's like a compound of commercial kitchens, but you have your own designated space. I have my own space and it has windows to the outside and it's really super beautiful. So yeah, so the update is, is that we had a little bit of a challenge with the health department.

Well, let's back it up even further because the last time that you were on the show was the first announcement. I just kind of- You just, yeah, I didn't know that you were gonna, oh, you're gonna announce your cheese company now? Like, is it real yet? Like, and you're like, yeah, we're doing it.

And I was like, oh, okay. So the announcement was made. And I think at the time you had a goal of trying to just get like 200 subscribers and this would be a manageable group of people to kind of learn the process of what it's going to entail to put together this subscription box on the monthly or on the quarterly. And in the wake of that, you end up getting, even though like it's not like there's been any kind of marketing or advertising around this. I think you have like well over 300, right?

No, I have over 400. Oh, 400 now, 400 subscribers. So for those who are new to the show or don't know what we're talking about, Julie is a vegan cheese master. It's something that she has perfected over many years prior to writing her book about it called This Cheese is Nuts

and an evolution that has continued in the wake of that book and its success. And that book basically tells everybody, here's how you make these amazing plant-based cheeses. But more and more people are saying, that's great, but I'm never gonna do that. Like, can I just buy it? Will you just make it for me and I can buy it?

And every dinner party we went to or everywhere we went, you would always bring your wares with you and it would always awe people. And this kind of birthed this idea of trying to create a company out of this, which you have now taken from the gestation vision bucket and placed it into the manifestation reality bucket. And since we last sat down on this podcast, you've gone from ideation into execution. You've raised some money, you've rented this commercial kitchen, you've hired a bunch of people,

you have all these subscribers now, and you're now in the final stages of finalizing the packaging and you're gonna be shipping very soon. And in the midst of all of that, there's everything that goes into a startup. The bureaucracy, the paperwork, the kind of paperwork that goes with all the regulatory stuff, health department and all of that and obviously there's always kind of like delays

and this stuff takes longer, but you have a very patient group of subscribers that you've been in constant communication with and you're really on the eve of shipping your first batch coming soon, right? That is all true. Yeah. Beautifully. Is that a good synopsis? Beautifully presented.

I just wanted to bring people up to speed. Yeah, no, it's good. If they just sort of happen upon this podcast and don't know what we're talking about. Yes, so it's been amazing. It's been an amazing process. It's been rather fluid. I've been in my flow.

Things are just coming together and really, really with a lot of ease and a lot of grace. And that is evidence to me of the alignment of this expression. So, you know, it's sort of the culmination of all of my life experience. And what I've realized is that I'm at the beginning of my innovation. So the cheeses that I'm shipping in the first sacred box of Shrimp and Dew Life, it comes six flavors in a box. Those are the new evolution of cheeses. So they aren't actually the recipes that are in the book that I published because it's always a forward evolving process of creation. But I'm also extremely blessed from all the cookbooks that I published.

I've created almost 500 recipes. And then also doing all of our retreats and having my spiritual community online, Water Tiger. Everybody that is with me has worked with me spiritually and had an experience. And this includes investors as well as actual, I call them sacred makers. So in Shreemu, we are creating an environment. So it's not just that there are cultures in the cheese, we are creating a culture of awareness, no pun intended. So when we make the cheese, I was feeling into, okay, you would normally call all my staff, my kitchen staff or my kitchen help. And I was meditating into that. And I was like, I'm going to call them sacred makers. And I'm not even going to ask them to do something to achieve that title because I want to name them. I want to give them that mantle from the very beginning so that they know how special they are. And they know that who

touches your food is a key ingredient to the way that it tastes. So the sacred makers in our organization, in our community, they are required to do a breathing meditation before anybody touches the cheese. So we are all plant-based, everybody that is in our facility, and we are also all meditators. It's a job requirement. It is, actually. Yeah, it's a cultural preference. We set an intention to create a job requirement. by my side and they've been brilliant. Just absolutely brilliant, brilliant.

What's your title? My title is actually Mother Ark. Are you going to do business cards and put that on there? I don't know. Mother Ark? Yeah. A-R-C or A-R-K? It's A-R-C, but it kind of has a double meaning, you know?

Because you're the vessel. It's a, you know, Shreema is a frequency. So when I talk about it, there's the business mission. So the business mission is to create the most delicious artisanal cheeses on planet Earth. Not vegan cheeses, just cheeses. So Shreemu is the new evolution of cheese. It's better than cheese. It's not cheese. It's a devotional offering.

cheese. It's not cheese. It's a devotional offering. But that goes along with that is the sacred mission or the secret mission is to give everybody a frequency and an opportunity of awakening into the beauty of who they are. And so within everything we do, it has energy signatures or frequency. And so Shreemu is a carrier of this intention, this devotion, this prayer that I have for humanity to awaken into who they really are. Right, and in your facility, you found these super dope like outfits or uniform, cause you gotta wear like a certain kind of clothing

if you're gonna be doing food, right? So you found these like Japanese black jumpsuits that look like they're out, like this is, if you watch a be doing food, right? So you found these like Japanese black jumpsuits that look like they're out. Like this is, if you watch a James Bond movie, like all the, you know, and they're in some underground lair where the bad guy is, they're all wearing like some kind of really cool, like it kind of looks like that.

Well, it's, you know, I mean, the brand is about aesthetic and, you know, this is moments of our lives. One of the reasons that I made sure that I was able to get a facility with actually windows to the outside is that you spend a lot of hours making cheese and you want the environment to be in alignment with the brand. So I'm a fashion designer and I care about design and aesthetic. And I don't want people to feel like they're wearing something that's not pleasing to them

or not comfortable or not functional, but also just not beautiful. So we found these amazing jumpsuits and we are mission-based. So everybody there is very clear about the mission. And so they're sort of like flight suits. Right. They look like jumpsuits. Yeah. And then we were able to get, like, we're wearing like black sort of stocking caps rather than, you know, ugly hairnets. ugly hair nets. And there's requirements. You have to have beard nets and things like that. You need like a cool patch. We do, we do.

They say Sacred Maker and they say Mother Arc. I haven't seen that. They say Flowmaster. Yeah, and they're black and gold. They're in alignment with that. And you're like piping in like bird songs and stuff like that. Yeah, so the sound environment that we've created

in the facility is all nature sounds. So, you know, Shreemu is a movement in service to planet Earth and to remind us how sacred our planet is and how much love and care we need to offer her. So we play just a loop of nature sounds from all over the planet. It could be the Amazon. It could be thunder. It could be ocean waves. It could be dolphins. It could be the Amazon, it could be thunder, it could be ocean waves, it could be dolphins, it could be whales, but that's playing constantly. We also infuse an essence of orange blossom into the air.

So we have diffusers going because, you know, when I was touring in facilities to rent, I was shocked at the environments where our food is prepared. And it really gave me pause because there's a lot of facilities that are not very clean and they smell horrible. And you think like, oh my goodness, like I get something in a package

and I think it was prepared in a clean facility. And there are rules, but you can go beyond that. So my intention is to create an environment that is very supportive to the team and that the hours they spend in the Shreemu culture is going to be like wings for what they do in the rest of their lives. So we have many artists, we have fine artists, we have musicians, and Shreemu is about giving them that support, sort of that spiritual foundation. And everyone is very excited and very committed and they're really happy to be a part of something that is

focused on meaningful change. And so the spirit in the facility has been very high. I have people just showing up early. They can't wait to get in. So it's been really cool. And the other thing that's coming that I haven't executed yet is I contacted a nature photographer named Andrew Studer or Stutter. And he does beautiful, beautiful nature photographs. And so I'm licensing three of his images, two of the Columbia Gorge and their beautiful, you know, river in the forest with the greens so that we can really viscerally remember this planet that we're serving.

You license them for what? Like to make- To put on the walls. Like a big mural. Yeah, big mural, yeah. Like wallpaper or something like that. Yeah, exactly, yeah. And you can't, there's all these weird things about like what you can and can't say or call it.

Like, so you're just steering clear of the word cheese pretty much altogether. Like instead of saying, this is a camembert and this is a blue and this is a mozzarella, you came up with these names like Bertie and- Yeah, so there's six flavors. So there's a truffle, a cashew truffle infused elegant. This is an age wheel and it's called Bertie, B-E-R-T-I-E.

