TrueLife - Sophia Dagg - The Language of Elements

Episode Date: April 27, 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/YouTube - https://youtube.com/@elementalempressmedicineFree Community - https://app.heartbeat.chat/elementalempressmedicine/invitation?code=6C6B3GFree Elemental Course - https://app.heartbeat.chat/elementalempressmedicine/invitation?code=99GE77Website - https://www.elementalempressmedicine.com/www.elementalempressmedicine.comhttp://linkedin.com/in/sofia-daggSofia is the founder of Elemental Empress Medicine, a plant medicine integration support community. Connecting you with the truth behind healing through elemental medicine.The elements fire, air, earth, and water are taught as a language by Sofia. By understanding this language you can see the world through symbolic sight. Opening your awareness to see the power you have to create a reality of resonance and abundance.Receiving information from sacred plant teachers is a phenomenal experience. Like all things in life, it is enhanced by preparation!The Elemental Medicine School is an online course that gives you all you need to know about integrating the information you receive during your journey. A fantastic way to prepare for your transformation through altered states of consciousness.Sofia supports her private clients to take inspired action after receiving these wonderful insights from plant medicine.Grounding their enlightenment into their everyday reality. Having a guide after your experience supports you in aligning your energy with your higher self and taking consistent steps to create your soul-led life.Check out the sponser of the show never wait on hold again!! https://www.dayapp.net/Ladies & Gentleman… You know what I despise! Talking to a robot then waiting in Hold! I woukd like to introduce you to the New Sponser of the TrueLife Podcast! There AI technology dials the company’s number, goes through all the stages of interaction, then initiated a callback to you when an operator is connected! Never wait on hold AGAIN!Use PROMO code: TRUELIFEhttps://www.dayapp.net/ 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 everyone is having a beautiful day. I hope that there's some sort of miracle. It's about to take place in your world and you're surrounded by the people you love. I got a great show for you today.

I'm here with the one and only Sophia Dag, the founder of Elemental Empress Medicine, a plant medicine integration support community. She's also an author, a writer, a content creator, a meditation practitioner, and an incredible human being. She's coming to us all the way from Wicklow, Ireland. Sophia, I'm so excited that you're here today. Thank you for being here. How is your day going so far?

Yeah, thank you for this beautiful creation of a podcast. Super excited. And yeah, my day so far has been super productive. I've been finding the energy at the moment kind of weird. Like, there's a lot going on, but I'm just getting a lot of guidance to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. So I was like, okay, I'm just not going to think about things too much today. So I just got super productive with content creation and communication with my team and stuff. So yeah, it feels really nice building. Yeah, I think so. You're doing a great job, I think, with Elemental Empress. I was prior to us starting up, I was looking around your site and your app and listening to some of the talks that you have given. And you're a really great speaker.

And it's obvious to me that you care about what you're doing. But before I get too deep about that, I thought maybe you could take a moment to introduce everyone to what it is that you're actually doing. Sure, a great place to start. Yeah. Yeah. So I teach about the elements is a very simple way to put it, fire, air, earth, and water. And they are a very basic language to understand our physical bodies and the world around us. And so the Elemental Empress Medicine community is specified into plant medicine integration because I have been finding,

I work a lot with plant medicines, and when we open up to see reality from this different perspective, there's a lot of questions of actually, how is this constructed? And, you know, saying like, whoa, that was crazy, isn't quite enough after some time after your third journey. You kind of want to figure out how to actually do something with what you've experienced. So that was the foundation for the inspiration of having some integration support so that we can really also have more respect for the plants, really because they provide so much information. So I've made a course, the Elemental Medicine School that helps you to prepare for your journey

so that you can get the most out of them so that really you only need to do plant medicine once a year or once or twice in your life if you're not that interested in it. And you're going to get so much benefit from it. So, yeah, that's where the teachings have gone to now. And ultimately, what all of that does is really, really bring you close to your true nature and support you immensely in how you want to be of service in the world. That's so well said. I really love the idea of using the elements of language because sometimes for those of us who have found ourselves deep into a plant medicine journey or

even altered states of consciousness or sometimes even relationships with people we love, we realize that the ability to communicate breaks down. And sometimes my definition of a word is different than your definition of a word. So we can kind of get in the way of each other. But when you look at the elements as a language, now you have this foundation of actual elements that go together with language and you have this symbolic meaning together. I was wondering maybe you could give us like a sort of crash course on the idea of elements as a language. Like how did you come up with that? What kind of language are they? And how do you use them? Yeah, all great questions. I love it.

Yeah, so I mean, I was having this realization, you know, this whole process of creating has been terrifying, exciting, illuminating, just rollercoaster vibes. So, yeah, I was writing the copyright for the course and this thing just pinged in my head. I was like, wow, this really is like the Google Translate for the Psychedelic Realm. Like, that's exactly how it feels to me. It's like, this is a. a certain experience and we can translate it and we're not trying to minimize it. That was the biggest thing.

