TrueLife - Unlocking Wholeness: A Conversation with Dr. Michael Hofrath

Episode Date: November 7, 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/Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce a true luminary in the world of holistic healing and personal transformation, Dr. Michael Hofrath. With a profound commitment to guiding individuals through their emotional wounds, feelings of being lost or stuck, and the journey towards realignment in body, mind, and spirit, Dr. Hofrath offers a unique blend of healing modalities. These include psychedelic integration, somatic breath work, meditation, mindfulness practices, shamanic healing, and transformative rituals.Dr. Hofrath holds a doctorate in Depth Psychology with an emphasis on Somatic Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute and a B.S. in Business Administration with an emphasis on Marketing Management from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He is also the esteemed author of “Body Express Makeover,” published by Simon and Schuster in 2005.Today, we have the privilege of delving into Dr. Hofrath’s wealth of knowledge and experience in the pursuit of authentic wholeness and personal growth. Please join me in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Michael Hofrath as we explore the transformative power of his approach to healing and well-being.http://www.bodymindwholeness.com/ 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. Hears 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, it's Monday. Welcome back to the best day of your life. I hope you want to stand that the sun is shining, the birds are singing the wind is at your back. And even when times get tough, there's probably a challenge or a little. lesson in there that you should find. It's there. You just got to look for it. You know, we've got to

put meaning in our life. And that's what we're going to do today. I have an incredible show for you today with an incredible individual who's an author, a doctor, an incredible human being who has really put their experience to the test and helps out a lot of people. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct, distinct, distinct pleasure to introduce a true luminary in the world of holistic healing and personal transformation. Dr. Michael Hofrat, with a profound commitment to guiding individuals through their emotional wounds, feelings of being lost or stuck, and the journey towards realignment and body, mind, and spirit, Dr. Hofrat offers a unique blend of healing modalities.

These include psychedelic integration, somatic breathwork, meditation, mindfulness practices, shamanic healing, and transformative rituals. Dr. Hofraff holds a doctorate in-depth psychology with an emphasis on somatic studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute and a BS in Business Administration, with an emphasis on marketing, management from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He's also the esteemed author of Body Express Makeover, published by Simon & Schuster in 05.

Today, we have the privilege of delving into Dr. Hofras' wealth of knowledge and experience in the pursuit of authentic wholeness and personal growth. Please join me in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Michael Hoprat as we explore the transformative power of his approach to healing and well-being. Doctor, thank you for being here today. Of course. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

We're a little discussion here. Yeah. What an interesting time we live in. You know, and I, you just got back off a pretty incredible trip. Maybe you could, maybe he gets a little background and weave that into this tapestry of a story and we're performing today. Yeah, I was just in Peru for three weeks, doing the dieto with the creondos and the maestroes out there and the different plants and, you know, working with mother, Mother Aya. And I will say, you know, I've done a lot of work with this particular medicine. I've worked with quite a few Coriandos, and I've actually facilitated

ice ceremonies myself, but that experience was literally going from Little League to Major League. I mean, it was that big of a jump. It was, you know, I was very impressed. It was pretty bare bones, no electricity,

no running water, and that's all fine and dandy. And you're isolated when you're doing dietic because you're dieting a specific plant that the maestro here, that you need to work with. You're also doing ceremonies. You're probably on 600 calories a day. So it's pretty, you know, it's very reflective, extremely reflective. But for me, it turned out to be one of the most humbling experiences in my life, one of the most life transformative experiences

in my life as well. I literally went through a death of the old birth of the new. There was a moment in time when I kept leaning in, leaning in, where I leaned in in my whole, body just disintegrated. And I became one with the I.M. And the energy and it was, it was beautiful. It was bliss. And there were moments where I just had my arms up because they were just filling my heart with so much love. I felt like my heart was just going to burst, you know. But that was the good ceremony. There were a couple other ones that weren't quite so, so fun. So it was, It's a challenging experience, but it's beautiful. It's magical.

And it is life transforming. It changed everything about me, my frequency, my vibration, what I hear, what I see, all of it. Yeah. I'm just thinking, like, often we hear about the life-changing experiences and the good ones and leaning into that. But leaning in means surrendering at a level that is frightening. Like, well, that is exactly, that's, you just nailed it on the head. The first two ceremonies for most of the participants was extremely brutal, myself included. I have done a lot of work.

I've surrendered. I help people surrender all the time. But the depth of this surrendering and allowing was far beyond even anything I had experienced before. And the first two ceremonies were brutal because I wasn't willing to, I was resisting. I wasn't willing to surrender. I mean, every part of my being, including my heart. And after two ceremonies and actually it was a ceremony a half, I finally started letting go. And the third ceremony, my motto was allow and surrender, allow and surrender and lean in.

And when I did that, everything just, and that's when I went through. ego death. And, and I learned so much from these carandas. They are the, they are the master healers of this world. They are so, and they're so humble. I remember, I remember the maestro coming up to me after the first ceremony. And, and mind you, I look like I'd just been, you know, out in the wilderness for three years with no shower, nothing. I was just, just a mess. It gives me a big hug, and he says to me, Michael, thank you for your medicine, the medicine you provide others. such humility from this man. He just put me through the ringer.

He just schooled me. You know? And he's thanking me for my medicine. It was very, it was, the humility was just unbelievable. But it was a wonderful experience. I'm going to go again in April or May for another Vietta. It's fascinating to see someone with whom you think is the master looking at you as someone who can teach them.

And I wish more people would see the world that way and the people that they encounter. in their lives is what can this person teach me? What am I? What can I learn from them today? You know, and it's amazing. We're all peers. Yeah, please. We're all mirrors of each other. We're all teachers. I mean, you know, when people say, make judgments of others or critical of others or there's a behavior that another person portrays that really they don't like, what they have

to do is turn it back on themselves and see where they portray that behavior themselves. It's projection a lot of times. And people are just mirrors of each other. We're all teachers. Everybody can teach. Everybody does teach us. We just have to be aware enough and open enough and honest enough with ourselves to learn. And when we do that, we don't have to keep going through the same lessons over and over and over again like a rat on a wheel.

It's like, you know, if you're willing to just take the hits a little bit, take the arrows, get honest with yourself. And that's how we change. We don't change from avoiding and running away in denial or pretending that we're not pretending. You know, that's a great one. Yeah, they go out in the world every day and they pretend that they're not pretending. They pretend to be something they're not. They pretend to have it all together. They pretend to, you know, they look good, but underneath, how do they feel?

So a lot of times when I see people on the street or say hello, somebody I haven't seen for a while, you know, I walk. I walk by them and I say, hey, how are you doing? Oh, I'm doing fine. I'm good. No, how are you really doing? And I stop. And I just look them in the eyes. Well, you know, and then they get into the truth. And we need to be able to do that with people. Slow down. Really, really care about others and really take the time to connect with other people. It's all about connection. Connection, love and touch. Very important. Yeah. I love that. And on some level, when you begin doing that, you begin getting in touch with yourself. If they are the mirrors and you begin seeing the pain and the tragedy or the love and the respect and other people, you begin to notice it in yourself. If they are that mirror, it's amazing how much you can, how much the world is willing to reveal to you if you just take the time to look at it, right?

If you, if you're willing to listen, stop talking so much, become aware and observe and pay attention and listen. People always tell you who they are, what they need and how they're doing. If you really, really listen, especially to the undercurrents. You know, in the work that I do, I'm not so concerned about what people are saying. I'm more interested in what they're not saying and the moments between the moments and their nonverbal behavior. The words just go out, just, you know, fine. I'm interested in what's underneath the veil, what's underneath the words.

Because that's where the truth is. And the truth is what says us free. That's where the healing is. Yeah. I think perhaps you have this incredible background of interpreting the world with a background in young in psychology and somatic therapy and all these different modalities. And I guess one question I'm thinking about is when I hear about a trip to go practice in a rich, in a ritualistic setting, way out in the middle of the Amazon or in Peru or these places,

how much, like, it seems so fractal to me, because if you look as an individual or you practice somatic therapy as a container, when you go into a ritual, you're like a container in a container. Like, you know, how, maybe you could speak to the idea of the relationship between ceremony, rights of passage and somatic healing and the individual. Oh, I mean, that's, that's my work right there. I mean, Heroes Journey Work. I used to be the head of trauma for a veteran organization working with veterans. And I was embedded with them for a week long period.

