March 28, 2024 • 62 mins
Sah D'Simone is a spiritual revolutionary, mystic, artist, award-winning filmmaker, and the internationally best-selling author of Spiritually Sassy: 8 Radical Steps to Activate Your Innate Superpowers. He is well-known for creating the Somatic Activated Healing (SAH) Method™.
Sah's profound expertise is rooted in a decade of experiential Buddhist practice, his extensive retreat experiences in India and Nepal, and his professional training in contemplative psychotherapy.
In this deep and insightful conversation; the desire to disappear and devote one's life to spirituality, the challenges of being fully seen, and the capacity for discomfort are discussed. Sah shares his experiences with grief and loss, and how they have shaped his spiritual journey and reconstructed the profoundness in his book, “Spiritually, We”. He describes his experience on a 500-mile walk of grief and how it transformed his relationship with his father and the importance of living a full human life.
Connect: @DeviBrown @SahDSimone
Learn More: SahDSimone.com
Subscribe: Devi Brown’s YouTube Channel
Read: Spiritually, We: The Art of Relating and Connecting from the Heart
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:27):
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hold it.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Now, release slowly again deep in heale, hold release, repeating
(01:02):
internally to yourself as you connect to my voice. I
am deeply, deeply well. I I am deeply well. I
(01:23):
am deeply.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Well.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I'm Debbie Brown and this is the Deeply Well Podcast.
Welcome to Deeply Well, a soft place to land on
your journey. A podcast for those that are curious, creative,
and ready to expand in higher consciousness and self care.
(01:54):
I'm Debbie Brown. This is where we heal, this is
where we become. Welcome back to the show. Today's show
is going to be such a good time. I have
been looking forward to this all week. I have one
of my real life nearest and dearest friends who also
happens to be just one of the most brilliant thought leaders, experts,
(02:18):
and hearts in this space. Today's episode is featuring the
Saudi Simone, a spiritual revolutionary, mystic artist, award winning filmmaker,
and the internationally best selling author of Spiritually Sassy Eight
Radical Steps to Activate your Innate Superpowers. He is well
(02:38):
known for hosting the top rated Spiritually Sassy Show podcast
that I've been a guest on and The Big Celebrity
Detox on UK Channel four, and for creating the Somatic
Activated Healing Saw method sas profound expertise is rooted in
a decade of experiential Buddhist practice, his extensive retreat experiences
(02:59):
in India, Nepal, and his professional training and contemplative psychotherapy.
As a kinsenetic learner, Saw has danced into trans States
since twenty fifteen, developing a deep understanding of the mind
body connection. This can esthetic learning process inspired the formulation
of his unique and critically acclaimed Somatic activated Healing method.
(03:23):
His shrama informed approach is informed by his grassroots work
in orphanages, homeless shelters and rehab centers in Indonesia, Nepal,
India and here in the US. Sau provides support to
the patients of Cedar Sinai Hospital as a member of
the Spiritual Care Chaplain Intern Team. Sau's remarkable contributions to
homeless youth in Venice Beach earned him the Care Award
(03:46):
from the City and County of Los Angeles. He is
also a guest teacher at Columbia University. Despite his impressive
professional journey and achievements which truly defines saw as his
courage and resilience from a young age. His life has
been marked by battles with depression, anxiety, and addiction, yet
his unwavering will to keep living and helping others truly
(04:09):
signifie his luminary impact in the fields of spirituality and
trauma healing.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Welcome to this show, my friend.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Oh my goodness. I feel like we should all ask
someone that we love to read our bios because I
was just sitting here, I'm like, damn, it sounds different
when Davy Brown reads it, the Dabie Brown, the Deabie Brown,
the one that lives in my heart. Like it's just
it was like a motherly energy, affirmed and celebrated. It
(04:40):
was like life giving to hear you reading my BIB.
Sometimes I feel so awkward, you know, hearing it before
coming to stage or podcast and hearing you today was like, Oh,
that should be a practice that we offer each other
as good friends.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
You know how absolutely beautiful and just like you're observation
and you're noticing of that is really special to me.
I feel really seen in terms of a professional and
a person and a heart because when I read bios,
we should be having reverence for the people that we
(05:15):
have on our shows. We should be having reverence for
the people in front of us, especially if we are
given insight into their lives. And also, your life is
so beautiful and so impactful and it should be spoken
to in that way. And I know for myself, And
I just have to say, everybody listening, your girl got
another cold from her five year old.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So sorry, my voice.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Is gonna sound very in and out this whole episode.
But you know, one of the things that is interesting
to me when I go on shows, and I want
to preface this by saying, like I know, podcasting absolutely
is a massive, massive industry, and for a lot of people,
it's just kind of what you do and for work,
and so you go in, you go out, you get
(05:56):
it done, you go But I will say something that
is a challenge for me when I go on other
shows that kind of just have people come in and out,
in and out, in and out and don't get to
aren't necessarily connected to the person in front of them.
Is they just read through like your lived experience without
(06:18):
retaining any of what they're saying, and they read through
it just like it's like a magazine. You know, and
it's like, wait a minute, if we're going to talk
about like your work, if we're going to talk about
your life's work, if we're going to talk about this
incredible offering that we'll be sharing, which is your new
book Spiritually, we I need people to understand who and
(06:39):
why you are and.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
That's a big part of it.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
So thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to have you here.
So you, I mean, I have a lot of reverence
for pretty much every single guest that comes on this show,
but you and I have a very special friendship that
I treasure so deeply. You know, I know more than
likely so many people listening to this episode also follow
you and all of your work and your platforms, and
(07:09):
so you know, you share yourself really fully, Like you
really give people this deep look at the way you
live your teachings by the way that you share. So
I'm curious for those listening, like if you would just
share where are you in this moment and your spiritual
experience and what does the walk feel like for you
(07:32):
right now?
Speaker 4 (07:33):
You caught me on that monthly existential crisis THEACE, so
I'm there. It's like it has a Halo, and I'm
I mean the day two of it. It started yesterday
while like the morning of me doing my book launch
at Barnes and know what the growth having to be
like present in front of the audience, friends, fans. It
(07:56):
was like an amazing thing. And I was very honest
about the fact that I'm in that monthly reoccurring experience
where I just, for like three days out of every month,
I question everything I'm doing. I question myself. I questioned
the path and then the where I bounced to is like, Okay,
I'm done. I think I'm going to move back to
India and shave my head and become a monk. This
(08:17):
is my scape. Route is always leaning towards towards that.
So today I'm in that space where I love my
life and I love the work I'm doing, and I
love my friends here, and I'm in that day too
of it where I'm like, m what the fuck is
the point? My mom is dead? What is the gig?
(08:38):
What is this human gig that mothers die? You know?
So I'm there, and also I'm also here and just
so grateful to be sitting across you launching this amazing
book that I'm so fucking proud of I feel like
I am. I feel like I qualify to write this
(08:59):
book because through the hardships that I've gone through in
my life, I was taken care of the breakup, pandemic,
mother dying, three really hard things. And each of these
experiences I had people not only to pick me up,
but to inspire me.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
You know, That's when I knew. I was like, Okay, cool,
So this book is not just conception. It's not me
just wanted to learn about a topic, wanted to speak
about a topic. It wasn't like an aploration. It was like,
I do have these friendships that people want to have.
I got them, and it wasn't easy, it wasn't my default,
(09:41):
but I arrived there.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah, I want to ask a question about the first
thing that you shared. And I think that this could
be really expansive for a lot of listeners to lean into.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
But you know that so many of us.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Do you go through that like on a monthly basis?
This is an extential sort of paralysis.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Oh, your girl lives in existential crisis. Yeah, well, you know,
my entire life, like my entire life, one hundred percent. Absolutely,
I'm always someone who I look at my life as this.
I committed to being here, I committed to being alive
on Earth. I'm going to stay and I'm going to
do the work that's required, and I'm going to feel
(10:24):
all of it.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And I'm also going.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
To get the joy and the beauty of this very
unique experience of being alive on Earth with spiritual curriculum.
And this place is incredibly challenging to live, you know,
like Earth is not easy. And I think this is
something you and I specifically talk to a lot, and
I talk to a lot.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
On this show.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
But I believe in dancing with grief and joy, and
so I also have an extremely large capacity for discomfort
and gratefully, through my practices, I can now move myself
into the role of being the observer, the silent witness
of a lot of that those existential days, those days
(11:08):
when you wonder how humanity can operate like this, or you,
you know, think about the totality of your life's experiences
and the weight that that actually takes on you mentally, physically, emotionally,
and spiritually. And so I think very gratefully the way
God designed me, I can exist in both at the
same time. I can have enthusiasm for my life, and
(11:29):
I can also see it really clearly and have experiences
of depression and enthusiasm at once, which is sometimes very strange.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
But I honor the way I'm designed and I try
to lean into it.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
And then, you know, I like to have conversations with
people like you mean, you will sit on the floor
for hours or sit outside of air on for hours.
You know, go in but that piece that you're speaking to,
that we're speaking to now right like so many people.
Because I tend to think and I don't want to
make this a monolith or overly generalize, but if you're
(12:10):
on this path of kind of being the wounded healer,
if you're on this path of finding expertise to share
with others through your own embodiment and healing of yourself,
which so many that listen to the show are you,
that's part of your life, This kind of bizarre pull
of wanting to serve and then wanting to disappear and
(12:32):
not be perceived or just be in your devotion privately.
