TrueLife - Stories with Dr. Jessica Bockler: Consciousness, Creativity, and Collaboration

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

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/🌿 Welcome, listeners, to another enlightening episode of The TrueLife podcast! Today, we embark on a journey of introspection and transformation with a remarkable guest, Jessica Bockler.In a world where humanity teeters on the edge of imbalance, Jessica stands as a beacon of hope, reminding us of our inherent connection to the sacred web of life. As an artist and psychologist devoted to cultural evolution and ecological regeneration, she calls upon us to awaken, grow, clean, and ultimately, to show up in service of our beautiful world.For over two decades, Jessica has been a tireless architect of change, weaving together diverse disciplines—from the performing arts to higher education, from community development to health—to foster holistic human development. As a co-founder of the Alef Trust, she leads a global movement in transformative education, where inner development becomes the cornerstone of outer sustainability.At the heart of Jessica’s philosophy lies a profound understanding of humanity as Homo Ludens, the creative player. We are not mere observers of reality but active participants, co-creating our existence with every thought, every action. Through a delicate balance of intellect and intuition, of mind and deeper ways of knowing, Jessica invites us to expand our awareness, to reconnect with the sacred roots of our being, and to contribute to life in more meaningful, equitable, and sustainable ways.But Jessica’s vision extends far beyond individual transformation. It’s about collaboration, about co-creation, about playing our part in the grand symphony of regeneration. As she so eloquently puts it, “Collaboration is at the heart of regeneration.”So, dear listeners, if you’re ready to co-create, explore, and play—if you’re ready to be part of something greater—reach out. For in collaboration lies the power to heal, to thrive, and to usher in a new era of flourishing for all beings on this precious planet.Join us as we delve deep into the realms of consciousness, creativity, and regeneration with the inspiring Jessica Bockler. The journey begins here.http://linkedin.com/in/jessica-bockler-phdhttp://www.creativealternatives.org.uk/https://www.aleftrust.org/ 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. Heiress 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 Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the next day of your life. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing and the wind is at your back. I have an incredible treat for everybody today. I have the one and only Dr. Jessica Bockeler with me.

And I want to welcome all of my listeners to another enlightening episode of the True Life podcast where we embark on a journey of introspection and transformation with our remarkable guest. In a world where humanity teeters on the edge of imbalance, Dr. Jessica stands as a beacon of hope, reminding us of our inherent connection to the sacred web of life as an artist and psychologist devoted to cultural evolution and ecological regeneration, she calls upon us to awaken, grow, clean, and ultimately to show up in service of our beautiful world. For over two decades, Jessica has been a tireless architect of change, weaving together diverse disciplines, from the

performing arts to higher education, from community development to health, to foster holistic human development. As a co-founder of the Alef Trust, she leads a global movement in transformation education, where inner development becomes the cornerstone of outer sustainability. At the heart of Jessica's philosophy lies a profound understanding of humanity as homoludens, the creative player. We are not mere observers of reality, but active participants co-creating our existence with every thought, every action. Do a delicate balance of intellect and intuition of mind and deeper ways of knowing,

Jessica invites us to expand our awareness, to reconnect with the sacred roots of our being, and to contribute to life in more meaningful, equitable, and sustainable ways. But Jessica's vision extends far beyond individual transformation. It's about collaboration, about co-creation, about playing our part in the Grand Symphony of Regeneration. And she so eloquently puts it, collaboration is at the heart of regeneration. Jessica, thank you so much for being here today. How are you? Oh, thank you so much. That's, well, that was an amazing introduction. Who's that person? Where is me?

Epic. Wow, when you put it like that and thinking that's, yeah, it's been quite a journey. But you know, it's always just one step in front of the next and another step and another step, you know, climbing the mountain one step at a time. And then when somebody summarizes it like that, it's like, whoa, what an amazing vista. But day to day, it's really just about building relationships, isn't it, with people and also with the world at large. You asked me how I am. I'm very well. I'm as you mentioned, I'm one of the co-founding directors of the Aleph Trust, and we do a lot in higher education.

We're at the end of the academic year. I am super busy working on assessment of coursework, dissertations. Plus, we've got a big conference coming up in September, so we're building up to that, programming, promoting the conference. And there are a number of applied projects I'm running, so yeah, super busy. but good, good. You know, when I hear the word Aleph, I can't help but think of Burgess's work.

Have you read that story of the Aleph? Like, does it have something to do with that? Are those connected? People often ask that question. I know the story, but that's not the origin story of the name of the company. I can tell you about that if you lies. I would love to.

Yeah, sure. So Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, also of the protosanitic script, and it actually goes back to the hieroglyphic letters, right? So here, when we look at the hieroglyphs, then we've got an ox. So it's basically the first letter of the alphabet. Modern alphabet, it becomes the A.

But in the hieroglyphic alphabet, it's in the shape of an ox. And if you think of the ox and the sort of ox's horns pointing upwards, and the symbol of the ox is really one of untamed, raw untamed energy of creation with the ox sort of channeling or connecting to the the higher realms if you will and this ox is this sort of raw and tamed animal right wild and yeah not not a bull not tamed but really raw in its energy and so with Alev trust people often ask oh trust is that some kind of legal trust no not at all it's we're a social enterprise we're a non-profit company and we have chosen to name the company Alev Trust because we want to communicate that we are trusting in the raw energy of creation, in this divine impulse, that we're channeling this in our work, if you will,

that we're drawing on that, we're bringing that into the world. So at the core of Aleph is a real deep commitment to the sacred, in the broader sense of the term, honoring that which goes beyond the ego, which connects us to a sense of the higher or a sense of something greater beyond the ego. In modern terms, people conceptualize it often moving from ego to eco, so incorporating more of the whole. That's the, yeah, that's the sort of meaning behind Alef trust in a nutshell. It's beautiful. I'm seeing this eriodony thread that runs through the ideas of tradition. and also change. You've spoken a little bit about that,

but how do you hold those two in balance? Because it sounds like you're talking a lot about this tradition about the first letter of the alphabet, but you guys are also groundbreaking and starting some of these new programs and seeing education in ways it's never been done before. Maybe you could talk about the balance there. How do you measure or how do you do that?

Yeah, and again, it's something of an origin story. Okay, perfect. The Alev Trust was founded by myself, and Professor Les Lancaster, who is my husband. The family story as well. We founded the company in 2012, and Les's story is one of being immersed in psychology for decades, but also being immersed in the study of mysticism for many, many, many years.

And he was in, he was in, he was in, training in mystical practices, and he then specialized in the Kabbalah, focusing really on the Jewish lineage of the Kabbalah, and going into that and living that path and exploring that path for something like 40 years now. Wow. So he very much brings that into the Aleph Trust in terms of its rootedness in mysticism and in the scholarly study of mystical traditions. And there are other members of staff who are interested in those deeper mystical approaches. So we have staff members who are exploring that aspect and who are

weaving that into our educational programs. And then I come from a complementary field, really, one being in the arts, then entering into the field of psychology, but also for many years, I've worked very much in an applied way. So, yes, I'm a creative person. I trained in the art in acting and directing, but then I've always worked in community contexts, health, education, museums and galleries here in the UK where I'm based. And together, Les and I have sort of woven this tapestry

where we on the one hand have the deep scholarly roots touching into psychology, consciousness study, and our higher education programs, but then also weaving in the applied element, taking these ideas, combining them with creative practices, with integrative life practices, health and well-being practices, and bringing them into the community.

And our students in our higher education programs do that too. They come from some 40, 50 countries now around the world, and they take these principles that were explorers, in our programs and they apply them wherever they are in many different professions. Yeah. That's beautiful. Thank you. Yeah.