And so then recently, because of the building of our custom-built platform and we now have it all automated on an online space, which I'm just super excited about, but it also required me to do a more in-depth copywriting for that. And so I'm writing and I'm writing and I'm realizing that, you know, going, flashing out this topic of the English language, that, you know, a lot of wars and things happened when the English language started to travel around the world, you know, because English has certain ideas and certain mentalities. That's what language is constructed of. And some people agreed with those things and some people didn't. And that's why we decided to fight. And also, all of the creations

resonated with the language. So, you know, the language, if it's really structured, usually creates like cities and if it's more playful, you know, so we see this reflection between creation and language. So then I had this thought, well, what will happen? if this ship of an elemental language like traveled around the world like what would it create because it's totally unifying like there's nothing to disagree with it's just pure reality reflecting itself and i was like wow like new earth right there so so yeah so how does that work i mean so in a very simple way we come back to our bodies and so fire air earth and water are in the body. And the first way that I can teach that is to do with the chakra system, in the energy system

within the body. So our fire relates to our solar plexus, our excitement. And the interesting thing about teaching this is that everyone already knows this. We use it in our language like my brain is fried or, you know, I'm in the flow. You know, we're already knowing these things. I'm just kind of sharing that what you already know. But if you are feeling an ailment in your body, like a blockage, you're unmotivated, depressed, or you're having difficulty connecting in your relationships because you can communicate. We can also see this from the elemental reflection and weave it back and say, okay, well, actually, I have some heart wounds in my chest. So I'm struggling to breathe, which is affecting my communication, which is making me not want to reach out to people. You know, the arms are

an extension of the heart. So we can start to see, okay, well, that's just what's happening. No judgment. That's just how I'm experiencing life. And then, And when we come to that awareness, it's like, okay, that's interesting. Then we might observe that, you know, the air in our home is really dingy. Like we haven't opened the windows or cleaned the windows in a while. We haven't burned any sage. And the whole place just feels very like stagnant in the air. So we can start to see that reflecting outside of us.

Yeah. And so once we kind of come to that realization in our physical bodies and our homes, those are the first two checkpoints that we go through in the school, like, okay, then we can obviously work with the larger world around us and how we create our entire worlds. But it's quite a large process to go through. Yeah, I really, the more that I hear about it and the more that I listen to some of the things that you were saying, I like the idea of it, the language being a vehicle, because we do get caught up in words. We do get caught up in definitions.

and the one thing that can unify us is the meanings of the language. Like we get caught up in this idea of, oh, well, they define this, they define that. But I think that the elements are a great job at producing meaning for people. And another part that I really enjoy is that it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're allowing the people that begin this process with you, They start to go through the elemental ideologies that they are beginning to ascribe meaning to their own problems, which allows them to find solutions to their own problems. Like you're guiding them through them, but you're helping them solve their own problems,

which I think a lot of people, if you look at a lot of courses that some people are teaching or there's a lot of coaches out there, they try to give people like these canned solutions where, okay, if A, then B, if B then C. but it seems to me you guys are a little bit different in that you are working with people to help them come up with their own solutions. And I think that's where you get lasting change. What do you think about that? Totally agree. Yeah. And it's, I mean, this course, this elemental course didn't come through as a plant medicine integration slash preparation course. This was totally a pure transmission that just came through from the elements. And it's just, it works really well for the plant medicine integration because you're so open to information.

But yeah, I mean, just like teaching English, like if I taught you English or Spanish right now, like you can write a book, you can practice law, you can create a like community or a company, like whatever. But you're totally free to do that. And I mean, that's the beauty as a practitioner for me because I want to be surprised by the people I work with. And for them to bring their creations back because we all have our own creative channel. And I love that because it's just, it has like a, oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. That's all good. I mean, I'm actually in Cape Town, South Africa right now. So like power outages are so normal. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It's incredible.

So I left you off right when you began talking about the elemental part of that conversation. Yeah. Well, it just, it was a great note there that the shelf life of a course. because I mean I'm personally super tired of this whole like this will work in this situation and you have to do these steps and then you know that problem will be solved I'm like no I want to solve all of the problems so yeah let me let me take it a step further when you when you look at the different elements each one of them seems to provide a different dimension that you can go into I know that you've spoken a little bit about fire being like a masculine sort of energy. And then in the mornings, if you go for a run and you're burning off some energy, you come home and then you want to get into the shower to use the water.

Can you talk a little bit about how those, how different elements can be used together to complement each other? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So they all complement each other every single day, every single hour. And that's sometimes a really nice way to work with them to just like see in your day how much fire is there, how much water is there, how much water is there?

how much air is there. And so what really works well is when we are sensing all of them in the body at once in balance. So forgetting about the external world for a moment, just thinking if you are hydrated, you are able to breathe, you are nourished, you know, and you are sensing like an openness in your chest. Like if you're just sensing each of these elements in balance and you're feeling like awake, then you have this sense, okay, it's balanced within me and then it will balance around me.

But if you're not, if you're feeling dehydrated or you're constantly having diuretics and you're like limiting your water, that's going to increase the fire. And so it's kind of a personal experiment as like how you feel. But like you know what the elements are like in the body. Like everything kind of can understand that I feel.

What about different parts of the environment? Like it seems like you do quite a bit of traveling from Costa Rica. to Ireland, to South Africa, are there different, the different environments have like a different sort of elemental relationship with them? Definitely.

I mean, that's being part of my research with my travel is like which, which countries are more strong in each element. And I, that's part of my larger life plan. I want to take this like to the next level.

Yeah. Every time I have a plant, medicine journey. Like, I'm like, whoa, this could be so big. Elemental World project. Yeah, I mean, I'm in Africa right now, which to me is Earth. Totally. Like, holistically, they have the most natural birthing practitioners.

I was trained as a birth worker here. And they're very connected to just animals and nature. So that's 100%. And I think a lot of people are being drawn to Africa at the moment to remember what Earth is and what our roots are. humanity. So it's quite an interesting place at this time where like Costa Rica, it's in Hawaii, like those are really air places to me because you think about something and it happens. It's just manifestation speed of life. It's crazy. Where South America was super fiery.

Also some parts of like Namibia in Africa are super fiery because like the sexuality is just like on fire. Whoa. It's. I was hiking up this place in Medellin in Columbia and like all the women are wearing like the tightest fitness clothes. There's like 17 dating apps where you can like get anyone at the time. And it maybe it's the same. Like some places are literally just on fire. So yeah, I'd be interested. I mean, if people want to comment or share with this podcast like where they feel their country is on the element.