I definitely, I don't want to say struggle with that,
because it's not a struggle, this is life. But I
definitely am always an observation of that within myself, Like
I want to serve, I want to be on the
ground floor. I do, and then I need a lot
(12:52):
of time to not be around anyone that is not
in my deepest, most intimate inner circle. Sometimes I find
it challenging to post pictures on social media because I
don't want to be seen. I don't want to be
perceived all the time. I want to live my life.
I want to do my good work. I want to love,
and I don't want to always have to make it
(13:14):
available to be consumed. So that's like my personal way
that I relate. But amen, how does when you say
like you know and you especially my goodness you have
And I know people that follow you know this, But
I'm certain that people that maybe just catch a quick
bite of you could never fully understand how devotional you are,
(13:39):
how deeply authentically you are connected to the spiritual path,
to the ancientness of the spiritual path. So you are
someone that will disappear four months and be in India,
just meditating, just praying.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
You went on a.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Five hundred mile walk with your father, a pilgrimage after
your mother grief, God bless past. You went on that
grief walk, and those are the kinds of things that
like change you at a cellular level, that that change
you in a way that you know, like a self
help book could never you know.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
And so it's like that part that path.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
So when I heard you say something earlier, as you know,
you want to take ropes, you want to shave your head,
and you just want to be in that path. But
then you also live a very large life here. What
does that feel like to you? What inside says I
want this right now? I don't want this.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Tammy Simon, the founder of Sounds True, said something so
beautiful while I was in her shoulder the other day.
She says, God has me in a really tight leash.
And I found it so profound because I feel the same.
I feel like the unseen beings, the deities, the gods
and goddesses, the unseen forces having a really tight leash.
(15:04):
Anytime I want to disappear, I am pulled back, you know,
jolted back, dragged back to service And.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Tell me about the feeling of wanting to disappear.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Though what it's a idiation? No, no, no, I'm way
beyond that. This is like ten years in resolution.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
No, but I mean, what a life as a monk.
What is the feeling that you long for in that? Like,
what is what is the soothingess of that or the
delight of that?
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, thank you for that. It is that. It's just
having your every day be about devotion. Yeah, your every
moment be in connection to the unseeing forces. Your every
moment praying for the wild being of others. Your every
moment is in devotion to the tapestry that is unseen
by the eyes but felt by the spirit, you know,
(15:55):
working on that plane. You know. My therapist reminds me often,
she's like, sad, there's there are people in caves in
Nepal And and India right now praying for your wellbeing that
you will never meet. These saints are right now reaching
the highest of the highs peaks of Nirvana and Samati states,
and they're praying for your wellbeing and you to them
(16:17):
as a total stranger, and you will never meet them,
but they're actively working for your benefit. And there's something
so beautiful around that. For me, that's like, how would
I what would happen to me if I fully devoted
my life to this sort of twenty four hour cycle
(16:38):
of devotion Because as much as we want to become nobody, right,
because that's the path of spirituality, to dissolve references, to
dissolve personality, to really merge with the other, to lose
the boundaries of where I am and where you begin
to really arrive at that plane. However, because we live
in a city like Los Angeles, so many things lead
(17:05):
the way for us. Create prejudice in people's minds, create
biases on people's minds, create stores on people's minds about
who we are, and we unconsciously follow through their biases,
follow through their prejudice, follow through their stories. If that
makes sense. We unconsciously resurrect old versions of ourselves to
entertain other people, because we're master people pleasers. So I
(17:30):
believe that if you remove the veil of the superintense
matrix of a city like Los Angeles, you know, and
you are in a Himalayan monastery. I believe that some
of the hardships that I go through to dissolve my somebodiness,
to dissolve my specialness, to dissolve my uniqueness, I would
(17:52):
reach that state faster sooner. However, I say all this
with grace, because this new book is a critical analysis
of that. It's saying that you got to walk off
the monastery into the streets. It's saying you have to
leave the cave and you have to go to the city,
because this is where the work lies. It's freedom is relational. Yes,
(18:14):
there's very specific paths to freedom that are in the
isolated mountaintop and they're very celebrated and they're there. However,
some say that that path may take longer than you
actually doing this work in relationship. So the book is
a call to that, calling us back into relationship, calling
(18:36):
us back into friendship, calling us back into community. That
the way to stabilize our freedom, to develop our presence,
to develop our forgiveness, to develop our patients, it's in relationship.
It's one thing for you to be kind to yourself
in the morning, by yourself and your altar and the
protection of our house. It's another thing to really develop
(18:58):
our patients. When we are dealing with someone who's annoying, you.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Know, yeah, it's I love that because that it's why
we're here. You know, God's right, see, just through relationship
and relationship with people with things, with places, with animals.
But that is how we have our human experience. It's
by interacting with humanityity.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Deeply.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Well, when this book came in for you, talk to
me about that, because you wrote this book in the midst.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
Of a lot insane insane I think. I think the
I suit in front of the of the audience yesterday
at Barnes and Noble last night, and I said, the
fact that I finished this book, even if the book
is crap, which I know it's not, thank God, is
really a huge accomplishment because I wrote it through the
grief of a breakup and the insane, disorienting, suffocating grief
(20:02):
of losing my mother. And the fact that I finished
it and turned it in and I edited out of
the book after the grief of losing my mom touched
my body. From having that experience like take over my body,
my mind, my spirit, my heart, I edited so much
(20:24):
out of the book. The profundity and the depth of
what's in the book completely changed because I had never
experienced that kind of loss. I had helped students grief,
I had helped other people. I had been support to
other people. But it's one thing for you to be
a support to someone who's going through it's another thing
for you to be touched by grief in this way
(20:45):
and in the world today, I see this is my
when I get to be reductionistic, sometimes I get to
be limited in my vocabulary. I believe that there are
those who have been touched by grief and the and
those who have not yet, and those that have been
touched by grief, they if they are allowed themselves to
(21:07):
immerse themselves in grief, if they're not doing the book,
then busy capitalistic agenda, which is I have to Unfortunately
a lot of people don't even have the choice to
fall apart because of the societal corporate.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
You get two days of bereavement.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
That's right, and then you're back to work. My mother died, okay,
see on Wednesday, Monday, Tuesday, you take the day off
see on Wednesday, you know, and then you have to perform.
So our society doesn't allow us to fall apart. Our
society doesn't build into its infrastructure time for how do
you reconstruct yourself after you lose a leg, after you
(21:46):
lose both of your arms, after your heart's ripped off
of your chest. These are the feelings that I've had
with my mom for the first three months. DEVI I
had no short term memory, like I couldn't tell you
what I had for breakfast at lunch. I couldn't tell
you what I had for breakfast at lunch. And that
is if you look at grief brain, it's a common thing.
But why are we talking about it? Because the vast
(22:07):
majority of people don't have the time to even name
that or guess what. They tell that to someone and
someone someone pathologized them immediately and they become over medicated.
I had deep personalization derealization. I felt like my reality
was a dream. I felt like I was watching Sah
live his life. I was outside of my body. These
(22:28):
experiences are not part of the vernacular because we're so
scared of naming that I lost my mind after my
mother died, and because I am an explorer of the
human psyche, of the human body. You know the word mystic.
I'm proud to to use this word as a description
(22:49):
to my experience because I'm not I'm not seeking, I'm
not reading and performing what I've read. A mystic is
someone who seeks realization by living experience. And because my
lived experience is my Bible, you know, of course I
follow a very strict Buddhist path. Then you can call
(23:11):
yourself a mystic because what I've went through and so
honestly shared with the world was that I fell apart
and I've been slowly rebuilding myself, you know. So tying
back to the book, it's the pages of the book
have all been touched by that grief, by that depth,
by that loss, that intensity, that disorienting, inevitable experience that
(23:36):
all of us will be touched by. And then, of
course you have people in the world today multime multi
millionnaires who are wanting to defy the odds and to
live forever and to not die. And I think we're
missing the novelty and the beauty of having an expiration date.
(23:58):
You know. I think you lose poetry, and you your
your boredom that's already deem as something bad becomes pervasive,
and you could then become even more selfish because it's
how can I live forever? You know?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Oh my god, Right as you were talking, I thought.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
I went everywhere. I don't know if I got your answer,
but there we do.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
The correct answer will emerge every time. As we were talking,
I was remembering this scene. I so agree with you
on that, Like I I want to live so fully.
I hope I'm blessed to become an ancient elder. You know,
I really want. I love observing humanity, so I would
love to be very healthy, mobile, over one hundred and
(24:43):
able to share wisdom and see, you know what earth
has become, So knock on all the woods.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
I see that for you, long gray hair like class
is a fool grow an adult by family. And I
mean I.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Like fantasize about being like an elder because I want
to be a hot, healthy elder. So I just love
seeing like women who are still themselves in their bodies,
in their femininity, because that's what I relate to, and
like long, flowy gray hair, but like gorgeous in you know,
(25:17):
decked out in their meaningful pieces and like oh I'm
here for it, and I'm so here for it, flexible
like yes.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
But heymen, I'm there and I'm I'm literally walking right
next to you with my little walker or hopefully I
didn't need that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
But there there was this scene in the movie Noah.