It seems as if there's a weaving together of science and spirituality and then bringing this lived experience and sort of a mystery school, a Lucinian mysteries feel to it. Yeah. It certainly has that field. And then at the same time, we are accredited by a major university in the United Kingdom. And so we have that very interesting dynamic or relationship with the mainstream. We're not mainstream at all. We really aren't. But we have to be compliant with the mainstream, right?

There are certain expectations that we have to meet in order to fulfill the accreditation criteria by the university. So that's a really interesting dynamic. Because on the one hand, we want to protect the new ways of working, the emerging paradigm in education, which is integrative, it's experiential, it's putting the quest at the heart of the learning journey. And then we're still having to comply with what the old system is asking of us. And so we're in a really interesting. I don't know how to describe that place.

It can be quite an uncomfortable place at times because we want to do things differently. But at the same time, we can also, you know, liaise with the mainstream. And there's a lot around how we language things, how we ease people into new ideas. And how we build, again, build relationships and build bridges. Because there are many good people in the mainstream education sector who are very open to exploring spirituality. and who are just a bit cautious around how it's languished and how it's translated into learning outcomes and all that. Yeah.

So I love to hear the way in which people choose their words, and I hear a lot of stream metaphors. Like we are, like the mainstream has been teaching. The mainstream has been going this one way for a while, but it does feel like we're going under this bridge and we're moving into this new ways. Maybe you could speak a little bit more, touch on the emerging.

things in education that you see that you're working on, you're excited about, or you could touch on that a little bit. Yeah, yeah. For me, what's really very apparent right now is that we're in this transitional age. So we can see that the old paradigm, the materialist, redactionist, scientist paradigm, neoliberal paradigm is breaking down. And we don't quite know what is going to be the new. What is the new way forward?

We have many different ideas that are out there. But we're also very aware that we can't kind of rush into it. We almost have to slow down a bit, feel into it, bring lots of other intelligences online. So we're not just approaching this from the head, which has been one of them. mistakes we've been making. And I want to kind of sidetrack there and kind of go into the role of creativity and play and all of this because we're in a time of uncertainty. Yes.

And uncertainty is a great time of, yes, instability. Things are very worrying and could get worse, you know, are looking like they're getting worse. And at the same time, there's this real sense of opportunity because the old breaking down and something new will come through. And that means if we can learn to navigate complexity and uncertainty in embodied, creative, playful, optimistic, hopeful ways, then we could perhaps create something very beautiful. So it's this transition from an old story to a new story. Some people are beginning to, you know, play with metaphors as to what that new story is

about and that building vision around. It's a story of being. being deeply embedded in nature, being interconnected with all life on earth, being part of a beautiful web of life. And then we're realizing, whoa, we're not there yet, right? In our day-to-day living, we're not fully embodying that. And we're all sitting with, you know, edges around hypocrisy. And how do we make that happen? And how do we step into that?

We'll still living in the old systems and structures that are, you know, Some of them are a bit rigid. And then there's also vested interests, right? Sorry, I'm meandering around a bit. No, it's beautiful. Beautiful. Please continue. Yeah.

You were asking me about how that manifests in education. And what I'm seeing and what we're also doing in our programs is that, yes, we have particular kind of topics that we obviously focus on in our educational programs. but we're also very interested in taking a student-centric perspective. So people come in and they are encouraged to explore what questions are they sitting with. What is it that they consider to be at the core of their purpose or their sense of why they're in the world today at this moment? And then we accompany them and we really feel into, okay, what wants to happen for you? What is it that you need?

Just to give you one example of that, in our master's program, which is a three-year-long program, in year one, students go on an integrative practice quest. They spend some 100 hours or so over the course of about six months, building out a kind of schedule of practices to nourish themselves, to really look at what is it that they need, in terms of their intellectual stimulation, in terms of their physical health needs, in terms of their relational needs,

the emotional needs and their spiritual needs. And we encourage them to build out this practice schedule so that they can also then get in touch with those multiple intelligences, right? Spiritual intelligence, emotional, relational intelligence. And they go on that journey, and then we accompany them on that journey. They might journal about it, they might create artworks about their journey. They sit in reflection in peer groups and they have supervision with the tutors who are

accompanying the students on this program. So it's very much about tuning in, who am I, what do I need to thrive? And that's in year one. But year two, it then becomes about, okay, this is what, you know, this is year one, this is what I needed, year two, how do I then show up in the world? How can I be of service to others? What is it that I bring to others in the work that I do? And people take that work into their various professions where they are already embedded because we've got mature students. These are not usually not very young people. They're in their 30s, 40s, 50s. So they

might already be established in medicine or in journalism or policing or, you know, other forms of health care or social care, IT, the arts, you name it. They're, you know, they're doing all kinds of different things, politics, agriculture, they're really in all kinds of fields. And that's super exciting because we get to then see how they take all that learning and the explorations that they're on and bring that into the fields that they're already in, you know, revolutionizing and kind of leading new ways of being and doing in these fields. It's immensely gratifying to witness that. Yeah, it sounds amazing.

It's as if people are going to the well and they're bringing back water for other people to drink and learn. And it seems to me that to create real change, individuals have to change who they are. And when you can bring in someone who's already established or looking to reinvent themselves or be reborn into the same sort of field with a different body. Like, that's real change. And that's the kind of contagious change that we need to build a better world, it seems like. Yeah.

Yeah. And often the people who are coming are, they already have, you know, lots of brilliant practices or have done a lot of really great work that has a kind of spiritual basis. But they're looking to have more accompaniment, be in community with, like-minded people. They can be in a field where maybe none of their colleagues quite relate to their ways of seeing or doing things. So they're looking for peer community. They're looking for support and for a kind of sense of accompaniment. And then, yes, when it comes to our higher education programs, they're also looking to develop their skills further, maybe in research or

in writing and publication. It's not unusual for our students to complete their work. And then they start publishing papers or even books that they put out there or new courses, for example, to kind of spread the ideas. So often that's what people would like to do. They like to further their professional standing in that field. Yeah. You know, we spoke in the beginning. We talked a little bit about it seems as if we're emerging from this sort of materialist reductionism. But it seems to me what I'm seeing talking to interesting people and in my world and what I see is, this sort of re-emergence of spirituality and community. And I'm wondering, what is the relationship, in your opinion,

between spirituality and community? That's a beautiful question. Yes. Yeah. I feel that spirituality belongs in community. When we are exploring a spiritual path, we need others to see ourselves more deeply. It's all very well to sit on a meditation cushion

or to be undertaking some other form of spiritual practice. But without the eyes of others, not necessarily a guru, but also other community members with whom you're in relationship and who can help you to see yourself more fully Without that, we can kind of get lost. It can become a little bit like navel gazing, narcissism, not really fully seeing ourselves,

and potentially even spiritually bypassing. I mean, that can happen in community too, don't get me wrong. But when we're in community, it's a bit of a way of checking in to see what I think is going on, is that really what's going on? So to be mirrored by another and to be held by others too, because there's just so much going on in the world right now that it's very hard for us to do all this work on ourselves or to practice just by ourselves.

And particularly in today's world where we're now living in this kind of digital realm, right, where we have less and less embodied connection. I say that and at the same time all the work we do in our left trust is through online media. So we are an online organization. But we very much encourage people to kind of go back into spiritual practice communities, embodied communities, so that they have that. And then they come into our community and we help them anchor in.

