TrueLife - Marta Santuccio PhD - Contemplative Embodiment

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/https://instagram.com/marta.santuccio?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=https://linktr.ee/fleshandskin?fbclid=PAAaaXVyP7pbSnlOnbHNkhMaW-sW9PejWjdqQtvHewKESrbsltf7nR5ZNcxNIwww.fleshnskin.comhttp://linkedin.com/in/marta-santuccio-09937b238Contemplative embodiment is a practice that I devised for you to shift your attitude towards your self and your life. It is an exploration of natural, non-ordinary and embodied states based on breath, voice and movement that supports your exploration of Self and Reality beyond the visible. The practice is centred around the idea that the body is a door to expanded modes of being, the contemplative embodiment journey aims to guide you to connect to the subtle realm of the deeper self and its processes, ranging from shadows to the mystery of the cosmos. This is an opportunity for you to meet yourself whee you are at, to give space to you innate embodied wisdom and allow it to manifest as sensations, feelings and emotions. My method is centred around guiding each of you to find your own personal way to activate and connect with your own inner wisdom. I lead you to experiment with breath, voice and movement to discover your own pathways, rather than presenting them with a series of pre-set breathing patterns or movements, for example. This is a transformative journey that can be used for self-enquiry, preparation and integration of psychedelic states and mystical experience , but also as a contemplative endeavour for philosophy-making and metaphysical enquiry. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining and the birds are singing. I hope that you are in the arms of the person you love or you're going back to them. have something beautiful to enjoy today. I've brought you an incredible guest. We've got an incredible

show. The talented, intelligent, lovely Marcia Sanctuio. She's a PhD in metaphysics of consciousness. She leads transformative journeys that blend philosophy and experience. So we're going to talk about her new idea, her thesis, and this technique that she provides to people and has invented called contemplative embodiment. Marta Sanctuio. Am I pronouncing that accurately, Sanctuio? It's a perfect pronunciation. You're doing better than some of the Italian people that pronounce my name, so 10 points on that. I'm so excited. Thank you for being here today. How is the world treating you? The world is treating me great, as always, with lots of surfing the waves. And yeah, but I can't complain really. I'm in Sicily at the moment, and I'm back home at my parents' place, and the sun has been shining for days.

and I'm enjoying some family time, so it's great. Lovely. Yeah. And how about you? Well, thank you for asking. I'm doing really well. I'm doing what I love. I love talking to people.

I love learning, and I love trying to bring something new to other people. And I feel like it's this whole circle. And I really enjoy this idea of beginning to learn new concepts that are somewhat merged and grown together with people I love. And speaking of people I love, I think you and I share a passion for Alfred North Whitehead. And I wanted to start with a quote that I've been watching your stuff, Marta. You have. Good job. And so here's a great quote. And I'm going to say the quote and then I'm going to dish it off to you to get your thoughts on. And the quote is, mysticism leads us to try to create out of the mystical experience, something that will save it or at least the memory of it.

mysticism, clarification, action. What do you think about that? Okay, so first of all, I want to say that Alfred North Whitehead is like my biggest intellectual crush. I love him and I love him for so many reasons. And really, I love him because he taught me what doing philosophy and what thinking outside of the box means. It gave me the courage to really think with my own head. So I love that you brought him up. And in terms of the quote, well, so many things can be said about that, but as always, I have to agree with him.

And what I like about the quote is the end, is the action part. So I feel like in my own experience, the mystical has always attracted me, but discovering that mysticism being mystical or exploring the metaphysical aspect of mysticism. has to do with action. And when we embed action with that sense of the mystical, with that sense of transcendence, that's when things really start shifting, or when things really started shifting in my own life.

So having some mystical experiences, wanting to explore the mystical aspect of metaphysics is great. But when we put that together with action, with not just the feeling, not just the experience, but bringing that into the everyday, that's what the spiritual, the mystical means for me. It's about bringing that into this more material reality, into the reality of objects, into the reality of rules,

into the reality of behaviors. So the action part that he puts at the end for me, it touches my heart, it touches my soul, really. Not just my soul, it touches me intellectually, but it touches me as like a human being, really. Yeah. I love talking to people where we can just run full speed and jump in deep water. So thank you for this.

It's so beautiful. Yeah, right? Okay, so if we pan back a little bit, the clarification part for me is something that I think we can get into, that you may explain more in contemplative embodiment, but clarification, this bridge between mysticism and action. Do you have any tricks or tips people can use to bring something? something back from that mystical experience? Because that seems to be what the clarification part is. Okay. So this opens up a really big, a really big topic because it brings us to the notion of

integration for me. So obviously, like when we have mystical experiences, one of the central, one of the main characters, I feel, of mystical experiences is this sense of deep knowing that attaches to them, that characterizes them. So mystical experiences are generally ineffable. They shoot us into a reality that is completely different. They dismantle our notion of self. They dismantle our notion of reality, the everyday notions of reality that we have. And we have that instant clarification about who we are, what reality is.

But then when we come back to the day-to-day reality, the reality of objects, the reality of interaction, that clarification, that deep knowing, that sense of I have felt the truth is in danger and can endanger our everyday life. So for me, what allows me to keep that clarity and bring that clarity into real life, so that real, not real life, but everyday life, so that that clarification sort of leaks and gives me clarity about who I am and what reality is, even within this material context, is all about embodiment.

So what is special about mystical experiences as opposed to, when we find clarification in the everyday, it's usually a thought, it's usually a reasoning that gives us clarification. But when we have that sense of clarity in mystical experiences, that sense of clarity, that deep noise,

this deep knowing of truth is an experience, is an embodied experience. It's something that we feel deep inside. It's not something that we feel with our senses that connect us to the external world. We don't find clarification visually or through our auditory senses or by touching something,

but we feel it. We feel it inside. It's a sense of presence. And so for me, the key to bring in this clarification and allowing this mystical insight to come and be part of and clarify what being, what existing really means,

is an embodied process. And this is a little bit what I aim to do with contemplative embodiment. So the whole point, what I do with contemplative embodiment, is to create a continuity of experience that bridges from that insight that you have. during the psychedelic state or during the mystical experience, for example, into our everyday life. And this continuity of experience is not a continuity of thought.

It's not an interpretation. It's not a conceptual interpretation of that experience, but rather it is an experiential, an embodied bridge. How can I connect back to that experience now that I'm not having that experience, but I'm buying vegetables or I'm driving my car? And it's about really connecting to that experience, really going back into that sort of phenomenology, sort of fishing aspects of it, and re-experiencing them in the everyday. So for me, that is the clarification. It's not a conceptual clarification, but it's an embodied clarification. Obviously, conceptual reasoning will be a part of it, and that's why philosophy can be really important for making sense of our mystical experiences. But the key to this clarification is definitely in the body.