If you feel like your country is an element, maybe share that with us. Yeah, that's a great idea. And it seems to me it could be brought into the idea of depending on what someone is, what situation or what trauma or what accomplishment someone wants to either work through or add upon, there could be a perfect spot that could align with them to go, whether it is South Africa, whether it's Costa Rica, whether it's Hawaii, depending on what element you're working with or what problem that you want to overcome, maybe there's a great spot or a spot that's the most that points you to the best possible outcome. I don't know if I got the question in there right,

but the earth could align with the problem, could align with the person, and that might be the best plan of attack. Yeah, I really like it. That makes total sense, like, to intuitively flow where you feel full to. Yeah. And also what I teach in the very beginning with the elements is like a simple technique where I ask people, you know, intuitively, what do you feel like your elemental strength is, like naturally? You know, are you kind of really attracted to water? You love being in the water. You love being in the forest or whatever. And then also like what is your elemental weakness? And that can also reflect on a country basis. So for example, in Africa, like they went through a serious drought and still obviously many places in the world suffer with water supply. And that's

usually reflective of the, you know, deprivation of the feminine. There's a huge amount of alcoholism and abuse of women in those places. So we can also see in the scarcity side or the deformity side of an element in a country basis, how that can be affecting the factual population, you know. Yeah, that's brilliant. I never, like, this is the first time that I've ever thought about the environment in which someone lives may be a symptom. of that which is lacking in their life. Like that's, that's beautiful, Sophia. I never thought about that before.

Yeah, and it's totally impersonal in a sense as well. Like we can just see it on a global scale, like all of these wildfires, for example, like the masculine just taking over. And then this like lack of air, you know, we're polluting the air so much. And then naturally the trees fall down, naturally our lungs suffer. And it's all because we are heart wounded. Like we just feel like we can't reach out for love anymore. it's all and we can't even breathe like we can't even feel we don't feel like we want to live

in the sense of like expanding fullness of breath because we've all this food and luxury and you know everyone's like holy shhh like i can't i can't breathe and then it could the world reflects it you know so it's it's i mean i love that part that it's so impersonal you know it's it's just it's great for healers i find to to elevate their practices with their clients because they can just observe, you know, what's going on. How did you, I'm very curious, like, who were some of your mentors? Like, you have a really balanced idea about solving problems and a unique idea about it. How did you get to this?

Did you have some mentors that you studied under? Are there certain types of people that you're drawn to? Like, what was it like before you decided to go on this mission for you? You know, I get this question a lot, and it's always interesting to answer it. Of course I did. Yes, I did, you know, the training in naturopathic medicine. I had amazing yoga that taught me somatic yoga that are just, you know, phenomenal teachers in that realm. And I've also had amazing, like, shamanic plant medicine teachers that, like, that's still my happiest place in the world is in a really good ceremony with live music. Like, wow, it's just incredible.

So, yeah, I was taught about the sacredness of plants, but ultimately on the person side i didn't like learn underneath a person about the elements particularly i was building an elemental school in south africa for some time but i mean to be honest i have had a bit of a trust back and forth with people and information yeah i think because in my childhood like i just learned so much information that was just untrue or irrelevant so i turned to to plant medicine to actual psychedelic experiences to get information that was actually true for me. And then I just brought through the elements as a way to share my light with the world. So I kind of feel like this is also information that comes from my other lifetimes and things.

I don't feel like it's all things I've learned just in my personal life. Yeah. It seems to me that there is this erudony thread that runs through the world of authentic people. And it's this idea of the primacy of experience, like people who really decide to have their own personal experiences in life that are willing to be embarrassed, that are willing to go out and struggle, that are willing to turn their back on the crowd, that these people tend to be the ones who can find authentic ideas that can really help people. And I'm curious, you said when you were coming up and when you were growing up that you were lied to. And I think that that's something we do to the youth. And maybe it's not something that we're purposely trying to do to retard them or make them, you know, less than. But it seems that there is like this cookie cutter idea for education regardless of what country you're in, that the youth should follow these rules.

You should do these things. And, you know, it gets back to Terence McKenna's idea of culture is not your friend. I know that's kind of a lot out there, but what do you think about the primacy of experience, authenticity, and education? What is the relationship between all those things? Yeah, I feel the biggest thing that I work with with clients and with people in the school is around intuition. And this whole educational thing, that's the main thing that it puts the doubt into is in the

feminine because it's so masculine and so structured. And it seems to be, for my experience, and, you know, also for my personal like my mother was very protective of my intuitive nature like she never crushed it and she didn't tell me like a lot of people get this like oh you're that's not true or parents have emotional feelings and then they lie to their children and say no i'm not feeling that so then the child perceives that as oh i'm wrong to sense that she's feeling that so therefore my intuitive system is is actually wrong so i was lucky enough to be able to keep my intuition someone alive through that time. But I mean, ultimately, what I believe about it is that it's just

entirely broken. It just doesn't function in any way at all anymore. I struggle to find like one point where it's actually beneficial because when you access the elements and you actually have no need to absorb any other information because you have access to any information that you needed any given point in time. Why? There's no reason to sit at a desk ever. It's just the biggest waste of time ever. I suppose it's everyone finds their well. But I mean, plant medicine, I think, drives us down real deep to find the truth of what we're

looking for very quickly. So maybe that's why people who go into those realms seem to find it in a different way, I guess. Yeah. So I love it. I think that's really well said, and I agree with all of it. Another aspect I've learned about elements and plant medicines is that it seems to break down barriers and especially the barriers around authority. Not that, and I'm not talking about an authority figure who loves you and trying to push you in the right direction or is there to comfort you.