But they also need the physical touch points, as it were. So spirituality and community are, I think, intimately interwe. woven. I don't think you can truly follow a spiritual path without some kind of a sanga, some place where you are held and where you are accompanied and seen. Yeah. I feel like people have been searching for that. Maybe it's because I've been searching for that, but it feels like all of a sudden you're getting a cool drink of this spiritual community and people, I thirst for more. Like when you feel that when you begin to have a meaningful conversation, you realize, gosh, I missed that. I haven't had that for a while, whether it's being held.

Then you can begin to see it in other places. Do you have, in your opinion, is there a way that we can continue to foster meaningful dialogue? I know we're moving on to online conversations, but I still think that you can, I may not be there to touch you or catch some pheromones coming from you. you know, but I know that we can still have meaningful dialogue. How do you think that this new form of communication is affecting us? Is it allowing for meaningful dialogue or is it maybe pulling back from meaningful dialogue? Well, having lived in this world for something like, you know, 12, 15 years, I believe you can have very deep meaningful dialogue. I experience it that way when I'm sitting in circle with our staff, our students, or people who are in our

practice communities. I feel it. It's a matter of remembering the body, the embodied experience whilst being in this online space. So it can happen to us that we kind of get drawn out of our body and kind of drawn into the screen, right? You can feel it right now. And we can at the same time also kind of claim that energy back and bring it back into the body and feel, oh, here I am. I'm now feeling how I'm sitting on my chair. I can feel I've got my legs folded up underneath me because I like to sit cross-legged. And I can feel how my spine is a little bit crunched up,

so I might straighten out. I can now feel, wow, that means now my awareness is opening up as I'm changing my body posture. I can feel that sort of more slightly expansive sense of space around me. So there's a huge amount we can do whilst we're, then in connection through this digital medium. And I'll say a bit more about that because it's not just about my personal physical experience

and remembering that, whilst I'm engaging with you through this digital medium. I also think there's non-local consciousness at play. We can feel each other. And I can feel you feeling me. And I'm getting that sense right now. Yeah. As I'm saying that, I'm bringing awareness to it.

And the way your, you know, your emotions, what you're radiating, I can feel it. It's landing in my body. So beautiful. It's amazing, really, isn't it? It really is. There's a great book that I always turn to. It's called Alternate States of Consciousness. And it's by multiple authors.

And it was written like in the 70s. But there's this really cool chapter on. the stream of consciousness and that in itself being a different state of awareness. And I feel like whether you're in a group setting, whether you're online, like the being in the now and streaming your consciousness and having it sort of amplified by someone who's there with you, like that is a whole other state of being. And there is something, I get goosebumps. Like even right now, just being in this conversation. And it allows you to really grasp the moment and be here now, as Alan Watts would say, you know, like in just enjoying the moment. And when I'm

done with the conversations, I feel like this release, like that was cathartic. It was great. But then I'm back thinking. I'm back in this other part of the world. But maybe you could talk a little bit about the idea of the stream of consciousness being an altered state of awareness. Yeah. Yes. And there are multiple streams, right? Of consciousness. Yes. And I mean, we could get theoretical now and think. okay what's the concept here what are the maps at play but then of course the maps are not the you know not the territory the lived experience is always more my sense is that there are these three major streams we have a kind of consensus stream the consensus reality level

where we're relating to each other from that very cognitive often cognitive space maybe also emotional, but that sort of day-to-day ordinary level of reality. And then beneath that is one that's more subtle, more dreamlike. We access it when we go to sleep, for example, but we can also access it through trance-inducing techniques that just slightly shift us out of their day-to-day cognitive mode. Even just when we're daydreaming, we can be tapping into that. but a lot of creative techniques or shamanic techniques bring us into that space that is more subtle, more dreamlike, kind of going into what depth psychology or, yeah, depth psychology would call maybe the archetypal level. And then beyond that even, still, I'm going down now, but it could be going up too.

It doesn't matter. Up down anyway. But it's expansive. And there's another level. and that's a level where we're going beyond the dual, right? So because when we're in the archetypal, the depth psychological will still in a dual realm, but there's still the self and the other.

And they constellate through various archetypes. So it's like a constellation consciousness. But then underneath that or above that or around that is something that we might call the non-dual or more essential, more mystical level of reality. where there isn't that sense of self and other. There's more that sense of unity, oneness, interconnectedness.

And here it's almost like we're tapping into levels of potentiality. Something wants to happen, but we don't know what that is yet. It's very subtle. And we can feel all these things, depending on what practices we use. Yeah. And we do this stuff.

with our students online. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Yeah, me too. I'm a big fan of Mersay-Iliad, and I love the quote or the phrase, the terror before the sacred. You know, the moment you're in front of something so beautiful that you're shaking or you're just in fear of this thing that's almost perfect because you've never seen it or experienced it before. And on some level, you realize that's me.

Like, there's just this incredible growth that can happen. And I see it with more and more people coming to terms with this, you know, terrible beauty in front of them. And am I wrong in thinking that that is something that is becoming more contagious or is making itself known to the world? You know, as you're saying that, a story comes into my mind that I'd love to share. I would love that, please. It really speaks to what you've just spoken.

of when I was, this is going back some 25 years when I was first training in acting and directing and that program had a kind of community orientation. So it was all, it was about service, drawing on the arts and acting as a way of community service. And as part of that, serendipitously, I had this opportunity I was invited into a training program in conflict resolution. with the Council of Europe. So it was for young people from all over Europe. And there were young people there from the Kosovo and Serbia, which at the time, you know, was a conflict zone.

There was basically a civil war that was happening. And there were two young men, one from Serbia and the other one from the Kosovo. Beautiful, beautiful young men who were both very peaceful, and were there to train in mediation, conflict resolution. But as part of the training, they agreed to enact a mediation, to enact the conflict that they were experiencing back home between each other so that we could then sit together and train in the methods. And I'm bringing this as a story as an example because it took me very much into that sacred space.

That experience transported me into this sacred. space that was awesome and awful at the same time. It was just completely, deeply inspiring. So we sat, I was one of three mediators, and there were trainers in the room, and then these two young men who were enacting the conflict between them. The mediation took five hours. We went deeply into the conflict. It was immensely emotional.

There was a lot of rage. There was deep anger that arose within both individuals, one of whom had come, had his house, his home had been destroyed. He'd actually brought a brick all the way from his home into the training. And I remember he put this brick on the table in the beginning and he said, this is all that's left of my house. And it was like, all the energy in the room, contracted, right, into this brick. I can feel it now as, you know, remembering being in the room and feeling that. It was like there was like a massive knot in my belly.

And my heart, everything just crunched up and contracted. And then we sat together and we listened to the stories that these two young men were sharing. And from that contraction gradually, there was this sort of shifting, outward turn reaching out, feeling into the other, moving from the consensus reality to the more dreamland, the jewel, feeling the other deeply, feeling into what's the story, what is happening here, what's underneath the story, what's underneath, what's underneath, connecting to the emotions of that, mirroring those back. And then we went deeper. We went beyond self and other and we went into this essential deeper. level where there was just a sense of unity. And I remember something inside of me flipped inside out. It was like, whoa, I'm no longer just myself. I'm everything. It was weird. It was my first

experience of cosmic consciousness. I remember being in the room and I remember feeling like I wasn't there anymore, but I was completely present. But I wasn't there. There was just presence and there was this immense love. And that wasn't just my feeling, but it was the feeling of the people in the room. There was just a love that came through at the end. That was so profound. I felt so touched and, you know, I felt so deeply bonded in that moment. Yeah, we'd moved from consensus level to self and other, the, you know, the war to the deeper essence of our humanity, which connects us into everything that is. And it was just amazing. And then just to top it off, my rational mind kicked back in at some point in all of this and said,

is this really real? You're making this up. And then, you know, within that, I got proof because I had this thought of, is this really real? Am I, you know, here I am. I'm not, what is this, this thing that's happening to me? And a thought popped into my head and the thought was, oh my god jacquine something's wrong with your son jacquine was the senior trainer in the room five ten seconds later after i had this thought there was a knock on the door jacqueline was called out of the room she then came back in a minute or so later and said i'm sorry i'm going to have to leave the training there's been an accident with my son and i have to go home so it was like Wow, I just had some kind of telepathic download here, you know, showing me my rational mind that I was actually tapping into this, this unitive state of consciousness where this other information from seemingly others was freely available to me.