I don't know if you've ever seen that came out
like over ten years ago. I rewatched it in the
last couple of years because I love studying the Book
of Enoch and the history Noah to Mathuselah to Enoch
and Mathuslah was in the Bible, I believe the oldest
person that ever lived.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Oh wow, so who was I'm going to get this
so wrong, y'all.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
But I think hundreds and hundreds of years old. I
don't know the exact number. But there's a scene in
Noah where the great flood is coming right where creation
is being restarted, and you see Methuselah in this small
little cave, this little mossy patch, and he hears the
water coming right. This is like extinction, this is the
(26:17):
great melt. So this is like the glacial ice like and.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
The rains, and it's about to go down.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
And in the scene right before the water hits him,
he like licks his lips like it's delicious and smiles
and it's kind of like a like he's just so
ready Noah death. Russell Crowe plays Noah and Anthony Hopkins
is Methuselah.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
But that scene to me was so.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Invocative, like it was just so striking to see someone
leap towards death because their work was complete, that they
were longing to have the next experience, what else?
Speaker 1 (26:58):
What next?
Speaker 3 (27:00):
And so just that what you said resonates with me
deeply because I think that's such a powerful way to
look at our human experience. Like everyone, as you mentioned,
is gripping and trying to hold and keep things comfortably
the same. And it's like, let life change you, let
it change things that happened to you, change you, and
(27:21):
then live fully because when it's your time, I want
to go out with that kind of like expectant smile
of more.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
You know. So, as you're writing, can I name something
about this before you ask this question?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Please?
Speaker 4 (27:39):
I experienced something so profound at my mother's funeral, which
was I don't know if she was ready to go,
but I was coming from Indonesia, My sister was coming
from the Paul. My mum was an induced coma and
she stayed for two hours and then she died. So
(28:00):
she waited for us to arrive from these far away
countries to die. And the reason why I'm naming this
is because a lot of us are not thinking about
our eulogy. We're not thinking about the fact that how
we live will dictate our experience as we die, right,
(28:22):
We're not really thinking about how every moment every person.
Every time we can lift the space, we can you know,
bring a smile to someone's face, we can help someone,
We can just do the smaller, big ways right, that
we can lift the world, that we can lift each other,
that we can inspire each other. It all adds up
(28:45):
to how your death will be peaceful or chaotic. And
in Buddhism, we're really training ourselves for that moment. A
lot of it. It's like it's either you become enlightened
while you're still alive, and that's a really hard path,
but that's part of the part of the training. Or
you work yourself to become so lucid and you have
(29:08):
accumulated so many good deeds. You've you've become you've lied
such an experience inspire inspirational life that your moment of
death is a peaceful one. And the reason why I'm
saying all this to raptus to give a little bit
more context, my mother's funeral was a really eye opening
experience to how I want to be remembered. Even though
(29:31):
most of us are only remembered for like five ten years.
Except for your close family, most people will most people
ninety nine point nine percent of us will all be
forgotten within a couple of years or five ten years.
It's this is the max, right, Even the biggest superstars are.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Forgotten only like ten every hundred years are really remembered, right,
Like think about that everyone like this when everyone is
thinking about posting stuff or just legacy in terms of
soccial media impact, like even in bigger legacy, like ultimately
it can't be about vanity because maybe every hundred years as.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
A whole, fifty people are remembered globally.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
That's right, globally. Yeah, that's like you we have to
bask in the sweetness of being forgotten. We have to like,
oh god, really just like, oh, how delicious that I
get to be fully forgotten and not be scared of it.
I think we hold on to to a legacy of
(30:34):
not making mistakes, a legacy of harmony and sweetness and
accumulation for a lot of people. Yes, instead of instead
of living out loud and making mistakes and being hurt
and breaking your heart and breaking hearts, all of it
for the sake of living a full human life and
(30:54):
then not forgetting the precious moment of you, you know,
laying the lifeless and your family members walking up and
I'm now I'm choking up a little bit, and your
family members walking up to tell stories about how you lived,
and friends walking up and telling stories about how you
(31:16):
touch their lives. My mother's funeral was a big inspirational
point for me because one may say she lived a
very simple life. She wasn't a popular person by social
media standards, right, Well, that's not entirely true, because her
and I have had viral videos of us dancing as
she had just gone through chemotherapy, and that viral videos
(31:39):
that it got the attention of Deepak Chopa's team, and
that's how I ended up going to teach alongside Deepak
and leading the same method on Instagram for the you know,
most of the pandemic. But my mother's funeral was such
a spectacular reminder of how I want to be, Yeah,
(32:01):
someone who who touched people in beautiful and sweet and
simple ways. You know. It was really about her presence,
It was really about her smile. It was really about
her warmth, you know, and not these big as beautiful warmth.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
She really such like I remember she face timed with
you and she was talking a quest of her face times, yes,
and she was just this like, oh my God, like
a sun, like a beam of light coming through your phone.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
And you know, the last phone call I had with her,
I asked my astrologer who we both share, Darryl. Darryl.
I asked Darryl about my mother's chart, and he said,
this is the last phone call I had with her
before she died. I asked, can you read her chart
for me? Or what's going on for her? What is
(32:49):
this season that she's in, you know? And he said
many things, but the important thing was is that she
had the star, the chart of a star. She was
meant to be popular, she was meant to be seen
in a global stage. And I remember telling her this
as she was already in the hospital and she was
(33:09):
hospitalized for pneumonia, which was misdiagnosis of a problem she
was having because of radiation to her brain. Yeah, so
this was the last phone call I had with her.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Wow, what was the experience after your mom passed?
Speaker 1 (33:31):
You did your five hundred mile walk of grief?
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Insane? Insane?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
What is an experience?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
I don't even know how to formulate the question because
it's like a thousand questions and one but one. What
led you to that How did you know that was
the path you needed for your growth, for your grief, And.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
That's enough of a question.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
On a day to day experience, How did that feel?
Speaker 3 (34:00):
How were you in process with her throughout that walk,
because that is you're walking for five hundred miles, so
a full.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Day, thirty two days, for about seven hours a day.
Seven hours a day, my god, three hours in the morning,
four hours in afternoon.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Yeah, insane, Okay, So why did I do it? What happened?
So Mom died December twenty fifth of twenty twenty two
January February March. I was incomplete dis enchantment with humanity. Simultaneous,
(34:43):
I had my training started, so I was training one
hundred people and how to be somatic activated he alerts.
So I had to immediately lock in a part of
me and deliver this training to these people. Had paid
good money to learn this method and to teach this
method right, and looking back, that was a life affirming choice.
(35:04):
That was a life giving choice because it anchored me
in service. It anchored me here. And then a few
like GENETI vated Mars and then April came around, and
I remember feeling the sensitized of to my grief. I
remember questioning did my mom ever live? Did she ever
(35:25):
love me? And did I even have a life with her?
It was so desensitized and I was losing sight of
the grief to such a degree that I started to
question if I even have had a mother? Does that
make sense? It's on the verge of a little like insanity,
(35:45):
a little bit. But that's what grief can can kindapul
you towards you know, And I said.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Do you know what you're saying is especially in a
role like that of and you. The two of you
had such a beautiful relationship, so much love filled the
room when the two of you were together. So that
was such a blessed experience to have with a mother.
But what I'm hearing is too, when you lose your
(36:13):
first God, your first home, right, your mother, that is
calling into question all the roles that you play.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Every really brings in the what am I? And what
am I? If she doesn't exist?
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Exactly? All of it, literally, all of that it was
and the it became such a it was so heavy
to carry the idea and it still is of living
through life without that anchor, without that figure in my life,
you know, so all of this to say that I
started to be desensitized to the grief and I started
(36:50):
to take on more work, do more things, and I
was like, this is not I think I'm I think
I've lost the plot, Like I should not be high
performance SAT right now. Something is off. And that's when
I realized that what was off was not enough space
(37:11):
for the grief to emerge, not enough space for the
grief to break me down, not enough time to fall apart,
and fall apart so gracefully that no one who would
hear me my mother just died would flinch or say
I'm so sorry for your lost thoughts in prayer, or
they would do the immediate thing. She's in a better place,
(37:33):
she's your ancestor now she has angel wings, now she's
watching over you. At least she's not in pain. You know,
all the well intended things that we say during grief
which are tremendously.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Hurtful, it's for that person's comfort.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
Exactly, because they're so deeply uncomfortable with how you are
feeling that they want to name something, say something that
in their mind could potentially resolve or fix you out
of suffering so they feel better without understanding that suffering
seeses and passes and changes with presents. So I needed
(38:10):
a concerted amount of time to fall apart, and to
fall apart in such a graceful way that I wouldn't
have anyone, even the well intended friends and community and strangers,
because so many people follow my work, running to fans
all the time, and they would always want to say
something so sweet and so kind, and it would always
(38:35):
like tug at me at my experience with the grief.
So going on this walk was the specific amount of time.
I didn't know that thirty two days was going to
I was going to be the perfect amount of time.
To be honest, I just knew I needed to walk
with the grief. I knew that walking does so well
for me as a meditative practice, as a spiritual practice,
(38:58):
as an opportunity to just be with a feeling, be
with an experience. And I had downloaded all these playlists
and these podcasts and these books that I wanted to
listen to, and I really realized that I was saturated
with enormous amounts of information inside of me that I
didn't need to add music. I didn't need to add
(39:19):
a podcast. I didn't need to add a book in
order for me to distract myself from the overload of
information that was being poured into me by the grief.
