Wake Up with Susan

Embracing Your Shadow with Roberto Durazo-Sanchez

• Susan Sutherland

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Are you ready to shine a light on the shadows within? In this episode, I sit down with spiritual mentor Roberto Durazo-Sanchez to explore the transformative power of shadow work. Together, we dive deep into the journey of personal healing, embracing all parts of ourselves—the light and the dark.

We’ll reflect on how unresolved emotions and past experiences shape our identities and discuss how acknowledging our shadow can lead to profound self-acceptance and growth. Rob and I share our own experiences with shadow work, revealing how vulnerability isn’t a weakness but a gateway to personal liberation.

Rob offers powerful insights on integrating both the positive and challenging aspects of ourselves—because healing isn’t about eliminating the shadow but embracing it as a necessary part of the path to authenticity. From practical tools to self-reflection exercises, this conversation will encourage you to see your shadows as allies, not adversaries, in your journey of self-discovery.

Join me for this deep and illuminating discussion, and let’s explore why facing what we often avoid can lead to true empowerment. Are you ready to embrace your whole self? Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and let me know how shadow work has shown up in your life!

Be sure to connect with Rob on Instagram and get more amazing insights from him on his Become a Student for Life podcast. 

Be sure to send me a message and let me know your thoughts about this episode!  You can find me on Instagram and TikTok, or on my website!


Speaker 1:

Rise and shine everybody. It's time to wake up with Susan. Spiritual awakening can be a beautiful, messy and sometimes lonely journey, so let's do it together. I'm your host, susan Sutherland. I'm an intuitive healer and spiritual mentor. We are all called to rise up above our conditioning and limiting beliefs and shine our light on ourselves and others. So let's get to it.

Speaker 1:

Hi family, I am so excited to share with you today an interview with Rob Solo. Rob is a spiritual mentor and life coach and a seriously chill guy, and, additionally, my favorite thing about Rob is that he knows himself to be a student. In fact, his podcast is called Become a Student for Life, which you will definitely have to check out and I will link in the show notes. So our conversation is about his journey, but also about how to embrace all aspects of yourself. What is shadow work? How do we embrace the shadow aspects of ourselves? I really loved the conversation with Rob and I hope you love it too.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening. Hey Rob, thank you so much for being here today. We are going to talk about really embracing all of us, and that means the shadow parts too. I think a lot of times we want to run around representing ourselves as our Instagram reel of life, the things that are, you know, our best traits. We put that forward with ease, but there is so much to learn about ourselves, to grow and to really expand our consciousness by embracing all of us, embracing that shadow, so welcome. I would love for you to start by sharing a little bit about your journey. You have been sharing beautifully on your social, on your Instagram, about some of the struggles you've been through and how embracing that has led you to a place where you're now able to help others in their journey. So just give my listeners a little recap of your life and what got you to this point now.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, thank you for having me on. I appreciate that very much. What got me here was a relationship, a relationship that opened everything up to start doing the work that I believe to heal most of the family patterns that I've had, the generational patterns that I've had. In that relationship the person wanted to kill themselves and I thought I was the source of the problem. I thought my love wasn't enough. I thought everything that had to do with that it had to do with me, and so what I did is the first person that introduced me to the world of anything self-development was Tony Robbins, and I dived so deep into his work. We use a lot of his work now but all of the stuff that I learned from there, I used it on the person, my relationship that I was with and that person.

Speaker 2:

Eventually, you know not just what I was doing, but she was also doing therapy and things like that. And after that, eventually she was okay and she wanted everything to go back to normal. And I was in normal because I had to. I basically gave away all of my energy, all of anything. I suppressed all of my emotion, anything that I felt, all of anything. I suppressed all of my emotion, anything that I felt and that took me into like a really deep rabbit hole of like darkness and um, of course, there was many calls way before that one, but that one was the one that was like, uh, cause I guess you know, spirit keeps knocking out the door until you finally pick up the phone and say, all right, it's time. And that was the final call.

Speaker 2:

And eventually that broke us and we split up and from there everything started and I started doing so much healing work on myself, so much diving deep into who I am, learning who I am, why I do what I do, what it is that happens, why people, more than anything is what infatuates me, why we do what we do, why we get caught in the patterns that we get caught in, why we react, why we think a certain way. And I learned so much from that, just on my own. My childhood wasn't the greatest, so I was perfectly. I was given the perfect parents and the perfect family in order to learn all of these things. Of course, I didn't see it that way at that time.

Speaker 1:

Meaning that they were far from perfect. No, they just were providing you the opportunities Right.

Speaker 2:

They provided me the grounds for the work that I would be doing in life, and without them, of course, I didn't see it that way. Then I hated them. I wanted nothing to do with them. I wanted to smite them with all my smitiness, but eventually, the more I healed, the more I understood these people were the perfect people to give me the grounds to do what I am doing now and will continue to do.

Speaker 1:

And that's just a shift in perspective that comes after you have done so much healing work of the situation and then start not only working through the trauma, but then seeing how the trauma was meant for you, and that means you've done a lot of work to get to the place where it's like, instead of being harmed by them. They gave me the gift of this kind of development and expansion.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely Like I. I couldn't say it any better or more perfect than that, because they did, they provided everything for me so that I can learn what I needed to learn in order to, like, not only help myself, but a lot of the world deals with these certain kinds of things just in a different way, in a different way of their experiencing. It is just the same kind of pattern that is played out or acted out in a different way than what I did. It maybe you know.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, Do you find that their patterns of parenting, which were flawed, was that generational, had they also been raised in a similar way?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, absolutely generational. Had they also been raised in a similar way? Oh yeah, absolutely like um, I think it kept passing on, passing on, passing on, passing on, until eventually somebody breaks it.