And we took them through the Hero's Journey. And we taught them the Heroes Journey through film. So it was literally, you know, separation, initiation, return. But it was a death of the old birth of the new. They came in as scared little boys in a way with a lot of pain and suffering. And they came, they moved through and they came out to return with the wisdom and the knowledge to serve others. And that is what the hero's journey is about. So the problem today is that we don't, we don't have a right of passage.

There's no demarcation from boyhood to manhood. So we have a lot of 50-year-old boys out there posing as men. And if more men would, or more, yeah, more men would do write a passage work and step into what it means to really be a man. and to think like a man, act like a man, and have a heart like a man, then this world would be very different. So in terms of initiation, right, and passage through, somatic work is, is, you know, everything. I mean, I went to school when nobody even knew what the word somatic meant. I did, because I've always been somewhat of a little bit of a visionary. I was looking at what isn't being focused on right now, and that's what I moved towards. And it's always served

me very well. And so somatic science is, you know, trauma's in the body. We hold, the soma holds the trauma. We can't heal what's in the body in the unconscious realm through the conscious realm. We can't do it, you know. So we have to go to the body. So helping people, you know, somatically and become more embodied and to really connect with their true self, you know, this is, this is where we, this is where healing really starts from for me. When people can because most people don't really know what they're feeling. Most people don't really even know who they are. It's all in here.

It's all here. We keep looking into the external for something that's going to make us feel better or enlightenment or whatever it is. It's not out there. Everything is in here. We have it all. We just have to be willing to go inside and sit with it. And part of what I do is I help people become comfortable with that,

which was too uncomfortable to be. with I move people back into alignment with their true self and I help them remember who they are and why they're here. That's difficult to do when there's so much pain. And I only speaking from my experience, and if I use Entheogens as a tool, it allows me this third person perspective where I can creep up on the situation and not be, while I'm confronting the situation, I'm not overwhelmed by fear because there's no blame in some of these spots, whether it's through breathwork or in Theogens or something like that.

Have you found that to be accurate, too? Is that a way in which you get people to confront their fears to go through it? It is. It is, but it also depends on the medicine you use. And you mentioned the container within a container before. I referred to the containers of Temenos, a sacred space. Sort of like the old Asleepiest temples where the healing takes place. I don't know if you're familiar with the Slepius that the God of healing.

You know, back in the days of the Greeks, they had Asleepiest temples. And people would go into these temples and spend the night and their dreams would heal them. And I've experienced this with my clients as well where dreams have actually healed their psyche. But it's a teminosis, a sacred space. And when you move into a container or a teminose, a sacred space that is safe and contain, so people can allow themselves to fully surrender because they know that they're safe. That's when the magic happens. And, you know, working with entheogens, the big thing about working with these medicines

is that we have to remember to always respect them and hold them as sacred because they are sacred. They come from the earth, most of them, some of them are synthetic. But they all have a spirit. And, you know, when you're working with MDMA, maybe a little psilocybin, Yes, there is no fear because MDMA is an actogen and pathogen. It takes people down into the heart, into the shadow without any fear. So they can go into Pandora's box and do the clean up, you know, clean house.

And release, let go and so forth. There is no fear. You work with other medicines. There can be some fear. It just depends. And it also depends on where they are at, their state of mind. It's very important that people, if they're going to work with these, these entheogens to go into the working with these medicines with a very clear mind.

Don't go in when you're really upset after a breakup or losing a job or when you're in a lot of fear, you know, make sure that you at least are in a place where you're open and neutral to allow whatever needs to come through to come through. Because if we go in in a dark place, sometimes it can get a little dark. because that's where our mindset is. But the key to these medicines is really remembering that they are sacred. And this is one of the things that I struggle with with the clinical world is I'm very happy that we're moving towards these and we're in third stage trials with maps and the VMA and, you know,

was it Colorado and organ have legalized certain usage of psilocybin and so forth and other medicines. But I also see all these companies. coming in with their claws, including big pharma, you know, to get a piece. And we have to remember is we don't own the land. We think we do, but we don't own the land. The land is

free. And these medicines, we can't, we have to be very, very careful because if we do what we do in the clinical world, you know, you got CB, in the clinical world, you got CBT, DBT, Act, all these things. They're wonderful. You know,

they're 50% effective, but they are wonderful for people who are receptive to them who have moved through enough to be able to learn from them. But we've also manualized these things. We've taken out the wounded healer archetype, the interconnection between the therapist. And if we start doing that with these medicines, we're going to take the magic out of them. And we're going to take the sacredness out of them. And we're not going to have as much respect for them. And they're not going to work for us anymore. We're not working the same way. And this, This comes directly from the plants.

We have to, you know, they're there to help us. They want to help us. They've been wanting to help us forever. We're just not listening. But they also, you know, they respect us. We need to respect them. I love it. I think in some ways you can tell that they're not for commercialization.

And if you look at the way in which cannabis has gone, medical cannabis, like very few people can make a commercial living out of it on the stock level. are making a company about it. It's because it's got its own spirit to it. It's like, I'm not for that. And the same thing with psilocybin, at least in some of these companies that I'm seeing, is that good luck trying to make a Fortune 500 company out of it. Like it's not for that.

It's right there. It's part of the land. It's part of us. And there's on some level, I was speaking with another individual. Alexander Ledbitt was really, I really admire the work he's doing. And we were talking about. I'm familiar with it. Yeah.

You know, there's a lot of. work going around where they published a paper where some big pharma companies are trying to take the trip out of the psychedelic and you know it's it's like a fool's errand it's like a modern day donkey hoady in a way where you know you can't i think what's happening is the difficult part of the trip is the physical manifestation of neuroplasticity like that's when your brain is changing so you can't take that out of it That's like taking the that's like taking the therapeutic out of it. Taking the turkey out of turkey chili. I mean, it's like, come on.

You're serious? You know, taking the hamburger out of the hamburger. It's, you know, look, the way emphagens work for the most part, as well as shamanic practitioners, which is a big part of what I do, is people move into an altered state of consciousness. We only know what we know, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know. You have the known world, which is the conscious realm and the unknown world, which is the unconscious. Living in this world is what keeps us stuck. Moving into an altered state

of consciousness into the unconscious realm and surrendering allows us to be open to the new, new insights, new revelations, to see truth. If you take that out of it, you take the whole magic out of it. It's just another, it's just an antidepressant or anti-exiety pill. It's all it is. It's going be a band-aid again. And, you know, healers healers, you know, we don't do a band-aid approach. We heal souls. I mean, that's from my perspective, you know, true healers go very deep into the, into the soul to heal people's souls so they can open up and be free again and really experience who they truly are. But look, these companies are going to keep doing what they're doing. Big Pharma is going to do what they're going to do. But the universe has a

say in this too. These companies don't have control. They think they do. Control is an illusion anyways. But, you know, most of them are going to fall flat in their face. And some of them may succeed, but like you said, they're not going to be the next billion dollar IPL. They're just not. So you're going to happen. Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating to me. How does EMDR fit into this? Do you use those two things in conjunction with each other? Or are they related? Maybe you can talk about it. So, you know, I'm a somatic depth psychologist.

I do EMDR. I do neuroeffective touch, which is a modality where you get people on, somatic modality where you get people on a massage table, fully clothed, blanket over them, sort of cocoon. And I work directly with a polyvagal nervous system. It's a very powerful healing modality. So basically, I work very intuitively when I work with clients. It really depends on I meet them where they're at, where they're at, what they need to move through,

and what I feel they would be most receptive to. And sometimes it's working with EMDR. But I work with core beliefs. I don't work with memories. I work with core beliefs. And that's a whole new way. It's more of a modern EMDR approach. And when we start changing our core beliefs, we start changing who we are.