So it was just unbelievable, a state of cosmic consciousness, then having this sort of parat, you know, psychological download, which proved to my rational mind that, yes, Jessica, this is real. Yeah. So a really profound experience all around. And this thing about, you know, awesomeness and awfulness and how they come together, we're in this place right now where the darkness is rearing up. You know, there are many wars around the world and hugely inflamed and polarized situations. We're being pushed, I think, to really be present with that. darkness and to realize what's underneath that, what's underneath, what's underneath, what is

it that we're called to recognize. And it is that we are one. And we have a lot of work to do, a lot of healing work and a lot of spiritual work. But I do think that it's possible. Well, I live with that hope so. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, thank you. That's a beautiful story. And it's personal. And, you know, Isn't it strange that we use the word awful in a negative connotation in so many times when you just look at it and it's full of awe? You know, and it doesn't have to have that negative connotation. It could be something that's beautiful. And I can't help but see the darkness around us. And if you look for it, it's everywhere, you know, and you can feel it.

Like the same way you tapped into that divine consciousness or the inner essence of humanity. right there. I think that's a glimpse into what is possible. What can come our way if we're willing to sort of feel our way around this darkness. And it's easy for me to say, I live in Hawaii. I'm not on the front line or having part of a genocide. I'm not part of any of this crazy war that's going on, at least on the front line in some ways. And it's, it's inspiring to get to hear the story you told and realized that there's a deeper meaning to it on some level. Do you Do you think that that cosmic consciousness is sort of a look into the future of how perhaps we could be on the edge of meaningful communication? Could that be that which moves we move into?

I hope that. I hope that so very much. Yeah. I see glimpses of it in many different places and spaces. Yeah. And it's, but it's still often small. You know, it's seeds of something very beautiful. where I can see it is happening, it is lived, it's embodied.

One example would be the, I supervised a dissertation project by a woman, a beautiful woman who lives in Israel. And she is a psychotherapist there in private practice, but she's also done a lot of work in group contexts. And she focused her dissertation on peace building between Israelis and Palestinians. This was happening before everything kicked off in Gaza. So this was before October last year. She completed her dissertation. But nonetheless, that work is still there. It's kind of overshadowed right now.

There is really beautiful grassroots work by people on both sides of this conflict who are deeply oriented towards building peace and healing the wounds of history. They overshadowed by these crazy political dynamics that are going on where we have, you know, a certain breed of, forgive me, old men who were kind of power hungry, who were stuck in particular ways of thinking and doing. But what I saw through her work and what I still, through some of the contacts that I have in Israel, because we have family there actually, as well as other members in our learning community who are there, is that this deeply

transpersonal work can build bridges. And it's all about deeply seeing each other, seeing each other stories, hearing each other, experiencing each other as human beings, you know, that we aren't so different. We might wear different clothes and we might look differently, but underneath all of that, there is this common core. There's a shared humanity that brings us all together. We may have some slightly different mindsets or different, slight different cultural values, but bottom line, we're all trying to live in a world and look after our families and feel well in ourselves and contribute to a thriving world. And there are many beautiful examples for how we can meet more deeply and come and share stories and live together, make food

together, share, you know, the upbringing of children together. So to kind of really build these bridges, you know, and come together. Yeah, it's frustrating what's happening, isn't there? Because it doesn't look like that on a political level. On a political level and when you look at the mainstream news, you just think, we're screwed. This is all going downhill. Yeah. It's a tough one. I'm reminded of the great line from Ulysses. It says, History is the nightmare from which I'm trying to awaken.

I know. Yeah, right. I know. It's, yeah, I'm plugged into a number of different kinds of projects. And when you work with people, kind of one-to-one or in small groups, you think, yeah, this is completely possible. And then somehow when we move from the, you know, the small scale community into the larger systemic structures, we seem to kind of get stuck and we seem to struggle to make the jump from the smaller inner work to the larger systemic shift. There's something there that needs to kind of bridges that need to be built between this sort of inner work that people do it privately or in small groups to, right, how do we manifest this then in a bigger organization?

or a larger community or in kind of terms of governance and political systems. But then I also still already begin to see people working on that and looking at, okay, right. Well, if we have inner work and we've got these great communities, what can we take from that and how can we put that into policy building? There's some great work that is happening there. For example, in initiatives like the inner development goals or the inner development goals or the inner green deal, two initiatives that are working in both the corporate sphere and the political sphere, the sphere of governance, to then see, we believe in the principles of interconnectedness

and interbeing. We believe in that inner work can be of service to outer change. Right now, let's have a look at how do we communicate that to policymakers, to political and corporate leaders. how do we bring them on board? And one thing I would say there is what is very much at the forefront there is one giving a sense of kind of an experience of interbeing and interconnectedness. If we can bring some of these political leaders or, you know, corporate leaders into a setting where they get to sample that they get to experience it, that brings about a shift in mindset. experience, right?

When you experience something that is awe-inspiring, it can help you to have that sense of interconnection. And then you begin to act differently from that place. So that's one thing. And another is to really look at, okay, what is it that they need in order to be supported and resourced, as they then go back into their contexts, where do they get stuck?

So to really look at where are we getting stuck? In a particular context, what are the problems that the leaders of the organization are coming up against? Where do they need support? So it then becomes very much like specific case studies and providing concrete support in very specific settings or scenarios. So in Aleph Trust, that's another thing we're doing. We're looking at exactly that. When we're building out a project, what's the context of this project? What is it that the leaders of the project need?

how do they need to be resourced in order to be successful, not just for themselves or a few select people around them, but in terms of the larger community context. It's so much. There's so much to it. It's an ongoing inquiry. It's not, you know, it's the answers are they're lived. We're living our way into the answers. It's not like as if we already have them all prepared. Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating and beautiful. It's like a sunset or hopefully a sunrise. You know, when we talk about, making change at like these giant levels. And we talk about how things work in the inner work. And if we can get it to work in the outer work, I can't help but think about, you know, mental health problems. Like I come from a family where my father was bipolar. And I've done a lot of reading and talked to a lot of people about repetitive thought patterns. And on some level, it seems similar to me that an individual who has reoccurring negative thought patterns is similar to a government who,

continues to have the negative patterns of putting stuff out there. Like, might there be some similarities? And if so, might we be able to use some of the same remedies for these things? Yes, spot on. I think you're completely right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yes, as individuals, we've got particular patterns that we get caught up in. Yes. And then organizations or, you know, larger groupings are like bodies. They're like individuals. They have a certain identity and a certain way of thinking and a certain way of operating. Completely agree.