But more of an authority figure, like the culture where it says, you're here to serve this institute. You should get up and go to a job for 40 years and give them all your genius and all your creativity and not. not do these other things. Is that something that you have found in the plant medicines that you have been in and the plant medicine communities that you've been in? Yeah. It definitely, I mean, there's still a humanness at times of, you know, I know more than you. And a lot of people ask me that about like ceremonies and stuff that I hold, like, you know,

I never really get it because I just like, you know, they want to know what training to do or like, you know, where's your like piece of paper that says you're qualified. That's not what we do. We cannot answer your question at all. And sometimes it's a little bit hard to bridge the gap to like, do you understand how synchronous it is that I'm right here with this medicine standing in front of you and I reflect your problem exactly? And then they're just like, no, I still don't get it.

And I'm like, cool, we're not ready for this. Transition yet. So, yeah, there's, I mean, there's a. authority, like always an authority thing, but actually in the medicine, like when people are in the medicine, the real only scale that I have found is like how comfortable you are being your true version of self. And I mean, when I went deeper, when I went into ayahuasca, like I was where he was psilocybin for a few years. And then I went into the ayahuasca realm. And when I came out of that ceremony, I was like, oh my God, everyone can see me so clearly. Like I felt so naked because everyone just sees. you like entirely. So that's the only spectrum that exists is how comfortable are you with yourself basically. That's it. Do you think becoming comfortable with yourself? I mean, it's definitely a learning process. But have you ever noticed someone becoming really uncomfortable or is that part of the

process? Do you think that people become uncomfortable with who they are or is it, let me rephrase that because it didn't really come out the way I wanted it to. When we look at someone, and I'll take myself, for example, before I started really working with psilocybin and different plant medicines, I had this idea of who I was and who I wanted to be. But the more I began to interact with the plants, the more it was revealed to me who I really am. There's this process of revealing that happens.

And I was wondering if you could maybe talk about your ideas of the revealing nature. You talked about being almost like naked and people could see you. To me, that's like a revealing. For some people that may not understand what that is, could you maybe explain that concept more? Yeah. Yeah, it's a very interesting process and I still work with it, you know. And there's two aspects to it for me. The first one is that that's an awareness that that's the biggest challenge is good to know

in the beginning when you start taking it. Like basically you're not going to want to do it. It's just like saying like, do you want to stand in the middle of a mall naked? Like no. You don't want to do that. Like so you're naturally going to resist the process. And that's why, you know, obviously multiple populism journeys are helpful to to unveil. But I mean, for me, I'm at a stage right now where I'm still like I'm observing this construct of self.

And that's been a big part of my week actually is just like, wow, I have so many expectations. And I have so much resistance. and dislike for some parts of myself that keep manifesting, and it just completely blocks this whole effortless creation part of our existence. Like, we are always manifesting. You know, that's just a given. But I was trying to manifest something that my inner soul did not want to manifest. And it was like car crash after car crash after car crash.

And I was like, fourth car crash in. And I'm like, this is still a car crash. I think I need to like review how this is working. the biggest remedy for me to use like my life experience and my plant medicine experiences to go through this unveiling has actually been to communicate with my birth family and my closest friends about what is actually happening. So that's actually where the unveiling occurs for me because I think if I kept it in and I didn't share with my family what's happening no matter how weird it is or how

I've just like done it four times before. that's where the unveiling happens, you know, in the earth realm in our, in our value system, in our, in our community. So I think that's a great step to take. Have you gone through that step of unveiling yourself to your birth family? Has that gone well? Yeah. I, um, my journey began like a long time ago. In my birth family, like we put the fun and dysfunction. My dad is bipolar and my, my cousins had autism. Like, we got come from a long, of truck drivers.

And my grandfather owned a truck yard, and I grew up out there. And I learned so much being out there. Some of my cousins had autism, but we didn't really know what autism was back then. I mean, people did, but not my family. That kind of makes sense. Like, yeah, that's just so-and-so. He's just a little bit off. Super smart, but he's just a little bit off.

Yeah. And so, you know, when I, I remember one of the first times that I did psilocybin, was probably when I was 17. And I don't thoroughly remember everything that happened. But what I do remember crystal clear is this feeling of knowing. And it was the first time in my life that things made sense to me. And I just remember, and I can still remember, I get goosebumps thinking about it. I remember being in my room and just like, I get it.

Oh my God. Like all these things make sense to me. And it was this moment of clarity. You know, sometimes you'll hear someone who's in recovery from alcohol say like they all had a moment of clarity for me that was the first moment of clarity and my parents didn't really see it as a moment of clarity they just saw it as a moment of confusion they're like dude you're on drugs man what are you talking about that's not clear and so I'm like no you guys don't get it and so for me that was the beginning of the unveiling and it was like two

it was like this point in my life where these people that I love are saying this is all wrong you dummy, what are you doing? This is wrong. And I'm like, I've never felt more clear in my life. There's got to be something here worth investigating. There's got to be something here that is meaningful because these feelings and this understanding that I'm having is it's unlike anything else. And so from that point forward, I began to emerge down this path of self-discovery that most people in my life thought was really odd or weird. Some people were worried for me. And truth be told, maybe they should have been worried for me. Like I definitely went down this road of discovery that was my road alone.