We start changing our identity. You know, if you live your life thinking, I'm not lovable, and all of a sudden you realize, yes, I am, that changes your identity. That changes your whole being. So EMDR is a very powerful modality to start moving people back into a line with their truth, to letting go of old stories, old belief systems, you know, even working through trauma. I use neuroeffective touch. I use a lot of somatic modalities. Every session I do, there's a somatic component to get people connected to, themselves. Because that's where you have to start from, you know. So they all work in conjunction. I have a pretty large toolbox. I do a lot of, you know, shamanic healing, extractions, cord cutting, energy healing, emotional surgery, you name it. And everything comes through. I'm just a vehicle. I'm just a messenger. Everything comes through my guides or source. And then working with

the amphiogens as well and doing facilitation and integration. So basically, it's very intuitive. It really depends on where the client is at, what I feel they need. And I list, I just listen. It's not, it's not, I don't, every client is unique and what, you know, so I take each and every client as a unique human being and I listen and, and invariably, we get to where we need to go. And we do so pretty expediently too. I tend to work very expediently and I'm also very direct. Yeah, but that's probably why it's effective. Have you, you've worked with a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds and

you've been doing it for quite some time. I'm curious, do you find that when practicing and helping other people that it changes you and maybe you could explain how it might change you? Of course it changes me. I mean, yeah, it's the wounded healer archetype. That's what I work. through. You have a wounded soul. I have a wounded soul. Let's merge both of our wounded souls to evoke a healing for both of us. Of course I heal. I'm constantly healing. They're mirror. My clients

are mirrors, they're teachers. I'm just a guide. I just, I'm just a guide. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the vehicle that can take them somewhere, the guide or that helps direct the process. But they're learning too and they're teaching me as well and they're mirrors for me. So yeah, I mean, healers, it's all about healing, healing my own soul, as well as I'm healing others. And that is the wound of healer archetype. And that's something that I think, unfortunately, the medical model is sort of, doesn't really understand fully that the interpersonal relationship between the client and the therapist or the healer is extremely important.

Safety and trust are paramount. If you don't have that, you're not going to have a successful outcome. It's that simple. Do you feel as if healing is done in the body and as the guide, you're there to facilitate it? Or does the healing power come through you? No, no, no. It doesn't come through me. It doesn't come through me.

I'm just a human being. Everything goes through me. But I'm just the conduit. What I really do is I teach people how to be their own healers. And I tell them this. I tell them, I can't. First of all, I tell them right off. the bat. You're not broken. You're not defective. You don't need to be fixed. This is 12 o'clock. You're at 11.

We're just doing a little ship. Secondly, I can't help you. I can't heal you, but you can heal yourself. And what I'm going to do is teach you how to be your own healer, how to be really honest with yourself, how to connect with yourself and ask the real questions and be open to the answers. Now, do I move people through depression, anxiety, blah, blah, blah. Yes, of course. But, But, you know, and I do use those modalities, EMDR, neuroeffective, depth, depth practices. You know, I work with medallas, all kinds of things. But it's all, it's all about them learning about themselves and remembering who they are. And really, it's about helping people become comfortable if I'm comfortable feelings.

You know, what do we do? As soon as we get uncomfortable, boom, we're off to the races. Food, TV, sex. you know, drugs, alcohol, anything to not feel. And that's the problem. We don't feel. We numb out. We need to start feeling. And what I've discovered, I think, is really profound and I think very important is that, you know, everybody talks about protecting their heart. They've gone through heartbreak. They've been betrayed or whatever. So they're constantly protecting their heart, which is a disconnect, disconnect from self, disconnect from others. And then they wonder why they

feel so isolated, alone, withdrawn. But the problem is they're protecting the wrong organ. See, if you connect with your body, your intuition, your truth, your body will always warn you and tell you when something's amiss or whether, you know, it'll help. You'll know what's out there that could cause you harm. We need to open up our heart more and more and more. That's where kindness and love and compassion and empathy are, not just for others, but for self. It all starts with us. If we can't learn how to love ourself, be compassion with herself, stop beating the shit out of herself.

How can we stop doing that with other people? It's about non-judgment, non-criticism. Just being open to seeing truth. It sounds simple. I know it's difficult. It can be challenging. Yeah, it's

I'm not even sure challenging is a big enough word because we've been conditioned our whole life to see this linear view and progression and we've defined success in these very narrow terms. And in some ways, it's almost as if we're going through our world with blinders on. Well, you said the key word, condition. I call it programming. All of us, all of us have been programmed. We've had a lot of adverse programming infused into us by our parents, if they weren't the best role models, which most aren't. I mean, they're humans.

Teachers, peers, coaches, you name it. Look at this, look at this, this. society. It's all about competition, being the best. That's why we grade people. You're not going to make the varsity team. Go for an interview. You're the only one person to be hired. It's all about being the best and doing it, focusing on the quantitative. But the truth is, it's not about that. And we really need to, it's about changing our programming. And but if we're not aware of that programming, then how can we change it? So what I do is I make people aware of the programming that was infused into them. So they can change that program. Now, the clinical track uses a lot of different terms for that. But I use programming. Core beliefs are part of that. When you start changing your programming, now you start opening up and you start moving into what I refer to as freedom.

The ultimate onus, the ultimate goal is freedom. People think it's happiness. It's not. It's freedom. Freedom from this. because when you move through all of this stuff, you let it go, you change your programming. Now you're completely free to experience love, connection, touch, joy at the highest levels. And from there, you have moments of happiness.

And your state of being is just always a little more balanced in the positive realm. Because you see things very differently. So it's about changing our programming. That's the key. I mean, it's very much like the matrix. you know yeah you know when you're ready to take the blue pill give me a call that really is the truth I mean it's it's what it comes down to because we are so much more than we think we are we are so much more powerful we have no clue and we've been conditioned

programmed to be pushed down to stay in our place you know I'm not into conspiracy theories but you know you look at Martin Luther King what do we do with Nelson Mandela put him in jail probably should have done something else with them Robert Kennedy Bobby Kennedy go on and on on yeah the powers to be the system does not like free thinkers we're dangerous wild men as I call them you know when I do write a passage work wild men become a wild man free thinker think for yourself ask questions be curious ask the why questions that's how we start changing our programming And when we start changing our programming, then we get unstuck because we're no longer here. We don't keep repeating the same patterns over and over and over and over again. You know, it's interesting. There's a great book called Why We Suffer by Michael Peterson, who's another depth psychologist. And he talks about the human flaw. But a little background on this book, you know, Bueller was a deaf psychologist way back in

Freudian days. He wrote a manuscript at Treaties that was pretty much this book, but he never published it because he said that the humans will not be ready for this degree of truth for about 100 years. Well, it's been about 150. And we're still not ready for it. And in this book, Michelson refers to the human flaw. And what is the human flaw? While the human flaws is the fact that we are complicit in our own suffering. We keep regurgitating all the old hurts, pains, guilt, shames, all the mess, over and over and over again like a rat on a wheel. And it is the human flaw.

And it completely changes the way our relationship with self, others, and the world at large. And so we have to go, we have to be aware of this human flaw and stop beating the shit out of ourself. put down, put down the jackhammer, the mallet, the hammer, and start learning how to love herself. I truly believe that all the work that we do in the healing world, at least from my perspective, is, comes down to three things. Self-acceptance, self-forgiveness, love. If anybody has a different opinion, I'd love to hear from them. But I believe once you move into those three areas and you embody them, very different person. Yeah.

I heard it self-awareness, self-respect, self-love, but it's the same modality is right there on some level, you know, maybe some semantics in there, but maybe you could speak to the idea of the relationship between self-awareness and self-love. Well, I mean, self-awareness is really being, from my perspective, being aware of who you are in relationship to others in the world, nature, animals. What are you passionate about? What moves you? What provides you with meaning?

I mean, what's your purpose in life? We all have a purpose. And purpose provides us with meaning. Without meaning, life becomes meaning less. And so we have to become self-aware. And so we need to connect with ourselves. We need to learn how to get quiet. it and do the one thing we don't want to do because we keep we you know we keep being busy

doing doing doing problem is we need to learn start learning how to be and you know i'm not the only one talking about this meditation gurus every book mindfulness you know monks they all talk about this but it's it's the truth we have to slow down you have to really slow down and get become more mindful and then we become more self-aware and then we can start seeing understanding who we are, be more aware of who we are in relationship to others in the world, and work through things that we might not be happy about, character defects, you know, changing our identity a little bit. And then we can move into self-love because we know who we are.

How can you love yourself if you don't know who you are? How can you? And people tell me all the time, well, well, what is self-love? What does it look like? Well, it looks like being kind to yourself. Listening to your body, listening to your intuition, if your body says, you know what, we need to take a break today, or we're not going to do anything tonight, or maybe it's time to do some reading. Or maybe it's time to go play that flute or do take on a hobby, start, you know, we need to start listening to that inner voice. And as a shamanic practitioner, I have a lot of inner voices, a lot of spirit guides and animals on planet, all plan. So they're always coming through.