It's an embodied state. I love it. It's a fascinating idea. While I've been reading about it, maybe we can take people back a little bit, and you can give us the beginning idea of contemplative embodiment because we've kind of given people, we've teased them with what this real root beauty of it is. But yeah, exactly. Well, let's bring it back and kind of build them a fact.

foundation so that they can kind of jump in with us? Okay, so where to start? So I guess where to start is the embodiment part. So in the Western world, mostly, so I'm, I come from Europe, I'm from Sicily, and I can speak for the Western world, mostly. And the way that we grow up, the way we grow up is by thinking, by conceiving of, the mind and the body as separate entities. We usually use or think about our body as that machine that allows us to carry out actions, the hardware, some people say, and then we conceive of the

mind as that bit of software. So the idea, the desires, everything comes from the mind and is fed into the other part, the body, and the body then carries out the action. Now this is this sort of relies on a philosophical position that is called dualism and that's a philosophical position that a guy called Descartes did around the time of the scientific revolution and in a certain sense it became our paradigm it sort of constitutes the paradigmatic way to that we still today think about who we are we have a body and we have a mind however this position has various issues uh philosophically but But let's leave that on the side for now. This sort of position also has various problems in the everyday life.

This is because very often when we feel sad or when we feel angry, for example, we reason our way out of that emotion mentally, because we tend to think that emotions are mental entities, they're mental events. So what happens is I get really upset with my mom, when I'm a child and I'm like, oh, but she's so upset. I'm so upset. But anyway, maybe she's right.

And I reason it out. I'm no longer angry with my mom. Maybe like I go and play with my dolls or if I get upset today, I scroll online. I sort it out in my mind. But what happens is that emotions have a really, really, emotions are not really mental events, but they are physical events. So when we do, when we process emotions, mentally what happens is we push down the physical part of the emotion we sort of

repress it we don't manage it we don't allow the body to process the physical parts of the emotion which means that the emotion gets stuck in the body okay now why is this problematic because first of all emotion mind and body are not necessarily separate so what the way that we have started thinking about the mind today is in terms of it being embodied. So the mind is spread throughout the body. So embodied mind and activism are various views in philosophy that sort of develop this type of view. And the idea is that we don't think with the brain, or we don't feel with the brain. Obviously like the brain does a huge part of our thinking, a huge part of our feeling, but we also feel with our bellies. We also feel with our hearts.

So what the key to embodiment is this new conception of the person that does not separate the mind and the body, but conceives of the person as an embodied being, where the mind and the body are one and the same. The mind happens, of course, throughout the whole body. Okay? So this is a shift that we have from, and here I'm talking mostly in the common sense world, not necessarily in philosophy. In philosophy, we still have debates about whether this is right or this is not right. The cool thing is, however, that since the 70s, around the 70s, these new types of practices called embodied practices have been developed initially to help people like veterans coming back from the Vietnam War, people that had PTSD. And that could not, wouldn't be able, like they could process the trauma mentally, but they would still be.

subject to fear, subject to very many of the emotions that attach to the trauma. So a number of people around the 70s started developing these new methods of processing trauma that relied very much on connecting the person to their essence, connecting the person to the body. So what happened is they created a safe space so that the person, the traumatizing, person in this case could experience the emotion, could re-exper, could allow the emotion to resurface, fear to resurface, for example, by using very simple tools such as movement or breathing. The fear would come back and the person would be encouraged to feel through the fear, to dive into the feeling of the emotion, what's happening in my body, am I feeling a contraction,

am I feeling like I want to move away from this? And they would be, they would reenact, various aspects through movement, from voice and through breath of these and of the emotions. They would really, really, really tune into what it is that I am feeling throughout my body. And they found that by allowing the emotion

to surface in a safe space and be felt, be deeply felt, then this emotion would transform. And the person would no longer be subject to the emotion that attaches to the trauma. So the trauma would sort of dissipate slowly. Obviously, this doesn't happen in a session, but it happens in many sessions. So this is the historical root of embodiment, and this is also the sort of philosophical starting point.

So a different conception, but also a different way of processing emotions. And what we do with embodiment today is we don't just use it for trauma, but we use it for connecting, for exploring deeper aspects of ourselves, what Jung calls the shadow, for example. So this is embodiment. So at this point, I always ask, do you have any questions? Yeah, I mean, I am curious as to, at what point in time do you think that breathwork became part of this embodiment sort of exploration? I'm familiar with like gestalt therapy and people beginning to create spaces for individuals to sort of relive the trauma and allow their body to process the traumatic event.

But I'm not sure when breath came into it. Is that something that came from yoga practices and found its way into this sort of merging idea of embodiment? Or when did that come into effect? Okay. I love this question because I don't know whether you know that I'm also nearing the end of my training in holotropic breathwork. So holotropic breathwork is the father of the, yeah, the father of breathwork.

And holotropic breathwork started around about the same time. So the father of holotropic breathwork is a guy called Stan Groff, which I'm sure you know, and many of your listeners might know. He's a psychiatrist from the Czech Republic. And he's one of the first people that got sent. acid when it was first discovered. And he was one of the people that, one of the first people that experimented

with the use of acid within therapeutic settings. And obviously, as we all know, he noticed that there were a lot, like the potential of this substance was great for his patients, for people that had like issues with living life or sort of mental illnesses and stuff like that. Then psychedelics were taken out of the picture. They were like, oh my God, we can't use psychedelics anymore.

This is going to, you know, like, okay, they're banned. And Stan Groff, with his wife, Christina, who was a yoga teacher, they were just like, we need, okay, like, we can't leave. Like, there was too much there. We have to be able to find or to construct a practice that can give was the same results. So they invented holotropic breath work. And holotropic breath work, the way that I understand it is, what they looked at is elements that were, they took elements that were important to psychedelic practice, so set and setting, but also the breathing. They

noticed that breathing was also very important. But they also looked at old tradition, old ancestral traditions, the medicine traditions, yoga traditions. And they all noticed, that breath was a huge part, not only of the use of psychedelics, but it was used in very ancient tribes, in very ancient traditions, to really, it was a fundamental ingredient of journeying. So by looking at the various elements of their research and their own interest, they were like, okay, let's create holotropic breathwork. And this is how the practice of breathwork really entered the picture.

And now holotropic breathwork is, for me, for me, holotropic breathwork has been the practice that really changed my life. And I've had the most incredible experiences for me happened in holotropic breathwork, even more than psychedelics or other type of journey. So I'm really, I'm a huge supporter of breathwork. And the development of breathwork and the development of other embodiment practice, really happened at the same time. And I think the reason for that is, you know, after the war and after the society was really changing. So we were looking like science was really changing, society was changing. And it was obvious that, you know, there was something new that we had to bring inside.