So I just walked with this experience, and I just
walked with the unpleasantness of the grief, and at some
(39:41):
point I started to really make friends with grief that hey,
this is a friend that that will be with me
for the rest of my life because I think the
I think end LaMotte says, it's like you start to
limp and you just realize that the limp is part
of your new way of walking. And I find that
so reassuring and so so beautiful, because you know, I
(40:05):
did lose a part of me, and how do I
live without a part of myself?
Speaker 5 (40:12):
You know?
Speaker 4 (40:13):
So this is what living with grief teaches me, and
that's what the walk emphasized. It's like I needed this
amount of time to bond with my dad, to give
my dad an opportunity to become my dad again, you know,
to reposition him back on that altar as the father
who is now lost his love of forty two years.
(40:37):
This man is trying to become a new person after
having lived side by side with the swim for forty
two years. It's like he's lived more with her than
with anyone else. You know, his personality is more built
entrenched with her than with him by himself. You know,
(40:57):
it's that severe. So we all of this came to fruition.
All of this was like part of the walk. So
there's a lot of a lot of self editing, a
lot of self transformation, and also a lot of relational
experience because I had never spent this amount of time
with my father before, because Mum was always the anchor
(41:19):
in the family. We would always Dad always knew what
was going on for us through Mom, because Mom was
the one who talked on the phone morning and night.
We would check in and we would you know, come
to her with the good and the bad, everything, all
the experience, and then Dad would find out through her.
Now Dad was not taking her space, but now having
(41:39):
learned how to hold not the success SA is going through,
not the the other celebrity that I was working with,
none of that. But who is Sah grieving the loss
of his beloved mother? You know? Can my dad handle
me sobbing over my soup at lunch? Can my dad
(42:00):
ad hold me at dinner when I wake up in
a panic because I'm remembering, I'm having flashbacks of my
mom at the hospital. You know, can he handle that?
And time after time he proved himself, not that he
needed to, but he proved that he can love me
(42:21):
beyond in ways, in ways that go beyond my imagination.
They they're not I love you ways. The words don't
come out, but it's nonverbal. They are just the warmth
of his presence, you know.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Or acts.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
He would then buy me breakfast. He would have breakfast
ordered to the table before I arrived. So these acts
of service meant a lot. It really transformed our relationship.
It really showed me that he knows how to love
me in ways that I actually ways that I actually need.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
You know, how special, my God, how powerful, deeply well.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
In this experience and what you just shared, like there's
so many layers of access to spirit that everyone listening
can dive into.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
You know. It's like, because I heard so many things.
I heard about the grief.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
I heard about the glory of the beauty of the
relationship you had with this special, special woman and mother.
I heard about some of the ways that you were
even challenging yourself with the grief, right, and that especially,
I think is so profound because depression is guaranteed. Depression
(43:44):
is guaranteed. First of all, I want to normalize depression
to be a live Depression is guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
That is my belief.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I have never met a single person, nor do I
imagine I would, if they're being fully honest, that has
not experienced some level of depression at least by the
end of their life. Right, if not once a week,
once a month, you know, or however often. But grief
doesn't just I think we miss tremendous opportunity if we
(44:11):
just keep our thoughts of grief about depression. What I
heard was a way that you allowed grief to help
you rise. You allowed your grief to transform so many
different particle pieces of you. And it's like even the
awareness that has led to this book. You were describing
that awareness funneling in through the dynamic of your father
(44:35):
and through recognizing some areas where you weren't as close,
and now a new invitation to know each other in
a new way and to be close in a new way.
To even make the choice my God as an offering
to the vastness of your love for your mother and
her love for you to spend thirty two days walking
(44:59):
with the grief as your companion.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Literally yeap.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
And we're about to do another one. We're about to
do another one. We're thinking about going to the Oregon
Coast Trail. So this one is a I think it's
three hundred and ninety two miles, so close to four
hundred miles, and we'll take us we'll do in the
same months, maybe like twenty seven to thirty days. We're
deciding we're going to do this one or one in Japan.
(45:24):
It's it's our eyearly way of memorializing Mom and never
losing sight of the grief and never losing sight of
her presence in our lives, because it could we can
so quickly become busy, we can so quickly lose the
connection to the severity of what it means to lose
(45:45):
a mother and the profundity of what it means to
have another day on earth. The poetry of sitting after
you've sobbed to the point of snot coming down your nose,
and you are sitting on the trail and you look
up and I can cry thinking of it, and you
see the leaves dancing in the wind, and you feel
(46:08):
the sun kissing your skin and you come alive again.
You realize I am in this body. I get to live.
I get to continue to walk for her, for everyone
who didn't have the chance. I get to feel the
grief of the world, for all those who don't have
the time and the privilege and the energy to go
(46:30):
into this place. I get to grieve for those who
don't have the time. I get to be a pillar
of light in a dark space for people, and I
get to go to the depth of it in such
a way because no one on that trail is trying
to fix or resolve me. And I have a story
to tell about this. I had a person that I
(46:52):
had seen on the trail. Sometimes, if you're consistent about
the time you wake up and the time that you
the time that you go, the time that you wake
up every day, and the time that you it really
has to do with when you wake up. If you
ended up seeing the same people on the trail, right,
maybe you walk with some people for like three four
days and maybe someone takes a rest day, So when
(47:14):
you wake up and when you take your rest day,
it really dictates if you walk with a group of people.
Maybe these are five to ten people that you see
at the same hotel or hostel or cafes or restaurants
right through the trail. And there was this person, this
woman who would I was seeing, and I had all
this judgment towards her. I had this like wave of bias,
this wave of prejudice just washing over me and cluttering
(47:37):
my view of this person without even meeting her, without
ever having spent a single moment in her presence, every
or even knowing her name. Okay, I mean day three
of the trail, day four of the trail. The grief
hasn't kicked in. I'm kind of like, okay, cool, I'm
putting I'm putting music on music, the songs that remind
(47:58):
me of my mother. To see it was kickstart the
tsunami effect. Still just a little bit here and there.
And then I'm walking on an average trail through the forest,
nothing like mind blowing, nothing like uh you know, and
something just like a wave of grief starts to pour
(48:19):
in and I unearth this ungrieved grief, and I start
to sob and sob and wail to the point that
I even lose a balance. So I sit on the trail.
Who is the person who comes from behind me and
hands me a tissue with a hand on my shoulder.
That woman, and she didn't say a single thing for
(48:42):
a whole like maybe five ten minutes. That felt like eternity.
She just stood there. The person who I had all
this judgment towards was the person that held this beautiful
space for me without trying to fix me, without trying
to resolve me or urge me out of the tonne
of darkness. You know, she just stood there. And then
(49:06):
we didn't even exchange names at that point. It wasn't
until a couple of days later that I ran into
her at a cafe one of the you know, sporadic
stops through the tray where there's a cafe in the
middle of the forest, in the middle of the you know,
on the side of a road or something, that I
was able to just say, hey, thank you so much
for that. That was really meaningful to me. Yeah, So
(49:29):
we never know who will be the messenger of grace,
a stranger that can be a reminder for us to
feel our grief, to not be desensitized by it, and
never to think that grief is too big of an
emotion that you can't hold, you know, never to think
that any feeling is too big, that they're here to
(49:52):
hurt you, or that they're here in a way that
will engo for you and take you out. What takes
us out is our relationship, our feelings.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
You know. Yeah, God, so powerful, so deep, so necessary.
Speaker 4 (50:16):
Okay, where do you want to go next? Because I
could talk about this walk for a while because it's
you know, it really was life affirming and earth shattering.
You know, it really did the number that I never
thought a walk of that magnitude could really like transform
(50:40):
my relationship to grief and to remind me to keep going,
to keep living. You know that grief is a reminder
of paradox. Grief is a reminder to live in paradox.
You spoke about this way earlier about can I be
depressed and inspired? Can I be grieving and grateful? You know,
(51:03):
as Mark Nepo says the poet, he says, everything is
beautiful and I'm so sad. That's my state, you know,
And I'm okay, And that's okay because that's what it
means to live a full human life is to not
have boundaries or to reject the transient nature of life,
(51:24):
which means if change is inevitable, then grief is inevitable
because everything's changing, so everything you know is in movement,
So the old version of ourselves, every single experience, will
never happen again. And because of it, grief is weaved
into that tapestry and I won't shy away from it.
(51:46):
I'm now driven by by it to open myself up
to the beauty in that.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
You know, Son, I did a masterclass on reef a
couple of years ago. We taught this together. It was
called the Daily Death. So I know that's on your website.
So if anyone is feeling really connected to kind of
challenging some thoughts they have around grief, please go to
(52:13):
SA's website and check it out. SA's latest book, Spiritually
we The Art of Relating and Connecting from the Heart,
is available now. This is such a special, introspective and
incredibly applicable book to really start repositioning people in your
(52:36):
life and also challenge yourself to the boundaries you hold
for people. Are they healthy, safe boundaries or are they
boundaries that keep you engaged and your experience that keep
you avoiding yourself? And it's just so important to dive
into that. So this book is absolutely such a beautiful
companion for you at this juncture of your journey. So
(52:57):
how can everyone connect with you and continue to connect
with your powerful work.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
I would love for people to get the book Spiritually Weak,
because it's we're living through a loneliness epidemic. You know,
more people are lonely than connected. That's just the statistics,
you know. So I would love for people to get
the book and also if they want to, you know,
shake and dance and scream in a safe, intentional environment.