And I could understand how it wouldn't make sense to people. But that was the unveiling process for me. And I understand the metaphor of being naked because people look at you strange. They look at you like, oh, my God. And a lot of that is your reflection. And here's something people I think can learn. When you see somebody that is looking at you and you go, oh, my God, they're totally judging me. What you're really doing is just projecting onto them your ideas of what you think

that they're thinking. It's kind of a mouthful of words, but it speaks volumes of who you are when you begin to think about what other people are thinking about you. And like that to me was the unveiling, right? Is that too much there? What do you think? Now, I catch you on that. Yeah, for sure. And also for me at this time, especially at this point in the creative process with elemental the Empress medicine, it's just never been more important than right now to just be still with people's reactions and just like not even think about their reaction or their judgment or whatever. It's just like, no, one foot in front of the other because really what I feel they're reacting to is how they would feel if they were naked in the middle of the

middle of the same. Yeah, exactly. Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I'm so anxious. I'm so scared. And you're just like, you could just be standing there like a Zen monk. Like, I love myself. And they're freaking out because if they were in your situation, that's what they would do. You know? And that was one of the best pieces of advice that I got as an entrepreneur is that when people say you can't do that, they're actually saying, I can't do that. Yeah. It's like, cool.

I know you can't do that. Like, you believe that. Yeah. So you can't be in that space. But I'm not you. Yeah. Yeah. So having that reeling of, you know, coming back to self.

Yeah, it's such a great gift to it. And like you said, in the beginning, it's hard to walk alone, Sophia. It's really hard to walk alone. And, you know, you, you see people that are afraid to talk to you because of their own, like you said, that they see, they can't do it. And so when they look at you, they go, oh, this poor person, they can't do it. You know, and it's, I struggle with with it too. I love, I do my best to love everyone around me. And I do my best to like see. the beauty in them and then try to explain the beauty to them about them. Like, you know what I love about you? Like, I can't believe you're doing this is so beautiful. I'm so proud of you. But it's hard, it's hard to walk alone. And it's hard to see the look of despair in other people's eyes when the hopeless sets in on them. And it makes me sad. But what makes me happy is to see people like you who are going out of their way to bring ideas like elemental awareness, to bring ideas about life and that have the courage to stand in front of people like a Zen monk and not judge them. I love it, Sophie.

I think what you're doing is beautiful and it's amazing. And that's why I'm so curious to figure out how you did it. Let me, I can shift gears, though. How are you, like, you are traveling all over? Like, what's going on there? Is this like a form of self-education? Are you going and seeing these people in different areas to help? You have clients all over the world, it appears to me.

but what is what is about this journey that you're on like you're always moving places can you share with with everybody what's going on there to the best my ability sure this is my human perception of what's happening anyone else has a gas go for it yeah i've definitely it's been my life like master's program in many ways um I've just got in to learn so deeply, like, who I am on, on a real level. So, I mean, when I compare who I perceived myself as when I was, I grew up in Dublin, I was raised there in Ireland, and there's a certain perception that every time I go back, it's the same perception, you know, it's so wild. Like, because then I go away and I've traveled to different countries and I'm seen as a different person

every time I go to a different country. Like, sometimes I'm seen as a teacher or a healer or a shaman or, like, whatever I'm doing in that, or a writer, whatever I'm doing in that space. And so that's really fascinating to me because what it's helped me to do is just mature, basically. And not like I'm always learning, but also I'm just like awakening this inner self vibration. And also because I've had such large visions, I've had this feeling that I've needed this like strengthening. Like I needed to go through a lot of trials to strengthen my own inner conviction.

because otherwise my manifestations won't survive, you know, in this world because it can be quite harsh. Yeah. So I've been traveling to different places based on invitation sometimes, based on choice at other times, running away from COVID at other times. It depends. Totally. Yeah, but every time I've been somewhere, it's been really nice. Like a lot of the time when I arrive, people mention to me like, oh, you're really, like, need it here. Like, thank you for being here, which is kind of a weird.

It's like someone just rings a bell. And then all of a sudden, I'm there. And it's like, there's a drum. And I'm like, okay. Here we go. So, yeah, it's easy to see life as a dream living the way that I do because everything changes so quickly. For someone who may not know what it's like to get to be a different person,

Like, that's a pretty great gift. Like, if, you know, you said that, like, I'm this person in Ireland. And then I come over here and you get to be someone totally different. Like, that's such a profound experience. Is there any way you could try to translate that into words for someone who may not have had that experience? Yeah, it's a very interesting practice. I think the easiest way, if you want to test it out, is just, like, call five people in a day and just, like, turn out it and see, because actually I started to see this initially. when I was working on LinkedIn a lot during COVID.

And I was doing a lot of calls at the time for wellness practices and for healing. And every time I picked up the phone, someone would see something different. And because I just did like dozens of these goals, you know, all of a sudden I was someone's sister. Then I was someone was attracted to me. Then someone was like resistant to me. And it was just like all. And I was like, none of these things are me.

And I went to a festival in Cape Town a couple years ago. and there was a red tent for women. And at the end of the festival, we did a ceremony between the men and the women. There was a men's teepee and a women's red tent. So the men obviously couldn't go to the red tent. Women couldn't go to the men's teepee. So instead of closing the spaces at the end of the festival, they actually, the woman, the leader of the red tent invited the men to come to the red tent.

And we had these like yoni like paintings that we painted and she draped them on like the whole walkway. So they had to like go underneath these like bunting like as they can. So intimidating. Women are in like a circle at the Red Tent. We're all singing. And then we open the circle so that the men could come into the center of the circle. And then they formed a circle in the middle of us. So they're facing us.

We're facing them. And then we just like went opposite ways. And we like did eye gazing, like looking into each other's eyes. And so I like each like man is passing me by, passing me by and like looking me in the eyes. And I'm noticing that they're all seeing something different. you know and some of them were really finding it hard and then we did you know if you wanted to hug someone afterwards you you could hug someone but honestly it was the first time I realized that people see me as a female before they see anything else.