And this is how breathwork and embodied practices grew together. I think it's funny that they started at the same time, you know, and I think it's no coincidence. incidents there. Yeah, it's it's it's like branches of science. They start off at one spot and they kind of move and find their own ways or even the way a mushroom grows sometimes. You see like the little tendrils kind of come off there. You know, it's it's, I don't think it's a mistake either.

No, it's a network. It's a network and the beauty of it is it's, is that, you know, it springs. It has to do with science, but it has to do, it has a lot to do with the development. of the human being with the historical development of consciousness and the historical development of what we need and what can we do with our bodies. And I think it's no wonder that the people that came up with a lot of the people that came up with these kind of practices

where people that were studying science before and to a certain extent wanted something more from the scientific or than the scientific world could give them. So it's like, okay, science is great. but look what we can do when we add experience, when we push the bounds of our own inner technology. And I think that that's something great, and that's something that we are really now starting to look at

with more attention, like worldwide. Because before it was like spots, now it's a movement. It's a bigger movement. Yeah, it seems like there was this period of, maybe it was maybe it was the Renaissance or maybe it was there was this period where we just decided

that we didn't need spirituality and all of a sudden we got into this material rationalism we're like okay we just need science that's it everything else doesn't matter but it almost seems when you take that idea of spirituality out of the human

condition that it can take you somewhere but where it takes you is not the view that you want to get of humanity. It's not going to take you to the top of the mountain where there's this more of an understanding. It takes you to like this little spot over here

where there's some interesting things. But have you noticed that there was a point where we just got rid of this? And that maybe it seems now with contemplative embodiment or some of these other techniques and ideas and thoughts and theories that we're moving back in this. We're reconnecting into a spot where we can get a better understanding of what's happening.

What are you thinking? This is a huge topic for me. I write a lot about this and I actually have a few chapters in my thesis that look exactly at this phenomenon because I think, so at the beginning I was really angry. And because it's like, how could this happen? But then I realized that it was actually necessary. So when the cart, you know, the guy that was like, okay, mind and body are separate substances that we talked about at the beginning.

So the cart was operating at the beginning of the scientific revolution. So we were just realizing that we could measure things. We could understand why the apple falls from the tree to the floor rather than, you know, levitating. So why did this happen? So what was before the cart was a lot of Christian philosophy. And I think everything, when it becomes, when it's limited to one idea, can become sterile to a certain extent. So obviously, like, what the card did, I now today really appreciate because his distinction of the mind from the body. So the card said that the mind and the body are distinct, but he also said there is a further substance that is God.

Okay. So he was still hanging on to the idea of God. I mean, it was the 1700s and God was still a huge part of everybody's life. But what he did when he separated mind and body, what happened is he really created. a logical space for us to start using that objective perspective, to start using measuring, to start using the power of deduction, to start developing our intellectual capacities so that they could bring us a certain type of development. We have computers, we have mobile phones, we have cars, we have penicillin, you know, we have medicines that really help us. And to a certain extent I think that was necessary because we had to expand. I believe that the human being is an ex-you know expands by nature needs to develop by nature.

So that was, I think, a necessary step. We had to break away from that Christian, rigid Christian philosophy that we had before. And when I say rigid, I mean based on one type of idea. So we had to break through. And obviously, like, since that, what happened, science started having so many success. you know, we could measure things and then based on that measurement, based on that observation, we could build things. We were right. We felt like we knew the truth. We could tap into the truth, which in a certain sense, I think, can be a spiritual endeavor. It's a certain sense. When I imagine the Carter, Newton or Galileo doing maps at the time, I really see them like a modern day mystic because they really were exploring the unseen. They were really pushing the bounce.

Now, obviously, the more truth we found, the more truth and it was true because, you know, if two plus two will always do four, for me, for you, it's always four. So it is true in that sense. And the more truth that we could find through science, the more we could rely on science and rely on the commodities that science created, the less we needed mysticism, the less we needed spirituality. spirituality. And now we're on the other, now we're on the other end. We're like stuck in this material world, in this world that is very science-based. I mean, it's not science-based because we all know about science, but because if science has something, then that's true. For, you know,

for us commoners, we're not scientists, which is interesting because within science, the scientist is always aware that the theory that he makes today might not be true. tomorrow, right? Yeah. The way that we live today is like, okay, I have my car, I go shopping, I don't even have time for that spirituality. And we're starting to

collapse. So I think you know, it's a history cycle. We went through the history cycle and now we're thirsty for spirituality. We're thirsty for ourselves because whereas before we were like working the land

and we lived in communities, this fast scientific development has in a certain sense given us a lot, but has isolated us from one another. I mean, I'm talking to you through a computer. It's great. I don't feel your vibe. Yeah, yeah. And we're, we're starved of that. We're starved of that aspect of community. We are starved of our own inner self because we developed a lot of external technology, but we stopped looking inside. And I think this is a a little bit of what's happening now.

I talk to myself, because I feel so passionate. So I think this is exactly what's happening. We know that it's not sustainable to live in this science-based world. And I think if we look around, a lot of people are now seeking ways that a lot of people do yoga, and they don't just do it because it's an exercise. they also do it because they breathe when they do yoga. And the minute you start breathing, you connect to your essence. A lot of people are doing psychedelics.

A lot of people are going to the psychologist. A lot of people are starting to turn their eyes inward. And they're looking for connection with their essence. And I think this is a consequence. Like that was a consequence. Like the carrots move was a consequence of this narrow spirituality. We're now looking for a way out from this. narrow materialism.

Yeah. Yeah, it's really well said, and I really admire the foundation and getting to see the view of kind of where we are. And I would agree 100% that we seem to be so isolated. In a world with so many connections, it's the ultimate irony because we're so isolated. And you never get that felt presence of the other. Like, I can't. Yeah, but sorry to interrupt. I think the kernel of this isolation is that very often we're isolated with ourselves.

When I was talking about the distinction from the mind and the body at the beginning, one of the issues with that is that when we process through the mind, we're not in touch with our essence. We are isolated from ourselves. We create boundaries. We create, I call it a cotton padding between your essence and the face that you show every day when you go to work. And that's the key of isolation,

because once you break through those boundaries, those masks, those cotton paddings between who you are in the everyday, the face that you show in the every day and your feelings inside, your essence, then the connection with the other, connection with nature, instantly, of course. So this isolation from the other

is a symptom of a deeper, sort of isolation, which is the isolation that we now have for ourselves. I mean, we don't really have much time to give ourselves. Like, I'm lucky because I do it as a job, but even for me, it was a journey and it still is a journey where every day I have to make sure that I go on a date with myself, or I take some time out to journal, or I take some time to just feel what I'm feeling. And it's not easy because it's not the way that we grew up. We have to really dismantle, unbuild everything that we know. And it's a brave thing and it requires effort.