But at the end of the day, I practice what I preach. I walk to walk and talk to talk. You know, I get quiet every morning and I listen and I pay attention. And I'm not just what's coming through downloads, wisdom, but also integrity. Where am I out of integrity with myself? What do I need to clean up? That's always the first thing. Because in my work, integrity is everything.

If I'm out of alignment with myself, you know, I'm not going to be as effective. I'm not going to be able to help people. And my purpose and calling in this life is to help heal souls, to help people move into higher consciousness, help people remember who they are to move into alignment with that truth. And to watch that happen is one of the most beautiful things. Why do this work, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds rewarding on so many levels. And it brings up the idea that words are about fragments of language and that your body keeps the score and your actions, coupled with your words, are a more true form of communication. And people can see that. They know if you're bullshitting.

They know if you say one thing and you do another. I guess come back to authenticity. Also words are very primitive. You know, we don't, our vocabulary, our verbiage is very limited in terms of really, truly expressing things. And we have a lot of wounded words. You know, and words matter. The way people use words is very important. One word can destroy a relationship, can start a war.

And so we have to be mindful of the words we use. And also, you know, I do a lot of work with telepathy. I connect with my shepherd with my close friends telepathically. You know, I just tune in and I can connect with them that way. Because words are so limited, you know, people have to be in front of you or on the phone or what have you. So it's really about, you know, a lot of times moving into higher consciousness and really opening up your third eye so you can understand that you have the ability. We all have the ability to do so much more and to move into expansion instead of contraction and withdrawal.

And it's happening at a very fast pace right now. I mean, we are this planet, this is, we are moving into the fifth dimension if we're not already there in certain aspects. And we're all a lot more people are waking up now. People are more open to higher consciousness because they need to be. Our DNA is literally changing. You know, it has been for quite a while. And we are opening up. And all we have to do is be open to it to just open our minds a little bit, you know, to the world of spirit.

Because we are all spiritual beings having a human experience. Yeah. I'm reminded of philo-Judeus and his thoughts on the next, the return of the logos will be a language to be beheld. And in some ways, we start thinking about logos. Like, information is constantly being revealed to us. If we know when to listen and when to look, it's kind of mind-blowing to see it happening so fast, right? It is. It is. All we have to do is learn to be quiet, zip this up a little bit, and listen more and observe.

and pay attention. That's when life gets, that's when we're most alive when we're fully present. So going back to the semantic work, you know, most of our pain and suffering is in the past or the future. Thinking about the past and wanting to change it, but you can't because it's the past. All we can do is accept it. Or worrying about the future, which hasn't happened yet. There is no pain or suffering in the present moment because we're present.

And so semantic work is really. about bringing people into the present moment, getting grounded in their body, connecting with their breath, their heart, their true being, and then asking the right questions. You know, and the moment you're not present, the moment there's a little bit of pain or suffering, you're already in the past or the future. Most people live their lives in the past or the future. Start learning how to be present. That's where life is live. That's where you feel most alive. That's where you're most vibrant. You know, I've worked with a lot of veterans and they would tell me this over and over again. And I understand it fully that the reason they keep going back and doing more tours is because

they never felt more alive than when their life was on the line. When they're in a firefight, because they're so present, adrenaline's going, that's when that's when they feel alive. To them, this, this life is boring because there's no reason to feel alive. You can just just everybody can just hide and go into the past. And we do that a lot. So and also it's about connection. Healing is about connection and community. Well said.

We need to stop isolating and withdrawing and and going into this place of while I'm lonely and I'm alone. None of us are alone. None of us have ever been alone. We just have to open up. We have to see through a different lens. And we have to start pursuing community. Community is the best healer we have.

we have. It always has been. If people, if the medical model would start using community more, big pharma would take a huge hit. But we're a little bit lazy. We've got a little bit lazy. And we've, we also started believing everything we're being told. We have to stop believing the lies, you know. And community is how we heal. Think about when's the last time you were in a a vet at a location or with your friends and you were just completely sad and just depressed. No, you're smiling. You're laughing. You're having fun. It's like, you know, even if it's just menial, you know, superficial discussion. It's, but finding community with like-minded people who you want to emulate or you want to learn from, you know, it's like the best, some of the best

CEOs and so forth, they always hire people that are smarter than them in certain areas. which is a smart thing to do. We need to do that as healers too. I've always joined communities or work with teachers that could, you know, way up here and I was learning from them because that's how we learn. And not being afraid to see truth, our truth. You know, when I talk about community, I think of lineages and where you went down to learn from some people that have been doing it for generations.

I feel like there's a real true sense of lineages. there where actual modalities are being passed down and the reasons for those modalities come with them. Do you think there's an absence of that in the West where maybe modern science is trying to use the medicine without the proper lineages? And if so, is that a problem? Well, I understand what you're saying. I think I come from a little bit of a different perspective because the truth is we've all

lived, this isn't our first lifetime. Okay. We've all had anywhere from 1,500 to 4,500 lifetters, not all on this planet, you know, different plants. And if you move into the dimensions, probably quite a few of them at the same time simultaneously. So that said, we all come from a certain lineages at some point, you know, and we all come from Africa. That's where the first humans came from.

And so if you go back in time, somewhere in your, in your, in your, in your, in your, your, lineage, you're going to find that we healers, shamans, gypsies, you know, medicine men, what have you. So the lineage, if you're talking in this, you know, yes, lineage is important because there's, there's information that we, we carry through in our DNA that we can remember. But I think what the medical world is doing is they're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. They're trying to make these doctors that, that, or educate these doctors to work, with these specific ailments without looking at the whole body, looking at the whole picture, without understanding everything, energy, how the body really truly heals. You know, we've become

a fix-it medical system instead of a preventative medical system. And we need to become more holistic and open up and look at, look at everything, the whole body, all the systems, you know, the endocrine, the nervous system, the muscle, the muscle, system, soft tissue, all of it. And then also working with ancestral trauma, too. What did we carry into this world? But, you know, when you, when you mentioned lineage, lineage is important. I mean, the maestros that I worked with, his brother worked with him, his sister was doing the cooking. It was a whole family thing. Most of the maestroes I've worked with came from a long lineage. So it is in their history. And so I think there is a

component of lineage, that's important too. Whether it's from this lifetime or from other lifetimes or other lifetimes and other plants, you know, but I think we also have to remember that whatever we learn, wherever we take in and we start remembering who we are, that is passed on through our DNA. So it's just really remembering who we are, where we come from. And these days, it's really about me just being open enough to get the downloads to remember what I used to know. You know, the healing work I used to do in Atlantis and other places in Egypt.

And those, so lineage can be, you know, can be a lot of different things. But I like to open up lineage a little bit so people don't just keep it in this narrow perspective. But yes, these maestroes in Peru are very, very powerful. powerful healers and it's it's in their DNA it's who they are. I mean, they they can tell you about every single plant and tree, the medicinal properties, how to diet the plant. And the plants are what speak to them. You know, the plants help them determine what medicine or what plant to give to each individual. They, my maestro knew everything about me before he even met me, you know, and we really connected. He's set and it's about humility too. He's such a humble, humble man. He just,

he just leads with his heart all time, just all heart. And he's an amazing musician, painter, you name it. So it's just getting back to nature, you know. We need to get back to nature and really connect. We've, you know, Young spoke about this a lot. He's lost our myth. Lost our way. Why have we lost our myth? Why have we lost their way? Because we, we we moved away from nature. We live in concrete. We live in apartment complexes, high rises. We're so disconnected from nature. That's where the healing is. That's where life is. That's where everything we want is in nature and really reconnecting with nature from my perspective. Taking the time to sit in nature to walk or just walk in nature and really get listen, pay attention.