(53:22):
Come to the Somatic dance floor, come to the somatic
activated healing membership. But do both, you know, like come
and dance. But really this is this is the biggest
offering because I think we've lost the plot and how
to relate. I think we've we have gone so far
away from learning and actually in knowing that relationship and
(53:46):
friendship is a biological, psychological, spiritual nutrient that we can't
live without. Yes, And through the research in the book,
I really found out that like loneliness strikes in a body,
like hunger, it's a you for something that you need,
for something that you're lacking. And this is what the
research has to show. And we're not thought that we're
(54:07):
not trained in that, we're not educated in that we
are in a capitalistic society. And I'm not an anti
capitalist person. I believe there's good things from it as well,
But I think the way how pervasive it is of
the zero sum game, of this competition, of this overachieving,
(54:27):
this do more and the more you do, the better
you feel kind of mindset, right, and how much our
self worth is based on what we have to show
for these aspects of this culture are the toxic traits
that I want us to erase, the lead unsubscribed from.
So the book really addresses this vital need that we
(54:47):
need each other, that we can't do the human gig alone.
It's impossible to do human by yourself. You can't carry
the burden, but alone it's impossible. And your jo is
multiplied in community. And also if you're on a spiritual path,
the relationships will show you how free you are. Because
(55:10):
it's one thing to be free, and you're cushioned by
yourself at home. Then when you bring it that freedom
to the coffee shop, to your mother in law, to
your ex husband, to your ex boyfriend, to whatever, Yeah,
are you really free or can you just talk the
talk because you're free. If you're free in front of
those who annoy you, who trigger you, who've hurt you,
(55:33):
that's when you know that you're free.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
So the book is a call to that absolutely.
Speaker 4 (55:36):
You know, and it's a big call to remind us that, Hey,
so many people in America are experiencing really hard times
in their lives by themselves because they're so profoundly distracted.
The phone that was here, that is here to connect us,
(55:58):
to weave us with the tapesture of connection, is actually
doing the opposite. It's separating us. It's keeping us away
from seeing the poetry and the beauty in human life.
It's pulling us into savoring social media more so than
connection in person.
Speaker 3 (56:17):
I think that's one of the biggest pitfalls because I
think for a lot of people, they're lonely and they
don't understand fully why, and a lot of it is
And this isn't everyone's fault.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
This is the conditioning of social media.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
We've spent the last fifteen years where people thought just
liking someone you know's content or leaving a comment is friendship,
and it's not.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
It's connection online.
Speaker 3 (56:40):
It's you know, kind of like raising your hand, but
that is not the same thing as being in community
with people or being in relationship with other people.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
You have to kind of test it out in real
life too.
Speaker 3 (56:53):
So everyone has been getting like nourished by junk food
by thinking they're so connected to people, but when it
actually comes to them having life experiences, their ability to relate,
I think really goes down. So this book is available
in stores right now. Spiritually We and of course Saw
has his incredible podcast, his first book, such a so
(57:17):
many beautiful tools for real embodiment of your process to
be who you want to be, not just to speak
in theory about who you want to be, to actually
live it. So Sadi Simone dot com is how you
can check out salv courses Instagram at Saudi Simone. Closing thought,
(57:38):
I always like to extend a little soul work to
everybody listening. What is a practice that those connecting with
this episode can take with them for this week.
Speaker 1 (57:47):
It could be a thought starter, it could be a
question of inquiry.
Speaker 4 (57:52):
I got you, I got you. It's something that I
speak about in a book called Social Integration. I want
you to say hi to your neighbor. I want you
to say hi to the person that the coffee shop.
I want you to humanize every human you see, not
just see them as a as a passer by, as
someone who doesn't have depth or that doesn't suffer the
(58:14):
same ways that you do. I want you to see
everyone that you come in contact with, even if you
live in a big city. Well maybe if you're walking
down New York City and you're you know, in contact
with one hundred people on the sidewalk, maybe not.
Speaker 1 (58:27):
But yeah, have discernment, have discernment, that's right.
Speaker 4 (58:29):
Yeah, but really try to humanize every human being. Can
you touch their humanity? Can you realize that just like you,
they want to be happy and they don't want to suffer,
And also, just like you, they do suffer, you know,
and their moms may die, and their partners may leave them,
and things like this may happen. So don't gloss over people.
(58:52):
Don't see people as a as a hologram without depth
and feeling in a whole human experience them that they're
you know, living through. Humanize everyone and come in contact
with and test your material. See if you can offer
a genuine compliment to a stranger this week, See if
you can say, I like your shoes, nice hair, you
(59:14):
look great, you know, like test your capacity to engage
and see what happens inside of you because it will
lift them up. But look at the high that you
are creating for yourself. You know, it's a beautiful experience
to relate where we've lost the plot when it comes
to relationships and we're missing such a beautiful way of
(59:36):
feeling good by being.
Speaker 1 (59:38):
Seen, beautiful, beautiful. I love you, I love you back.
Thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 4 (59:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (59:49):
And one more thing.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
I am so excited to be with everyone in Atlanta
on April twenty seventh, the year twenty twenty four, So
make sure to check me out at the end annual
Black Effect Podcast Festival. It's happening Saturday, April twenty seventh.
It's in Atlanta, which I can't wait because I love
going to Atlanta. Live podcasts are going down from your
(01:00:12):
favorite shows from the Black Effect Network.
Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
I will be there.
Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
I'll be doing my podcast live from the stage so
you can see deeply well on stage. I have two
special guests that I will be announcing soon and I
am so ready to meet everyone. I've already gotten dms
of really dope people in the city letting me know
that they're going to be there, so I hope to
connect with everyone that is there, everyone.
Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
That listens to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
Tickets are available at Black Effect dot com Backslash Podcast Festival,
Easy Easy Easy, Black Effect dot Com Backslash Podcast Festival.
Get your tickets. I will see you in Atlanta April
twenty seventh. Deeply Well Live at the Black Evac Podcast Festival.
Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Now Misday, Misday ho Misday.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
The content presented on Deeply Well solely for educational and
informational purposes. It should not be considered a replacement for
personalized medical or mental health guidance and does not constitute
a provider patient relationship. As always, it is advisable to
consult with your healthcare provider or health team for any
(01:01:18):
specific concerns or questions that you may have. Connect with
me on social at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram,
or you can go to my website Debbie Brown dot com.
And if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Don't forget.
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
Please rate, review, and subscribe and send this episode to
a friend. Deeply Well is a production of iHeartRadio and
the Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jacqueis Thomas. Samantha
Timmins and me Debbie Brown. The Beautiful Soundbath You Heard.
That's by Jarrelen Glass from Crystal Cadence. For more podcasts
(01:01:55):
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hold it.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Now, release slowly again deep in heale, hold release, repeating
(01:02):
internally to yourself as you connect to my voice. I
am deeply, deeply well. I I am deeply well. I
(01:23):
am deeply.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Well.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I'm Debbie Brown and this is the Deeply Well Podcast.
Welcome to Deeply Well, a soft place to land on
your journey. A podcast for those that are curious, creative,
and ready to expand in higher consciousness and self care.
(01:54):
I'm Debbie Brown. This is where we heal, this is
where we become. Welcome back to the show. Today's show
is going to be such a good time. I have
been looking forward to this all week. I have one
of my real life nearest and dearest friends who also
happens to be just one of the most brilliant thought leaders, experts,
(02:18):
and hearts in this space. Today's episode is featuring the
Saudi Simone, a spiritual revolutionary, mystic artist, award winning filmmaker,
and the internationally best selling author of Spiritually Sassy Eight
Radical Steps to Activate your Innate Superpowers. He is well
(02:38):
known for hosting the top rated Spiritually Sassy Show podcast
that I've been a guest on and The Big Celebrity
Detox on UK Channel four, and for creating the Somatic
Activated Healing Saw method sas profound expertise is rooted in
a decade of experiential Buddhist practice, his extensive retreat experiences
(02:59):
in India, Nepal, and his professional training and contemplative psychotherapy.
As a kinsenetic learner, Saw has danced into trans States
since twenty fifteen, developing a deep understanding of the mind
body connection. This can esthetic learning process inspired the formulation
of his unique and critically acclaimed Somatic activated Healing method.
(03:23):
His shrama informed approach is informed by his grassroots work
in orphanages, homeless shelters and rehab centers in Indonesia, Nepal,
India and here in the US. Sau provides support to
the patients of Cedar Sinai Hospital as a member of
the Spiritual Care Chaplain Intern Team. Sau's remarkable contributions to
homeless youth in Venice Beach earned him the Care Award
(03:46):
from the City and County of Los Angeles. He is
also a guest teacher at Columbia University. Despite his impressive
professional journey and achievements which truly defines saw as his
courage and resilience from a young age. His life has
been marked by battles with depression, anxiety, and addiction, yet
his unwavering will to keep living and helping others truly
(04:09):
signifie his luminary impact in the fields of spirituality and
trauma healing.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Welcome to this show, my friend.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Oh my goodness. I feel like we should all ask
someone that we love to read our bios because I
was just sitting here, I'm like, damn, it sounds different
when Davy Brown reads it, the Dabie Brown, the Deabie Brown,
the one that lives in my heart. Like it's just
it was like a motherly energy, affirmed and celebrated. It
(04:40):
was like life giving to hear you reading my BIB.
Sometimes I feel so awkward, you know, hearing it before
coming to stage or podcast and hearing you today was like, Oh,
that should be a practice that we offer each other
as good friends.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
You know how absolutely beautiful and just like you're observation
and you're noticing of that is really special to me.