So one, I mean, there's many, in a way we've kind of got to see in each case, what is it that's going on? What would support that individual or that organizational individual to make a shift? So we've got to kind of, in a way, triage or diagnose the situation and see what will be of service to this individual, what is it that they need. And not just in a sort of clinical way, as in, you know, when we have an individual, we don't want to just go in there and kind of clinically try and fix them, but it's more about, okay, wow, apart from medication, maybe there are other things that could be of really

of help to the person. I used to work, and we still do work in this area, and I'll have trust in what's known as social prescribing. It's basically using non-medical. community-based interventions to support individuals in their mental health and well-being, rather than just using drugs, using pills, you know? And the point of that is that we then create an environment where we maybe have a group that they're accessing, where they're with like-minded peers, and they're getting to do activities

that they enjoy, where they're experiencing themselves as whole healthy human beings who maybe have some issues in their lives, but they're really, you know, they are whole human beings. Yeah. And they get to play, they get to meditate or practice in some way or hang out with each other,

just maybe going out into nature and experience that sense of wholeness and connections there. And that can help an individual shift in how, you know, how they're experiencing themselves and what it is that they need to, to move forward in their lives.

I'm not saying that medication doesn't have a role. Of course, sometimes it does. But also these community elements, having support systems and structures in place, having other significant people who can be like a positive resonance chamber for the person where they feel fired up and they're doing something really creative and joyful,

that can resource people so that they can then step back into their lives and go, you know what? maybe I've got other options over here. I could do this. I hadn't thought about that. I'll try and do something else with my life. So in the social prescribing programs that we run, often that's what happens. People get involved in an activity. It opens up their horizon and they find their depression lessons. They begin to eat better. They need the doctor less. They may be looking at starting a new hobby. And that brings them back out into the world.

and they're out with new friends, and then suddenly they may be doing a different kind of job or a career that they had never thought about. It's not like a panacea, but it's saying we're not just, we need to look at everything in holistic ways, including mental ill health, and understand that mental ill health

is not just the responsibility of the individual and can be fixed biomedically, but instead mental health is a community phenomenon. Mental ill health, mental health, it has to do with community and how we are with each other in the world. So what happens in the family, what happens at work, what happens with friends, it all plays a role, the food we eat, all of that, right?

So we need to also tend to it holistically and hold people in holistic ways. That was one thing. I'm just thinking I want to jump the organizational individual. But it's really important to kind of, first of all, recognize that, that we must reduce individuals and say it's their problem alone when they have a mental health struggle. It's about how can the community hold each person

who is experiencing some kind of physical or mental health struggle. And then over here in the organizational realm, So again, it's really worth noting, what patterns are playing out in the organization? What is the organization driven by? What are the kind of underlying values and principles that inform this organization? And to then see also,

I'm trying to see how I can build the bridge, but it's kind of about if this organization is not benefiting humanity or is damaging the, the environment in some way. Why are they doing that? What is at the core of that behavior? And often it has to do with, well,

it's embedded in this larger neoliberal paradigm that encourages that sort of exploitative behavior, which serves a few up at the top of the food chain, and it exploits all the people who are serving the people higher up the food chain. So it's recognized, that that pattern is part of a larger cultural pattern and then to see, oh, okay, how can we help this organization to create a shift in their being and doing? And that has to do with finding

new ways, seeing what else is, what could this company do to become of benefit and to turn things around? That's for the individuals in the company, but also for the company as a whole. How can the company reorganize its story? Can it have a broader perspective on what it offers to the world? Could it change its offer in some way, pivot in some way? And again, it has, it's a similar thing. You need new narrative, new story, new perspectives to help this organizational being shift and expand its perspectives for how it can operate in the world. So it's a kind of similar thing, but just a different scale. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I think you could even build a bridge to generational trauma.

Like if you look at the way in which some of these multinationals have been run for generations by the same sort of mentality, it's similar to, you know, you had mentioned, you know, a lot of older guys have been running these things forever. It kind of reminds me of my grandpa. Like, hey, get off my lawn. You know, like, you can just see these two guys, like neighbors. I hate each other. Like, listen, you guys, it's thank you for everything.

You've done tremendously. But it's time to open up the levers of power to someone who understands this next sort of crossing that we're going towards. And the kids, there's young, talented people that have been trained to see the world in the new way that will be phenomenal stewards of the ship. And like, I'm excited for that. But there is this period where we have to figure out, what is, can we talk to grandpa or is he going to go in this home or what are we doing here? Yes, it's so true. It's so true. Some of the people that I've worked with through Alef Trust are people who are working, for example, in private finance and in family office, wealth management. And they're observing those kinds of interrelational dynamics, right, in the families that they're engaging with. And often the older generation, is kind of trying to protect the wealth, trying to protect the legacy of the family. Not necessarily coming from a bad mindset, but coming from that place of, you know, it needs to be,

yeah, it needs to be protected. It needs to be guarded so that it's there for future generations. But then also there can be dysfunctional family dynamics, you know, that are then playing out in the wealth management. And then it becomes a matter of, well, you're not just managing the wealth of the family, you're needing to look at the emotional and the relational dynamics and the sort of the family story. What's the family story? And can it be healed?

Can the relational dynamics be healed, historically speaking, but also then can the family build out a vision for how it can show up in the world and be of service in the world? I mean, that's a big shift, right? Going, becoming more conscious of the kind of trauma and the family legacy in terms of the family history of, you know, emotional distress or, you know, where things haven't gone so well, healing that, but then also honoring what is the vision? Where do you want to take this? If you have this amazing resource, it's a gift.

What can you bring to the world? Where could you be of service? So it's a huge area that, gosh, I wish there were, you know, more lawyers who were working in. family office who had that more expansive perspective on things, even just healing family dynamics. Because, you know, that that would be a good thing to do. But then also how to build the vision for how that private wealth can really be of service and will, you know, enrich so many people's lives and also not just people, but all the world, nature, other living beings on this planet. And if that doesn't happen, it has to happen.

If it doesn't happen, we're really, you know, it's a big problem because it feels to me like the engagement of the senior leaders and the people who hold these large sums of private wealth, they have so much control and so much power. It's really important to find ways to help them become better stewards and learn more about participatory ways of governance. It doesn't mean that it's this feeling of right, and now I'm giving up control. I'm relinquishing control over something that I'm trying to protect.

But actually it can also be a feeling of, wow, I'm becoming part of something larger. And my giving is liberating not only to myself, but also to many others and life giving. Yeah. So it's kind of flipping something on its head. Yeah. But it's not an easy heart.

Yeah, sometimes we find ourselves running from the very thing that would free us. And I see so much fear of death and unrealized dreams. But the way to live forever is to give what you have to the next generation. Like that's how you become. That's how you live forever. If people are remembering you and thankful for you, singing praises to you, maybe saying a prayer to you, that's eternal life. And the people that are afraid of dying can have it if they're willing to surrender on some level.

I know they sound paradoxical, but I think surrender on some. level is is something that you can if it can be embraced it can be really powerful on some level. Yeah. Yeah. It's this feeling of right. Maybe, you know, being scared of dying. You said it. Right. We're not immortal beings and we're not meant to hold on or to last forever. And we're meant to serve those who are coming after us and to serve all life on earth. and to preserve life, be life-givers, not life-takers. And somehow we've, you know, we're in situations now where we've got that the wrong way around.

And it's a lot of life-taking all the time because the reductionist paradigm and the materialist paradigm does that. It sort of packages all life up into these, you know, units that can be sold on the market. God, we know, we haven't yet managed, We've managed to privatize water. Yes. It's so crazy.

It's nuts. I know. What hasn't been privatized? I mean, our attention now even. Yeah, air. I was thinking air. That's the only thing. Yes, because our private lives, our internal lives are now being kind of commodified as well

through digital media and social media. It's nuts and algorithms and AIs. And I just, so, yeah, we could go down that. dark tunnel and become ever more disconnected and, you know, dystopian or realize we're impermanent. Everything changes. We will come and go in these embodied forms. And, wow. Yeah, if we could just give to each other more freely. Yeah. It could be, you know, such a beautiful world. There's already so much beauty. There is beauty everywhere. And then there is this craziness, this egos, this ego. showing self-centered, contracted craziness that is still there.