And so, yeah, the real isolation is an isolation of our own self to our own self, of our essence to our everyday mind. It's fascinating to me. I've been reading a lot of, there's a really great author. I think you would enjoy name. Gilchrist and he talks a lot about the way in which we process information and he makes a distinction between the analytical scalpel or like the left hemisphere of the brain like we we have found this tool in language where we can use it as a microscope to dig deeper and deeper and

refine and specialize and but this linguistic pattern that we use this idea of language as a higher order of thinking has kind of taken us astray and he He presents us with the idea of mental imagery being just as important, if not more important, but it can be used as a tool together with language. The point I'm bringing up language for is I have an idea of what you mean when you say connecting to our essence. But the word essence seems to be such a big concept. And I'm wondering if you can maybe help people understand or maybe try to shine a spotlight

on what connecting to your essence means. Okay, so first of all, I agree with this language, the egemony of language, the fact that we really, it's the mental problem. Yeah, totally. And it's true that it's taken over our life. And the fact that we don't know what our essence is is deeply connected to this over-linguization.

I love making up words, but this excessive reliance on language because to connect with our essence is not something that should ever be explained in words. And I don't think it can be explained in words. So connecting to our essence is a feeling. The way that I could shine light is by asking people to close their eyes

and take a few breaths, maybe breathe for like three minutes, and feel what's happening in their body. And that is a way to connect with your essence. It's an embodied fact. It's something that you feel in your belly, that you feel in your heart. It changes, like you can feel it in your belly, in your heart.

Some people feel it in their hands. Sometimes you feel it around your body, but it's a feeling. It's a feeling of presence. It's a feeling of being there, of being in the moment. It's not doing, it's not about doing something. It's not about thinking something, but it's a feeling of being here, of being me, of being alive.

And breath can help a lot with that. Obviously, like, as a philosopher, I know that essence is super, super, super problematic. So I try to never use the word essence in a political context. But essence is usually, like if we want to say it a bit more philosophically, we could say that it's that characteristic that is central that makes me myself. It's the juice of life to say it not philosophically. This is like the language issue is like a huge issue for me. Like even when I'm doing philosophy,

when I'm writing philosophy, I always try to use the most simple language because I don't like this excessive reliance on language. and it's one of the, you know, it goes with the scientific, with the objective, with the left brain, which is exactly what we're trying to get out now. And that's why when people ask me about essence, when people ask me about, you know, I'm feeling bad and I don't want to feel like this, or I want to integrate that mystical experience I had, I always tell them, just close your eyes for a moment and breathe and feel what's happening while you breathe. And it's so funny because it's

can sound a bit weird or you don't really understand what I'm telling you, but when you do it, you know exactly what you're doing and you go into the experience immediately because we're hard wired to do that. It's just that we're not using, we're not

used to using that part of the wiring and this is part of what we're trying to do now. It's like, wow, look at this stuff look at what you can do and it's so simple, it's so natural, it's so primitive. So the essence, Connecting to the essence is the most primitive state that we can have.

Feeling. Yeah. Yeah. When I do breathwork or I use psychedelics in a way, you know, I think of essence because it is something that can be experienced. The same way, Marta, if like if you picked up a stick or you had a cane and you closed your eyes and you took that cane and you felt around and you smacked a bookcase, like you can. like you can feel the essence through that cane. Like you're extending your awareness through that cane to find that other object right there.

But another example that I think of when I think of essence is, say you and I go to a play and we're watching the death, we're watching Persephone and Demeter and the death of a child. And you and I don't even need to say a word, but we feel the death of that child. And then when we see the rebirth of a child, or when we experience something together, and we both feel it,

but we may use different words to describe it. That's what I think of when I think of essence. And in some ways, I think contemplative embodiment and these new things that we are beginning to understand are an attempt to get people, like you said, in contact with their essence. You, you, Marta San Tungi, are creating experiences

for people to get in contact with that. And that's one of the things that really drew me to your word. work was this ability to build a bridge between these words that we, it's like a redefining a concept. And I see that emerging right now. And that's kind of how we, when we began teasing everybody about bringing something back about the mysticism, clarification, and action. And I, I'm wondering, can you share with some, maybe you could share with the audience,

the ontological shock that you got that made you begin. to become aware of all this stuff. Maybe you can define what ontological shock is and then maybe explain your idea about it and what happened to you. Okay, so first of all, I've always been, I think I'm lucky in a certain sense because I've always been very in touch with this part of me and growing up, it sort of got into the shade and it got pushed aside because we need to be part of this machine, this mechanism. But Luckily, I had experiences that we could define mystical or essential back in the day when I was a child. So for me, it was a rediscovering.

And I believe that for everyone, it's a bit of a rediscovery. However, before doing philosophy, I was building, I was creating immersive environments that would sort of send people, into a state of presence. I called them spaces for subjective exploration. And so I was treading that path a lot. And then after a while, after doing this, after working as an artist for a few years, I felt like I needed more theory. I needed more. And I was going for a really difficult period in my life and I decided to start doing philosophy. And while I was doing philosophy, so I was totally in my head, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. And one day, I discovered that, according to science, time doesn't pass.

That was a really incredible experience because while at the moment, I understood that for science, time does not pass. and therefore this passage of time, this getting old, this, you know, like what I'm feeling now is not what I'm going to feel in a minute. It's not something that is there for science. I really felt like the floor opened under my chair, and I could almost see this like big, deep, like black hole underneath me. And it was a whole body feeling.

of fear and being very, I can't explain it really, but I felt really unstable. I felt like everything didn't really make sense for a while. I was in the library and it was kind of late and I was just like, okay, maybe I need to stop studying for today. I think I was preparing an essay or something like that. But that experience was really interesting for two reasons. First of all, because it showed me that the reality that I am experiencing now, like from an intellectual perspective, is not necessarily how reality is on all levels or from all perspectives. And the second point was that when I'm doing philosophy, when I'm thinking, when I'm discovering things, what happens is an experience.

What happens is a set of feelings throughout my body. So, okay, yeah, I was reading and I understood something with my brain, with my mind, with my intellectual faculties. I don't want to say with my brain, maybe that, with my intellectual capacities. But it was my whole body that entered that space, that entered that metaphysical space. I was shaking. I was seeing a whole, like a whole, like I could see into the core of earth with my bare eyes. The whole of my surroundings changed. And not like at the cinema, but like if I went to the woods or if I went like in, like,

if I dove it, died into the water. So these two realizations were huge and they sort of attached to other experiences that I had in my life for example, at one point I was super, super stressed and I started developing some allergies. So I'm already, like I grew up and I was always very strong. I was like, you know, I was the one that was helping people and I could always make it through. And then at one point, I was I was pushing and pushing and pushing and I knew that I was pushing, but I, that was just who I was. I was the one that pushed because I can help people and I have the power to do that.