I mean like female first okay that's interesting you know people are seeing all these layers like whoever we are deep inside like that's where creation comes in that's where you write a book or you need to make a business or you need to build a home for people to genuinely see who you are. Otherwise, I mean, you're just a gender or you're just a reflection of something that they've thought about. So it's very interesting.

Yeah, that's incredibly interesting. It brings to my mind this idea of the lack of rituals, the lack of rights of passage. Like when you're talking about the red tent versus the teepee and this eye gazing and this bowing under these different things and people coming around and seeing,

you and what you experience from that. I don't think that happens hardly at all in the West anymore. And it kind of provides us with this prolonged adolescence or this part of us that never really gets to mature. Like is that something that you've noticed traveling is that the richness and customs and rights versus maybe in the West there's not so much? Yeah. It's a great way to look at it. And definitely, I mean, this has been my breathing into thing at the moment is that I'm just a like a natural adventure at the moment at least for the past couple years and that has been largely driven by my irritation of the Western world like even with dating I'm like oh my like I went to an Irish wedding and I was like this is this is next level whoa so yeah when you

have to look you have to really look for initiations these days and ask a lot of questions and And to be honest, majority people have to make their own. Like, my brother at the moment is training for an iron man because he's just like, I want my own initiation. Like, I want a really high engine. I want to climb it and I want to get over it. You know, so we have to go and find them. But it's, it's super important.

And it has to, it's interesting because it's no longer coming from our community or our elders that has to come from our, you know, our own drive to do that. Which hopefully, I mean, in my reality, I'm hoping that will change for the next generations that at least are in my orbit or my community that I would be able to hold space for that because there's just honestly, I don't see any greater gift than being able to support someone

through an initiation process because you're just giving them more of themselves. That's really old that it is. If you're taking that away like most educational systems are and most societies are, you're just constantly taking from people. So, yeah, to be in an initiatory space, to be an elder. If everyone had that motive, you know,

I want to be an elder, the world will definitely be a better. place. Yeah. In Hawaii, they say we're all ancestors in training. And it's really beautiful if you begin to think about it. Like, yeah, we are. We're all here learning. And hopefully that gives you the courage to help someone who may be a younger version of yourself. It helps you get to see, hey, maybe they're going through what I'm going through. Maybe I can help this person or maybe if I would have done this when I was younger and you could provide them with advice if they're willing to listen, but I want to talk about this idea of initiation a little bit more.

Is there, while different ceremonies, you help different people in different ceremonies throughout the world, but is there a sort of initiation that is unique to the elemental empress? Not specifically. There's the elemental rituals at the end of the school, which are, to be honest, it really depends because I don't start with ceremony. and ritual. That's probably, you know, so the ceremony and ritual to me are like the cave of the inner cave. So I like to think of things like this, like a little bit like a treasure map of life.

So like we have the elemental meditation membership, which is kind of our first cave. Then we have the school, which is our second cave. And at the end of the school, you practice your rituals with fire and water. So you start to get used to that methodology. And then you can go obviously deeper with plant medicine and plant medicine integration, which I feel is the ultimate initiation into the elemental world is like your own experience of psilocybin or ayahuasca. That's when you really have to surrender because the thing about it is, like, it's a great question. And it's something I want to do more of like in the physical realm, like with a physical retreat center. So that we can actually like bury people near and put them in trees and stuff. But that sounds amazing.

It's my future vision of an elemental retreat just in case anyone wants to follow me. for that one. But yeah, I mean, it's been interesting at the moment because I'm kind of watching people, like, be fearful of some plant medicine experiences and being fearful of their own shadow in many ways. I'm being fearful of seeing the truth. So, yeah, it takes time. Sometimes it takes that education.

And we have to, what I've learned is we have to get comfortable with our bodies first. If we're uncomfortable in the body, ritual ceremony and plant medicine is actually very, very difficult. You know, I want to ask you a question, but I'm going to ask myself first. That way, like, I don't feel like I'm pretty too personal. So the question is, is there a truth that you're fearful of? And for me, the truth that I'm most fearful of is that I'm afraid of authority in a lot of ways. I'm afraid that I'm not enough. And that's hard for me because I have a family.

I have a wife and I have a daughter. And I'm afraid that I'll never be enough sometimes for them. And the way that I've gone about doing that in the past, which was sometimes wrong, was trying to be like the tough guy and acting out in ways that would be violent or would be mean-spirited or would tear other people down. and part of taking different like psilocybin or plant medicine has really helped me understand that the ways I was acting were not my truth and this fearful idea that I had was really inhibiting me from becoming the best person that I can be.

In fact, being afraid that I'm not enough was actually causing me to be not enough. It was causing me to not be the best husband, not be the best father, not be the best friend. And so I really think that this idea of fear, whether it's fear of your truth or fear in your life, is like this cancer on you. And so now I'll pose the question to you. Is there something that,

is there a fear that you have about one of your truths that you have really worked on and become better? Yeah, I have it in my mind, and I will answer you. I just want to, can I comment on what you share? Of course. Open conversation, yes. Thanks for letting me share that too. Yeah, it's really honest and I feel what you're saying for sure.

And I've been, yeah, thinking about this home situation and it's actually very hard for men to feel good enough, I think, at this point in time. Because what you would have derived you were good enough feeling from would have actually been from like physically building a home, physically providing food for your family. And of course, like if you provide finances, for those things, it's kind of the same thing, but it's not really the same thing. Right, right. As building a kitchen table and then you watch your child eating at the kitchen table. It's a very different kind of energy. So, I mean, for me, that's a good way for men to, like, reclaim their feeling of good enough.