I feel really seen in terms of a professional and
a person and a heart because when I read bios,
we should be having reverence for the people that we
(05:15):
have on our shows. We should be having reverence for
the people in front of us, especially if we are
given insight into their lives. And also, your life is
so beautiful and so impactful and it should be spoken
to in that way. And I know for myself, And
I just have to say, everybody listening, your girl got
another cold from her five year old.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So sorry, my voice.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Is gonna sound very in and out this whole episode.
But you know, one of the things that is interesting
to me when I go on shows, and I want
to preface this by saying, like I know, podcasting absolutely
is a massive, massive industry, and for a lot of people,
it's just kind of what you do and for work,
and so you go in, you go out, you get
(05:56):
it done, you go But I will say something that
is a challenge for me when I go on other
shows that kind of just have people come in and out,
in and out, in and out and don't get to
aren't necessarily connected to the person in front of them.
Is they just read through like your lived experience without
(06:18):
retaining any of what they're saying, and they read through
it just like it's like a magazine. You know, and
it's like, wait a minute, if we're going to talk
about like your work, if we're going to talk about
your life's work, if we're going to talk about this
incredible offering that we'll be sharing, which is your new
book Spiritually, we I need people to understand who and
(06:39):
why you are and.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
That's a big part of it.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
So thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to have you here.
So you, I mean, I have a lot of reverence
for pretty much every single guest that comes on this show,
but you and I have a very special friendship that
I treasure so deeply. You know, I know more than
likely so many people listening to this episode also follow
you and all of your work and your platforms, and
(07:09):
so you know, you share yourself really fully, Like you
really give people this deep look at the way you
live your teachings by the way that you share. So
I'm curious for those listening, like if you would just
share where are you in this moment and your spiritual
experience and what does the walk feel like for you
(07:32):
right now?
Speaker 4 (07:33):
You caught me on that monthly existential crisis THEACE, so
I'm there. It's like it has a Halo, and I'm
I mean the day two of it. It started yesterday
while like the morning of me doing my book launch
at Barnes and know what the growth having to be
like present in front of the audience, friends, fans. It
(07:56):
was like an amazing thing. And I was very honest
about the fact that I'm in that monthly reoccurring experience
where I just, for like three days out of every month,
I question everything I'm doing. I question myself. I questioned
the path and then the where I bounced to is like, Okay,
I'm done. I think I'm going to move back to
India and shave my head and become a monk. This
(08:17):
is my scape. Route is always leaning towards towards that.
So today I'm in that space where I love my
life and I love the work I'm doing, and I
love my friends here, and I'm in that day too
of it where I'm like, m what the fuck is
the point? My mom is dead? What is the gig?
(08:38):
What is this human gig that mothers die? You know?
So I'm there, and also I'm also here and just
so grateful to be sitting across you launching this amazing
book that I'm so fucking proud of I feel like
I am. I feel like I qualify to write this
(08:59):
book because through the hardships that I've gone through in
my life, I was taken care of the breakup, pandemic,
mother dying, three really hard things. And each of these
experiences I had people not only to pick me up,
but to inspire me.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
You know, That's when I knew. I was like, Okay, cool,
So this book is not just conception. It's not me
just wanted to learn about a topic, wanted to speak
about a topic. It wasn't like an aploration. It was like,
I do have these friendships that people want to have.
I got them, and it wasn't easy, it wasn't my default,
(09:41):
but I arrived there.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah, I want to ask a question about the first
thing that you shared. And I think that this could
be really expansive for a lot of listeners to lean into.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
But you know that so many of us.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Do you go through that like on a monthly basis?
This is an extential sort of paralysis.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Oh, your girl lives in existential crisis. Yeah, well, you know,
my entire life, like my entire life, one hundred percent. Absolutely,
I'm always someone who I look at my life as this.
I committed to being here, I committed to being alive
on Earth. I'm going to stay and I'm going to
do the work that's required, and I'm going to feel
(10:24):
all of it.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And I'm also going.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
To get the joy and the beauty of this very
unique experience of being alive on Earth with spiritual curriculum.
And this place is incredibly challenging to live, you know,
like Earth is not easy. And I think this is
something you and I specifically talk to a lot, and
I talk to a lot.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
On this show.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
But I believe in dancing with grief and joy, and
so I also have an extremely large capacity for discomfort
and gratefully, through my practices, I can now move myself
into the role of being the observer, the silent witness
of a lot of that those existential days, those days
(11:08):
when you wonder how humanity can operate like this, or you,
you know, think about the totality of your life's experiences
and the weight that that actually takes on you mentally, physically, emotionally,
and spiritually. And so I think very gratefully the way
God designed me, I can exist in both at the
same time. I can have enthusiasm for my life, and
(11:29):
I can also see it really clearly and have experiences
of depression and enthusiasm at once, which is sometimes very strange.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
But I honor the way I'm designed and I try
to lean into it.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
And then, you know, I like to have conversations with
people like you mean, you will sit on the floor
for hours or sit outside of air on for hours.
You know, go in but that piece that you're speaking to,
that we're speaking to now right like so many people.
Because I tend to think and I don't want to
make this a monolith or overly generalize, but if you're
(12:10):
on this path of kind of being the wounded healer,
if you're on this path of finding expertise to share
with others through your own embodiment and healing of yourself,
which so many that listen to the show are you,
that's part of your life, This kind of bizarre pull
of wanting to serve and then wanting to disappear and
(12:32):
not be perceived or just be in your devotion privately.
I definitely, I don't want to say struggle with that,
because it's not a struggle, this is life. But I
definitely am always an observation of that within myself, Like
I want to serve, I want to be on the
ground floor. I do, and then I need a lot
(12:52):
of time to not be around anyone that is not
in my deepest, most intimate inner circle. Sometimes I find
it challenging to post pictures on social media because I
don't want to be seen. I don't want to be
perceived all the time. I want to live my life.
I want to do my good work. I want to love,
and I don't want to always have to make it
(13:14):
available to be consumed. So that's like my personal way
that I relate. But amen, how does when you say
like you know and you especially my goodness you have
And I know people that follow you know this, But
I'm certain that people that maybe just catch a quick
bite of you could never fully understand how devotional you are,
(13:39):
how deeply authentically you are connected to the spiritual path,
to the ancientness of the spiritual path. So you are
someone that will disappear four months and be in India,
just meditating, just praying.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
You went on a.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Five hundred mile walk with your father, a pilgrimage after
your mother grief, God bless past. You went on that
grief walk, and those are the kinds of things that
like change you at a cellular level, that that change
you in a way that you know, like a self
help book could never you know.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
And so it's like that part that path.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
So when I heard you say something earlier, as you know,
you want to take ropes, you want to shave your head,
and you just want to be in that path. But
then you also live a very large life here. What
does that feel like to you? What inside says I
want this right now? I don't want this.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Tammy Simon, the founder of Sounds True, said something so
beautiful while I was in her shoulder the other day.
She says, God has me in a really tight leash.
And I found it so profound because I feel the same.
I feel like the unseen beings, the deities, the gods
and goddesses, the unseen forces having a really tight leash.
(15:04):
Anytime I want to disappear, I am pulled back, you know,
jolted back, dragged back to service And.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Tell me about the feeling of wanting to disappear.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Though what it's a idiation? No, no, no, I'm way
beyond that. This is like ten years in resolution.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
No, but I mean, what a life as a monk.
What is the feeling that you long for in that? Like,
what is what is the soothingess of that or the
delight of that?
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, thank you for that. It is that. It's just
having your every day be about devotion. Yeah, your every
moment be in connection to the unseeing forces. Your every
moment praying for the wild being of others. Your every
moment is in devotion to the tapestry that is unseen
by the eyes but felt by the spirit, you know,
(15:55):
working on that plane. You know. My therapist reminds me often,
she's like, sad, there's there are people in caves in
Nepal And and India right now praying for your wellbeing that
you will never meet. These saints are right now reaching
the highest of the highs peaks of Nirvana and Samati states,
and they're praying for your wellbeing and you to them
(16:17):
as a total stranger, and you will never meet them,
but they're actively working for your benefit. And there's something
so beautiful around that. For me, that's like, how would
I what would happen to me if I fully devoted
my life to this sort of twenty four hour cycle
(16:38):
of devotion Because as much as we want to become nobody, right,
because that's the path of spirituality, to dissolve references, to
dissolve personality, to really merge with the other, to lose
the boundaries of where I am and where you begin
to really arrive at that plane. However, because we live
in a city like Los Angeles, so many things lead
(17:05):
the way for us. Create prejudice in people's minds, create
biases on people's minds, create stores on people's minds about
who we are, and we unconsciously follow through their biases,
follow through their prejudice, follow through their stories. If that
makes sense. We unconsciously resurrect old versions of ourselves to
entertain other people, because we're master people pleasers. So I
(17:30):
believe that if you remove the veil of the superintense
matrix of a city like Los Angeles, you know, and
you are in a Himalayan monastery. I believe that some
of the hardships that I go through to dissolve my somebodiness,
to dissolve my specialness, to dissolve my uniqueness, I would
(17:52):
reach that state faster sooner. However, I say all this
with grace, because this new book is a critical analysis
of that. It's saying that you got to walk off
the monastery into the streets. It's saying you have to
leave the cave and you have to go to the city,
because this is where the work lies. It's freedom is relational. Yes,
(18:14):
there's very specific paths to freedom that are in the
isolated mountaintop and they're very celebrated and they're there. However,
some say that that path may take longer than you
actually doing this work in relationship. So the book is
a call to that, calling us back into relationship, calling
(18:36):
us back into friendship, calling us back into community. That
the way to stabilize our freedom, to develop our presence,
to develop our forgiveness, to develop our patients, it's in relationship.