And then my body at one point was like, hey, my body started collapsing. And that was before the ontological shock a few years before. But at that point, having had those sorts of experiences and having worked with embodiment in the art world, that first ontological shock was a really big turning point because, okay, it really, it was a stop moment. Because when you see that reality is different, when you perceive that reality is different, when you understand that reality is different with your whole body, it's very different than when you, when you believe, decide to believe a theory or another.

It's not some, it's not a choice. It just happens. And everything changes in that moment. And when everything changes, you can't go back. It's a bit like when you start going through a healing journey. Very often in my own healing journey, I felt, oh my God, this is so hard. I just want to go back, but you can't. You cannot go back because things have shifted now and you're not that person anymore.

And in the case of the ontological shock that was huge for me and it made me understand, A, okay, I'm thinking, but I'm thinking with my whole body, the understanding of that concept, it's taken from the first, hair to the bottom of my souls. And the second point is, hey, reality is different or may be different. And that may is huge because, and this is something that I advocate for. I don't know. I don't think we can know, at least not intellectually what reality is like,

but I like to think that we can think that it may be different. So I never want to give a new theory, even in my PhD, even with my philosopher, my point is not to give a new theory, but when I use philosophy in contemplative embodiment, it's always about giving you the tool to have your own ontological shock. And your own ontological shock might take you back to this reality. We don't need it to bring us to weird conceptions of reality, but it sort of tunes you back to you.

And so you start becoming your own compass. not what you read, not what the others say. So I have a question, and the question is, once you see a different reality, do you think that's the same as changing reality? Like, if I look at some of my own experiences, I remember when I got to see myself as a whole other person, and in some ways I found that I might not be able to change reality

and like your reality or or other people's reality, but I can change my reality. And like you can, I felt as if I could become a completely different person. And in doing so, I, I changed the way other people saw me. So it's interesting how you can change.

You can, I heard a good quote. I'm going to try to say it, but I don't know if I'll get it right. It's like, your reality is reality, even though it's not reality in actuality. And I think that that is something that, like, it's a mouthful of words, but it's true in some ways.

And I'm wondering, do you see it that way? Do you see seeing different reality as changing reality? It's a really difficult question. I know. It's crazy. The question for me is, you know, what is reality? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

However, I do believe that when you change your own reality, when you change yourself, in certain ways when you see yourself different, when you see reality differently, then you can really bring changes, you know, like self-confidence or self-love, for example. We often suffer from lack of self-love, okay? So I would just want to make a simple example. When you see yourself as a loving being, for example,

in a meditation or in a mystical experience, or I don't know, like when if you're going to the psychologist or one day you wake up and you feel love, right? And it's not something that you've felt before. That is a huge change to your reality because there is this new quality that is love, that is self-love. And that can make you a more confident person, which means that maybe you will send that email to ask for you know, that job or you will try to make that connection. that will bring you to have what you thought you couldn't have before. So in that sense, I think experiencing a different type of reality

or a different version of yourself can really change reality in the sense that it allows you to discover new qualities, right? So, for example, when we do breathwork or in contemplative embodiment or when we do meditation or yoga or stuff like that, what happens is we go through a lot of these blocks that narrow down our reality, right? The whole point is about removing, feeling through, moving through those blocks,

so your reality becomes bigger. In that sense, your reality can change. But I think it's also a deeper sense, right? When we, so when I had the ontological shock, you know, and I could see that, hole under my legs do I think that that hole was really there that's not the question that I want to ask myself or if I have past life experiences so for me something that was huge in my own personal transformation was having past life experiences I had this really big experience of like being

burned and that and this happened outside of a breathwork and then inside of a breathwork now what do I make of this experience do I want to believe that this is real in the sense that I really had that life and now I'm re-experiencing that life. So this is one question about reality and the other question about reality is, hey, I'm having this experience now and the experience that I'm having is about having had that life. And how can I integrate it? How can I make sense of this experience so that I can broaden my reality, strengthen my sense of self, strengthen the person, grow, heal, change. So my reality, after that experience, changed a lot,

and it didn't change because, you know, now I can move through walls. But it changed because, or now I can think telepathically, or now I know that I lived before, but because through the intensity of that experience, my reality in every day has changed. Another example is some experiences that I had in holotropic breath work, for example, where I felt I wasn't a self anymore and I was lost in these rushes of intensities, really. It's the best way that I explained it. It was absolutely beautiful. It was great.

I had an amazing facilitator, Rachel, big hugs to the person that brought me, chaperon me through this experience because at the beginning I was super scared. So I had, I had. entered a new version of reality. Coming back, I had a lot of benefits from my life really changed and how did it change? When the wind blows now or when I am looking at a sunset, even if I don't see the sun set, but I see the pink colors, I feel this feeling of expansion. I feel this beauty. I feel invested by this beauty.

I experience this beauty. In this sense, my reality has deeply, deeply, deeply changed. It's much broader. It's not limited by objects. So my notion of objects has changed a lot. So I am aware that I'm talking to you and that I have a laptop in front of me. But I am also aware that even though scientifically we can explain the fact that there is a laptop in front of me by talking about the fact that there are physical ultimate.

know that subatomic particles shape with certain masses and certain charges and they're structured in a certain way that I really do, I know that I have the feeling, I exist by the feeling that there is more. I feel, I experience that more. It's that embodied, is that deep knowing and I can bring that into reality and it changes my reality. But it doesn't change it doesn't change it in a way that it's like, obviously, this is not real. Like, this is real. I'm having an experience because I am a human being and I am a limited being. And when I work my way through the every day, I embody this person.

I live this way. But I know that I can connect to that essence, that I can connect to that other, more subtle aspect of reality that is present at the same time. So in that sense, reality changes. You change yourself. Reality changes. Everything can change. Yes. Marta, that was a beautiful explanation of it.

That was a beautiful explanation of it. I really, yeah, yeah. I was hoping, I was like, oh, this is perfect. I can't even really add anything to that. It was perfect. But it is this idea for me of, when you were explaining the sunset, when you were explaining the sunset, when you're explaining the connection, It's this weird balance of observer and player.

Like you're both of them at the same time. Instead of the subject-object relationship, it is a lot of like, I think of Carl Jung and his idea of, you know, you are your shadow. But more than that, you are, the thing you see in other people is a version of yourself. And if you can observe that, then you can have a deeper connection with that relationship. having a relationship with the sunset, having a relationship with whatever connection you're having, almost looking at it like a container and you're pouring yourself in there. You know, it's an interesting idea. But we can also, I think we can push it a little bit.