And it was funny when I was doing the dieta, I could barely sleep. One, because I lost like 12 pounds over there, no food, but eating much. And so there was a lot of energy moving through my body. And I was talking to the plan I was working with and so forth. But it was hard for me to sleep a night. And there were, I think, three or four nights where I didn't sleep at all because it was so loud. What was loud? The plants, communicating, the buzzing, the kids.

communication. It was so loud. I've never I've never heard it like that before. If we stop and really pay attention, we can hear. You know, even even sitting down and just putting a hand on a tree and closing your eyes and asking the tree to connect with you and provide wisdom. I work, you know, I work out of Hawaii. I also work out of L.A., northern and southern California. you know, and in one of the locations I work at in Hermosa Beach, there's this tree in the, in the backyard. My client calls her Maggie. She's this huge, huge, magnificent moat tree. She is such a powerful healer. I always, when I'm doing medicine work, you know, at the end of the ceremony or sometime during it, I'll bring people outside to connect with that tree. I've had people

sitting up in the tree for hours. It's just, you know, and my client herself, she, When we connected, she had stage for lung cancer, which normally doesn't have a good outcome. She did three medicine ceremonies with me over the course of a year. Plus, she worked with her other doctors and other alternative therapies. Now she's in remission. She's been remission for about eight or nine months. But Maggie was really the object, a healing object for a relational object that helped her. And she still connects with Maggie on a daily basis.

And she's connected to her guides now, which she wasn't before. All of them help her and guide her so that she doesn't feel like she has to do everything alone. She's not alone anymore. And a lot of people struggle with that. They feel like they're all alone. You know, it's so funny because we all, what we all truly want is to be, to be loved unconditionally for who we are. And to be truly seen and accepted for who we are. But we are so scared of it that we sabotage it.

We run from it all the time because we haven't done our own work to accept that degree of love. love. And that's why we do the deeper work, you know, to really be able to live in love and be able to receive it and give it. You can't give what you don't have. And you have to be able to receive it. So many people, you know, say things to them, give them compliments. They can't receive it. Oh yeah, but, but, you know, I do this. No, no, no. Just receive that, feel that. Feel good that feels. you know, we've been programmed not even to feel good feelings anymore. Yeah, maybe that's what Young was talking about when he said, some things can't be learned, they can only be developed inside of you.

Yeah, I truly believe that Jung was a shaman. I mean, he could never say that because he was constantly fighting to get accepted as a scientist, which he was. You know, but he was a mystic. Yeah. When he talked about the numinist, the mystical, the unconscious realm, he was a shaman. And, you know, and I truly believe that he changed everything for us, you know. Because if we hadn't had young, we would still be in this, you know, still be, that would be it.

And he opened the door to the unconscious realm, which, I mean, that took a lot of courage, you know. I have, he's my hero. I have so much respect from because he was out there on a limb by himself. Talking about like feeling alone, he was alone until he had, you know, on Franz and wearing Woodman and all these other depth psychologists that came after him. But he was the pioneer. And, you know, it takes great courage to be pioneers. But we can all be pioneers and leaders in innovation if we just open up to it, you know,

and pay attention and tap into all our unrealized power. We are all so much more powerful than we think we are. We really are. And I'm learning this. Every day I learn this more and more and more. When I see what my clients can do after they move through and heal the changes and how they bring what they've learned out to the community, you know, that's the intention right there is, you know,

to bring it out to the community. That's why we're here, to have experiences and bring it back. Yeah, that's, you know, a lot of the times people find themselves at a breaking point. They get to a point in their life where they've come up against so much friction, whether it's in their relationships with their loved ones or it's an internal conflict, but they get to this point or PTSD. Is that friction necessary? Like, is this a test?

Do we need to get to that point so that we can become a better version? of ourselves? It's not necessary. It's a choice. It's a choice. But see, you have to understand that in this 3D world, in our system, in our culture, it's what we've been programmed to believe. You know, when we were born, we didn't know fear, shame, guilt, disgust, anger, any of it. We were taught, we learned through mirror neurons. We were taught all of this. And so it's, again, It's our programming. And if you're not aware of your programming or know that you have programming, how can you change it? You can't.

So what people understand is it's not about self-blame, you know, beating yourself up. It's about going, ah, this is my programming. And I can change it if I choose to, if I want to. And it's about moving through the programming, you know. So, you know, pain and suffering are not necessary. it is a choice, but based upon our culture, it's all we know. It's what we're taught to fear. We're taught to fear everything.

We're taught to fear COVID, aliens, strangers, the dark, you name it. But that's the known world. We're not taught anything about the unknown world. And we live in the unknown world every single day. You don't know what's going to happen five minutes from now. You don't know what's going to happen an hour from now. We live in the unknown world. But why do we fear the unknown?

It's unknown. Why don't we embrace it as a potential excitement, adventure, possibility? Because we're taught this. And so when people start realizing that it's not necessary, it's a choice. But also people have to be taught or they have to learn how to move through and not get stuck. You see, it's, you know, the clinical model talks about diagnosis, symptomology all the time. Deb psychologists are not, we don't pathologize. We're not interested in the diagnosis.

We're not even necessarily in the symptoms. I'm not interested in what's presenting. I'm interested in what's underneath, the root cause, the origin. Where did that come from? Let's heal this wound here, and then it starts dissipating. And so when it comes to pain and suffer, we have to understand that it's all about moving. through. And can it be uncomfortable? Yes. It will be, it will most likely be somewhat uncomfortable. But pain and suffering are optional. Uncomfortableness is very different. But that uncomfortableness is how

we learn. Uncomfittleness is a teacher. Sadness is a teacher. Depression is a teacher. Anxiety is a teacher. They're all teachers. It's our body trying to teach us. We just have to be open to the lessons. and not get stuck in it. You know, so many people say, well, I've been anxious my whole life and blah, blah, blah. Well, okay, what's underneath that? Well, I don't know. I'm just anxious.

No, no, you're not anxious. Anxious. Society came from, so. It could be all, a lot of times it does go all the way back to childhood. But in terms of, you know, remembering who we are, there's, and this idea of pain and suffering, there's also separation. And this is something we have to understand, too.

You know, when we are first born, before we have our naming ceremony, what is our name? I am. We are all I am. And then we are given a name, Patricia, Steve, Bill, Mary. There's a separation. Now we have to live her life conforming to society's standards of how Patricia or Mary or Steve are supposed to live their life. There's a separation at birth when we're pushed out.

And so, you know, safety is everything. People need to feel safe. And so for most people, the safest we've ever been was in our mother's room. Most people, we spend the rest of her life trying to get back there. Why? To remember who we are to get rid of the separation, the I am. We are all the I am. We are all part of everything, energy, the universe.

And I've experienced it in brief moments throughout my life. But in Peru, I experienced it for a whole ceremony. And what happened in that moment when you disintegrate and realize that this is just this, you know, our human body in this 3D world, when you move into that energy field, you can do anything, go anywhere. And it was so beautiful, you know, and we can retain a lot of that. But it takes work, too. And this is the other thing. it takes a little bit of effort if you want to heal and that's the thing that people have to say we have to we have to put time and energy towards it and and that that equates to self-love how much

do you truly love yourself are you willing to put the time and the energy into yourself to feel better in your body because that's all it matters all it matters is how you feel about yourself in relation to others and the world. You know? Thank you for that. That's a, it takes a minute for me to think about that for them. That's pretty amazing to think about that. Sometimes I wonder how much of the, the turmoil that's happening out there.

Like sometimes I like to see us as one giant organism. You know, I think it was Alan Watts who said, you don't come into this world, you come out of it. The world grows people like an apple tree grows apples. And when I start looking at the demographics right now, and I see a large portion of us, the organism, the human beings, knocking on the mortality experience

and the baby boomer generation, it seems to me that this fear of death is manifested. And how much of these problems that we're going through in our own life and in the world are a fear of death? Do you think that those two things are related? Of course they are. They're very related. And it's also how the system has programmed us.

You know, I don't like to use the word death. I use the word celebration or transition. I love it. Because it's a transition. It's not an ending. It's a transition into something new, something different. It's a celebration because we're going back home. But then we get into the discussion of religion and the separation of religion has caused.

Because religion is not spirituality for two separate things. And that's a whole can of worms too. religion has separated us from God. And when Jesus was here, he didn't say, follow me and I will teach you how to think, act and be like me. Follow me because you are me. You are me. We are all part of that source.

But we don't know it because we're taught differently. That's where religion sort of creates another separation. And so, yeah, I think that it's really important for, for us to do a lot of self-reflective work and deeper work. You know, we can, we can all, it's not, and it's not just about healing ourselves and our souls. It's about healing the planet because we do matter. We are not invisible as a planet, as a people, as a species. There are a lot of eyes are on us because we do matter.