There's another flavor that's called Spire, which is blue inspired, but it's made blue with spirulina. There's another flavor that's called Elder, which has a food grade activated charcoal in it. I also do a smoked almond cheddar ball, which is not your grandma's, I can't, not cheese ball. It's a not

cheese, but it's called Bonfire. And then I also have a jar of, it's called Cloud Nine. So it's cashew balls floating in salted crystal waters. And it's this fresh thing. So I am calling it not cheese on the label. It has to be called nut spread on the back. But because I'm doing wholesale, I'm sorry, I'm doing retail. I'm not doing wholesale. I have a little bit more leeway. So I've been able to really make this a creative offering to the subscribers who are my beloved tribe and my priority. Right.

So when you subscribe, you sign up and you can get a delivery either quarterly or monthly, right? You can get it monthly, every other month, or quarterly. So you have three options. And you get six cheeses in this beautiful box. Six cheeses in the box. My challenges were this, first of all, the packaging and the weight of the box. So this had to be re-imagined a a couple times, which is what the time lag was. I mean, really, I'm really good. I said the last two weeks of November and we start shipping December 9th. So I feel pretty proud about that.

That's a real high execution. And especially at the level and the way the cheeses are coming out, they're just beautiful. So in a box, you have a jar of the Cloud 9, which is the clouds floating in water. You have the smoked almond cheddar, which is bonfire, and you have four wheels this month. So there's two Bertie and then one Spire and one Elder. Right, well, the cool thing,

there's a bunch of cool things, but one of the cool things is that I've seen you, like this has come together. Like once you committed to this, it really has been as if the universe conspired to support it. Like it's happened very quickly. And all the things that you kind of needed to have happen that are huge hurdles for anybody

who's trying to foster a startup have all kind of come together very fluidly and easily, which is, I, you know, I see that as an indication that this is the right thing for you. And with that, I've seen a shift in you, like your disposition, your personality to be, you know, very kind of empowered. Like you're standing in your power. Like this is right. You have a direction. You have like a North Star and everything is kind of like congealing around that

to support you. And it's been cool. And I think it's been great for our relationship too. Like you have this thing that's really exciting for you that is connecting with people. And it's been fun to kind of just observe that. Yeah, it's true. I mean, it, you know, I think that all of my experience having been a fashion designer and, and been, you know, had my own company and gone through production

and all of that. And then all of the spiritual work that I've done, all of the recipes that I've created, the books, the retreats, like everything sort of led me up to this moment. And so it's almost like everything was already prepared. And that's why it was effortless because all of that preparation, it wasn't overnight. It's been years in the making. It's not like you had an idea recently, like this has been an idea in your mind,

but the execution part of it is fairly recent. But I will say too that I have, I feel that I've gone through a big expansion since July and I'm definitely in another level of life embodiment, which is what I call it for me. And it's this alignment that is so precise, that is so undeniably me and so undeniably in alignment with who I am that allows me to care for this mission as a very worthy steward. In the past,

I may have been sort of spontaneous or made decisions very quickly. And it's been very quick, but I've been very, very protective of her and very unwavering. It's very clear to me what the mission is and what the journey is. And I'm very connected to my intuition and I know the beauty, the power and the importance of this opportunity.

And it's a different me. It's a different, I've been able to stand in this alignment in ways, even in finance or negotiating, you know, equity, things like that, which it's not a hardness. It's just a knowing. It's a knowing of what is right. And I feel I have a responsibility to this product, this mission, Shreemu is an energy and it's like I serve her. And so it's beyond Julie, the personality and it's really mission focused. Right, one of the most fun things

is when you do these tastings, like whether we're going over to a friend's house, people that aren't, you know, on the plant-based tip and you have an opportunity to share what you're doing with them and to kind of, or like, you know, you've done a couple events like Mercado Sagrado the other weekend where you have people kind of sniffing

around it, but skeptical, like, what is this? And I don't know, or they haven't, they've had an experience with plant-based cheese in the past and that comes with a certain baggage or expectation and then to gauge, like watch to observe them taste it and then their facial changes that happen. I mean, it's a unanimous thing, right? I mean, basically every single person

that has tasted this or tested it has walked away like blown away. Yeah. So it was really fun for me at Mercado Sagrado. And actually I wish that I'd had a camera because the amount of the facial expressions in support and in the thumbs up of Shreemu and the way it tasted was shocking. Actually, it was even surprising me, even though I've seen it time and time and time again. And yesterday, for instance, I was at an event at a yoga studio called Be Crystal Clear, and it was a women's entrepreneur bazaar, like gathering holiday. And I had during the afternoon of two hours, I had women that were Italian, Spanish, Swiss, Swedish, German, all give me the bravo for my cheese. And that is the

confidence and the vote that, you know, is really, really means something because these are cheese cultures. I mean, no pun intended again, but yeah, it's been really, really amazing. I've had a few people refuse samples who have made the statement that they don't eat plant-based food, but other than them, I haven't had anybody be disappointed in the taste they received. They don't eat plant-based food? They only eat animal products? I mean, what does that mean? I don't know, I didn't inquire. I think what that is, I think what they're really saying, I mean, look, there's only a very small number of people that don't eat plant-based foods. And we all eat some plants in our diet.

I think what they're saying is that's based on an assumption that this is a highly processed product. Because if you go to the store and you look at what's available in terms of plant-based foods or meat analogs or dairy analogs, they're all packed with lots of preservatives and artificial flavoring and colors and things like that. So I would suspect that that's a reaction. Like they're thinking, oh, this is something...

There's no way it could taste that good unless you put all kinds of crazy chemicals in it and things like that. Right, I mean, they didn't taste it. If they had tasted it, they would have known there were no chemicals in it. I think you need to make front and center that this is a natural... There is none of that stuff in it. I mean, it's actually shocking how few ingredients are in this thing. Exactly, it's definitely a mastery of simplicity and of pureness.

So you can read the ingredients online and it's very simple and very pure and very beautiful. Well, I'm super excited for you. Thank you. It's been really fun to see this thing take flight. For those that are interested in learning more, srimu.com, S-R-I-M-U.com, you can go there and learn all about it and all that kind of stuff.

And I'll put a link up in the show notes to that. But I wanna switch gears here for a minute. It is November 24th today when we're recording this, this is gonna go up, it's gonna publish on December 11th, right in the lead up, the thick of holiday season that we're now embarking upon. And we kind of have an annual tradition of doing a podcast together to help people kind of navigate the vicissitudes and the landmines that befall us this time of year.

But before we kind of dive into that, I posted on Instagram the other day and Twitter maybe a week earlier that I'm taking my first break in seven years, which I'm very excited about. I'm going to places unknown on December 3rd, but I'm really pulling the plug on work at Thanksgiving. And I'm gonna be kind of disappearing until the first week of January.

Well, I know where you are. You will know where I am. I don't need to advertise where I'm going. I mean, I'm not gonna listen, just because I'm doing this doesn't mean I'm not gonna throw up an Instagram post here and there or do a story or tweet or whatever, but I am gonna be making a hard and fast rule around work.

And the truth is that, and I said this in the post, but for those that maybe didn't see that, I've been running and gunning for literally seven years straight from the beginning of this podcast. And it's a seven day a week job. Like I've posted every Sunday night since we began this. We tried to shift the schedule a little bit and change that date and it didn't really work so well.

So we went back to Sunday night, which means I basically work every Sunday, like I'm working pretty much most of the day on Sunday. And I think there's a sense that like, oh, you just do these podcasts and they go up, but maybe that's how some people do it, but that's not our process. I have an amazing team of people that I work with,

but it's very, you know, I'm very hands-on and it's quite all consuming to do six episodes a month on top of all the other things that I'm doing professionally and then just, you know, trying to make sure that I stay married to you and be a present parent to our kids. That's the most important thing. And having two households during the week

where either you're downtown or I'm downtown with our elder daughter, which is something we've talked about in the past. Like it's been complicated, it's been challenging. And over this seven year period, I'm very proud of what we have co-created, but it's been a ton of work, you know, and I really haven't taken a break.