Speaker 2:

You know somebody, and here you are, here you are to be like ah, actually I'm, I'm not gonna keep this pattern yeah, I know, I know, for, for a fact, when I was a kid I was so far from normal I think if you want to call it then Because I just didn't think like my family, I didn't move like my family, I didn't feel like they felt. And obviously, eventually, you know, from the age of zero to seven, you're forming a belief system. You're getting two diets of programs when it comes to values and beliefs, and then a health, you know, nutrition. You get in those two diets and then, from seven to 14, you start enacting that which is the ego and then the personality forms, so to fit in. Of course, I knew I was completely different, but I had to mold myself to an extent to somewhat be accepted from my family, which is probably the worst thing you could do. But you know, you don't know, you don't know any better at that age.

Speaker 1:

That's kind of how we survive, is we? We adapt and we kind of mold into whatever we're experiencing, for better or worse. And then it is. That's why it takes all of those nudges before we get that final wake up call where we're like wait a second, what am I even doing? Like I don't even agree with this behavior, I'm not going to do it. And so my last maybe four years have been wait a second. I'm not doing it that way anymore Just because I was raised that way and my parents. It was not trauma at all. But I'm talking about the programs you get from school and church and your society. And you know we have to kind of peel back all of those layers and say does this even resonate with who I am? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Does it even work? Is it me? More than anything, I guess I want to say the biggest. I think the hardest thing I've ever had a hard time accepting was knowing that I wasn't living life based on my terms. That was earth shattering to me. That was hurtful, because I was like when I found out you've been meaning to tell me I've been living my life through my dad's eyes, my mom's eyes, my family's eyes, society's eyes, friends, whomever, but not me. That was hurtful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Do you know what the good news is, Rob. Yeah, so let me tell you the good news you found this out now and get to live authentically going forward, and I would say it is a small percentage of people who have that awakening and ever come to terms with. Actually, I'm going to do things my way because a lot of people live and then die in that same, you know robot mindset of whatever I was programmed with. I'm going to continue with.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, when I started doing the human work, like way back, when I found that out, I was like, okay, yes, this is hard and this is a hard truth and a hard reality, but we can do something with it now. Yeah, you can now understand who you are, uh, who you're not, uh, what you like, what you don't like, um, how you want to do things, how you don't want to do things, based off everything that you've learned, how you want to navigate, how you want to enact uh, do you want to go this route? Do you want to go that route? You know, do you want to go your family's, continue to go your family's route or not, or go completely in the way that you know you should have gone when you were young right so as you're on a healing journey, let's start with what is the shadow?

Speaker 1:

when somebody's talking about shadow work and doing their shadow healing, what does that even mean in a spiritual sense?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I, I haven't. I love talking about this because I have an amazing episode on this myself. The shadow is seen to some people as an enemy. Sometimes it's seen as bad. Right, but there's a good, just like in everything in life, there's a positive and a negative to everything. So there's a good way of like. For example, something I've learned is if you spot it, you got it.

Speaker 2:

You know, sometimes we like to make a judgment when it comes to somebody, but that same thing that you are seeing in that person is within you.

Speaker 2:

You cannot see something in another person that's not inside of you, whether good or bad, yeah. So sometimes, for example, let's say, we're at a job situation where you're at work and maybe you want to get to a leadership position, but you envy that person or you talk bad about that person because you're jealous of that person, because you are not at the place where they're at yet. But what that is showing you simply is that there's a potential inside you that you can wake up. You just haven't tapped into it. Or maybe they're being mean, or this and that, or they're for the lack of better words they're an, or they're just a mean person and you're talking bad about them, but you're just as mean as that person is. So you can't like I said, you can't see what's not within you. It's just that the mirror of the world is bringing that, your shadow, from the unconscious to the conscious mind, showing you this is what you do, or this is the potential you have to see within yourself so that you can unlock that or change that.

Speaker 1:

And that's how we use these relationships and interactions for our own self-development, your coworkers and your family. They are just opportunities for you to know yourself better. If somebody is pissing you off or triggering the hell out of you, it is because there is work for you to do not for you to fix them, but for you to go within and say okay, what's going on inside of me that would make me feel this way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a gift, because I mean, if you think about the word relationship, uh, the meaning of the word is to relate to. So, like here, me and you, there's a relation to relate to within one another, right, or to see something within ourselves that we haven't seen or period. Any relationship, uh, that's the basis of relationship with a husband, with a girlfriend, with a friend, with anybody that you have, female or male, to relate to that person because you can see yourself in them, you can see parts of yourself that maybe you haven't seen inside of you. And when you get triggered of course you know when you do get triggered you're reacting right, the word again to react, meaning you're doing something over that you've acted out continuously throughout your life. So it's a pattern that you learned, whatever age, age, from some memory that you continue to relive and you're just reacting to it instead of stopping, maybe, taking a breath and saying wait, I keep doing this.