Yeah, let's do it. I think, so let's start slowly. Let's see if I can follow the whole reasoning that I had in mind while you were talking. So Carl Jung says you are your shadow and it's true you are your shadow but also you're not just your shadow. Right. So and this is a bit of what we were talking about before when we talked about mind, for example, embody, but also when we talked about the power of like, you know, connecting to the essence and of the embodiment, right? So you are your shadows, but you can go beyond that. So in holotropic breath work, we have something called the cartography of the

the cartography of the psyche, which growth developed. And basically it says that the cartography of the psyche is basically a map of the mind, a map of the psyche. And it has four main locations, let's say. One is the biographical. The biographical story is from the moment you were born to the moment you die. Another one is the perinatal, which is what happens from conception until birth. Another one is the transpersonal. Okay, so let's just look at this free for now.

So you are your shadow as long as the being that we're looking at is the biological self. Okay, yes, there are theories that you carry through shadows from your mom, from your dad, epigenetic, so your shadows in that sense could be coming from the moment you're born to the moment you die. That's the biographical self.

In the perinatal, we can sort of inherit some of the shadows of our parents, for instance, which we then reinforce through models growing up what we learn in the family, how we learn to copy our mom or copy our dad to get love. Okay. But in the perinatal period, so from conception till birth, our body and a spiritual aspect of our body,

an emotional, rather than spiritual, an emotional aspect of our body is developing already. Even though the fetus is not ready, emotions are already being fed to that organism through the mother, like nutrients, which for me, it's also one of the proofs or supports the idea of embodiment. The nutrient comes together with the depression, with the stress, with the happiness, with the love. Okay? What is super interesting for me and what I think is super transformational, at least it has been for me, is transformational when I work with this new, with this other aspect with my clients, is the transpersonal.

So the transpersonal is everything that goes beyond the person, okay? So past life experiences, spirit guides, the loss of the object-subject divide, these are all transpersonal experiences because they go beyond the self. They go beyond the self as we conceive of it now. So obviously, like, yes, we are our shadow. And when we look at the sunset or when we feel the essence of the wind,

what happens for me is beyond the self. We're going beyond the biographical, and we're entering the transpersonal. We're entering, some people can call it mystical, some people can call it metaphysical, some people can call it spiritual, you can call it however you want, but it's something that takes you beyond the limits of your body

and in a total connection with the rest of nature. And the beauty of it is that it's not, just like you are a container of that experience pouring out or playing, but really there is no notion of that container. There is this fabric of being and that you can just experience yourself as part of that fabric of being. This is really, really out there. I hope my philosophy people are not listening to you right now. No, I'm joking. I hope that is. It's beautiful. It's really. well said. It's I'm clapping. It's beautiful. It's really well said. I really admire it. I'm just

taking time to take it all in. I've never heard it explain that way. I do hear people use labels like, you know, it's the container. It's this, it's that, but I've never heard it put that way. So thank you. Well, thanks for asking. For me, this is, this is and has been. And there is so much life in those type of experiences and it's really my life mission to be able to communicate it and to bring people to have those sorts of experiences because change, real change happens there, happens when you can identify with yourself, with your person, with your body. It's absolutely necessary that we identify with, hey, I was born on June 27, 1980, I'm a concierge. I can be very funny, but I can also be very deep and unpleasant. Sometimes it's

important to be able to identify with the light aspects and with the shadow aspects of ourselves and to work through them and to allow the shadow aspects to define our life, to define our personality. And it's important for us to be able to play with that. But when you manage to go out and into the transpersonal, you'll earn power. to work with that. You're no longer subject to this, which doesn't mean you don't suffer. Like you still have shit days.

Yeah, totally. Or really bad periods. Right. You are supported. And you start feeding this. You feel more than just a person. Loneliness takes a totally different character because it's not really just about you anymore.

Because you can always go out and listen to the wind and feel that you are the wind, that you are part of that, that you are an organism, like the plant, like the soil, and that we're just one big pile of organic matter. We look separate, but you know that we're not. You feel that. Yeah, it's interesting to think of us as a superorganism.

And like, you know, on some level, too, it helps me to clarify the understanding that, like, let's say I was abused. Later in life, I could see the signs of another young man who was abused. It's like you're tapping into that experience. And even though the two of us may not have had this same experience, you can recognize those patterns because you've, you have been outside yourself. Or maybe you get a clearer understanding of what those patterns are, the vibrations, or whatever, but it's fascinating to think about it from that angle. And sometimes you don't even know that you are maybe abused until someone tells you and then you feel this like, boom.

Yeah. And the whole point is that there are so many levels of awareness and they're always at play. But we have sort of jailed ourselves in a really shallow one or like a really superficial one. And I don't mean superficial with a bad connotation, but just like to one, layer or just a few layers, but the rest is always working. It's not dormant there. So the whole point is about allowing that conversation across the layers so that when, so that you can allow yourself when the other person says that they've gone for an experience similar to yours, you can allow that feeling, that experience to come through. Because what happens is very often

these experiences do come through because we are a super organism. So when you tell me, you know, I've been abused or I've been loved, there is a reaction within me, but very often we don't feel it. We don't allow ourselves to feel it, and especially with traumatic events, we push them aside. We don't want to feel that. We don't have the tools to feel that. We don't have a reason to feel that. So the whole point is about, and what the transpersonal journey into the transpersonal can do is to make space for these things to be felt. Because when you go out, when you experience yourself being connected being part of it being nothing different than a plant i mean a bit different but not in like a special sense just as i might be different from you but at the end we're all

one and the same when you come back to deal with your abuse when you come back to deal with the bad things that are happening in your life with your repressed feelings you have a superpower because you're supported because you're not alone and by not being alone, I mean, first of all, you're with yourself, and second of all, there is this, the universe holds you. There is something that holds you. I don't know what it is, but it's an energy, it's a power, and you can feel it and you can use it.

You can tap into it. It is huge. Yeah, it's fascinating to take something awful and make it awful. You know what I mean? Like something horrible. But then you're like, like there's two, like, I've been, I've been zooking out on that word for a while because it was been a big part of my transformation. Hey, this, this awful thing happened. But it's awful.