I get to travel to all these cool places and meet all these cool people, but it is invariably tied to some kind of work commitment. And certainly I take a day here and there or whatever, or I'll duck out and go to a matinee. I take little breaks, but I'd never have taken a real vacation where I'm like, okay, I'm totally tapping out or anything extended.

So this is long overdue. I'm very excited about it. And I desperately need to recharge. I wouldn't say that I'm burned out. I'm definitely not burned out, but I've sensed over the last couple months that I'm just tired, you know, and I go into these interviews just slightly less enthusiastic than I should be or that I would prefer to be. And I want to be in love with the process and I want wanna be excited and exuberant and enthusiastic when I sit down across the table from a guest.

I think I owe them that. I think I owe the audience that. And in order to play the long game and take out an insurance policy that will allow me to continue to do this, like you have to take breaks. And that gestation period is important for so many reasons, not just to rest my physical body,

but to really allow myself to ruminate, to have this space so that I can begin to put the pieces together on what the next thing is or what it is that I really wanna manifest and create in this world. And when I'm just in the daily gestalt of trying to do the show and get the show up, my vision extends only to what I have to get done that day

and not to the bigger picture of like, why am I even doing this? Or what is it that I'm actually trying to accomplish here? What is the mission statement? And in order to really get clarity and refine that clarity, I'm gonna take this break. And it's a little scary because, I said this in the Instagram post,

like if I lived alone, I would work more. Like I love it. Like it's not like, oh, I dread it. Like I love it. I would work all the time. And that's another indication why I need to pull the ripcord and get a little perspective on this. Definitely.

Well, it's well-deserved and, you know, everybody needs time to recharge. So, you know, it's going to be fun to see what you discover, what you uncover. And, you know, you have a lot to say, you have a lot of other things to share besides the podcast. You know, you're a brilliant writer. And, you know, there are many, many other expressions that are there for you if you want to bring them through. But as you said, if you're only focused on the podcast and you never take breaks, you don't have the space for those inspirations to come in. It's like, yeah, I'd like to write another book, but like there's no time right now.

And I've got to reconfigure some things to provide a little extra space so I can do things that are important that are outside of just what I do when I sit down at this table. And thank you for all the beautiful, beautiful work that you've put out and that you've created. And it's affected many, many, many people. And I know that many people listening to this are agreeing with what I'm saying right now.

Really, really this offering has been profoundly impactful on many people's lives. So thank you for that. But we would like you to still be around. Yeah, I wanna stick around. And the thing is like, can I do it? Like, am I gonna be able to resist like checking my email? Am I gonna, like, that's the test.

Like, that's like, ooh, that makes me uncomfortable. Another reason why I need to do this. Yeah, definitely. And maybe then after this reset and, you know, you really worked the entire year to be able to take this month off. You've been planning this for one year. The last six weeks in particular have been insane,

trying to get ready to, cause the show for people that are listening, the show is gonna continue to go on. We've banked a ton of episodes and we worked really hard to get them all locked and loaded. So the show will continue without a break when I'm gone because of all the work that we did to front load it in the meantime, but I'm excited.

I'm a little nervous about the whole thing. And let me just say that, you know, just to check my privilege a little bit, like it's a gift that I get to be able to give myself this opportunity and I'm very aware and realize that not everybody can do that. So I'm grateful to have the opportunity. And it was something that I thought I was gonna do last year but I didn't take the steps required in order to do it

and the time just passed and I just filled it up with a bunch of stuff. So it was like, oh, you wanna take a vacation? Okay, you can do that next year in December. So then it was like, literally the plan for this break began like in January of, you know, a full year ago to get ready for it. So anyway. Well, I hope you have an amazing, amazing experience

and I hope to find you sometime mid month. So here we are, we're on this train headed into the holiday season. A lot of people, I think it's fair to say ourselves included, like experience a little bit of anxiety, extra anxiety and stress and perhaps even some distress around this period of time, because we find ourselves in family situations that perhaps trigger us in certain ways or bring up old patterns. And despite our best efforts or plans to not be reactive, we find ourselves reacting in an unhealthy way, repeating that cycle of unhealthy behavior.

We feel compelled to overextend ourselves by showing up for too many people because we feel that's what's expected of us. And we feel ourselves over consuming or over participating in the consumerist cycle that is baked into this time of year. It's a trope to say that every year the holiday season starts earlier, but it does. It used to be an unwritten rule that no Christmas music would be heard in any retail store until Thanksgiving or the day after Thanksgiving. But I was in Starbucks like 10 days

ago, like early November, and they were playing Christmas music. I think they started before Halloween. It's insane. It is absolutely insane. And it's all driven to get us to get our wallets and our pocketbooks out and spend money that either we don't have or we don't wanna have because we feel that's part of the social contract that we signed up for. So help us find a healthier way to pass through this triggering time of year. Well, as I always say, triggering, as I always say this time of year is the entire society

has in my awareness, deliberately put an opposing force on top of the natural cycle of life. So in December, we see as the sun starts getting lower sooner and we start, Rich and I at like 6.30, we're like, good night. Yeah, I'm like, I'm going to bed. Like I've been going to bed at like,

when it gets dark early, I'm literally in bed at eight o'clock. Yeah, right. And then if I have to do something that keeps me up at night and I'm in bed at like 10, I feel lousy the next day. And I was like, it's not like I stayed up till two in the morning.

No, but the thing is, is it's that, the world is dark and the inclination is then to retire, to go within, it's an inner experience. So when you're coming into December, the natural cadence of life in the Northern Hemisphere is that the days are getting shorter and it's a time of inner reflection. It's when all of creation comes to a death and then starts to be reborn after the solstice. But instead we have this super imposition of this consumerism program, which is telling you that you should be spending more money than you have. If you just tap into

the feeling inside of yourself, you're spending money, but inside of yourself, it feels like you shouldn't be spending money. It's in fact exactly counter. It's like, but you have this program that tells you that if you don't buy presents for all your loved ones, then you're not showing that you love them. And you get caught up in it. And it's kind of cool. And, you know, we all like elves. And I like Santa Claus. And, you know, I like the beautiful tree with the sparkling lights on it.

And they become family traditions. And so, you know, I think they say that, like, most of America spends the entire year paying off their credit card debt for what they spend for Christmas. And if we look at really the violence of that and the suppression of that on a human being, just even energetically, like if it's just sitting there, if that debt is sitting there, it is actually pulling from the human, pulling from the soul. and pulling from the soul. So first of all, just to recognize that this counterforce is there and that you can sort of refine it or maybe recreate it in a more simplistic way. I'm not saying don't buy any gifts.

You could buy a gift for people. You could just try to simplify, envision more creative ways, make up ways that you can share the gift of experience instead of stuff. So maybe an amazing dinner or an amazing treasure hunt or an amazing, you know, offering of a play or a song, try to be more creative than the mall or then Amazon or, you know, wherever we normally go to satisfy these needs. The other thing is just being aware of the landfill

and what are you buying and what is then going, you know, where is the waste going? There's so much waste. It's so much waste. It is so strange that this holiday falls upon us at this time of year, because it is true. Like every instinct in my body is to hibernate, to pull the sheets up, to go within,

to kind of be a little bit more reclusive than I would ordinarily. And to kind of store the chestnuts to get through the winter and yet we're compelled or sort of pressured into this environment in which we have to do the exact opposite. It runs counter to our natural rhythms and the cycle of this time of year,

unless you're living in South of the equator. That's one of the reasons why, well, I can't reveal, but we're going to someplace with sun. And that was the reason. And I'm really interested, I'm intrigued to know that if you're, I wonder if we're in the Southern hemisphere,

if you feel the same energetic. That's what I wanna find out. I wanna find out. Yeah, I wanna find out. The days are longer, the sun is shining. If it doesn't, you and I are for the rest of our lives, we'll be in the Southern hemisphere during that time, because it's always a bummer.