Yeah. I find myself like thirsting for the elders on some level. You know, like the wisdom that comes from someone who's lived a full life and they freely give that information to you as a younger person can be so meaningful. I was speaking with a death dula and she was telling me about some of the conversations in which she was having with people in their last few days. And I was just like a kid in a candy store. I was just sitting there listening.

And some of those conversations I had with her are a big reason why I changed my life. And one in particular when I was asking her, what are some themes that come up when you talk to these people who are comfortable with themselves dying and they're freely telling you things? And she would say, well, they're not talking about buying a Tesla or traveling this place or how much money they had or they wish they would have worked longer hours. What they're saying is, I wish I would have been a better husband. It would have been a better father. I wish I would have given more attention and more time and more my resource to people I cared about. And when I hear that,

like, I'm so thankful because that is the type of information that can be life-changing. And it was for me, it's like, what kind of life do I want to live? Do I want to be someone holding the hand of a stranger saying that I wish I would have been a better husband? Like, no, I want to change my life now.

And that's the catalyst. And I think if more young people, people had access to to maybe elders that were willing to freely give up some of their ideas about what they did right, what they wish they would have done. That could fulfill such a hole in this generational gap that we have. They could be so fulfilling for everyone on some level. What do you think about that? I love that.

Yeah. It's so true. We don't honor our elders enough. Yes. They end up in, you know, in care homes and too many people pass away their last days on their own and not, or in a kind of medicated stupor. Yeah. With not dying in a conscious manner. And I completely agree with you.

With everything you've just said, it all feels like part of the critical shift that needs to happen, that we honor the, the wisdom of elders. And it's part again of this sort of disconnected society we live in. Because our family units have kind of broken down as well. Our kind of families are, you know, many single parent families, no elder figure necessarily in the household, kids growing up not with a missing dad or missing mom, and they don't have those role models who can guide them.

And the parents don't have the role models to see how can they, you know, transition. So there's just so much then, again, about bringing, coming together in community. How can we hold those roles for each other in communal spaces? If we have those atomized family units, maybe we need to have more communal spaces again where we come together and we can support each other. Yeah, but I completely agree with what you've just said there. Yeah. Yeah.

And we don't see death enough, right? In our day-to-day lives, in many kind of Western medicalized contexts, right? People are maybe in a hospice or in hospital, kind of shut off from the world, not necessarily with the family. Yeah. It's not a way to go. Yeah. When you think of like palliative care, like the root word of paa means to cover, you know, like we're covering this, hey, don't look at this thing over here. Just keep doing what you're doing. Like we're, this fear of death that really, really burdens us. And maybe that's why we're turning back to spirituality because there's such a large group of us or part of us is moving on. And so how could we not become more spiritual in this time? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. It's like we've been, um, we've we've kind of disconnected ourselves from those natural processes, whether it's death or birth, actually, as well.

Birthing processes are so medicalized in our Western world. I'm just, as you were talking, that is what came up for me. I was jumping right to, you know, birth processes. I think of, I've got one daughter, who's 14 now, and I plan to do a home birth. We had the birthing pool all set up at home things, but things unfortunately didn't turn out very well and went wrong. And I ended up in hospital with a caesarian, which was an emergency caesarian. And the whole birthing process became so medicalized, completely removed from what I'd originally envisaged and hoped for. But in that, you know, on the one hand, I'm glad that the medical system was there.

and saved my life and saved my daughter's life. Great. Amazing. Thank you very much. But at the same time, we were in this situation where we were cut off from family, you know, it was a medical procedure. I was completely medicated in the end to the point where I was unconscious. And I gave birth to my daughter, you know, unconsciously. That is not how I would have liked her to come into the world or for me to experience that birth process. And on top of that, then in the hospital, you know, I was cut off from her for some time. She was in a kind of incubation chamber for some time. And I didn't have kind of the physical, the body contact with her. The hospital was kind of very medicalized place and space.

There was no artwork. It was very lifeless. It was just machines beeping. You know, no other people around. The doctors and nurses were rushed off their feet. The way they spoke to me was in a very sort of medicalized way. No, literally, oh, this one, yeah, nil to the mouth, no food yet, not even making eye contact and kind of seeing there's another human being here.

It was a traumatic experience. It was unpleasant. I remember one moment there was a group of musicians who came into the hospital. That was like the highlight. They appeared on the ward. They played music. And I remember lying in this bed and crying my eyes out, listening. to the music that they were playing because I felt so touched by something that suddenly brought life

into this very medical environment. So, wow, you know, we've evolved these immense technologies and skills to be, you know, to protect life. I've no doubt that my life was saved to the medical procedures and my daughters, but at the same time, we've totally lost touch of what it means to be alive. How is that possible? It's just weird, right? It is. Yeah. And that's the same for death.

I mean, we don't know what it means to die. Right. You know, we hold on to life, you know, we cling to life like crazy. Rather than focusing on the quality of life and understanding what it means to be alive, we're just fixated on fixing the physical, you know, structure. Yeah. Like a car. Yeah.

Mad. It is. Yeah. People come to the end of their life and they lie again, medicalize in hospital bed, half conscious or unconscious, you know, with all these tubes stuck into their bodies and then they fade out. It's not how I want to die. I mean, we don't get to choose how we die. But I hope that I don't end up in a situation like that, you know. I'd rather, wouldn't we all rather be surrounded by people making it more conscious, you know, exit, saying goodbye? You know, talking about what we would have maybe done differently or what went right or what are the major things we learned, the insights we gained, sharing that with each other, and then leaving in a beautiful way. I mean, yeah, that's what I hope will happen for me. Yeah. Me too. I wonder if there was a way in which we could sort of create a new mythology.

or begin telling ourselves a new cultural story about a right of passage at the end of life and it's something to be celebrated. Do you think that's possible to inject a new sort of mythology into the world we're living in where we could have a different relationship with death? Well, I think there was a book, wasn't there? That's just come up in my mind. I don't remember the author, but the book title is hospicing modernity. And it feels like we do need a conscious dying movement right now.

And that's not just about our physical death, but it's the civilizational death, which is really a transition, a shift again, into this different paradigm, new paradigm that's coming. But it means also letting go and it means letting something die. We need to get better at that. And it will be great if we found ways that, you know, we could share with each other. Hey, how am I letting go? What am I letting, what am I letting die? Yeah.

In my life, what is it that I need to let go off in order to accommodate the new, in order to see what new shoots are growing? Yeah. So that would be really beautiful. We could, you know, dream up some ways of conscious dying as a civilization, as, yeah, as a community, as in our, you know, in our families. If we could have that kind of conversation even, that would be great. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. I've got a couple questions from my audience that they sent in. And I wanted to run them by you here. Great. Okay. Let's see. In your exploration of the sacred roots of existence, have you encountered moments where science and spirituality converge in unexpected ways? Wow.