Like, you know, when you start to see something full of awe, it's like, whoa, that was a good experience. Not because it was painful, but because it taught me something. And it's just, it's interesting. What? Let me, let me ask you this. So you, what is, if you work with. someone, Martin. Let's say you have a client on a one-on-one. Do you do groups and one-on-one? Yeah. Well, okay, so let's start with like a group. What does working with you and contemplative

embodiment look like in a group setting? Okay, so I have two types of sessions. One that is more philosophy-laden and one that is less philosophy-laden. And it really depends because I do my own groups but I often at the moment get invited to do stuff in other people's in specific settings so depending on the setting I do it either more or less philosophy-laden and the one that is less philosophy-laden is mostly a journey that takes you from thought from conceiving of yourself and then it takes you to explore the main tools of contemplative embodiment which are movement, breath and voice and imagination. The main four imagination. Yeah, I never think about it as a tool but it's actually a huge. He's one of the

main tools. So yeah, and imagination. So we do small exercises and then at the end after we have explored the tools and then we do some sort of ice-breaking games I call them. So I usually don't do a round of names, but I do a round of presentation at the end where we use some. We sort of start putting in practice some of the tools that we have learned, whether it's imagination or sound, and we introduce each other like that. And then after that, we are sort of creating a group that is starting to, we start connecting with each other. And then in the end, we do a journey.

And after the journey, we close the journey with various types of activities, depending again on the setting, it could be a free sharing or it could be some more structured activities like free writing or drawing or more visual type of stuff. So the idea, however, is that what we need after the session is a bit of grounding because of the way that the session is structured, you slowly go into an expanded, a slightly expanded state of consciousness and then an even more expanded state of consciousness so very often, at the end of the session, I just take time. It's very organic. People come back at different times, and then there is like chocolate or hot chocolate or tea or various, like, sweet things to drink.

And we, I don't do a sharing circle. I just, I allow the group to sort of manage that. Because one of the main aspect of the work that I do is to guide people to find their own way to connect to the essence. So when you go into a contemplative embodiment session, you will never see me tell you how to breathe, how to move, how to use your voice. It's very different, for example, from yoga and meditation, because in Eastern practices we generally have structures to follow.

Okay, do this movement or sit in this position. Whereas in contemplative embodiment, it's totally different. How do you feel like sitting for this exercise? and what does it mean for you to use your voice? Ah! Let's explore. So we do a lot of expression. What does it mean for you to breathe?

How is it comfortable for you to breathe? What is the pace of breathing that allows you to drop into your body? So it's all about, obviously, now it's a quick way, but the whole group session is based on experimenting with your own ways of connecting to your essence and then in the journey you sort of put it into practice yeah that's that's how the

that's how the the the session is usually structured so I go from individual to group and from intellectual to experience and it's sort of like it goes up slowly

it reminds me of like a diver who dives down deep into the water and then they come up too fast like you got to come up and feel the right pressure when you're coming back you know otherwise you'll get like the bends or something like that but it's it's interesting and it seems like it's an incredible tool for integration as well yeah so with for integration i so for integration work mainly one-on-one at the moment and okay so when i do contemplating embodiment in groups for integration that's when i use more philosophy and the way that I use philosophy is more about using philosophical tools rather than philosophical ideas.

So part of the thesis that I develop, a part of it is really a questioning attitude. So the title of my thesis is looking at the world with fresh eyes and then perspectival neutral monism. But what I do when I work integration with groups is this fresh eyes methodology that I try to, well, I don't try to, I pass off. the people that I work with because it's all about asking questions and asking the relevant questions and the point is using these questions and using this sort of philosophical inquiry to make space in your conceptual scheme for that experience okay and at the same so I do a bit of this and a bit of embodiment and the reason why it's good for integration is because when you have very strong experience like I mostly use work with people that are having big experiences and mystical experiences. So either psychedelic experiences or mystical experiences without psychedelics. And because very often they clash with the reality of the everyday, the philosophy allows us to soften the conceptual frameworks that we have,

which doesn't mean that we no longer think that this is real, but it's just a way of thinking about things differently, philosophically, so that you have this tool in the everyday. So it's not about creating a new metaphysics. I mean, you could end up creating a new metaphysics, but the purpose is really strengthening the concepts that we have that sometimes make it really hard for us to bring that experience and the value of that experience within us. And then the second part is the embodiment part, because those experiences, as we said before, are experiences that are deeply embodied, that sense of knowing, deep knowing is an embodied sense, is something that we struggle to put into concepts, we struggle to put into words. And so what happens is we have a bit, some experiential aspect and some philosophical aspect, and they weave together.

And this is why I also mostly work one-on-one for psychedelic, for psychedelic or mystical experience integration. And this is because very often these experiences are very personal, very deeply personal, and they're different. So it's rare. They're bespoke. The journey that I do with these people are tailored on their own experience. And, you know, I don't have a program at the beginning. It's like, this is what we're going to do on day one and on day two.

We're going to do two classes a week. It doesn't work like that. It works very organically. Okay, what's happening now? And very often we don't have sessions, we don't plan sessions for like a couple of weeks and then I get calls because the nature of this kind of experience is that sometimes they spring up on you. And the whole point is about, wow, there is this huge intensity and I can't make sense of it.

Or I want to really juice everything out of it. And this is the work that I do with people one-on-one. and we use a lot of philosophy in terms of, okay, what philosophical views are there, a lot of philosophy, like, okay, the mind and the body where the concepts come from, et cetera, et cetera. These are the various metaphysics that are available. We explore it, but we do it. We never do it as if it was a class. We always with experience.

So a typical session would be starting with an experiential aspect, and then, From that experience, and that day, we go into the philosophy, for example. And it's a weaving of the two things. Yeah, I think it explains, I think it kind of ties back to the beginning where you had mentioned that. Part of the objective is to build that bridge between that mystical experience and then tap into it when you're going shopping. But be able to cross back over in a way of understanding, you know. And it's a beautiful thing. I wonder this sometimes because it is, it is a novel idea.

It's a new thing. And sometimes when we explore these new things, we find ourselves on the fringes a little bit. And like, sometimes it can be lonely because we're talking about things. And it's, it takes time. And the majority of the time, you have to have that experience to really understand what's happening. Do you ever find that it's lonely sometimes? Do you mean for me? Well, like I think a lot of people in this space, myself included sometimes.

I find myself talking to people and they're like, and I know I missed them. I'm like, dang it. And I try to reel them back. But do you ever get that experience sometimes by being on the fringes? I get it a lot. It's kind of, I now laugh about it because it's been such a huge part of my life always. Right. Now it's a bit of a joke, you know, like with my friends.

and my family. Like when I was doing immersive experiences back in 2009, no one was really doing them. All these like immersive stuff wasn't really a thing. So okay. I struggled a lot at the time because I wasn't understood. I think for me, the game changer came with really working through my shadows and understanding and accepting that that's what it is. And since I work with people like having seeing that people are receptive to it that people need it that you're making people's lives better that's when i started feeling less lonely but or less isolated but yeah for sure i mean it's a huge theme in my life to be on the fringes and it's just like you know i i don't want to be that person i wish i just like you know i have a normal job like uh have some stability in like every

everything I do because obviously like when you work on the fringes, like sometimes people understand, other times people don't understand and geographically as well. For example, one of my dreams is to be able to work in Sicily, to bring this work back home. But wow, it's the hardest thing ever because it's not, I mean, it's not even the fringe. It's like way out there, you know. So I'm learning and I'm playing. I'm learning to play with this feeling. and now I embrace it.