And it's always- Some people love it though. I don't know, just for me, like, you know, it affects me deeply. And every December I'm like, we should go somewhere where it's not like this right now. And now we can, you know, but I would say also like on the point of

trying to be a little bit more creative with the gift giving ethos, some of the most meaningful and fun times that we had around this time of year with the kids were when we were literally flat broke and penniless. And we were forced to be creative about what we were gonna do to get through this experience. And there were a couple of years where the rule was, we're not buying anything, you have to make something, right? And so we were compelled to get creative, Trapper made a video, like a hilarious video that I still, I watched it recently, it was so funny,

and that was a long time ago. We bought like super, well, we did buy, we bought super cheap t-shirts and then we painted them or we painted a pair of like cheap sneakers or whatever just to create like little art pieces instead of like doing the normal thing. Some of the most fun times. So for anybody who's going through a dismantling or doesn't have flow right now or is really, you know, in a sacred moment that is challenging you financially, please get creative and turn it into something positive. You will never forget these times. These times are special actually. And it's not really expansive or the life experiences that you remember,

the Christmases or the holidays or whatever you celebrate where you got more stuff. You remember the more meaningful things, the dinner, the play, the song, the comedy skit, whatever you're able to create. Yeah, I mean, it also amplifies that thing where you're measuring your experience against the experience of others. And I think that's very shame provprovoking for a lot of people.

Like, I can't do it like that or this guy's doing... Look what he's doing for... You know, it's just the whole thing is like super unhealthy. Yeah, it is, definitely is. What about going into the extended family situation? Yeah, I mean, you know, the thing is, is obviously the holidays are loaded. We all know that the families hold the biggest triggers for all of us.

They installed the trigger. They installed the buttons. I would say you installed the trigger at a soul level and then you chose this family and they're providing the perfect soil for you to become. I know what I wanna do in this life. I wanna have a button that makes me go crazy when somebody says this.

But hopefully that provides you the evolution so that you can clear whatever that miasm or that imbalance is. But the big truth that I think is our friend and is an opportunity for us to move beyond all this assessment and judgment and analysis of humans and our culture and conditions and all kinds of things is to understand that there is no consensus. There's great power in understanding there is no consensus. There is only one of you in the

entire multiverse. There is only one of every one of us in the entire multiverse. There is only one of every one of us in the entire multiverse. But if it's a multiverse, aren't I having a parallel experience somewhere else? Just, well, yeah, but what does that have to do with this? Then there's more than one of me. Well, yeah, but that doesn't happen. There's another me having a totally different experience

in the broader multiverse. Definitely, and so do you find solace in that or expansion in that? I just try to understand your point, go ahead. No, my point is, is that for some reason, humans are always trying to have these long discussions and do analyses and decide inside their mental construct that a certain way is the way,

or, you know, and this can be in opinions, ways of life, however you live, there is no consensus. And when you understand there is no consensus, you can possibly stop trying to feel triggered or wounded by your family having another reality or another truth. If you understand that each person will have their own perspective and they have the right to have that perspective, you can just simply let go. And just rather than go into family dinners or holiday gatherings where you're with people from different political parties or people for different dietary lifestyles. There's no reason to create drama or

emotional outbursts for reasons of differences of opinions or choices in the way of being. If you're centered in yourself, you have that peace and that awareness. So walk me through the brass tacks of this. Let's say you're getting the family, you're getting on a plane, you're headed to this, you're gonna, you're landed in Cincinnati and you're gonna go to this dinner. Not from Cincinnati, but okay. No, I'm taking, I'm just creating a, you know, an example.

Uncle Jerry's gonna be there, you know, he's probably gonna drink too much like he always does. And then he's gonna say that thing. And last time he did, this is what happened. And you kind of know that that program is just waiting for you. And despite your best intentions of having it go differently this time,

you let it go, you did it, I'm letting it go. I'm okay, fine. And then it just, it keeps going until finally you're like, all right, I've had enough. And then you say the thing and then the whole thing goes to shit, right? Like I think a lot of people can relate to some version of that.

So in a very practical way, like how do you, like what is it that you have to do to avoid that pitfall or stop yourself from doing the thing that's contributing to the greater problem. Well, I mean, ultimately, it's doing the inner work. And all of that outburst comes from you or us not giving ourself the attention, the care, the recognition that we need. And so my spiritual mentorship program, which is called Water Tiger, the reason that it's called Water Tiger is it is all designed to bring us into resonance with who we are so that we can

fall again in love with who we are. So when you haven't taken care of yourself, your inner child, or your needs, or your wants, you are looking for validation from the outside. And many of us have this wounding. It's very, very common. And to have that, to need your parent to give you that validation. And it goes on into our 50s and 60s where we're still waiting for our mom or our father to say, you matter or whatever. I see you. Yeah, I see you. And you'll hear the, it's not the setup. It can be the setup if you happen to have that really amazing relationship with your parent, which you could, or you could not. But the point that we're always waiting for that final validation is just an illusion. We have our attention focused in the wrong place. If we've taken the time to give ourself the care, to consider ourselves first, to understand

that we matter, to understand that every single life form in creation is being shined upon with equal brilliance. There is no discrimination between different life forms. So why, as human beings, do we always think we have to convince other people to think how we think or receive validation from the outside so that we feel enough on the inside? And so I do this mirror practice in Water Tiger where you actually go sit in the mirror and you stare in your eyes and you breathe and you face what is there. And there's a lot of things that come up for people. There's a lot of pain, a lot of tears.

They start to see different aspects of themselves. But if they can get through the discomfort of that, they can get to a deeper resonance and alignment with who they are and understand that you have the opportunity and the responsibility to care for yourself as if you were your most beloved child. And what we do is we take all the focus outside of that, and we're looking for that validation to be given from the outside. So if you're fully aligned in yourself, and you understand that this play is made up of billions of different life forms, you could simply choose to view, what was his name? Uncle Harry? Uncle Jerry.

Uncle Jerry. You could just view Uncle Jerry. I don't have an Uncle Jerry, by the way. Yeah, he doesn't make this up. I'm making this up. So Uncle Jerry could just be, like I'm a tiger and I resonate with that. And Uncle Jerry could just be like, I'm a tiger and I resonate with that. And Uncle Jerry could just be an owl.

And when you're in that- What if he's a rhino? So what? Then he's a rhino. It's like, there's no reason, a tiger is not gonna spend time feeling less than or triggered because a rhino is being a rhino. Like a rhino is just being a rhino. It's

not at me. It's not personal at me. I'm unique and I have my own way of moving through life. Sometimes I'll want to dance with people and that'll feel great, but I don't need them to be like me for me to be valid. And that is, it's a huge thing. I mean, this goes into other topics, you know, in our culture and, you know, the dialogues that go on in Twitter and that everybody's always pontificating these huge conversations about different points of view. And it's like, you know, my favorite saint, this beautiful woman, Sri Ma Anandamoyi Ma, one of my favorite quotes, she said, every man is right from his own point of view. So every woman is right from her own point of view. So where is the friction? What are we doing? It's nonsense.

It's just nonsense. And when you release that need, uncle Jerry is not gonna do that thing. Well, Jerry gonna be Jerry, right? And there's nothing you could do about it. Or you should do about it. Yeah, the point is the path to freedom is releasing your need for Jerry to be any different

than Jerry already is. And to focus on the only thing that you can control, which is your reaction or response to Jerry or to the environment that you choose to, you know, move yourself into, right? And the more that you can kind of carry that conscious awareness into these tricky environments and the more grounded and centered that you can become

by virtue of mindfulness practices, a meditation practice, sealing your field, which is something that you've taught me and that I've done and we've talked about on this podcast. You are in a better position to weather those tricky situations by being non-reactive. Like you have a choice. You don't have to react to whatever that person says. You don't have to prove them wrong or to prove that you're right or to need the validation of anybody else. You can just sit in your space, anchor yourself in your seat and if you have to, you don't have to say anything but the more non-reactive you can be

and the more mindfully responsive you can be, you're in a better position to have a different experience. And the power rests within you to change or break that old paradigm and dynamic that continues to repeat itself every year. Don't wait for somebody else to make a different choice or to handle things differently. Don't point your finger across the table at somebody and say, you did it again. That power is within you.

But, and yes, and then let's take it even a level. Let's even be more powerful and let's take it a level beyond that. Let's take it to an observational place and a recognition that every life form is divine. And that means that Uncle Jerry in his state of awareness at this point in this identity is also divine. It is not for you to judge.