What a beautiful question. Well, in some way, all the stories of our staff in Alef Trust and all the people who come, into our learning programs, they're dancing in that intersection of science and spirituality. They're often coming with lived experiences of the divine, of what they consider to hold sacred. And they then lean into that experience and try to see, how can they illuminate that experience with a scientific light or with scientific eyes. So they then come and look at different research methods and different ways of inquiring into what we hold sacred

and seeing how can this research be life-giving to the sacred rather than a cold eye of science that tries to, you know, reduce it to factors and components and dynamics, right, in a sort of redactive way. So I would say, I don't have a concrete example that pops up in my mind right now, but in some ways I feel that that is kind of at the heart of what we're doing in Alev Trust is to embrace these new research methods that are contemplative, embodied, more holistic, going into the sacred experience and being with it and honoring it in research

through ways of researching that are enlivening the sacred rather than reducing it. So that really means actually taking some of these spiritual practices like a contemplative practice or a meditation, mindfulness practice or maybe a somatic practice, and bringing that into the research process and letting those intelligences inform the answers that come. So it's honoring the sacred in research. That's what I would say we do. Yeah. I hope that's helpful.

Yeah, it is. Anytime that we can begin to tap into that double helix of science and spirituality, I think we can really start to put that out there and help people find their own ways. Yeah. Yeah, very much. Yeah. The next question comes from Clint Kiles. He says, do you think the business, noise, and overstimulation of modern.

life stifles our ability to tap into shared consciousness. 100%. I think one of the things that we, again, it links to the previous question because in a lot of transformative or transpersonal spiritual research methods, the first thing we do is to work with quietening down, slowing down, inviting silence, inviting stillness, coming to a restful space in order to, well, make space, to empty out, to have this breathing space. We're so overfilled, overwhelmed, overstimulated. We can't hear the subtle answers that come through our other ways of knowing. So spot on question. Yes, it's one really first important step.

I also think in terms of kind of, you know, when we talked about business earlier on and bringing change to business. A lot of the time to begin with, what we actually have to do is to invite people maybe into a workshop or a session where we're making space. Hey people, let's just come together and let's do a transitional pause. Don't do anything. Let's not do anything. And that already, oh my God, is like an exhale, isn't it?

Wow. We can be still. Can we be still? and what actually then happens, what comes through. And the first thing, maybe this kind of anxiety, there's, God, I've got to fill the space. There's a pause now. But then when we lean into that and more people trust,

lean into it and feel into it, then something else can begin to happen between us. That enables us to kind of drop, in terms of business, drop the professional mask a little bit, be a little bit more real. be a little bit more human and, yeah, show up with the uncertainties that we have or the questions, but also kind of relate to each other in a more heart-centered way and see each other more deeply. It can be so enlivening.

So yes, I think the answer is very much, reduce the noise, reduce the overstimulation, individually and collectively. We have to unplug. Don't do so much social media. Do a bit of it. Try not to do too much, very hard. But also don't overload yourself with other people's voices. The demands of daily life upon each of us is so enormous.

We've got to make space individually and collectively. That's where it starts. Yeah. Yeah, I can't help. Every time I hear the word culture, I think of the word cult. And I think of just this overwhelming sense of labels being thrust at you to shape you in a way. God, yes. Yeah, that's so true, isn't it?

And now it's even the algorithms shaping us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's useful, first of all, to notice that, right? That first step of noticing is that gives us the opportunity. It affords us the opportunity to then make a different choice. When we just caught up in the pattern, then we're just, you know, we're just rolling with it.

So we do have to stop, pause, notice it, and then see, oh, how can we create a space between that and our next choice. Yeah. Do less, be more. Yeah. Chop wood, carry water. Yeah. Yeah. You know, make food.

more consciously at home. Don't watch telly or have the news have the, you know, radio on when you're cooking, even just little simple things in daily life. How do we over-stimulate ourselves almost in a way that's now habituated? Yeah. Yeah. Our next question comes from Bianca, and she says, can you share a transformative moment where you witnessed the ripple effect of inner growth catalyzing? How huge in the world? around you. Thank you. Wow, it's such a big,

you know, a tremendous question. Wow. Amazing questions. Ooh. Lots of, there's so many different stories. Just one.

I pull out one story. This is an individual who just popped into my mind there who took part in one of our arts programs. So working in social prescribing, he came into the program of hours. I'm focusing on an individual story, but I'm going to illustrate how things

rippled out from him. So he came into our program and he was diagnosed with depression. He was a very quiet, older man in his 60s. And he just sat in the room with us, with our artists, with myself. He didn't really engage to begin with. He was quite withdrawn. He'd just come in, have his cup of tea. sit and watch other people do, you know, some of the creative work that we were doing. And that went on for a little while. And then there was an exercise where I encouraged people to not work with paint brushes as they were painting, but to use their hands. So to get the paint directly onto the hands and then, hey, let's, you know, just play with your hands, paint with your hands and that means you get the whole body involved. And he completely froze. He just

he had started, you know, he was engaged a bit here and there, he was doing dabbling a little bit, wasn't really fully engaged, but then when he came to this painting with the hands, he completely froze. And then he suddenly jumped up and he left the room. And I thought, okay, what's going on here? Let's just kind of feel into this. And I stepped out of the room and I found him in tears, shaking outside of the room, saying, Jessica, Jessica, I can't, I can't create anything with my hands. I can't create anything with my hands.

He kept saying that. And I was just present with him and let him process that. He was really panicky and shaking and breathing very, very hard. And as I was with him processing that, he then said, I can't create anything with my hands. I can't create anything with my hands because my hands have killed. And he had been a soldier who had been on deployment in various theaters of war. and he had taken life.

And he was living with the trauma of that. And he needed a space where he could be heard and seen with that. He had not shared that with anyone. So there I was with him. And I remember sitting outside, just being there with him, sitting, letting him speak, letting him process that. And then at some point he was ready to come back into the room. And after he'd released that, he started engaging in a very different way.

He didn't immediately put his hands on the, you know, into the paint and start painting. But he found other ways. He found his own way into the activities we were offering. I was also working at the time a lot with kind of more dramatic methods of an act, playing with people physically, kind of maybe dance movement work. And he got more engaged with that. So not, you know, painting, not using his hands directly,

but moving through the space, beginning to interact with others, doing a bit of storytelling, sharing, you know, some other things from his life. And he loosened out more and more. He relaxed more and more. Then he started talking about the kittens that he had at home. He was a cat lover and he had this, you know, his cat had had kittens.

And it was just adorable. He was bringing in photos of these little kittens that he was looking after at home. And he opened up more and more. And then he was sharing how he was an avid gardener. But he had problems with the young people who were living in the estate, you know, around where he was living. That there was a lot of vandalism. And this kind of storytelling opened him further and further as the weeks were. by. And in the end, he even managed to make the big choice of moving. He decided that he needed

to be elsewhere, that the place where he was living, where his garden was being vandalized because of the problems of the young people, was something that he had control over, that he could choose where to live. He found himself another place to live. And he just opened up and he engaged with his neighbors and the new environment he moved into. It was just remarkable to see how that rippled on and out through his life and how he turned his life around. And when he told me the story about the gangs in the neighborhood and so on, at the time, I was saying to my colleagues, I wish we could now go and work with the young people because there's some healing that needs to be done in that community with the young people so that the relationships between the young people and the other members of the community can be improved. but of course, you know, that wasn't the remit of our program.

Our remit was to focus on this particular group of people who've been referred. But it's a good example of, wow, if we'd worked in a more holistic, systemic way, we could have then gone in to the community there and worked with the young people to do some healing there, you know, and build community. So that was a little story with ripple effects for him personally and how he then showed up and how some deep healing took place just as a result of working creatively. But then there are so many other stories that,

yeah, where there are, you know, also more community ripple effects where people show up for each other and build new friendships and then volunteer and, you know, are a service to other people in their community. There's just so much that can happen

when people are liberated and seen in their true being. Yeah. and the stories they've lived, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's an amazing story. I love the, just the idea of the ripple effect and how I can radiate outwards and create change or open avenues for you to explore.