What happens on this planet has reverberations throughout the galaxies and the universe. We are important. All of us are. Every single human being is important. And we all have a purpose. We're all here to learn and to move into remember who we are so we can bring those experiences back because it's all about experience. So separation is a big part of this. And it's what's happening in the world today. You know, politics, separation. You know, wars, separation. Different. It's like what happened to the kindness and love that who we truly are, you know? It's taken the back seat. And I truly, you know, I think about this a lot.

I'd love to, you know, when they have a Senate and the House of Representatives have a whole meeting with everyone. I would love to be able to go in there and put a little bit of MDMA in each one of their glasses of water and just have a stack of legislation, science, science. You know, if more people lived in their hearts through love, kindness, compassion, empathy. This would be a very different world. We wouldn't have all this depth, you know, as you call it.

And also, death is a Western construct. We look at the ceremonies that we create, religion a lot of times created. There's all these ceremonies that really don't have much meaning anymore. They did at one point, but now we've bastardized ceremonies so many times. And so, you know, transition has become business. And, you know, we don't connect with the land anymore, so we're separate from that. So we've made this separation and this fear of death such a big deal when it really isn't. It's just a transition.

It's a beautiful thing. And when you understand that and you're not in fear of that, then you're not going to hold yourself back because it doesn't matter anymore. So a lot of people are, you know, fear holds them back from everything. And what and also people have to understand that we can't make a mistake. They're into mistakes in life. It's like if this is alignment, we never do this in our life. We always do this. We're always doing this.

So if we try something, it doesn't work, we learn something. We learn what we don't want. What doesn't work? Move back here. We try over here. Oh, that's not what I want either. And eventually we find that. alignment of what what does work for us so you know the there's a great book called the

Tibetan the Tibetan book of I think death and dying when people start understanding that we are this that we are infinite our souls are infinite that we we this our soul continues to live on yes this body will go back into earth to to rejuvenate the earth that's how the earth rejuvenates but our soul lives on. And one of the things I learned in the shamanic healing world is how to do death rights. And that is to go into hospitals or what have you when and help the family, you know, calm the family down and hold space for them, loving space to allow them to feel what they need to feel. And I hold that for them. And then working with the person that's making their transition and literally once they take their last breath, pushing the soul.

out of the body and back screaming the chakras so the soul can can freely leave and go into the light go back home you know in Maui they had the fires recently I went over there a week after the fire primarily to do psycho psycho-pump work to help all the souls that perished abruptly that were blindsided do don't know what happened they're confused help them move into the light and there's still a lot of that work going on you know, because souls get lost too, you know. But when people understand that they're really, truly just a soul. And look, we've been trained to not even believe there is a soul.

I mean, you can go through a whole clinical psychology program and not come across the word soul one time. In-depth psychology, that's all you talk about. Because it's, you know, soul, if it's not tangible, if you can't touch it, feel, it, see it. Well, it must not be real. Well, energy is very real, and everything's made out of energy. And all energy vibrates a certain frequency or vibration.

So why wouldn't so be real? It's energy just like everything else. And we'll get into that whole discussion because that's a long-winded discussion. It's mesmerizing. I love it. I wasn't, I forgot where I read this, but it may have been somewhere in the Gutenberg galaxy or what is his name? Long story longer, right?

It seems to me that it's so interesting to listen to the language because a lot of the answers are in there. When we start using mechanistic metaphors to describe nature, we're on the wrong track. Like we start describing nature with mechanistic means. Like, wait a minute, that's a giant sign that we're way out of a line. Yeah. Of course, yeah. Yeah.

You know, but also at the same time, there is, there's a lot of shifting going on right now. And we're getting a lot of help. Yeah. And we are, we are moving into higher consciousness. People are more open to it. There are more healers, spiritual healers, light healers, light workers, medicine workers today than they ever were before. And there are more off-planet guides helping us, because we're we it's time for us to move through into a different dimension because once once we move out of this the 3d dimension is no longer needed it's no longer necessary it was needed as as our planet was evolving and life was evolving and so forth but everything changes the one constant life has changed everything evolved and so you know we as a human species it's time

for us to evolve too and move into a different a different dimension a different way of being a different understanding of who we are and what our purpose is in this in this in this world in this in this universe you know and it's not it's not brain surgery it really isn't it's just about being open and allowing ourselves to move into the unknown world without any expectations and just be open You know, meditation, people talk about all the time. Meditation can be very, very powerful if we can just quiet ourselves and listen. I do shamanic journeys all the time, you know, into the upper, lower, middle worlds. This, you know, this is the path.

And, you know, even just doing drumming, you know, the drum is the shaman's horse. Just people sitting with a drum. We're listening to drumming and closing their eyes. Things are going to start happening. because the drum calls in all the ancestors, spirit guides, the power animals. Yeah, I'm often reminded of, I've been having this idea lately, like,

imagine if you can for a moment to be in the placenta and the water breaks. It seems like everything is crashing around you and you move into the light. And we often hear metaphors about times of transition being birth pains. And on some level, if you just look at the patterns of the life we've lived,

Like you can see it emerging. You can see the new birth emerge. You can be part of it. And it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination, you know. It just requires, not requires, but we just have to allow and surrender. Yeah. To the point. Allow surrender and accept.

You know, when I'm doing medicine work with my clients, the thing I'm always saying is just allow, allow, allow to surrender. You're safe. Let go. Just allow. And that reinforcement just allows them to keep letting go more and more and more. You know, everything is about safety. I don't care in family, relationships, partnerships, work, everything. Safety, we need to feel safe in our body.

And if part of our makeup or identity doesn't feel safe anymore because of what happened, but we have to clean up what happens so we can feel safe in our body, that's safety is how we start feeling better, feeling safe in our body and acceptance of self. And then, of course, the forgiveness, forgiving our self for being human, typically, for being human being is we're imperfect. We're giving ourselves. And then that allows us to move into self-love.

And when we move into that place, we open our heart in that way, we treat ourselves differently. We look at ourself differently. We speak about ourselves differently. And there aren't so many barriers to, you know, there's more open possibility. And we treat others better. We have more compassion, more empathy. You know, and that's for, in my work as a healer, that was one of the, not challenge. Well, I say challenging one most challenging thing is, is to learn how to have compassion.

For everyone, no judgment. You know, we're so good at judging. booked by its cover. We have no business judging anyone unless we've walked in their shoes, but we haven't. So that's a big part of higher consciousness, is letting go of judgment, criticism, and seeing projection when we do it, and when others do it too. Yeah, it's interesting to try to substitute compassion for judgment. It might be a good sort of mental exercise when you find yourself judging to think about compassion, and maybe on some level you could begin to substitute those two yeah and also judgment is fear yeah yeah and what i what i

tell people quite often is you know anger easiest emotion the world to go to that's why everybody does it but it does what we don't think it's going to do sure on the on the conscious level it pushes people away we don't have to deal with the truth we have to deal with the issue we can just push it away and repress it. But underneath that, what it really does, disconnects us from self and other. But what's the emotion that fuels anger? Fear.

Always. And what is fear? False evidence appearing real. It's illusion. Fears come from the past most of the time. That's what we have to clean up the past. But what is the emotion that fuels the fear? Shame.

Shame. We have to. get to the deeper levels and the shame that we carry. And believe me, when I say that we all carry a lot of shame that we're not even aware of, the shadow is hidden, is an unconscious construct. And the shadow loves to remain hidden. It wants, it doesn't want it. The shadow is perfectly fine living in, you know, in the shadows, not being seen.

That's why it's the shadow. So most of our shadow behaviors and shame, guilt, all these things are in the shadow. We're not aware of them. So what do we do? We pretend that we're not pretending. We become something other than our authentic self. Why do we pretend that we're not pretending so we can be accepted in life? And so freedom I was talking about earlier, when you attain that freedom, you don't give a flying, you know what, but what people think about you.

That's the ultimate freedom. If somebody likes you, great. If somebody doesn't like you, great. It doesn't matter. Because typically, it's not about you anyways. And so we're all moving or what we really seek is freedom from this. So we can move into wholeness and alignment and move into our true self, our authentic self. And remember who we are.