And so what if you were able to observe Jerry in his process with unconditional love and acceptance? Not like I'm gonna make the right move and then I'm gonna be in a better place. Or look at me, like maybe I'm quietly judging him but I didn't say anything, how great am I? Yes, so that's not energy is something so you're not there if that's where you are.

So if you can really just let it go and understand and trust in the play of life you can just allow events to unfold, allow people to be who they are and understand with compassion and love that each person is divine and each person is a form of some sort of divinity or aspect of God consciousness,

even if they're not awake or they're not choosing to experience something that is in alignment with you. And if you truly embody this, though, the triggers will simply melt away. And there are chances are that Uncle Jerry will meet you in a completely different way than you ever dreamed possible. Because these energies are things and they're triggering, they're playing off of each other. And another thing to really keep in mind over the holidays and all times is it is a very prudent practice to avoid explosive

confrontation always. And the reason is in my awareness awareness there are actually life forms that eat this explosion if if if you really explode on somebody and you know i've had that experience you can feel the level of darkness that is in that you can feel what's going on so we want to not be triggered into those situations because they really do have a dark energy around them. And if you want to be a representative for higher vibration on planet earth or a higher vision of eating, of wellness, if you want to be that type of person, that includes staying in neutral loving compassion and not participating in creating more of this dark energy that is plentiful on planet earth, which we certainly don't need more of.

I think it's also worth saying that if you don't feel like you are spiritually and emotionally fit to handle that task, you have the power to decline the invitation. There's so much pressure on people like, well, every year this is what we do. And so I have to go. And the truth is you don't.

And just because these people are your family members and you're measuring your experience with your family against some idyllic imagined paradigm of what a healthy family is supposed to look like and feeling bad because yours doesn't measure up to that. And you feel like you're not gonna be able to handle it in an emotionally healthy way, then I think it's also okay to let people know,

to give them permission, like, listen, you have to look out for yourself first. And if you don't feel like this is in your best interest to do this, like, it's okay if you take a pass. And this is something that I've learned in the secret society rooms of recovery. Like this time of year is the most loaded of the... You know, like people who are trying to stay sober, you know, relapse,

you know, people that are active in their disease, it becomes additionally inflamed, you know, disproportionately inflamed around this time of year, because of these dynamics. And they become so uncomfortable for people that they feel like the only way they can do it is if they numb themselves out and use. So if you are struggling with some form of substance problem

it's okay to opt out. Like if you feel like that's jeopardizing your ability to stay sober or not take that drink or do that thing, then, you know, your well-being is more important than you taking a seat across the table from Uncle Jerry. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, that falls under the first step and that is self-care. You must be there for yourself first and make sure that you're fulfilled, you're cared for, you're protected, you're nurtured. You have to, because no one else is going to do that for you, nor should they. You should be,

every decision you make should be, how does this affect my being, my inner child, my little child? Is this an alignment for him? Is this an alignment for her? What would be the most nurturing act for her? That's where you begin. And when you shift that order of priority, then the universe shifts that order. Yeah, I think people feel, I mean, it brings up emotions of guilt. Like, I can't, no, you don't understand. Like, I think people feel, I mean, it brings up emotions of guilt.

Like, I can't, no, you don't understand, like I have to go. Like if I don't go, like this is gonna happen and this is gonna happen and that's gonna happen. So it's just easier for me to go, even if like I know I probably, it's not in my best interest. Like the expectation level is just too high and I don't wanna deal with a fallout. Well, it is a real thing. It is a real thing because when you shift your behavior,

that causes the other energies to jump up and down. Don't expect to be celebrated for that decision. Well, and so it really has to be a personal choice. I mean, you have to be able to stand sovereign in your choice. And this is where the mirror work comes in, is when you've really received yourself and really looked at what you're sitting in, what is your spirit sitting in, and you've gone through all the things that you loathe and all the shame and all the trauma that's in there from this life, from other lives, when you've actually sat with it and looked at it and resolved it, you start to get more and more power.

But I would say overall, even if you choose to go and you're not ready to make that stance and you feel it to be too volatile, again, your power is in neutral loving compassion. Just be neutral. It's fine. And you'd be surprised how powerful this practice is. Yeah, you got to channel some Yoda energy. Yeah, that's it, it doesn't matter. The Jedi isn't like getting into a political argument

at a festive holiday gathering. The Jedi is not allowing himself to be emotionally agitated by other people. No, they're not freaking out. The Jedi is constantly in a mindful state of neutrality. Yeah, exactly. And that's the best place from which to, basically exhibit the best version of who you are.

Yeah, exactly. And people are on their own timelines. So in our own family, here we are, wellness leaders, advocates, I've created over 500 vegan recipes, Shreemu do life. And just recently, some of my family members, my brother's like, hey, I think I'm gonna go vegan. It's been like 10 years. So, but everybody's on their timeline.

Have you seen this documentary? Yeah, but everybody's on their timeline. Have you seen this documentary? Yeah, and now he's calling. But I mean, that's the perfect thing, isn't it? I mean, your family, your birth family, usually at least in our generation doesn't see who's sitting inside their family. And also many of us who came to create a new way, it's a setup.

We incarnated into families that we are not like vibration because that's where the transformation happens. So many of us feel like black sheep. Many of us feel lonely, feel misunderstood, isolated. I would say that's probably been historically the biggest pain in my life to be misunderstood and not seen for who I am. Yeah, I think it's very common.

I felt that way most of my life. And a big part of the growth curve and the evolution is in the realization that I'm not looking to my family members to resolve that for me. Well, because you- I'm not outsourcing that job of getting comfortable with myself to other people. But you've done that because you've developed yourself,

because you've had all this life experience. You know, the trope of the inside job, because that's what it is. You couldn't do that very well before you had done that. So again, it goes back to the self-work and the experience, you could call it years experience, but also really the focus of your answer, the answer to your evolution is inside your own being. So those, anybody else from the outside,

it's just irrelevant. It just doesn't matter. And I think, I mean, I'm certainly seeing as I've gotten older, how suddenly these competitions within my siblings are just dissolving. Because suddenly, you're not, nobody's vying for the attention or, you know, one of my father's passed away and my mother's, you know, 92 and it's just things change and they become irrelevant. Yeah.

And then suddenly you're like. Get over it already. Yeah. Suddenly you're like, hey, what's up? Like, it's just not, it's just not what it was. Like, it's so loaded when we're younger. We're just looking for that validation. Like, see me, see me, see me, see me.

And you hear so many stories from people that say, my mother's still hoping that I get a real job. You know, things like, you know, you experienced that as well. Of course. Your mom still wants you to be a doctor, I think, right? I mean, it's like 53 now, you know what I mean? Like, but the larger point is these patterns

become entrenched, like whatever that wounding is or that pain point that you experienced as a young person in a dynamic with another individual, be it your sister, your mom, your dad, your brother, whoever, these things then repeat and get played out like thousands and thousands of times through adulthood. So you're, you know, in your 50s and a dynamic that you have with a sibling is exactly the same

as when you were like six and 10 or whatever. And then having that awareness is the first step to resolving it. But then you have to really do the inside work to kind of transcend that and not just fall prey into kind of doing what you always do. It's hard, it's really hard, but identifying, like understanding what that core wound is first,

like how did this begin? Like when did we start doing this and why? And then realizing like, it's ridiculous. We're in our fifties now, why are we still in this dance? But you can't even realize it because you have to clear the trauma. You have to have faced yourself and find it. You can't intellectually make it go away.

It's not going to. And the thing that is happening to humanity is these are ancestral patterns that are being handed down from generation to generation. And without spiritual awakening, they are causing a recycling. So you're just going to drop this body, take another life, and you'll come back with the same issues over and over and over again. And so this is the moment of spiritual awakening. This is the moment in history that we're at, and this is the opportunity. And so this is why the devotion to spiritual practice, to really, really going deep

inside your own being and finding out who you are, clearing the trauma, clearing the addictions, claiming your sovereignty, this is the moment we're at. And if you don't resolve them, they will continue through lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. They generally, they don't just continue, they tend to become amplified. Certainly. Right, until you reach a crisis point that forces you or compels you to confront it. So now's the time.