It's just, it's fascinating to see us in that way. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is. And we don't, we're too individualized often. We don't kind of perceive things that way. way. But when there are people who do see in those ways, and I do meet them in public services,

in local councils, when they have that vision and they then collaborate with other services, they build networks, you see the effect in the local area. You see how suddenly people are interconnected and resourced and they're showing up for each other more and more. I remember I remember, you know, at one point in this, focus on this arts program that I've looked after for a long time, it's called Creative Alternatives. And the gentleman who was, he was in that program. So, but at one point, we were working in a local authority and they had a very enlightened way towards public health. They really had a sense for what needs to be done on a community level. And they were working in a very interconnected way.

And it was really fun because we got to, you know, work with the public parks team. And we were installing like creative artworks in parks. And we were part of a flower show, you know, bringing in the community. We were doing things in health centers and community clinics. It was like the web or the community web came, was alive, right? It wasn't just this narrow-minded view of, well, this is a health service, so they deal with people in clinics. No, it was this sense of we're a community and we're showing up for each other wherever we are. And the ranges in the parks have got something to offer.

And so do the people in the schools and so do the people in the community clinics. They all belong together. They're all working together on creating this beautiful shared space where we're showing up for each other. That's what's needed. Yeah, I love that. Everywhere. Yeah. It brings me to this idea of my daughter's 10 and she's we're in the process of going to this new school that's has some really cool ideas.

But it brings up the question, how could you envision with what you're doing now with with the left trust? And could you see some of the programs that you're doing now trickle down into like primary school or what are some things that if. you had a magic wand or that you could help spread awareness to, or what are some programs that you think would be amazing in a child's education growing up? Oh, my. Wow. Again, it's a beautiful question. Yeah. So many schools need that more integrative holistic way of working. Yeah, I still even see it with my 14-year-old, you know, who goes to a conventional grammar school in the local area where we live. Yeah, magic ones.

I would, you know, all the teachers are working very hard, but they're working to these external targets that are set by the government and that are devoid of really, you know, the holistic ways and the kind of deeper ways of being. So it's all kind of external. So if I had a magic wand, I'd focus much more on the intrinsic, on the inner, on the inner resourcing. And with inner, I don't just mean the individual, but inner collective as well.

How are we showing up as a community, as a learning community as a, you know, in a school, whether that's a primary or secondary school or even then again, you know, in higher education, everywhere we need this. So I would encourage those places and spaces, those learning spaces to sit with questions and not bring answers.

You know, when teachers enter into the room, could they just be with the kids to encourage them to feel? How am I showing up today? Who am I? What question am I sitting with? And then to let that question guide the learning process. Imagine if they all worked on their own projects and, you know, are questing for what it is that they're interested in nurturing their unique intelligences

and views and perspectives. And then the teachers just showed up to accompany that and to resource that. And through that way of more person-centered education, could you then, yeah, inculcate a deeper sense of self-knowledge? This is who I am. These are the skills and the amazing talents I have. and let them flourish from the inside out rather than kind of printing something onto the young mind. Like, you know, here's your, it feels like that, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does. Here are the learning outcomes. This is what you've got to know. You know, these are all the things you've got to learn that are just kind of printed into us. Other people's voices are printed onto us. And then we spend a lifetime kind of peeling that off and going, well, who am I really? underneath all of that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because you can teach reading, writing, you know, maths, the sciences through that more person-centered way, right? They flow naturally into our ways of knowing. Yeah. Yeah. It's a shift from the external to the internal, from the extrinsic, goal-driven to the

intrinsic, more self-motivated that I'm talking about here. But self-motivated that can sound like selfish. But it's not about that because it's also, again, outward oriented. It's this looking at the world, seeing the world, being and feeling more deeply into the world, coming into a relationship with the greater world through these deep inquiries. You know, yeah. I love it. That's what's missing.

Yeah, I love it. It reminds me out of like reading Tamaeus or something where, you know, you have the instructor that comes in as like, who is this young genius in front of me and what are your gifts so that we can develop them and you can give them to the world? That's what you need. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it is. And from there we can, you know, yeah, we don't have to be so caught up in what we think needs to happen for this individual. and also then in terms of how we assess their progress, you know,

against these artificial kind of yardsticks that are like pre-prepared. Yeah, I wish that could all be changed, you know. And then we enter into this competitive mode of, you know, league tables for schools or for individuals, if they don't get all these, you know, whatever triple A's, it makes me think of triple A batteries. We're all just producing these factory bunnies, you know, that are hopping in the same way, powered by their triple A's. Sorry, that's a wild metaphor.

Yeah, I love it. And then they all topple over in the end because they're burnt out, you know? Oh, God, yeah. You know, moving away from that kind of AAA towards, you know, being resourced by the universe and by nature, you know, working in much more organic nature-centure. humanistic ways, spiritual ways. It's, yeah, again, it's like a complete shift in mindset, I think. The triple A bunnies. I'm sorry, that's going to be, that's a bit of all that's going to stick with me.

It's so true, especially when you apply the ideas of burnout towards middle age and unhappiness and divorced homes and unrealized dreams, unrealized unrealistic dreams, you know, it's like, yeah, your battery died out. Like that's, you weren't supposed to be probably doing that anyway. There's a much more fulfilling path for you. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, you've got those batteries installed in your education.

Yeah. And then they burn out. And then what? Then you know, only then do you realize what in your 30s, 40s? Yeah. Oh, this is not the way to live. Yeah. It's the pattern there.

I am, Jessica, this is a fascinating conversation. And I feel like we just kind of scratched the surface. I feel like we could go a lot deeper. So you'll have to come back and maybe we can do some more panel work. We bring in other voices and we can bounce ideas off one another, maybe some people that are working in the programs you have or your husband, whatever. We can bring in more people and have a bigger, deeper discussion

and portray that out to the audience. But before I let you go today, I want to let you know, I thoroughly enjoyed this, the audience enjoyed it. And I was curious if you would be so kind as to tell people where they can find you, what you have coming up and what you're excited about. Thank you for the opportunity, first off. I've really enjoyed the conversation as well. So a good way to find out more about us, of course, is to go our website, to our website, Alef Trust.

So it's A-L-E-F-E-F-R-F-T-R-T-R-T-R-T-OG. And there you'll find out about our educational programs, also about the big conference that we've got coming up. that's in Oxford, in England, in September, early September this year. I've also got a pre-conference workshop there on embodied imagination. If people want to do experiential work for a couple of days with me, that's a super way to jump in. And also, again, through that portal of this website, you'll be able to find out about other programs that we're running, not just our higher education programs, but we've also got a certificate program. in various areas like coaching, for example.

And we've got a community of practice as well, which is all about holistic approaches to change facilitation. Again, that's accessible. If you go onto the website and you look for nurturing the fields of change under our applied programs, some of these offerings are free because we're trying to make these things available and bring the change into the world. So we're trying to be of service where we can.

So hop into the website. It's the portal into all of those things. And yeah, I look forward to engaging with you again. We could definitely do a panel. That would be a really lovely way to share some of the projects that we're doing for sure. And also get other voices into the room. That would be great. Thank you.

Yeah, I would love to do that. Absolutely. Well, hang on briefly afterwards. I just wanted to talk to you briefly afterwards. But I want to say thanks to everybody for participating and being here, whether you're Clint Kyle's or Bianco or Italy. all these people that were chiming and thank you so much for being part of it. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And for those listening, we will see you again shortly. And I will

talk to you briefly in a moment, Jessica. Thank you, everyone. Have a beautiful day.