It's hard sometimes in the everyday, but the more I accept that this is what I'm doing, the more I love or, yeah, the more I do what I'm doing, the more it becomes something real, right? So it's always been real, but very often when you're on the fringe, the problem is that you doubt yourself a lot. So for me, the end of doubt was, for example,

when I finished my PhD and I actually didn't realize that I had done a PhD and when I submitted and defended my PhD and I passed with no philosophical corrections, I was taking it back and I was just like, okay, because my PhD was also on the pre-indance, very much. But when it was accepted, I was just like, okay, so it's a thing. It works. So, and I was brave enough. And I was brave enough. to do it. So before I was on the fringes and I was doing things but I was just like pushing but not enough not really pushing but then like oh no let's do something else let's change it all let's try to fit in. During the PhD obviously like I was earning like I had a scholarship I was earning money through the scholarship I had clients I was okay from that perspective I could play

I could push and when I got and when the when you really push and you believe in it that it does pay off. I never believe it and I always feel really sorry when I say this because I know that the person is on the other side is like yeah whatever you got lucky and it goes back to the question that you, that's the point that you said before like does changing yourself change your reality. When you really do push and you're like, okay, I'm going to give it my all and I'm going to push, then it does happen. Maybe it takes time. Maybe the form will change is going to be super frustrating, super isolating, but it can happen.

You just need to be patient and you just need to allow yourself to feel bad when you feel bad. So embodiment again, for me, for me it was life changing. The minute that I shifted and became really embodied

that I started navigating my existence by asking my body rather than my mind, does this feel right rather than is this right? Changing that question. question and allowing the answer to come from my belly, from my heart, rather than from my reasoning, everything changed. And even being on the fringes is now an exciting thing because I could

connect to other people that were on the fringes. And it's like, oh my God, the fringe is so much fun. You know, there is water sometimes and there is wind and there is sunsets. And I couldn't see that when I was like in the house doing the work. It's really, it's really well said. And there will always be people that say things like you got lucky and and on some level we all get lucky but i think that there's the people that the some of the most important people you'll reach are the people that need to hear exactly what you just said they're the people that need the inspiration to figure that that that are on the fringes of the fringes getting ready to push through and they're like should i do this can i do can i do this who else has done and then they can hear what you just said

They can look to other people and go, yes, it can be done. This is what she means when she says push through. This is maybe I need to be looking at some contemplative embodiment, but providing people with the tools and resources to bring more of us to the fringes, Marta, I think is such a beautiful thing. Like let's say that there's a young George Monty or a young Marta out there and they're struggling right now. Like what advice would you give to people who are trying to find their way on the fringes? I would tell them that they have the power.

I would tell them that the fringes are beautiful. And when you're on the fringes, it's because you're channeling something that is not there. And there is a lot of space on the fringes for everyone. No, but really what I would tell them, which is what I would tell everyone, is just really breathe and come back to yourself. The world needs you, the world needs every one of us to be ourselves. be ourselves, to embody ourselves, to unleash

our presence, to unleash our personality, to unbuild everything, all the scuff holding that we've built. Unbuild. Going to that process. Go into this process, learn to trust yourself and don't stay in your head

because your thoughts don't stay only in your head. I think a lot. I love thinking. Thinking is great. pair that with experience go and feel the soil touch the soil feed it i'll go to the sea and touch the water go to a windy like the windiest mountain and allow the wind to blow through your hair be moved feel this is the advice to everyone really because for it it's life-changing ask your body what she or he wants,

what she or he needs. Ask your body, your body knows. Yeah, it's, it touches on the idea of like deconstructing stuff. I know that you had written a little bit about the ideas of like deconstructing some of the personal things around you. But it touches on that. And I think just being submerged in the environment is a great way to learn about yourself.

I think the answers are everywhere for people if you're willing to let them be uncovered for you. You know, it's weird how experiences do that, whether it's a mystical experience or breathwork. But it seems to me that a lot of the answers are not learned but revealed to you in a weird way when you're in the heightened state. of awareness. I'm curious. Marta, I cannot tell you how thankful I am to talk to you. I could hopefully you and I'll be talking again on a panel here pretty soon. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for that. I feel like we're just kind of scratching the surface, though, because I know that there's so much more that we could talk about. And unfortunately, I got another person coming up. It's always so crazy for me because I start talking to someone, then it's like,

okay, we'll just get warmed up here, you know, but it's so fun for me. And I want to say thank you, but before I let you go, can you tell me where people can find you what you have coming up and what you're excited about. Okay, well, a lot of stuff is coming up at the moment. Talking about being on the bridges. So I am going to be at breaking convention in the UK, which is a Europe's largest psychedelic conference. And I will be talking on a panel with Peter Soisted Hughes. I hope I'm saying that's right. and Susan Blackmore and Chris Leithubai on mind and metaphysics,

which is going to be precisely on metaphysics and integration of psychedelic experiences. And I will then be at the Science Towards the Science of Consciousness Conference, which is the world's largest conference on science of consciousness. And I will be doing some contemplative embodiment there and giving a talk at the at the philosophy panel. These are the big things that are coming up. I am also going to, I'm also going to work at a holotropic breathwork retreat in Italy very soon in May. But if people want to find out more about me, my publication and stuff that I'm doing,

I guess my Instagram and my website are the best places to go right now. And what can you can you say those for people? I'll put them in the show notes, but maybe you can send it out because it's going to go on a podcast. Yeah, my if maybe it's better to write them. Yeah, I'll put them in the show notes and everybody can check them out. Yeah, that's great because I just changed my handle and I'm really not. I'm great with transpersonal stuff with all these admin things.

I'm changing names and stuff. Yeah. Awesome. A bit of a tradition moment. Absolutely. Yeah, it's beautiful. And I'm looking forward to hearing more about those upcoming events. And ladies and gentlemen, that's what we got for today. I'm so thankful that you got to spend time with us today. Thank you. Thank you, George. Yeah. I want to invite the entire audience, whether you're watching this or you're listening to this in the future, go to the show notes and check out Marta's writings for publications and reach out to her because she's really doing some incredible work. And as you've heard in this video, putting ideas into words that you've never heard before. exciting and it's fun and I think it's paving the way for a lot of people to learn.

So, Marcia, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's all we got for today. Ladies and gentlemen, Aloha. Bye. Nice.

Okay, do that.