And those are the lucky ones, actually, the people that kind of just repeat it and it's a low grade kind of problem are never in enough pain to actually look at it. Like that's what they, people in the secret, so I'm a grateful alcoholic or I'm a grateful drug addict because the drugs are so, it's so like, this is something I talked about with Russell Brand.

He's like, well, clearly, it's the heroin. Like, if you're, it's gonna come to an end because it's so obvious what your dilemma is, what your problem is. So the drug addicts are actually the lucky ones because they're forced to confront this thing and it sends them, it kind of catalyzes this trajectory of self-discovery.

But short of that, if you're struggling with something that is impeding negatively, it's negatively impacting your life in some way, but it doesn't percolate up into becoming a full blown crisis. You can just sort of weather it for the rest of your life and never really look at it.

Yeah, that's very true. And I mean, it's also stated and, you know, spiritual evolution as well, that, you know, the dark, someone with a lot of dark energy has a lot more opportunity to self-realize in some cases than someone who's just sort of like, you know, flatline. Right.

Because you're right. Because then that could never sort of activate that catalyst moment. So yeah, it's very, very true. So if you're in a dark moment, I always say that if you're really, really, really blessed, at least once in your life, you will have a profound sacred moment.

Pain is the great lever in all of this, but the truth is, is that the choice is always available to you because everybody knows what the thing is that they need to look at, you know, on some level, some level of conscious awareness. And the choice is available to you to confront it or deal with it.

It's just easier when it blows up in your face and then you have no choice, you have to. This is something I've been pondering lately a lot. And it's like, what if everything that you did really mattered, like really had a big impact? And, you know, you look at the modern life and what we're in and how our life goes in our days. And it's very easy to be lazy. It's very easy to just, when you have space, turn on Netflix.

It's very easy to medicate with food or drugs or alcohol or sex or talking, incessant talking and pontificating about different various topics and political stances and then feel as if you participated and you did something that was catalyzing change or evolving. It takes diligence to commit to spiritual practice, meditation, observation within yourself, self-inquiry, refining your diet, using movement of the body to actually understand that this is a body temple. It takes diligence. And I was talking to a friend today who was talking to me about how he hasn't had as much evolution as he wanted. And it's like I had to point out to him that he's kind of been on the sidelines.

He's not really in the commitment of saying to the universe, I am here, I am showing up for this. And it's a practice and it's really a thing because these moments are very, very precious. And so what if it did matter every single thing you did every day? What if there was no like downtime where I'm just going to, you know, I'm just going to eat this lollipop or I'm just going to watch this crime show because I like it. That's what I like. I like crime show. Like what if every single, no, but I'm, I'm, I am, and I'm not,

I mean the thing, you know, myself, you know, like I'll have this feeling like, oh, I had this big expansion, you know, now, you know, I'm going to check out for a while. Like, how is it that we're checking out? And what if we understood how precious every moment of this life was and what, you know, everybody has the same 24 hours in the day, at least in this realm. So time is a funny thing. But that's something that I've been really pondering. And I guess it's come to my awareness

with my connection with Dom and her spiritual community in Italy near Torino. And Falco, the founder, they were doing some experiments in time travel and they would move simply a stone from one position to the other position. And that would change a trajectory of history. And so that brought into my awareness just how important everything we do, the way we do things, our intention when we do things, how are we spending that downtime? And really, how important is that crime show?

What are we doing with our attention if we are powerful creators, which we are? So we live in a quantum world, and we're choosing to place our intention on a scenario that is not expansive for humanity. And sometimes that can be for an exploration to learn about something that's out of balance so that we can formulate a solution. And so it's not having blinders on and not knowing what's going on. But this brings me to a tendency in the culture is to call out all the problems that are going on, which makes the ego feel really justified because the ego has taken a stance. But if we are in fact quantum beings and we're only calling out the problems and looking for everything that is

lacking, then how are we participating in the upliftment of our world? And what if, I've talked about this before, so we are all Christic beings or we are Christ beings and not in a religious sense, in a spiritual sense. And so the real meaning of being a Christ is holding something in a higher vision despite appearances to the contrary. So I've done that with through

our life with the transition and the evolution of our house and going through financial collapse and me holding this vision and serving that with ceremony and commitment coming back and back to it again and again and again, no matter how many lawyers and how many business people told me I was crazy, I still held it. It was like six years or five years that I did that, the crazy person in the room, and then that reality came to fruition, and we're here now. Same thing, Mr. Walsh, who was one of the speakers at Original Thinkers,

held this vision that he would be released from a life sentence in prison, painted it into a painting. I may have talked about this before, but just to understand that he was quantumly participating in creating the world he wanted to create. So I ran into David Holbrook, who's the founder of Original Thinkers at Mercado Sagrado. Original Thinkers is an ideas festival,

kind of like Aspen Ideas Festival or TED, takes place in Telluride that we attended this year. Yeah, and an amazing, amazing, amazing festival and so many good, creative, beautiful human beings doing amazing things on planet Earth. And I was speaking to him and he was asking me, you know, what do you think about next year? And so we're going to have a meeting in December. But I told him, you know, where is the vision? What are we creating? And not that I want to make a grand consensus because that will be very multi-layered because we're all different life forms.

But what are we committing to as feeling beings that want a different reality on earth? We want our waters clean. We want our animals cared for. We want ourselves healthy. We want our starving children fed. We want the pedophilia to be gone from this planet. What are we doing to hold the higher vision? This is the moment.

We have all the energy here to support us. And I see so many people just talking about the problems, the problems, the problems, the problems, and then going away. And where is the beauty? So I think this is the mission. This is the task or the opportunity that we have right now. And to spend time, as we've shared about our experience, how do you create a beautiful experience in your life?

You spend time doing the things that you love because that creates a loving field and that becomes magnetic. So how can we take that feeling and then roll it out to all of our individual mission? Shreemu's a part of my mission. Your podcast and your books and your writings, that's a part of your vision. And all of us have a piece. All of us have something to share.

But can we understand that we are quantum beings and that we are creating this? And I don't mean put your head in the sand and say it's all unicorns and rainbows and we're gonna skip away together. I'm not talking about that. We know we're in a planetary realm that has tremendous levels of miasm and dark happenings that are happening in this realm. So I'm not an illusion, but I'm saying we are the quantum healers. We are the quantum masters.

Let's step into that and let's make an experiment and let's see what we can do. And if we don't succeed, well, at least we tried. At least we got together and said, hey, let's do that. Or let's make an agreement that we're going to tweet or post 98% positive information and not send any of the negative. You know, I don't know. That's, you know, social media is not the answer, but it's just like an idea. Yeah, it's not. I mean, I think there's a, Obama talked about this in that clip that I shared,

and I think you retweeted as well, this idea, this illusion that if you're attacking people on social media or standing in judgment of others, that you're really only serving your own ego and you're creating this illusion that you've actually done something when you actually haven't done anything. So tweeting positive things is great, but what are you actually doing in your life, right?

Let's transcend the digital space to actually be functional in the solution of the things that, you know, ALS culturally right now, we need more of that. And I think that you're, you know, spot on in those other observations. We're on the precipice now. Tonight, I'm gonna be sharing the podcast

that I did with John and Molly Chester of Apricot Lane Farms. They are the people behind the documentary, The Biggest Little Farm. So if you're listening to this, that show has already gone up and you're aware that I've posted that. And this has been a tricky,

it's on the subject of other people's judgment and negative perspectives on things because there was a certain contingent of the vegan community that was very unhappy that I visited this farm and chose to engage these people in a conversation around climate change and regenerative farming practices and carbon sequestration and soil health and all of these things. And it was disheartening. Like, I understand, like, look, I'm vegan. I've been vegan for 12 years. I chose not to participate in this cycle of animal harm a long time ago. But I'm also very conscious that these issues are not binary.