Speaker 2:

A man, why am I mad? Why am I doing this? What's coming up? Where did I learn this from? Where is this even? And then sometimes there's times where I have it's been. It's really, it's awkward sometimes, but there's times where I have thanked the person. Hey, thank you for pissing me off. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1:

And they're like what, like you know, like when you bring love into that, it's like holy crap, it shocks somebody because it's like whoa you helped me know myself better but, he can be with anything, and the faster, the more we embrace that we do have this stuff to work on and that the whole world is just helping us see which where the spots on our mirror are, so that we can clean it. I always say like, oh, miss a spot. Like if you piss me off, you're just showing me a little spot on my mirror that I need to clean up. And, like my son has had behavior lately that I found irresponsible with money and what I did was start quicken for my home finances, I actually know that he is showing me that I'm not as diligent with my personal finances. I need to be.

Speaker 2:

And so my husband's, like I rate like sit down.

Speaker 1:

We're going to talk about this and I understand we do have to put guardrails up for our children but I also very much knew. It was like hey, susan, look at where you're just not paying attention to things, look at where you are not dialed in and you just spend and who cares? And it's no big deal, like you're 16. And so it was really just to show me that I needed to pay attention.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. And those things like they're never a bad thing, depending on the perspective that you approach it in. Right, if you have a perspective of oh, them, them, them. Now you're separating yourself from that person, which turns like that's the whole point of relationship is to relate to that person, because they are you, you are them and we're all just one person. And to be mad at that person and point outward, then you're just rejecting yourself and also just um, and you're also separating yourself not only from you but from them, um, and not being able to fully give them the compassion and yourself the compassion and empathy that both of you might need in a situation where both of you are helping one another find more of each other, and individually as a whole, you know.

Speaker 1:

Right, and I think the more that we can see ourselves as being on a game board in which we just learn about ourselves, the less inclined we are to hold transgressions against others or ourselves, because I do feel like people avoid shadow work because it's going to be heavy and sad and dark or you know, and there's all of this heavy emotion with it and there are experiences where that is going to be true.

Speaker 1:

But if you are going to heal it, you do have to feel it, you do have to sit with it and I feel like our, our emotional awareness is similar to a lot of people's physical awareness, where they know something's wrong and they ignore it until it becomes such a big problem, as opposed to really getting to the root cause of it. And when we can do that with our shadow and just say, look, there is nothing I can do on this plane, that puts me outside of God, like I cannot screw up that much, and I think, with the church teaching that you were born a sinner, we are all so afraid of looking at the times when we've really screwed up and, instead of allowing ourselves to forgive others and forgive ourselves and move forward, it's like tuck that away in the box and put it deep in the closet and I'm just going to ignore that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that's a big shadow in itself have been indoctrinated with, um, not understanding, like, what the essence of, like, the esoteric reasons or meanings of certain verses or certain stories and the parables and the metaphors mean, you know. But, yeah, I know for myself, uh, and I know for many people, I think it, um, we always numb ourselves from those things that we don't want to. So we'll use food, social media, certain people, pornography, alcohol, drugs. I know for sure I was one of those people. I used to use all of that, actually All the things. Yeah, those were my things to do, because, of course, we don't get taught nowhere how to feel. We don't get taught nowhere and of course I'm not separating it but, to give a good expression of it, it's different for a woman and it's different for a man, but it doesn't always necessarily have to be because we have both of those energies living inside of us.

Speaker 1:

Right, and I think we have done a particular injustice to our boys as we're raising them and kind of teaching them to buck up and not feel the feelings, or them being mocked for having emotions and not knowing how to do it without being called a sissy or a girl or you know all of these things. And so I think, as people are becoming more aware and more conscious in their parenting, it is really about allowing children to express emotions and not just, you know, give them high fives because they get over something really quickly, but allowing them to find the words to express what they're feeling and teach them how to regulate those emotions, to to feel them and not get swallowed by them. But you know, some of the subjects they have in school blow my mind that we don't have anything about mindset or emotional regulation. Like it makes no sense to me that we are not giving people the tools that would really help them their whole life.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's true, there's a. In Japan they actually, I think, from first kindergarten to like second grade. That's the whole basis of teaching them first emotional regulation, and then they start moving on to like things like, uh, math, english and all of those things, which I thought was super beautiful because I was like, imagine if we had that here. Yeah, yeah, how different the world would be like for reals. But, um, yeah, like, I just think it's, you know, it's. That's why people maybe run away from their shadow, because they don't know where to start, they don't know how to start, they don't know where to even begin, how to feel, what to even ask themselves. Maybe you know, um, and I think those are the, the things that, of course, keep, keep people in the, the habits that they're, the patterns that they're running from going to the drugs, to the drinking, to the food, to the, whatever it may be. Maybe it's, you know, whatever it may be that people go, you know, but yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I had a conversation with my husband. He's a mountain bike rider and he rode a race and said at the end of the race somebody pulled away from him and he was like, if I could drop 20 pounds, there's no way he would leave me. You know, I would. I have the fitness in my legs, I'm carrying too much weight. And you know, I kind of smiled because the night before he'd had a couple of beers, a cup of ice cream, you know. And he said how do you do it? Because I just make different choices. And I was like you think I'm just sitting up there and it's a playroom, but it's my healing room now, like doing nothing.

Speaker 1:

But this is what I've been doing is working through the parts of me that needed to be loved so that I could make choices for the version of myself I want to be. But that's what healing work is. It is going back and he's got he's got a little fat adolescent who needs to be loved. He needs to sit with that child and love him and tell him he's enough. And you know that's really hard. It's hard to start if you're not engaged in a kind of spiritual practice. How, what is your guidance for somebody who has not been in this space but is ready to do healing work.