It's one thing for you to be kind to yourself
in the morning, by yourself and your altar and the
protection of our house. It's another thing to really develop
(18:58):
our patients. When we are dealing with someone who's annoying, you.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Know, yeah, it's I love that because that it's why
we're here. You know, God's right, see, just through relationship
and relationship with people with things, with places, with animals.
But that is how we have our human experience. It's
by interacting with humanityity.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Deeply.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Well, when this book came in for you, talk to
me about that, because you wrote this book in the midst.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
Of a lot insane insane I think. I think the
I suit in front of the of the audience yesterday
at Barnes and Noble last night, and I said, the
fact that I finished this book, even if the book
is crap, which I know it's not, thank God, is
really a huge accomplishment because I wrote it through the
grief of a breakup and the insane, disorienting, suffocating grief
(20:02):
of losing my mother. And the fact that I finished
it and turned it in and I edited out of
the book after the grief of losing my mom touched
my body. From having that experience like take over my body,
my mind, my spirit, my heart, I edited so much
(20:24):
out of the book. The profundity and the depth of
what's in the book completely changed because I had never
experienced that kind of loss. I had helped students grief,
I had helped other people. I had been support to
other people. But it's one thing for you to be
a support to someone who's going through it's another thing
for you to be touched by grief in this way
(20:45):
and in the world today, I see this is my
when I get to be reductionistic, sometimes I get to
be limited in my vocabulary. I believe that there are
those who have been touched by grief and the and
those who have not yet, and those that have been
touched by grief, they if they are allowed themselves to
(21:07):
immerse themselves in grief, if they're not doing the book,
then busy capitalistic agenda, which is I have to Unfortunately
a lot of people don't even have the choice to
fall apart because of the societal corporate.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
You get two days of bereavement.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
That's right, and then you're back to work. My mother died, okay,
see on Wednesday, Monday, Tuesday, you take the day off
see on Wednesday, you know, and then you have to perform.
So our society doesn't allow us to fall apart. Our
society doesn't build into its infrastructure time for how do
you reconstruct yourself after you lose a leg, after you
(21:46):
lose both of your arms, after your heart's ripped off
of your chest. These are the feelings that I've had
with my mom for the first three months. DEVI I
had no short term memory, like I couldn't tell you
what I had for breakfast at lunch. I couldn't tell
you what I had for breakfast at lunch. And that
is if you look at grief brain, it's a common thing.
But why are we talking about it? Because the vast
(22:07):
majority of people don't have the time to even name
that or guess what. They tell that to someone and
someone someone pathologized them immediately and they become over medicated.
I had deep personalization derealization. I felt like my reality
was a dream. I felt like I was watching Sah
live his life. I was outside of my body. These
(22:28):
experiences are not part of the vernacular because we're so
scared of naming that I lost my mind after my
mother died, and because I am an explorer of the
human psyche, of the human body. You know the word mystic.
I'm proud to to use this word as a description
(22:49):
to my experience because I'm not I'm not seeking, I'm
not reading and performing what I've read. A mystic is
someone who seeks realization by living experience. And because my
lived experience is my Bible, you know, of course I
follow a very strict Buddhist path. Then you can call
(23:11):
yourself a mystic because what I've went through and so
honestly shared with the world was that I fell apart
and I've been slowly rebuilding myself, you know. So tying
back to the book, it's the pages of the book
have all been touched by that grief, by that depth,
by that loss, that intensity, that disorienting, inevitable experience that
(23:36):
all of us will be touched by. And then, of
course you have people in the world today multime multi
millionnaires who are wanting to defy the odds and to
live forever and to not die. And I think we're
missing the novelty and the beauty of having an expiration date.
(23:58):
You know. I think you lose poetry, and you your
your boredom that's already deem as something bad becomes pervasive,
and you could then become even more selfish because it's
how can I live forever? You know?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Oh my god, Right as you were talking, I thought.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
I went everywhere. I don't know if I got your answer,
but there we do.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
The correct answer will emerge every time. As we were talking,
I was remembering this scene. I so agree with you
on that, Like I I want to live so fully.
I hope I'm blessed to become an ancient elder. You know,
I really want. I love observing humanity, so I would
love to be very healthy, mobile, over one hundred and
(24:43):
able to share wisdom and see, you know what earth
has become, So knock on all the woods.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
I see that for you, long gray hair like class
is a fool grow an adult by family. And I
mean I.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Like fantasize about being like an elder because I want
to be a hot, healthy elder. So I just love
seeing like women who are still themselves in their bodies,
in their femininity, because that's what I relate to, and
like long, flowy gray hair, but like gorgeous in you know,
(25:17):
decked out in their meaningful pieces and like oh I'm
here for it, and I'm so here for it, flexible
like yes.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
But heymen, I'm there and I'm I'm literally walking right
next to you with my little walker or hopefully I
didn't need that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
But there there was this scene in the movie Noah.
I don't know if you've ever seen that came out
like over ten years ago. I rewatched it in the
last couple of years because I love studying the Book
of Enoch and the history Noah to Mathuselah to Enoch
and Mathuslah was in the Bible, I believe the oldest
person that ever lived.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Oh wow, so who was I'm going to get this
so wrong, y'all.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
But I think hundreds and hundreds of years old. I
don't know the exact number. But there's a scene in
Noah where the great flood is coming right where creation
is being restarted, and you see Methuselah in this small
little cave, this little mossy patch, and he hears the
water coming right. This is like extinction, this is the
(26:17):
great melt. So this is like the glacial ice like and.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
The rains, and it's about to go down.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
And in the scene right before the water hits him,
he like licks his lips like it's delicious and smiles
and it's kind of like a like he's just so
ready Noah death. Russell Crowe plays Noah and Anthony Hopkins
is Methuselah.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
But that scene to me was so.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Invocative, like it was just so striking to see someone
leap towards death because their work was complete, that they
were longing to have the next experience, what else?
Speaker 1 (26:58):
What next?
Speaker 3 (27:00):
And so just that what you said resonates with me
deeply because I think that's such a powerful way to
look at our human experience. Like everyone, as you mentioned,
is gripping and trying to hold and keep things comfortably
the same. And it's like, let life change you, let
it change things that happened to you, change you, and
(27:21):
then live fully because when it's your time, I want
to go out with that kind of like expectant smile
of more.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
You know. So, as you're writing, can I name something
about this before you ask this question?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Please?
Speaker 4 (27:39):
I experienced something so profound at my mother's funeral, which
was I don't know if she was ready to go,
but I was coming from Indonesia, My sister was coming
from the Paul. My mum was an induced coma and
she stayed for two hours and then she died. So
(28:00):
she waited for us to arrive from these far away
countries to die. And the reason why I'm naming this
is because a lot of us are not thinking about
our eulogy. We're not thinking about the fact that how
we live will dictate our experience as we die, right,
(28:22):
We're not really thinking about how every moment every person.
Every time we can lift the space, we can you know,
bring a smile to someone's face, we can help someone,
We can just do the smaller, big ways right, that
we can lift the world, that we can lift each other,
that we can inspire each other. It all adds up
(28:45):
to how your death will be peaceful or chaotic. And
in Buddhism, we're really training ourselves for that moment. A
lot of it. It's like it's either you become enlightened
while you're still alive, and that's a really hard path,
but that's part of the part of the training. Or
you work yourself to become so lucid and you have
(29:08):
accumulated so many good deeds. You've you've become you've lied
such an experience inspire inspirational life that your moment of
death is a peaceful one. And the reason why I'm
saying all this to raptus to give a little bit
more context, my mother's funeral was a really eye opening
experience to how I want to be remembered. Even though
(29:31):
most of us are only remembered for like five ten years.
Except for your close family, most people will most people
ninety nine point nine percent of us will all be
forgotten within a couple of years or five ten years.
It's this is the max, right, Even the biggest superstars are.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Forgotten only like ten every hundred years are really remembered, right,
Like think about that everyone like this when everyone is
thinking about posting stuff or just legacy in terms of
soccial media impact, like even in bigger legacy, like ultimately
it can't be about vanity because maybe every hundred years as.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
A whole, fifty people are remembered globally.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
That's right, globally. Yeah, that's like you we have to
bask in the sweetness of being forgotten. We have to like,
oh god, really just like, oh, how delicious that I
get to be fully forgotten and not be scared of it.