They're more complicated than that. And this is a couple who left their urban existence in Santa Monica to try to do something. They weren't gonna tweet how the soil is being depleted. They actually went and bought a farm and tried to repair the soil. Imagine that. Yeah, and along the way, they made a choice that I would like to believe

I wouldn't make, which is to sell a few of their animals for food from time to time. And because of that, there's a section of the vegan community that was very unhappy with me and my choice to have a conversation with these people. And that's disheartening to me because these are people who have a lot of experience in what's actually required when you put your hands

in the dirt to sequester that carbon and be in the solution of climate change. And I have a lot of respect for that. And I have empathy for that. So back to uncle Jerry sitting across from the table, I am not sitting in judgment of these people. In fact, I'm expressing empathy for them. And that empathy doesn't necessarily have to be tied

to an endorsement of every single belief and behavior that they engage in, but I can celebrate some things that they're doing that I think are worthy of notice and worthy of being celebrated. Absolutely. I mean, the thing is, is that these individuals, and it was from the love of their dog, actually. They had a dog that wouldn't stop barking. And isn't this-

Yeah, so they ended up, yeah, like they got evicted from their apartment in Santa Monica and they were like, we need to find a place for our dog. And the dog had like a name like Tony, like a very human dog or something. So yeah, so they created this farm really for this dog and it's turned into this 10 year expression. And myself, I have no experience growing food.

I have no experience with soil. We have three acres here that it's our dream to develop it to we've left it wild. So we use hardly any water, but we're not farmers. We're not in the process of replenishing the soil. We're podcasting and making vegan cheese. So I'll go on Twitter and talk about soil regeneration and climate change.

And I can have conversations with amazing people that help spread that message, but my hands are not in the dirt. Right, and so the thing is, is that's your skill, right? That's your divine design. And their divine design is that they created this whole ecosystem. I mean, I saw, I didn't see the whole movie,

but I saw some of the footage and it's like, they have like whole, like, you know, flocks of birds returning. I mean, the thing is just thriving. It's crazy what they've created. Now I'm not, I wouldn't make the choice to slaughter the animal. It's not, it's not what I'm doing. Um, but I'm looking at everything that they're doing right. I have so much to learn from them, so much to learn from them. How would I ever judge them? How would I ever be in judgment of them? I just couldn't be.

So everyone has to understand that when we wake up, we're causing harm. I had this question come up in my community call just a couple of days ago, and it was about this question of veganism and what's right and what's wrong. And I would bring it back to yourself and say that every single act that you participate in, in any lifetime, in any realm, you will have to reconcile that act. And so it's really about you and you. Is that an alignment for you? And this is one of the reasons maybe that I haven't been embraced by the vegan community is because I was raised in Alaska. My dad was a hunter. And even though I was a child and I was raised with meat, and then later when I discovered yoga, I stopped eating meat just naturally.

I've still never really made a statement or a declaration. I don't really consider myself vegan. I am a feeling connected being who spontaneously makes decisions in the moment. And I've always said that if my body told me that it needed meat as medicine, I would find the cleanest meat. I would do a prayer over it, eat it in reverence until I didn't need it anymore. Now that's never happened and I don't foresee it happening, but I don't like, I think when we bring violence into our choices and we're using them to separate ourselves from people, we really miss. And for you to be attacked because you showed the sustainable practices of this farm is just very short-sighted.

And that's, you know, I've said this before, like if we bring violence into the kitchen over our food choices, we've missed the entire point. So again, it's not my choice. I love plant-based lifestyle and that's why I created Shreemu. Obviously I'm very focused for the planet, but each individual has to make those decisions

for themselves. Yeah, it'll be interesting to gauge the reaction of this podcast. I mean, the truth is the overwhelming response when I posted on Instagram was positive. And these themes, these subjects, regenerative farming, sustainable agriculture, this is a theme that is recurring all the time on the show

and echoed by a lot of my guests, including Zach Bush, who's a huge favorite on the show, Rylan Englehart behind Cafe Gratitude, I'm putting up that episode soon, David Brawner, all kinds of people that the audience embraces are basically saying the same thing, which is the solution that we seek is underneath our feet. And there is a process, there is a way to live in that solution. And these are people that are doing it. And I wanted to understand that better

and celebrate that aspect of what it is that they do. Yeah, definitely. And the other thing that isn't being really recognized is the fact that the interaction is two way. So you go into the farm and they interact with you and you interact with them. Who knows, maybe in six months, they make an adjustment that means that they,

you know, harvest less animals than they were, or maybe it affects them deeply, just your presence, simply the fact that you went there. Maybe there's another solution, I don't know. Well, I think overall, it's about broadening our aperture and understanding that nothing is binary. We have this tendency to believe there's a right and there's a wrong and there's a black and there's a white.

And you said it earlier, like none of us is immune from doing harm. Like we're all perpetrating harm. There are all negative consequences to the fact that we're living beings on planet earth. And there's a tendency among certain people to develop an ego attachment to a particular type of lifestyle.

And what that becomes a hardening and a judgment of other people. And I think that that is unhealthy. And I think that the more that we can understand that we're all human beings having a spiritual experience and we're having our journeys and the more empathy that we can have for other people and the more humility that we can engender

when we go into social interactions from a place of coming from the heart and an openness like a growth mindset to like learn from another human being then I think that that is the solution to a lot of what ails us and what we see being played out in social media. Like we all know that our information diet is really important and it's gonna dictate

a lot of our opinions and worldviews. So if you're politically right, your Twitter feed is going to look a certain way. If you're a progressive liberal, you're going to have a completely different newsfeed that is going to basically channel you everything that affirms your worldview. Well, it's no different in health and nutrition. If you're a keto person or a low carb person or a carnivore person, your feed is gonna basically be a constant stream of people that see the world the way that you do and practice what you practice.

If you're a vegan, that feed is gonna be very differently. And these camps are becoming further and further separated and entrenched in their views because there's no cross pollination. And so my effort and my interest in going to people like John and Molly Chester is to participate in that cross-pollinization, to have the humility to understand like, these people know a lot about a certain thing

that I talk about all the time on the podcast. And I wanna learn more about that, not from the perspective of a doctor or a politician or an academic, but from people who are actually practitioners who are doing this day in and day out. That was the spirit in which I went into that experience and I'm glad that I did and I would do it again. And so it's disheartening to be attacked for that.

And I get it, the vegans are a passionate community of people, nobody wants to see animals harmed, but to say that I'm endorsing the slaughter of animals because I was curious and I followed that curiosity to learn something and then share it is a disheartening perspective. Yeah, definitely, definitely. I don't wanna end it here, we got to end this here,

but like let's like take people out with a little. But I mean, that's the thing is, no, I mean, you and I, from the very beginning, when we entered into this experiment and this expression, we've only shared our own experience. We're not here to tell anybody what to do or how to live. We always say that. And also, this lifestyle is aspirational and it's a moving, changing, evolving living form. So we're going to learn new things, find new ways.

So we're gonna learn new things, find new ways. It's not a stasis or a state of achievement that then you hold onto with a hardness and a closed mindedness. It's an open, moving, breathing experience of life. And we all have things to learn from each other. Yes, we all need to eat more plants. Yes, we need to stop this brutal suffering of animals and industrial agriculture. Yes, we need to stop this brutal suffering of animals and industrial agriculture.

Yes, we need to save our oceans, but we've always had an open door. And so all of our cookbooks have been open to any kind of eater. It's never been an ism for you and for me. And Shreemu is what I call universal. It's vegan, paleo, dairy-free, gluten-free, kosher for all purposes. I'm sure it's keto too, because there's no carbs in it. So it's kind of everything.

It's just for everyone. And if we can eat more plants, and as Paul Hawkins said, face plant-rich lifestyle, it's gonna be doing good. And everybody has to account and answer to their own actions. So nobody gets out of anything. It will all be accounted for. So we can relax and do the best that we can do to serve our own individual awareness. But again, we need this interaction

and this brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to not be separated. I was at an event yesterday and the girl next to me speaking has a bone broth company and I was sitting very close to her and all I was emanating for her was just love and listening to her. And she has her own experience. Every woman is right from her own point of view. How dare you? Every man is right for his own point of view. I can't believe you.

Yeah, so, and the thing is actually, it's funny because some of those people actually even came on my feed trying to get me to have you answer, like this means Rich endorses animal brutality. Oh, really? I was like, really? Is that what it means?