Speaker 2:

It depends on the person, of course. If it's, if it's a man, I've always told people to start with their body, because, regardless of whether, whether or not it's, um, it's spiritual or not it is I mean, life is spiritual, period, uh, but that transformation gives you so much confidence in yourself. It gives you, uh, of course, where you decide to take that confidence with you know, that's a whole nother thing, but I know for myself and my own experience I always was, I always heard, start with the body. I didn't get that too much, uh, but then eventually I did, because I was 200, almost 300 pounds, and when I lost all of my weight, so many things started to shift. My mindset started to shift, my connection to spirit started to shift, um, the trifecta spirit, mind and body started to really kick in. Because you cannot work on your body without working on your mind and your spirit. You cannot work on your spirit without working on mind and body. It's uh, you have to hit all three, always, always, always, always. If you do just work on the body and you don't focus on the mind and the spirit, you will end up in the same patterns back again. That's why I lost weight and then I gained all of that back and then eventually, when I was like, okay, I'm starting to see this. But yeah, I tell people to start with their body, learn how their body's communicating with them. Simple things like with food do I like this food? Ask yourself before you're about to eat something uh, is this food good for me? How do I feel it within in the body? You know?

Speaker 2:

Um, another thing that's so simple, that doesn't require anything in the world to like ask yourself any questions, is nature. Nature is the number one antidote in the world that can heal the world, in my opinion. Antidote in the world that can heal the world, in my opinion. I know when I go on a hike, everything in my life is gone, any worry, anything. Mother nature takes care of me and the sun gives me the fire that I need in my life. It's so healing. I'm sure with your trip in Arizona, it was like bliss when you went to the Grand Canyon. It's just, it's something so simple that a walk, a walk is something simple that can do something for you, like that, because then you start just connecting with Mother Nature. Another simple thing that can be done is just running. The more you oxygenate your body, the more you bring spirit in. Spirit is, um, breath. So when you activate and really put breath in, not not just how we normally breathe, like just nose breathing, but when you breathe deeply, from the stomach to the, to the ribs, to the chest, and you actually uh release it, it helps so much. It puts, it starts activating something in your mind and it helps you clear things, it helps you work on things, it helps you release things, it helps you let go of what it is that maybe.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes I used to do this myself and I used to try to figure out what is it that I'm letting go? What is it? What is it? What's the lesson? I don't do that anymore. I just let it come as it comes and that's it, whatever. Sometimes I don't even know what I let go. You know, sometimes I do and I'll figure it out afterwards and I'm OK with that. I just feel it. If it was anger, if it was shame, if it was doubt, it was worry, if it was rejection, I feel it and I allow myself to sit in that comfort and just let the tears come out. I mean, if you think about it also, it's an alchemization of something that is happening, like your body is literally turning salt into water and you're crying and you're releasing those things. Like that's an alchemical process that happens when you cry. You're literally letting go of things that no longer serve you or that can heal you.

Speaker 1:

So I didn't talk about my third ayahuasca ceremony on on the other episode, because there wasn't a lot that came through information wise or even visuals. I just rocked back and forth and purged and rocked back and forth and purged and the only message I got was well, I, it was about, you know, upgrading my physical vessel to hold more energy, but it was like this is your opportunity to trust. You don't need to know what you're purging Like. We have this need to know. Like, what was that about? What was, what was this and how did this? You know, and we just especially if you're in this space and doing this work is like let me put all the pieces together and sometimes it's okay to just let it happen, just trust that the right things are happening and just let it go.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you know, the number one thing that I learned this year, in 2024, out of so many things that happened to me. I sometimes have the need to know why this is happening. It's almost, in a sense, you're controlling what spirit wants you to let go, and of course, that's the ego protecting you. But so many things happened that I couldn't control anything and spirit was telling me look, buddy, you're not going to be able to control this. You got to surrender and you got to let go.

Speaker 2:

And so I remember I had a session with a dear friend that I just did an episode with, and she was the third person that told me and she was like you got to get out of your mind and into your body. And I got so mad because I was like what do you mean? I am doing that, you know. But obviously you know God speaks in many different ways and he's sending messengers, whether it's through this, through anything, through a song, through a book, through anything. That's literally. Spirit is speaking everywhere all the time. It's up to you if you listen. But she told me that, and that was the third person. I got mad and I sat down after the session and I was like, okay, there's got to be some truth to this, because there's three people now that have told me this. So after that, like it was just, she told me get in your body. You don't have to know what it is that you're going through, Just let it be, Let it go.

Speaker 1:

And I was like Except that you're going through it. Yeah, this is what I'm going through. I don't need to cast judgment on it. I just have to realize these are my circumstances right now.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, I wake up.

Speaker 1:

This is my circumstance, okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so I did that and I was like I don't know a couple, many days in process, like I just sat and for hours until like I was like all right, what's, what is it, you know. And then I was like OK, we're not going to do, what is it, we're just going to feel it. And then tears, like crying, like a baby, just coming out and letting it go, letting it be whatever it was, whether it was my certain circumstances or right now, maybe certain failures, maybe certain things from my father, maybe certain things from my mother, um, past loves, you know, past relationships that still were lingering in there, a little bit, little parts of them, you know. And yeah, so now it just comes in and I'm like, okay, we're not going to Robert this.