Remember how powerful we are. And our power comes from love. It doesn't come from doing. It doesn't come from anywhere. else other than love. That's where the power is. Now that might sound a little foo-foo, but I'm telling you, for me, it's, it's been over and over again, it's been proven to be true. Love is the greatest power there is. The light and love are always going to win over. If we allow ourselves to move into, that's the key.

But do you think shame is a prerequisite for resentment? I don't know if it's necessarily a prerequisite, but shame keeps us small, keeps us feeling, keeps us wanting to withdraw, contract, hide, makes us feel invisible. We take on a lot of shame that was never, never ours to carry in the first place, a lot of shame and guilt. And moving through shame and guilt are so, so important to let go of those, those contracts. A lot of people hold a lot of shame, from their lineage, you know, trauma goes back seven generations. Paradox perspective.

And so it's passed through our DNA. So a lot of people, you know, that are chronically depressed or anxious or what having, a lot of times it's not from this lifetime. It's from another lifetime that they're holding. It's the secrets that are kept. If you had an uncle four generations ago that committed suicide and everybody swept it on the rug and didn't talk about,

they're shame there. Well, that shame is passed on through the DNA into you. And now a sudden, you're born as this world with a certain amount of shame. You don't even know where it came from. So we have to be able to differentiate what's from this lifetime or what's from ancestral lifetimes as well, from past lifetimes. And they can all be healed energetically. You can cut cords, do extractions, emotional surgery, all of it can all be moved through.

We can release and let go. The other issue I think people struggle with is the idea of letting go. letting go. Well, you know, if I have a bag of 50-pound bag of rocks on my shoulder here, how do I let go of it? It doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be difficult. We just have to be willing to let it go. This is the thing. We're not willing a lot of times. And a lot of times it's because we're letting go out of angst, anger, resentment. We just want this thing to go away. We're just pushing it away. But we have to remember is it's not about, you know, about letting it go with anger or disdain. It's about letting go with love and honoring that behavior

or whatever you were holding because it served you for a certain amount of time. It helped you survive in this lifetime, you know. And so it's about letting go of things and honoring it and lovingly letting things go. Now there's no resistance. Now you're in flow. We need to become water and let things just move through and lovingly let go. Thank you so much for serving me for so long. But it's now time by I let you go. I love you. I need to move into a different way of being.

And that's how we let go of things. We can leave it behind, you know. But also letting go signifies a change in identity as well. If we've been chronically depressed our whole life, that's part of our identity. So we have to be willing to let go not only the issue, but also that part of our ourselves. That's why we always have to go to death of the old birth of the new because you're becoming something new. Now, what happens a lot of times is people move into birth of the new, but it's a little bit too overwhelming. So they revert backwards. You know, it's like when you

let go of something, you can stay, you can look, but don't stare. As soon as they let go with something, nobody's looking, they reach back and pick it up. Part of their identity. You know, and so we have to understand these concepts and really learn how to, how to let go and to leave things in the past, leave the past in the past where it belongs, and live in the present moment. Stop worrying about the future. Worrying never change a thing and never will. You don't know what's going to happen a minute from now, yet alone a day or your plan. Because people are coming their plans, their 20-year plan. And I'm like, that's wonderful.

I laugh a little bit. And I hope that works out for you, but we're not in charge. We're not, I mean, I make plans like everybody else. I'm a visionary. Excuse me, but I hold those plans loosely because I know everything's going to change. And it does. You know, but, you know, in terms of healing, too, it's very important that we stop resisting. Stop trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

Stop pushing against. Every time we push against something, it's going to push back harder. We need to learn to be. come water and let go and let things flow through, move through. That's what moving through is all about. Oh, okay, yeah, that behavior. Yeah, that stubbornness, this, that, move through. Okay, I see it.

And then be more aware and observant and catch yourself, catching yourself. That's the key. Yeah. Because you will be tested. You will do those behaviors again. Get yourself. And then stop being yourself up after you catch yourself. yourself. It's about laughing. Ah, I did it again. Okay, all right. I did it again. I did it again.

Finally going, okay, we're good with us. Because now you're laughing at yourself. Yeah. You know, so it's a whole interesting process. I love doing this work. In some ways, it sounds like you're explaining having dignity and grace and the change that's so difficult. And sometimes we don't see the dignity and grace in a past behavior that may be something that we look back on shame. But there is moving through it with dignity and grace. It's a great way to feel like a great way to take that next step, right? Like it kind of gives me goosebumps to think about it. Thank you.

Yeah. We have to give us grace. We have to move through life with grace. You know, we got to stop drinking the punch. You know, we got to stop believing everything we've been told. You know, we have to open up to the new, moving to the unknown world. And that's one of the biggest reasons I work with Enthiengens, because for a lot of people, they don't know how to do it. They can't. They're so, they're trying to control so much.

Working with these medicines allows them to, for the first time in their life. And it's beautiful to watch, to let go and just be, you know. And I love watching those moments. And that work is so beautiful. And then taking people into the unknown world and through the different dimensions, connecting them with their spirit guides, their power animals, and then watching them jump on the back of their bear or tiger and go to all these little places and journeys and learn about themselves.

It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. And the interesting thing is the powers to be made all this illegal because they don't want us to be free thinkers. It's time. These medicines have been around since humans have been around. And we, you know, we've been taking entheogens, plant medicine way, way back. I mean, they, and there's, there, it's all coming out now.

You know, the Mayans, the Incas, the Aztecs, even, even some of the Neanderthals were doing it. So, and the apes and the monkeys, you know, eat a mushroom. Oh, I feel pretty good. Let's have more. You know. And so God gave us those. They came from nature. Why?

So we can remember who we are. So we can evolve. That's, you know, that's why Nate, we have to move back into nature. This was given to us freely because we have something called free will. And the powers of be said, oh no, no, we're not going to let you do that because we need to control everything. You need to look at us. We're the, we're the gods. No, you're not. Right. Only one source. It's only one creator, one father. Yeah, they seem like exogenous neurotransmitters to me, you know?

Yeah. Why not? Yeah. And there's so many different medicines, you know. Sure, sure. You know, I talk about this a lot. Iowaska isn't for everyone. I've been working with ayahuasca for many, many years to continue to and well.

But, you know, it's a little bit of a sledgehammer. So you can work with other medicines and, you know, that are a little less scary or that are more. softer. In the work I do, I'm very, very careful how I dose and how I work with people. So they move into it slowly. So you don't need to go straight into the Lions Den. You can just start by putting one toe in the water and, you know, a low dose of something. And just seeing microdosing, a great way to start, you know.

Very powerful. Yeah. Becoming comfortable with your environment is the best way to begin exploring, regardless of where you are, right? Yeah. The one thing I will say to your listeners is if you do work with these entheogens and you do you work with macrodosis, set and setting are everything, you you have to really make sure that the container you're in, the sentence, temenos, is conducive to what you want. It's safe. It's comfortable. You feel protected. So many people do

these medicines without thinking about that and then they end up not having a good experience. It's because they don't think about it, think it through. So it's very important that we set in setting or everything. And also making sure that you have somebody with you who understands these medicines, who can provide support, hold loving space, provide guidance of necessary. You know, because these medicines, if you've never moved into the unknown world, You've never moved into an altered state that way. It can be a little scary.

So just having somebody holding space. And holding space is really about holding energy. You know, when I do this work, I'm holding space with love. I'm just infusing so much loving energy into the space that only the light can be there. Nothing else can be there. No darkness. And then if there is any, I move it through very quickly in the body, because I can see it. on the topic of integration some people are have different ways of moving through it and i've heard

sometimes it can be an issue because sometimes people interpret their experience for them and they're kind of putting in a false set of parameters for that person but i'm wondering what do you think about integration and is there a right way and a wrong way does someone have to be there can someone self integrate or what's your take on integration Well, I don't know if there's, I'm not into right or wrong, bad, or good. I don't think it's ever that. But I do think that with integration, there is a better way to facilitate integration that is in the interest of the higher self-interest of the client. And it's not about clarifying their experiences for them.

It's about allowing them to share their experience. And it's about inquiry, asking questions, allowing them to come to their own conclusions or understandings. And if they ask for your perception, offer things lightly as a maybe. Well, maybe it could be this, maybe it could be that. But we don't, it's not about making decisions for the person that you're a client. And we have to be open vessels and allow, see, it's about allowing them to find their own way, allowing them to talk about their new insights, their new revelations. Now, if they need clarity or understanding on certain things, fine.