So now you're a proxy. Exactly. Like even if it's for, like I talked to a guy yesterday who talked to another guy who talked to another guy who talked to another guy who knows a guy that works at, a chicken factory. So I'm endorsing it.

It's like, it's insane. It's insane. But the thing is this is, and then we have to remember this also as individual creators and those of us who came here to, be the sacred makers in our own fields and put things out in the world. We need to not be affected by that judgment and by those swords that are thrown. We really need to understand that when you act in alignment, so you just said a minute ago,

you said, I stand by what I do. I would make the same decision again. That's your answer. So you didn't do something that was out of alignment with who you are and your intentions were in high alignment with your mission of creating a higher way of living on planet earth. There's no question about that. You weren't compromised. You didn't receive money. There was no compromise in your integrity. You did what is in alignment with you and you would do it again

and that's the end of the conversation. Yeah, I followed. It doesn't matter. I did what I've done from day one, which is follow my curiosity. That's it. I'm not here to serve the best interests of a dogma. You know, like I'm not, you know, some I'll get criticism saying like,

I can't believe you have non-vegans on your podcast. It's like, I choose to eat plants. It's a lifestyle that I've adopted that serves me well. I think there's tremendous benefits in this for personal health, for environmental health, for animal welfare and the like. And I'm happy to talk about it. And I talk about it all the time.

But I don't define myself by that alone. Aren't we all more expansive beings? I'm here to learn about all different kinds of things. I wanna be exposed to new ideas across the board. I'm not here to just focus on this one issue. I'm not a single issue voter on this one issue. I'm not a single issue voter or a single issue focused individual. And I think we all need to kind of understand

that it's important to realize that we're bigger than these labels that we attach to ourselves that make us feel like we belong because there's an identification there to a certain group that makes us feel like we're part of something. And I understand that, like I get all that, but there's more going on. But again, if we really care about the planet

and we care about our life and we wanna lift this experience higher, it's about the interaction with many diverse life forms. So I think in soil regeneration, diversity is a key underlying foundational power, which creates a healthy environment. We have to bring that awareness of diversity into our own life forms.

Yeah, that's a great point. Right? I mean, it's all about diversity. In the narrative of the movie, it's like none of this works until you get to this tipping point in biodiversity. And then it becomes like this thriving thing that becomes self-perpetuating.

To get it to that point was very difficult, but fundamentally that's what it's all about. And I think there's a teacher in that. And the teacher is is that diversity is necessary to the holistic well-being of the larger ecosystem, right? And the more that we can practice that and participate in that emotionally, that is also the path towards the greater well-being of the ecosystem of the population. Well, and what if we took all that focus or that energy that is in fighting for this thing,

this flag that you're flying or this truth or this ism or this dogma or whatever you think this intellectual stasis point is? What if we took that energy and instead you gave it to yourself and you went and loved yourself and you inquired within yourself and you found out what you loved to do when you were a child and you made a commitment to yourself, I'm going to be here for you and I'm going to guide you and help you and protect you to express everything that you want to. And you are loved, you're valued. What if we took that and brought it in instead of all that focus of protecting something that's not even a thing, it's just an illusion, it's a made up construct. And if you're

fighting for peace, you're still fighting. I think Gandhi said that. I'm thinking. I'm not sure. Somebody said it. But if you're fighting for anything, you're still fighting. So what if we stop fighting and just realize there is no consensus? There are billions of life forms that are interacting here. And so how can we come to each other when we're not the same? And instead of be in judgment and analysis and separation, what if we just said, please show me more of who you are? Show me. I'm so interested. I'm so curious.

Tell me who you are. Why is it that you feel that way? How is it that you feel when you experience and express your own divinity or whatever your life mission is. We need to soften these edges and understand that we all share this planet. We're all riding on this planet together. And the controller forces that want us to fight and not rise up, they are putting these diverse energies into the population. They want us fighting. They want us focused on fighting. Did you ever remember there was like a fairy tale book that I had, and I think the one was called The Stubborn Sillies or something. And it was a man and a wife who got in a fight and they were

both had their arms crossed and they were not looking at each other. And while they were doing that, a thief came in and stole everything that they had. And so in a way, we're fighting and then these thieves are stealing our life from us. They're stealing our livelihood. So it's really within our power to imagine vision and then get into action, creating the world that we want to experience here together. This is a magnificent planet, and human beings are feeling creative, connected, empathic, loving, amazing individuals. And when we have knowledge, we have a power that can never be taken from us. When we remember who we are, that we are divine. when we remember who we are, that we are divine. And when you enter into that awareness,

you have so much power and so much creativity and so much energy with which to create. And so this is really the time and we are the ones we've been waiting for. You are the one you've been waiting for. It's not someone else coming. Powerful Srimati, closing it down with the truth and the wisdom.

So I want everybody to remember that when you're sitting across your Thanksgiving or holiday table from your version of Uncle Jerry, root yourself in your experience, have patience, practice empathy and compassion. And hopefully you can have a different and joyous experience. What do you think? I think so.

I can see it. I'm gonna hold that vision for you. I'm gonna hold that vision for everybody. Let's hold that vision. Let's not hope, let's hold that vision. Cool. Well, always a pleasure. Thank you, my dear. Let's hold that vision. Let's not hope, let's hold that vision. Cool, well, always a pleasure. Thank you, my dear.

I said it again. Thank you, Rich Roll. No, you said darling and now it's dear. Oh, darling, dear. All right, thank you, my darling. Good talk. How do you feel? I feel good.

Do you think it was good? No, it was good. Okay, good. If you wanna learn more about Julie Pyatt, AKA Srimati, she is at Srimati on Twitter and Instagram. If you want to learn more about the cheese, srimu.com is the place to go for that. And that's it. Have a happy holiday, everybody.

I'm taking off. I'll catch you on the flip side. Shows will go up as they always do on schedule, But I'm gonna be taking care of myself. And I'll see you in the secret place. You will, you will. After I ship all my orders. All right, peace. Okay, namaste.

Plants. So there you go. That is something that we just did, how that one land for you. If you're new to the show and dig Julie, she's been on the podcast a zillion times. So check the show notes for links to some of her previous appearances.

You can visit juliepiet.com to learn more about her world. Subscribe to her For the Life of Me podcast, sign up for Water Tiger, and definitely check out her incredible mind-blowing plant-based cheeses at srimu.com, S-R-I-M-U.com. She's often shipping and you can still be one of her very first subscription box subscribers. You can share your thoughts with her directly

about this conversation at Srimati on Instagram, S-R-I-M-A-T-I, but don't at me. I'm out on sabbatical through January 6th. If you'd like to support our work here on the podcast, subscribe, rate, and comment on the show on Apple Podcasts. Share the show with your friends and on social media. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and you can support us on Patreon

at richroll.com forward slash donate. I appreciate my team who does a lot behind the scenes to make this show possible. Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production, show notes, and interstitial music, which in the case of today's episode is courtesy of Srimati herself. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for videoing and editing the podcast and all the short clips that we share on social media. Jessica Miranda for graphics, Leah Marisovic for portraits, DK for advertiser relationships and theme music

as always by Annalema. Appreciate the love you guys. I will see you back here. Well, I won't see you directly. I will be sharing a new episode with all of you in a couple of days. It marks the return of my good friend, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee.

He's dropping by to discuss his latest book, The Stress Solution. It's a good one. Here's a clip to take you out. Until then, the divine in me salutes the divine in you. Happy holidays, people. Peace, plants, namaste. The research is suggesting that the feeling of being lonely

is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. We are social beings. We are wired to be together. Having close, nourishing relationships is one of the best ways to de-stress. But ironically, having too much stress in your life, I think, makes it very hard to have those close nourishing relationships. But we are feeling isolated. We're feeling disconnected in this supposedly ultra-connected world. Sure, digitally, we've never been this connected. There are amazing things about technology. I would accept that. But in terms of real, deep, meaningful human connection, I think that's a pretty strong case to say we've never been this isolated.

It's between 70 and 90% of all conditions that a primary care doctor sees in any given day is in some way related to stress. So I want the reader to be able to identify where does stress live in my life? Because you need awareness. Once you know where it lives, you know what?

Pick one of the simple things, try it for seven days and see if you feel different. That is all I ask from someone. Thank you.