Speaker 2:

I always like to say that we're just going to let it go, you know, we're going to let it be, we're going to flow with it. And for me that's something hard, because I'm very disciplined and I like structure and I like to do certain things a certain way. Discipline and I like structure and I like to do certain things a certain way. Um, but I've also learned to balance that out now with the give room for, for spontaneity, give room for the unknown and for uncertainty and be comfortable with uncertainty. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I feel like it depends on, like, my approach. When I'm triggered like that, or when I feel like something is there for me to work through, sometimes all it required was witnessing it, like, oh, there's that, let me release it. And then sometimes it's like, girl, you better go get your journal, you've got to go and get this out of your system, visit this version of you, or say, you know, I'm sorry for what I did, like I'm I'm carrying guilt and shame and I need to, you know, release that. And so it really depends. And I have to kind of sit with it and be like, okay, what, what are our next steps? I think when I'm working with anybody, my next step would always be a journal.

Speaker 2:

Like better.

Speaker 1:

better to like take action and feel good with that. If you are new to doing shadow work, like, sit with it, require yourself to sit with it and allow these emotions to come through, and then, the more you do it, the more you can feel into like, okay, can I just be like. Oh yeah, this reminds me of that circumstance. I see it, I see how this is mirrored back to me. I'm glad for the growth that I don't. You know, that's not who I am anymore and that's enough.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean the challenge, I mean myself. I found out this that the challenge is there to so that you can recreate yourself, so that you can, um, that's in in my opinion. Uh, all in life we're doing is recreating ourselves. Um, I don't think there's any lessons to learn anymore. I used to. Just that's my opinion. I don't think we're here at a school, I just think we're recreating ourselves. We're we're God's come into this place to find out who we fully are, to unlock that unlimited potential that is inside of us, that God that is inside of us, the greatest, grandest expression of what we can be right here, right now, in this moment now, right now, in this moment now. And those challenges, when we see, when we take the negative and the positive labels out and you neutralize it, you understand that, wow, the thing that I hated the most was actually teaching me what I'm going to do work later on in life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's why I do see it as a school, but it is and lessons actually, but it's because I'm a lifetime learner. I'm enrolled in three courses right now, so seeing it as lessons is not like I'm being punished. It's opportunity I get to come here and learn more about myself, learn more about humanity, learn more about forgiveness and compassion, and so I do see it as lessons, but not in a like you're going to have to go to school kind of a way that my kids might see it right now when going to school feels ick and I'm like, yeah, we get to learn.

Speaker 2:

No, yeah, Like you're going to have to repeat this lesson or whatnot. I mean yeah, it is yeah, Like if you are not catching and being aware of the pattern that you're running or how you've been going against maybe your highest values or maybe going against your belief system, then of course you're going to recreate it in the same way, in a different way, in a different environment, through a different way of doing it, but it's going to pop up period.

Speaker 1:

Period. And it's how I like to see it, Rob, is if you write down an equation for me and it's like three digits times three digits, and you write it on a horizontal line, I'm going to look at it and be like, oh, I'm going to have to stack those numbers for me to do it this way, and then hopefully I'll get it right. And so it's not even punishment to have to see a lesson in a new way. It might just be this is how it's presented that you receive it better. Okay, we tried it on a horizontal line and I can't do math like that. And then you're going to give it to me vertically and maybe the next time you're going to give me a calculator and I'll be like, sometimes it's not.

Speaker 1:

It's like, oh, this keeps happening to me. Okay, Well, don't see it as punishment, Just see it as an opportunity to see it in a new way, to learn it. And then you know, take the lesson. I mean fractions will have to be shown to me 152 times before I'm going to get them. So if that's my lesson, we're going to have to keep. You know, my my son tells me I can't do fifth grade math, which is a little bit true.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and and like to even to expand that, like I think, I don't think, I know, actually, when you're doing that and you keep, let's say, repeating the lesson, right, all you're really doing is mastering that. That's all that's really happening. Like you continue to repeat it because something inside of you that actually drives this vessel knows way more than you, and it's like I want to, the soul wants to master this so well that it's just like okay, we're going to experience it like this, Now, we're gonna experience it like this, now, like this, now like this, now like this. Okay, now we're good, we, we have learned this lesson and now we're going. Now we're masters of this, now we can move forward, and this is a part of our um souls experience period that now is living out many lives and many timelines that we can use this to create ourselves anew every single time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I love that yeah.

Speaker 1:

And a lot of times, once you become the master, then you are also the teacher and you get to turn around and help others who are, you know, on their first round of this pattern that you just mastered, which is wonderful. A lot of times your, your message, your message. You know your pain is your purpose and whatever we're going through, when we are able to really come out the other side, it is so that we can now help others through.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, one of my, one of my last partners actually gave me this beautiful perspective on that to an extent, right where she was like I had to do something over again, that I really my pride was just like I will never go back there again, you know. And she was like just telling me just think about it like this You're not, you're not failing or you're not, you're not making a mistake or you're not taking steps backward. All you're doing, just like when you take a test, is reviewing the chapters, seeing what you missed didn't take, and you're reviewing that so that you can pass the test this time. And I was like, yes, wow, okay, thank you for that Cause. I would have never seen it like that If you wouldn't have come into my life, for sure.

Speaker 1:

You know, perspective changes everything. When you stop seeing life as a punishment and all of the things you're going through as trials and and hardship, and see it as you know opportunities to learn and expand, it is a lot easier to face adversity.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's so true. And like talking about that, you know trials and tribulations. The biggest symbol to that known to man was the guy that they put on the cross that told you this is what life is going to be. You have to suffer like this.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, I have a different. I think the lesson that I take from the crucifixion was not as much about suffering, but about forgiveness.