And there is a fine line between that, too, because being a therapist as well, I ride, excuse me, both those lines. But at the same time, I very rarely give people definitive. I keep it open for them because I'm planting seeds, and I know those seeds are going to germinate. Now, integration is extremely important because if you don't have integration, you have disintegration. And that's not good. you know, the unconscious has a structure. You know, this has been proven to collect the unconscious and the subconscious.

There is a structure to it. And so when we when we do integration, it's really about processing and integrating whatever we learned or whatever came through into a structure that is more supportive or more in alignment with our truth. you know so so integration is extremely important if and also bearing witness the power of witness that's that's what people have to understand is we can have all these thoughts and ideas but if we don't express them either on paper or verbally or write them or whatever they just stay within us and it's like it never really happened having a witness to hear to bear witness to what you experience makes it real, brings it out into the world. I'm being seen and I'm being heard.

That's what we all need. So the power of witness is extremely important. So as somebody doing integration, that is their primary job, is to bear witness the client's journey and what they experienced and to just see how everything, you know, sort of unfold. It's about being in the flow and being water. And integration can be very, very, very beautiful, very powerful. And also doing enough integration sessions, you know.

I typically offer three integration sessions with my medicine ceremonies, but if people want to do more, that's fine too. Because we're constantly integrating. You know, typically it takes somewhere around three months for everything neurologically to be integrated, for the brain to go through the plasticity process and really embody those new neural pathways, those new transmitters and really embody what we've learned. It takes about three months. So we just have to be very patient.

But yeah, integration is extremely important. And, you know, I'm not going to tell people how to do integration. It's just use your own judgment, use common sense, and allow people to come to their own conclusions. And yes, if they need clarity in something, offer clarity the best you can. But we don't know everything. I don't know everything. I'm not going to profess to, you know, you know. But also when it comes to, you know, some of the journeys they have and what comes through and the animals and this, being a dept psychologist, I've learned how to speak the language of psyche, imagery, numerology, symbol, metaphor, colors.

All of those things are important. So what I do a lot of times is I speak to that, what psyche may be trying to show you, you know, And so having some understanding of symbolism and metaphor and numerology and colors and animals and nature and how it all works together, you know, because psyche's always trying to lead us to a better place. Yeah, that's a, I wish myself and everybody could have a course in some symbolic understanding. I think that there's so much to be said about the language that's all around us, the very few. of us are able to really interpret. But it's there. It's all right there.

It's like we just see this one little sliver. It's fascinating. Asking you shall receive. Be careful what you ask for, though, right? Yeah, exactly. You know, I'm creating a course right now called the Art of Ceremonial Facilitation. Depth Psychology is going to be a part of it. I'll be teaching a course on depth psychology,

which will involve ceremony, ritual, symbolism, all of that. So I'm putting all that together right now. It's going to be a while before it's ready to be launched. But I do believe that the world's ready for, you know, to learn more about depth psychology, semantics, trauma-informed, indigenous culture, shamanic healing, all of those things. So I'm working on those courses right now. Eventually, you know, the shadow too,

understand the shadow and how to work through the shadow, you know. Because what people have to understand about the shadow is that it's not all negative. The shadow contains a lot of survival skills and ways of being that help to survive. We have to honor that. And wholeness and integration is about integrating the shadow into self, into the soul. You know, you have ego and you have self and you have soul. When you start dissolving the ego and you start living through your soul, then you start understanding who self is because that's your truth.

Our truth is our true essence, our soul. What's in our soul? You know, so I remember when I used to teach, I used to ask these three questions and get people, the students up. This is undergrad I was teaching. They would get up and do a presentation on this, and they hated it. The question were, who are you? Why are you here?

What's your purpose? Well, who are you? I don't care about where you come from, brother's sisters. I don't care about anything external. Who are you inside? What makes you you? Also, why are you here? Why are you here on this planet now?

Why not 100 years ago or 100 years from now or 1,000 years? Why now? And that helps people tap into their passions and what's important to them. And that leads them to what is your purpose. Because so many people are lost when it comes to that. You know, they're young adults and early 20s. They just don't know why they're here. They don't know what to do.

It's such a complex world today. It's trying to help people connect with themselves and what they do believe. Because I ask people all the time, what do you passion about? I don't know. Well, don't you think it's important to know that? You know? So anyways. Yeah, I can't wait to check out the course.

I'm a big fan of Merset-Iliad. And I guess I would ask you, what comes to mind when I say the terror before the sacred? The say it again? The terror before the sacred. Oh, the fear of letting go, the fear of surrender, the fear of allowing. Fear, fear. Fear is just false evidence appearing real. It's illusion.

Just like controls illusion, powers illusion. They're all illusions. It's all what we're programmed to believe and think. It's all in here. And so freedom is letting go that fear. And that's why in Peru, my third ceremony, I kept saying, allow, surrender. under and lean in, lean in, lean in. Because the visions were so strong and so powerful and the fractals.

And so it's like, you know, you, part of you once to go, I don't know about this. I don't know if I would go in there. And I kept lean in, leaning in, lean in. And the more fear there was, the more I leaned into it. And that's when poop. That's what it all happened. That's when I became one with everything. And it was beautiful.

And so even for myself, I'm still learning that fear is an illusion, you know? And so, yeah, the terror before the sacred. Sacred is the numinous, the mystical. It's the truth. And there, you know, people always say, I want to, I want to know the truth. I want to hear the truth. Nobody else. No, they don't.

Because the truth is typically signifies that something has to change. There's something you might want to look at your. people don't want to hear the truth, but we need to start being open to the truth because the truth is what sets us free. And most of us are prisoners in our own heads. We're just puppets on the string, slaves to this. And the ego's like, yeah. You know, the ego is like, I want to be in charge.

You know, people, one of the reasons why connecting with the body is somatically is so important so that people can really truly connect with the truth, the ultimate truth. And the ultimate truth is you are not your ego. But your ego doesn't want you to know that. Your ego is like, no, no, no. Here, come on. It's said you this way. Let's redirect you over here.

Do this. You're right. Ego is always trying to move us away from connecting with us. And that's what we have to get quiet so we can connect and quiet the ego. and eventually the ego does take a vaccine. And when that happens, everything changes. I love it. I love it.

Dr. Hover, you've been incredibly gracious with your time. And maybe before I let you go, we should talk about the new project Heel that you're involved in. Yeah, with Dr. Randall. Dr. Randall. I need to be honest. I'm not exactly sure what the project entails. I wrote a couple chapters or a chapter in his book that I think has come about.

I haven't spoken with him well, so I'm not quite sure where the project is at, but there's a lot of projects I'm involved, and that's one of them. I'm working on my courses, working on another book as well, but also we're working on opening up a healing center for healers, which will probably take place within the year in Hawaii. But it's going to be a little bit more than a healing center for the healer. that's what it is generally what we're putting out there but it's there's going to be a lot underneath that but the Heel project I'm very excited about I love Dr. Randallie's amazing and so whatever whatever wherever we're at and what we're moving into I'm all about it what is if people want to find out more about you I know Crystal is in here and she's been asking some questions I'm sure some of the other listeners might want to learn more about you or reach out to you what's the best way

for them to do that. Then just go to my website, Bodymindwholeness.com. I don't really spend a lot of time with social media just because I'm not into the social media thing. I don't, and I don't have time for it. But my website pretty much is a lot of information and they can connect with me.

They can book a complimentary consultation with me. They can email me, connect with me that way. Yeah, it's probably the best way to find me. Fantastic. So Crystal, everybody out there listening. the links will be in the show notes, check out the website, make a schedule a meeting. And I just want to say thanks to everybody that took some time to spend with us this afternoon. And I hope everyone found it as engaging as I did.

It was fascinating. And I'm super thankful for your time. So thank you for that. Well, thank you for having me on your show. I really appreciate it. I always love having these discussions. It warms my heart. So thank you again.

I appreciate it. Me too. And I appreciate the candid ability to speak freely about everything you're going through, everything you're looking forward to and the people that you're helping. I'm appreciative of that. So hang on briefly afterwards. I'll speak briefly afterwards. But ladies and gentlemen, thank you for hanging out with this on the True Life podcast. I hope you have a beautiful day and that's all we got. Aloha.

Aloha.