Like, see if you can hunt a fish or see if you could build a shed or, you know, get back to the earth element in that sense of the primal nature of what it means to provide as a male. And that's, I suppose, comes back to our previous conversation of, having men's groups and having men's initiation where you're just stuck in the forest for three days. And you have to, like, you have to find the survival within yourself so that you save your own life. And then when your wife and child need you, you have it no doubt whatsoever that you will be able to find the survival mechanism. Right.

Because I think for a lot of men right now, they're like, I'm pretty sure there's a survival mechanism in there. But I've never gone to check. So we'll see. It's like not quite good enough. So sometimes we need nature to find that. And I think that's being sports and stuff like that. We can find it. Yeah.

How does that feel for you? I like it. It's true. I feel that having an open line of communication and strenuous exercise. And for me, like, I'm big in trying. I'm in my head a lot. You know, and I spend a lot of time trying to solve the way. world's problems, even though I have no business doing that. But I've recently found ways to

harness that defense mechanism by building, maybe not kitchen tables, but building new relationships that can sustain my family, that can be structures on which my family could eat from, if that kind of makes sense. And in doing so, I've felt I've reconstructed myself. And my wife and my daughter are seeing this new version of me being built. And it's a pathway that they can follow. I can hold their hands and show them this is the new pathway. This is what your dad does. And this is what you can do if you're willing to believe in yourself and become the best version of yourself.

So that's, I love the idea of finding the defense mechanism because that's where the power is. And it's where the courage is. And it's where the light is. And with that kind of light, you can move. our courage, like old masculine. Totally right. It's got motivated guys. You're totally heating them up.

Yeah, yeah. Bring a fire into the family. That's exactly what you're there for. Right. Right. Thank you for that. I like sharing that. And I, again, I'm learning about the elements.

And I think that's why I'm attracted to some of the teachings. Thank you. Yeah, that's gorgeous. Yeah. So what is my feared truth? I think my biggest one is that nothing means anything. Like nothing has meaning. Which is quite a deep one.

Like I struggle to, it's I suppose the teeter-totter balance of motivation to support the world in evolving. But I've reached this point now where it's just like this abyss of nothingness is pretty close by like a lot of the time. And it's just like, nothing matters.

And so I suppose, I don't know if that's like a good way. At the moment, it's a bit of a fear because I'm not used to being with the abyss. And I feel like the abyss is the, I mean, I'll describe it a little bit more if that's not making sense. But the abyss is where I feel it's best to rest in.

And then you get inspired inspiration and then you act from that space of the abyss. And then that's when like you. know you're acting when you only really need to act. But sitting in the nothingness at the moment is feeling quite intense. Does that make sense? Is that? Yeah, I'm reminded of Nietzsche when he says, if you stare into the abyss too long, it begins to stare back. Kind of.

Yeah. Yeah, it really can be a, like a sucking kind of feeling, like a vortex. Yeah. Meaning is important, too. that's yeah yeah i've played with the abyss like in in the plant medicine realm like i've looked at it i've looked into it and i'm like i wonder if i should jump in there yeah no i didn't right because i mean yeah i mean there's there's i'm always like this person that wants to find the edge of understanding you the edge of reality the edge of everything but then i have to realize at some

point that I've come here to be a human being. And you come here to this planet. And I have to stop going too far in that direction. Because it's not meant to be understood while being in a human body. I don't feel anything. I want to ask you about those abyss. You know, sometimes in like a really high dose psychedelic experience, there's this environment you find yourself in.

Some people call it ineffable. Some people find it disorienting. but I think those of us who spend lots of time in this environment begin to understand, I don't know, but I understand another word, you become a little bit more comfortable with the environment, and you can begin to notice things in that environment. And to me, that is almost, that for me is the abyss, because I think that there's meaning there.

And sometimes the meaning you find in these heightened states of awareness, it's not the best motivation. It's not the best possible thing that you could do with your life. But to be in a heightened state of awareness where you can play with ideas that you may have never had before is like a wellspring of creativity. And I'm wondering, what do you think is the relationship between the abyss,

heightened states of awareness, meaning and creativity? Yeah, that feels like my life for best. Summary. Yeah. I mean, that's the whole thing I feel motivated to like, right. Because we create more of what we are. So if we're bliss out in the abyss, we just create more bliss out abyss vibes, at people in situations.

So, I mean, I did that for a while. And then I was like, maybe I want to create something. and have something grounded and be, you know, see more, because what I wanted to see more in the world was like these higher insight ideas that are from the Palm Edison realm being in the physical realm. So I was like, wow, that would be really nice. And then I would get to experience more physical spaces that I actually like being in because this is kind of feeling a bit limited. I've been all over the world. There's not that many. So then I was like, okay, well, there's only one way for me to create more of that and that's to be that.

and I did not know what I was hunting up for when I did that. But four years later, I'm like, whoa. That was one idea. Yeah. No. And then I was actually chatting with previous clients of mine yesterday about this. And she was like, how does, like, how do you get the creative channel to work? And it really made me, I had to think about it.

And how I see it now is like that we have this creative channel and it's kind of like a neuron, you know, and those like neurons that fire together, wire together. But if we're not used to like bringing creations onto the physical realm, like we can burn ourselves out if we don't have enough insulation around it, like if we don't nourish ourselves and we can give up and blah, blah, blah. But like once you do that a few times and what that can look like is like, you know, YouTube videos every week or just showing up at the same time at a place, like just simple things, then we start to like get this really strong cylinder of a situation

of a creative portal down onto the earth. And once you manifest that, you become like Tony Robbins, Brunet Brian, like, whatever. You can just keep going. So what I feel passionate about is getting people through that phase of creating the funnel, you know, with the elements. It's like it's a foolproof funnel. You're totally only you's going to come through this funnel, and you can use a funnel for the rest of your life.