Speaker 1:

That while suffering, he was offering his persecutors forgiveness. And in this realm on earth where we have duality, this is where we can know what the aspect of love is. That is forgiveness, and you don't get that on the other side, where there's not duality. And so I feel like the biggest component of the crucifixion should have been that he was offering forgiveness and that is love that we can know here in this realm, because suffering and we all go through hardships, all of us, we do go through hardships, but a lot of times and perhaps him, you know, I guess, going quietly on the cross, maybe to your point but some of suffering is because we're not accepting our circumstances, you know, we're judging our circumstances as awful, we're resisting our circumstances and making it horrible.

Speaker 1:

Now, that's one of the things about going to Peru is, you know, everybody here is so working so hard, my, I mean just working so hard to have more, more, more, to have this, you know, and we go there and these people have so little in comparison and all seemed very happy, you know. So we kind of create our suffering by what we're we're doing, comparing each other, comparing with each other, or you know what we think is good or what we think is bad. Well, the judgment is all ours, so we're creating that suffering. I suppose that is part of the journey here, but I do wish that forgiveness and I guess because we're wrapping up A Course in Miracles which is all about forgiveness as taught by Jesus. I guess I wish that was the highlight of the crucifixion story Nothing about sin, nothing about dying for your sins or needing a savior or any of that Like cross, that all out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's why I said it in that way, because it was like that was the message that was misinformed or construed to the people that suffer like this, but they don't, of course. He says right, forgive me, father.

Speaker 1:

Or why have them?

Speaker 2:

They know not what they do Exactly that's what people miss is that he was telling people they don't know what they're doing. Right, they are not fully in the spirit that I am. I have accepted my death already. That was him accepting.

Speaker 1:

I'm not saying y'all are gonna burn in hell for eternity.

Speaker 2:

I'm, I'm here telling y'all I'm dead already, I'm good with it. Forgive them, for they do not know. Yeah, and that and that was his acceptance, like the acceptance and the forgiveness within not only himself, but then them as well. Right, totally. Of course they crucified him because he went against all of what he could have shut down instead. And then imagine if that would have happened, that would hold different world we'd be living in right now. Right, but but yeah, that's to an extent like you know, some people that are, and I think we've seen it all throughout life, right, any people that goes against the system, you are crucified, you are put on a cross and then you are made to look crazy.

Speaker 2:

You are made to look like you don't know what you're talking about. You are made to seem like you're speaking in conspiracy, conspiracy, like all you're saying is conspiracy. But of course, as he says as well, right, those who have eyes will see, those who have ears will hear, to know the truth in their heart. So you know, and it helps to know that stuff to study the underlying the course of miracles. Great book I it Such a good book. I remember when I read it I was like just mind blown at the message that it gives.

Speaker 1:

And somehow doesn't get traction. I will say it's wordy and complicated and we in our book club used understanding the Course in Mir. Miracles work with lessons as, uh, you know, he kind of does cliff notes after every lesson, which was extremely helpful, um, but I wish that of course in miracles would gain traction, because it it definitely is a whole perception shift on our experience in this realm yeah, 100 yeah it's uh%.

Speaker 2:

I love how it talks about the ego. I love how it talks about so many things, about forgiveness, about the neighbor concept, of course, like so many beautiful messages that it has in translating the underlying messages of the metaphors and the parables that were spoken in the Bible. Right, they're so beautiful to me, in my opinion.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, totally Okay. So us having a perspective shift allows us to handle the hardships of our circumstances. What is the perspective shift that we can do? Or have to? Embrace our shadow so that you know, not just looking on our situations with a new perspective and a softer light that makes life easier. But how can we start loving ourselves and our whole selves and not carrying this guilt and the shame for things we've done in the past or allowed to be done to us or whatever, the guilt and the shame and the low feelings that we have about ourselves? How do you shift perspective when looking in the mirror?

Speaker 2:

It's a great question. I know for myself. I'm very honest with myself. I know when I was almost 300-something pounds, I had to look in the mirror and tell myself the truth, and that was you're fat, you're not attractive right now, you don't have great health, you're not going anywhere, and that helped me really accept myself and come to terms with myself. I know for some people it's not easy to speak to themselves in that manner.

Speaker 1:

But you knew you were fat before. You're just saying you ended up having a heart-to-heart with a mirror, like, look, we're getting real. I'm not just walking quickly by the mirror anymore, I'm looking at you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, now I'm looking at you, now I'm really paying attention to you, now I'm really I don't like who I see in the mirror and it's not smiling and it hasn't been smiling for a really long time and I want it to smile back, not because I'm forcing it, but because my heart smiles in moments where I needed the truth from not only from myself, not lying to myself, kind of like how Bruce Lee says in his famous quote you know, honestly expressing myself, being honest with myself, that is the most authentic thing you can do for your own self is being and saying maybe you're being a cheater, you're cheating for these reasons and this is why you're doing it and this is you got to stop that, you know.

Speaker 2:

I think radical acceptance of your own self in your circumstances, where you are I mean we spoke about this earlier right A really fully, truly accepting where you're at your circumstances and knowing that that's your reality right now, but knowing that it can change, because it can. It's your choice. I think the most powerful thing a human being has is the power to choose what it is that they want to do in their life, how they want to create it and why they desire to create it that way. When you start to understand how powerful you are as a human being, you will start to see your reality mold like that and accept and know that, like we've talked about right, a lot of that leads to these things is the challenges are just there. When you neutralize it and you don't see bad or good, you're literally recreating yourself and you can accept that part of you so that you can now become the new version, the highest version of you that you want to be.

Speaker 1:

When you're talking about choice. I think the biggest two choices we make is how we spend our time and how we spend our energy. And if people would dial into those choices and say am I spending my time in a way that is serving my body, my career, my family, my purpose? Am I spending my energy? I mean, you have people who, when you talk to them, they they will bring you down in an instant or allow you to be a victim and kind of just swirl in the victimhood. Find people that hold you accountable, that lift you up, that are chasing their own goals, that are, you know, doing something with their life. If they have watched every series on Netflix, maybe find somebody who's doing something else.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, oh, man, you said something so pivotal and so strong that not a lot of people, not a lot of friends, can do. Not a lot of friends can take something like this, not letting that friend be in victim mentality. Yeah, like, there is people that I have surround not that I have surrounded myself with, but I have talked to that. You know. They tell the same story and they tell, continue to tell it, and I'm like all right, dude, I'm done listening to that story. Either you change it or you don't. And then I'm the bad guy for telling them that I am the problem, I am the this and I am the that. But yet they're not understanding that I'm just literally bringing radical truth to them. Um, not because I have the need to fix anybody, but it's like okay, I don't want that, I don't want that in my life. Do you want that in your life?

Speaker 2:

you know, and it's like some people love to stay in there, and it's they love to stay in there because it brings them some sort of love that they learned, a sort of way that they learned. This is how I receive love. So I'm going to stay in that mentality because I get love this way. But yeah, that's so important to have friends that, like I would say, slap you in the face and be like hey, stop with the story man, you can do it with compassion, but it's like, oh, that sounds really hard.

Speaker 1:

What are the changes you're going to make?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Like what are the different choices you're going to make so that you don't experience this again? Like empower them to know that you've got skin in the game. You can change your circumstances. We act like we are just pushed around by life all of the time, and there are times when we feel that way, but you always still have choices.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you do. You always have the choice to stay there or to not. Uh, you always have the choice to change it or to not. Um, I, one thing that I always tell people that I work with is when you know that you're doing what you're doing Now, you're just choosing to continue to do it. So you continue to empower that belief, that value, that habit, that pattern. So, especially when you have the awareness now, you're just choosing it. If you didn't have it before, that's something else right. If you didn't have the awareness of fact, okay, I'm doing this. Okay, there's a little like, you know, a leeway there where you get the all right. But when you continue to like, choose to do it, then that's all on you.

Speaker 1:

That's all on you yeah absolutely Fool you once.

Speaker 1:

I mean this is like you are perpetuating the problem. You are the problem and people act like you're pinning something on them or, when you try to hold somebody accountable, that you're being mean. But I think the most empowering thing I ever realized was how much control I have, how much power I have in my decisions and in creating my life the way I want to. I have a lot of power to shift my mind and shift my thoughts and shift who I'm hanging out with or how I'm spending my time and my energy. So me saying, hey, you've got choices, what are you going to do differently? My hope would be that you would find power in that.

Speaker 1:

But a lot of people want to not change that it is a safe place to be in victim mode. But a lot of people want to. They, they want to not change that it is a safe place to be in victim mode and a lot of times there is some attention that they get from being there or we live in a culture that really conversation is, you know, based on bitching. You know this is awful for me. Oh no, this is more awful for me.

Speaker 2:

Well, you've never had it this bad and it was like there's times where I have seen people like get more like they. One person tells oh, this is how bad I had it. Oh, you didn't have it that bad, listen to how bad I had it. And then the other person oh, then you guys think that's bad. I'm like what? It's a competition of how bad we've had it.

Speaker 1:

Like that that whole culture of it being, you know, awesome to have it so bad does make it where one of my my ayahuasca ceremonies was about releasing guilt, having it good. Now that is stemmed around people who are not necessarily in conversation, talking about you know dumb ass stuff, but also people who are really struggling in areas of war or famine or you know any of the other situations, not just complaining at lunch, but we do have kind of a survivor's guilt when you are in a place of feeling really happy in life. Do you find that?

Speaker 2:

No, I don't, I don't have that experience, but I totally understand you, like I can see.

Speaker 2:

Like when I heard that I that's you're the second person that I've heard talk at DG's when we went to go do ayahuasca Marissa, me and Samira and Sal and all of them there was a guy that experienced that I mean I just feel bad because I'm so freaking well off, like my life is good. It brought a perspective to me that I never in my life heard and when I heard it with you, it was more like like also, it reminded me of that day with that person and how he was feeling and how he explained. And I totally get that, like I, because I put myself in his shoes and in your shoes. Like I, I can see how that can be a hard thing to deal with. It's like you feel bad because you're doing so damn well and you're living good. And then and then you know and I and I was like damn what if that happened to me? You know like what if? What if I grew up well off and you know all of these things?

Speaker 1:

and I didn't grow up well off, but I have done the work that you know. I mean my husband and I are well off now but it's also. You know, I mean it hasn't always been rosy, but it is wonderful. You know, I mean it hasn't always been rosy, but it is wonderful now. Yeah, that's beautiful, but it's also a perspective, like you said, where all of these things have led me here. It is that whole perspective of switching the bad things that happened to you into your launch pad for where you are now.

Speaker 2:

I can see how it can make somebody feel bad. I can see how it can bring what it's bringing to somebody. When the world's where it's at right now and some people are not well and maybe friends that you have might not be well and you're over here like partying, you're doing what you love in life. I don't know. I think that's for me. I would allow myself to feel it all, but also just know that I worked here. I worked to get here that's what Aya said.