So, yeah, we have to put in a lot of attention to make the funnel. That's really well. said, I often ask my guests and people in my life and people that I just randomly talk to, but more important, the people that I talk to who find themselves being familiar with psychedelic journeys, I often ask them, you know, how do you bring stuff back? And what you said may be the best answer that I've heard. It is building this connection. It is building this funnel. And I've never heard it put that way, but that's, that's so true. And it does take. It does take time. It does take, it's almost like neuroplasticity in a way, like you're figuring out ways to make

new connections in your brain. So too are you figuring out new ways to make this channel stronger. And one way that I use it is if you can make whatever you're passionate about, for me, it's podcasting, creating this new brand and stuff like this. And one thing that I've begun to really put my arms around is this idea of just make it 1% better every day. Maybe that's talking to somebody. Maybe that is how top, maybe that is writing something down, working on a book, but whatever you're doing in life, I think this this translates. Just make it one percent better. Try to make it one percent better every day. And if you could do that, then you find yourself showing up. You find yourself with a deeper connection. You find the neuron firing. You're polishing it. You're making the

connection stronger. And you begin attracting people towards you when you do that. And it really begins to train you to make your life one percent better every day. I think that there's a lot of truth in that. And I think that that, I don't know, is that in a book? Like, you've written books. Did you put this idea of creativity in a book where you're making a neuron stronger? Because if you haven't, I think you should. That's my next book. I have an almost, I have a finished manuscript that's like on its way at the door now, which is cool that's sharing about the elemental language and the trees within and yeah all of this great stuff I have two books like that's the first one that's finished that's kind of in the process and then one more book will come after that which is the deeper

more plant medicine related topics so yeah definitely I will put that in because I think it's yeah super important what you said just just keep doing one percent a day and and really watch out for that part of the mind that says you need to do 100 percent every day because setting you know it's like setting us up for failure um so being realistic that we can take it one step and really putting it into physical form as much as possible. Again, keeping it super simple, like the clothes that we wear. Like, if you feel spiritually connected to a certain bead or a certain crystal, like wear it because you then might connect some with someone in a coffee shop that

sees your energy and then comes towards you. And the same with physical home spaces. So I think the more we can just bring it into physical form, because the larger perspective to keep in mind, if you're in this conscious creation realm, you're wondering about how to bring down the plant medicine insight, is like we have all the ideas we could ever need for a new earth to live in the most harmonious,

beautiful utopia of a land. But we're not. We're not living there right now. So the only problem is the disconnection between your thoughts and making it into physical form. So if you have an idea, you know, that is the only thing that's missing. And that's where I really, I cut conversations at the knees these days.

We can be living in Utopia. Stop talking to me. Build a store, build a coffee shop. I don't care what you do, but just go and make the world a better place. I don't want to hear your ideas. So that's just my energy right now. I love it. It's amazing to me.

I'm thankful that the spark of creativity is something that people can harness and they can give to other people. And I feel like you're doing that, Sophia. I feel like you're really reaching out to people and you're having a big impact on them. And you're such a positive person. As I'm coming up on an hour right here, I'm just curious. Like, maybe you could tell people like where they can find you, what you have coming up and like what you're excited about.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much. George has been amazing connecting on here. and your energy is just like electric. So much fun. Thank you. I'm really grateful that you're podcasting and you're creating physical things.

Wonderful that we get to have this experience. And yeah, so if you're interested in tarot or Oracle card readings, I share a weekly reading on my YouTube channel so you can look up Elemental Empress Medicine. It's a really fun way to connect with the elements and I channel energies from different plant medicines as well. So to help you with your integration or preparing for your ceremonies.

And yeah, my custom build platform, have a free community so you can hop in there and do a free elemental course to get an idea of all this medicine, all these things we've been talking about. I'm really an experiential person. I like to give people an experience. So that is five days to connect with your higher self through the elements. So that is the easiest way to get a taste for what I do. And yeah, you can always check out my webpage for all of my services. We're launching this week. I'm super excited about the elemental meditation group that's now launching from May. So we will be meditating together

every single week with the elements for accountability, but also, you know, relaxed, not too much pressure. It's not like you're diving into a whole course or whatever. You just get to check in each week with the elements and meditate with me. So that's launching. And I'm excited for all of it, to be honest. Like this new platform has given me a whole new lease of life. So do you check it out if you feel interested in anything we shared. Yeah. I would recommend everybody check it out. I went on and I found it fresh, exciting, and it's different than anything else. I think there's a lot of great information on there. And you have like a really large community of people that are all sharing with each other,

which, you know, I think that that is what separates something that has a lot of energy behind it. And you can really tell the love and the passion is put into it by the community of people that are sharing in there. So congratulations on that. I'm excited to learn more and interact in the community and talk to, people and yeah I'm excited for you I really think you're crushing it and I hope more people will take the time to investigate what it is you're doing because I think they can learn a lot so thank you so much yeah that was the whole goal because I was on Facebook and I didn't find it nourishing and now we have this cozy little like almost like a retreat center of an online space where

we can all just get together and be ourselves and just like woohoo so I mean I just love being there and I think yeah other people appreciate it as well so Yeah, thank you for helping me to share it. Yeah, of course. Well, hang on a second. I'm going to talk to you for a moment, but I'm going to close this out on the live broadcast right here. So ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. Check out the links in the show notes and we'll talk to you soon. Aloha.