Speaker 1:

You did the work. You did the work to get there. Yeah, that's what I said. It's like you did the work.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you did the work to get there, and there's nothing that you should be ashamed of because you you have mastered a part of the game that some people are still mastering.

Speaker 1:

Right and the goal is now, like we talked about, to teach them. You know, that is the goal, is I? I have come a long way and my goal, through you know content in this podcast, is obviously to help others. Okay, so, we talked about kind of the unconscious people who are running around in victim mode, but if they're listening to this podcast, they're not right there. They're kind of switched on and, at different levels or no, at different times in their healing journey. So what would you say are red fat flags, like something comes up. You know that you've got shadow work to do. What are some things that would happen, that that they could cue into themselves and be like okay, here's something's something for me. Is it just the triggers?

Speaker 2:

No, your environment, your environment says a lot. Your friends who you surround yourself says a lot.

Speaker 1:

What you think you're worthy of Basically you look around your environment and your friends and your habits.

Speaker 2:

You allow what you know. So those things, maybe it's disrespect, maybe it's rejection, maybe it's a lack of love from people when you're giving so much. So all of those things like the community, like community is very, very helpful when you're healing To know that there is people like you that might be going through something similar, maybe in a different way, but it's similar, that you are going through, to know that you're not alone, because most people feel they're alone, but you are never alone. Literally, there's always somebody that has gone through what you have gone through, going through what you have gone through or about to go through what you have gone through. So you are literally never alone.

Speaker 2:

I like to see it in a sense. Do you know what the David Hawking's scale of? Okay, so all the lower emotions, in my opinion, is just the way that the darkness or the elite have pushed out all of these emotions for us to stay just there in our lower three chakras and our physical chakras, just uh, the same programs of fear, of doubt, of worry, played out all in different ways and we're all, just all of these people that are doing the work, that are doing the light work, we're all just basically beating them in different ways and we're here to help people do the same thing. But it's yeah, it's who you surround yourself with, the people that you talk to, the places that you go to. If you know you have a drinking problem and you're going to a bar, you probably shouldn't go there. If you know you're and you consciously- know that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so there is something underneath that is driving this desire. When we consciously know better, when you know that this so there is something underneath that is driving this desire, when we consciously know better, when you know that this is not the healthy meal or that you shouldn't be laying around watching TV six hours a day, when you know that and still do it. There is something buried within you that needs to be seen.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, correct, like so, something like when it comes to food right, yeah, correct, like so, something like when it comes to food right. One thing that I discovered because of my values was I want to be a part of my family because I was very black sheep, very outcasted, so a lot of my family was fat. So, to fit in with my family, that serves my highest value. So, although it was bad right, quote, unquote it was actually something good that was helping me become part of my family, because all of my family was big. So when I figured that out and I was like I gave myself the ability, this is not going with my highest value and it's okay that I can change this value now and make it something different, right.

Speaker 2:

Also, with somebody that's drinking and they want to stop, if their highest value is being social, drinking brings that. You know that's the number one thing, that the reason people drink is socializing. So socializing is a huge value in your life and you want to stop drinking. It's going to be, it's actually good for you. So you need to change the way you're socializing. You need to change the way you're doing the thing you know. Right, totally, yeah. So, yeah, I would say those communities huge. Community is big in the healing work that you're doing to not only help you stay accountable, to help you relate to, to help you know you're not alone, to help you know that there are people that have beat what you are going through and to help you kind of hold your hand if you never knew how to even start to do what it is that you're doing. Community is huge.

Speaker 1:

All right, and what is your number one tip for somebody in a healing process? What is like the non-negotiable. You have to do this as part of your healing practice.

Speaker 2:

I don't have one.

Speaker 1:

You don't have one.

Speaker 2:

Everybody's unique.

Speaker 2:

Everybody. Everybody's healing process is not a one size fits all I'm sure mine hasn't been, as yours has, you know but there's obviously there's parts that we can relate to. But more than anything if I want to put one there I would say awareness is the number one thing that you have to know who you are, why you're doing what you're doing. And you bring awareness to all of these things and you start to question your own self, game over, like you will find out who you are when you question your own self, the things that you are doing and why you are doing them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think mine is similar is like watching your thoughts realizing you're not your thoughts and bringing awareness to your thoughts to see the patterns, the situations that bring up those negative thoughts. Like starting to bring awareness to your thoughts and to and to realize you have control of them. To be like, okay, that thought came up, I'm not, that's not for me. Thank you, bye. The more we understand that. I think that's like the gateway to being able to make an impact in your mindset which can then change how you eat and how you exercise and the people you choose, when you just I think people just think their, their thoughts are what they. I just think all the time. It's like, okay, come out of your head and start watching your thoughts.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, most people don't think about their thinking no for real, do not think about their thinking.

Speaker 2:

And it's also important to discern when a feeling is an actual feeling or a feeling is just a thought. If, if you confuse the two, then you can go for an emotional roller coaster. Right, then you can go for an emotional roller coaster period, Because a thought can be just just as how it came in, can go right out. A feeling is something messaging you in your body, telling you this is off, this is wrong, or I'm feeling this way. Something's happening, you know, feel it whatever it is. So discerning those two things is very important. Thinking about your thinking is very important and just bringing awareness to it all. Like you said, step outside of yourself and observe why you just did that. Whatever it is that you're doing, you know, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Love it All right. Thank you, coach Rob for being on the podcast. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. I appreciate you so much.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

All right, thank you. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Be sure to not miss any upcoming episodes by subscribing to the podcast. That way, it's available automatically in your RSS feed. This is a crazy journey. Let's do it together.

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