I think we hold on to to a legacy of
(30:34):
not making mistakes, a legacy of harmony and sweetness and
accumulation for a lot of people. Yes, instead of instead
of living out loud and making mistakes and being hurt
and breaking your heart and breaking hearts, all of it
for the sake of living a full human life and
(30:54):
then not forgetting the precious moment of you, you know,
laying the lifeless and your family members walking up and
I'm now I'm choking up a little bit, and your
family members walking up to tell stories about how you lived,
and friends walking up and telling stories about how you
(31:16):
touch their lives. My mother's funeral was a big inspirational
point for me because one may say she lived a
very simple life. She wasn't a popular person by social
media standards, right, Well, that's not entirely true, because her
and I have had viral videos of us dancing as
she had just gone through chemotherapy, and that viral videos
(31:39):
that it got the attention of Deepak Chopa's team, and
that's how I ended up going to teach alongside Deepak
and leading the same method on Instagram for the you know,
most of the pandemic. But my mother's funeral was such
a spectacular reminder of how I want to be, Yeah,
(32:01):
someone who who touched people in beautiful and sweet and
simple ways. You know. It was really about her presence,
It was really about her smile. It was really about
her warmth, you know, and not these big as beautiful warmth.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
She really such like I remember she face timed with
you and she was talking a quest of her face times, yes,
and she was just this like, oh my God, like
a sun, like a beam of light coming through your phone.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
And you know, the last phone call I had with her,
I asked my astrologer who we both share, Darryl. Darryl.
I asked Darryl about my mother's chart, and he said,
this is the last phone call I had with her
before she died. I asked, can you read her chart
for me? Or what's going on for her? What is
(32:49):
this season that she's in, you know? And he said
many things, but the important thing was is that she
had the star, the chart of a star. She was
meant to be popular, she was meant to be seen
in a global stage. And I remember telling her this
as she was already in the hospital and she was
(33:09):
hospitalized for pneumonia, which was misdiagnosis of a problem she
was having because of radiation to her brain. Yeah, so
this was the last phone call I had with her.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Wow, what was the experience after your mom passed?
Speaker 1 (33:31):
You did your five hundred mile walk of grief?
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Insane? Insane?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
What is an experience?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
I don't even know how to formulate the question because
it's like a thousand questions and one but one. What
led you to that How did you know that was
the path you needed for your growth, for your grief, And.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
That's enough of a question.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
On a day to day experience, How did that feel?
Speaker 3 (34:00):
How were you in process with her throughout that walk,
because that is you're walking for five hundred miles, so
a full.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Day, thirty two days, for about seven hours a day.
Seven hours a day, my god, three hours in the morning,
four hours in afternoon.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Yeah, insane, Okay, So why did I do it? What happened?
So Mom died December twenty fifth of twenty twenty two
January February March. I was incomplete dis enchantment with humanity. Simultaneous,
(34:43):
I had my training started, so I was training one
hundred people and how to be somatic activated he alerts.
So I had to immediately lock in a part of
me and deliver this training to these people. Had paid
good money to learn this method and to teach this
method right, and looking back, that was a life affirming choice.
(35:04):
That was a life giving choice because it anchored me
in service. It anchored me here. And then a few
like GENETI vated Mars and then April came around, and
I remember feeling the sensitized of to my grief. I
remember questioning did my mom ever live? Did she ever
(35:25):
love me? And did I even have a life with her?
It was so desensitized and I was losing sight of
the grief to such a degree that I started to
question if I even have had a mother? Does that
make sense? It's on the verge of a little like insanity,
(35:45):
a little bit. But that's what grief can can kindapul
you towards you know, And I said.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Do you know what you're saying is especially in a
role like that of and you. The two of you
had such a beautiful relationship, so much love filled the
room when the two of you were together. So that
was such a blessed experience to have with a mother.
But what I'm hearing is too, when you lose your
(36:13):
first God, your first home, right, your mother, that is
calling into question all the roles that you play.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Every really brings in the what am I? And what
am I? If she doesn't exist?
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Exactly? All of it, literally, all of that it was
and the it became such a it was so heavy
to carry the idea and it still is of living
through life without that anchor, without that figure in my life,
you know, so all of this to say that I
started to be desensitized to the grief and I started
(36:50):
to take on more work, do more things, and I
was like, this is not I think I'm I think
I've lost the plot, Like I should not be high
performance SAT right now. Something is off. And that's when
I realized that what was off was not enough space
(37:11):
for the grief to emerge, not enough space for the
grief to break me down, not enough time to fall apart,
and fall apart so gracefully that no one who would
hear me my mother just died would flinch or say
I'm so sorry for your lost thoughts in prayer, or
they would do the immediate thing. She's in a better place,
(37:33):
she's your ancestor now she has angel wings, now she's
watching over you. At least she's not in pain. You know,
all the well intended things that we say during grief
which are tremendously.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Hurtful, it's for that person's comfort.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
Exactly, because they're so deeply uncomfortable with how you are
feeling that they want to name something, say something that
in their mind could potentially resolve or fix you out
of suffering so they feel better without understanding that suffering
seeses and passes and changes with presents. So I needed
(38:10):
a concerted amount of time to fall apart, and to
fall apart in such a graceful way that I wouldn't
have anyone, even the well intended friends and community and strangers,
because so many people follow my work, running to fans
all the time, and they would always want to say
something so sweet and so kind, and it would always
(38:35):
like tug at me at my experience with the grief.
So going on this walk was the specific amount of time.
I didn't know that thirty two days was going to
I was going to be the perfect amount of time.
To be honest, I just knew I needed to walk
with the grief. I knew that walking does so well
for me as a meditative practice, as a spiritual practice,
(38:58):
as an opportunity to just be with a feeling, be
with an experience. And I had downloaded all these playlists
and these podcasts and these books that I wanted to
listen to, and I really realized that I was saturated
with enormous amounts of information inside of me that I
didn't need to add music. I didn't need to add
(39:19):
a podcast. I didn't need to add a book in
order for me to distract myself from the overload of
information that was being poured into me by the grief.
So I just walked with this experience, and I just
walked with the unpleasantness of the grief, and at some
(39:41):
point I started to really make friends with grief that hey,
this is a friend that that will be with me
for the rest of my life because I think the
I think end LaMotte says, it's like you start to
limp and you just realize that the limp is part
of your new way of walking. And I find that
so reassuring and so so beautiful, because you know, I
(40:05):
did lose a part of me, and how do I
live without a part of myself?
Speaker 5 (40:12):
You know?
Speaker 4 (40:13):
So this is what living with grief teaches me, and
that's what the walk emphasized. It's like I needed this
amount of time to bond with my dad, to give
my dad an opportunity to become my dad again, you know,
to reposition him back on that altar as the father
who is now lost his love of forty two years.
(40:37):
This man is trying to become a new person after
having lived side by side with the swim for forty
two years. It's like he's lived more with her than
with anyone else. You know, his personality is more built
entrenched with her than with him by himself. You know,
(40:57):
it's that severe. So we all of this came to fruition.
All of this was like part of the walk. So
there's a lot of a lot of self editing, a
lot of self transformation, and also a lot of relational
experience because I had never spent this amount of time
with my father before, because Mum was always the anchor
(41:19):
in the family. We would always Dad always knew what
was going on for us through Mom, because Mom was
the one who talked on the phone morning and night.
We would check in and we would you know, come
to her with the good and the bad, everything, all
the experience, and then Dad would find out through her.
Now Dad was not taking her space, but now having
(41:39):
learned how to hold not the success SA is going through,
not the the other celebrity that I was working with,
none of that. But who is Sah grieving the loss
of his beloved mother? You know? Can my dad handle
me sobbing over my soup at lunch? Can my dad
(42:00):
ad hold me at dinner when I wake up in
a panic because I'm remembering, I'm having flashbacks of my
mom at the hospital. You know, can he handle that?
And time after time he proved himself, not that he
needed to, but he proved that he can love me
(42:21):
beyond in ways, in ways that go beyond my imagination.
They they're not I love you ways. The words don't
come out, but it's nonverbal. They are just the warmth
of his presence, you know.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Or acts.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
He would then buy me breakfast. He would have breakfast
ordered to the table before I arrived. So these acts
of service meant a lot. It really transformed our relationship.
It really showed me that he knows how to love
me in ways that I actually ways that I actually need.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
You know, how special, my God, how powerful, deeply well.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
In this experience and what you just shared, like there's
so many layers of access to spirit that everyone listening
can dive into.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
You know. It's like, because I heard so many things.
I heard about the grief.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
I heard about the glory of the beauty of the
relationship you had with this special, special woman and mother.
I heard about some of the ways that you were
even challenging yourself with the grief, right, and that especially,
I think is so profound because depression is guaranteed. Depression
(43:44):
is guaranteed. First of all, I want to normalize depression
to be a live Depression is guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
That is my belief.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I have never met a single person, nor do I
imagine I would, if they're being fully honest, that has
not experienced some level of depression at least by the
end of their life. Right, if not once a week,
once a month, you know, or however often. But grief
doesn't just I think we miss tremendous opportunity if we
(44:11):
just keep our thoughts of grief about depression. What I
heard was a way that you allowed grief to help
you rise. You allowed your grief to transform so many
different particle pieces of you. And it's like even the
awareness that has led to this book. You were describing
that awareness funneling in through the dynamic of your father
(44:35):
and through recognizing some areas where you weren't as close,
and now a new invitation to know each other in
a new way and to be close in a new way.
To even make the choice my God as an offering
to the vastness of your love for your mother and
her love for you to spend thirty two days walking
(44:59):
with the grief as your companion.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Literally yeap.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
And we're about to do another one. We're about to
do another one. We're thinking about going to the Oregon
Coast Trail. So this one is a I think it's
three hundred and ninety two miles, so close to four
hundred miles, and we'll take us we'll do in the
same months, maybe like twenty seven to thirty days. We're
deciding we're going to do this one or one in Japan.
(45:24):
It's it's our eyearly way of memorializing Mom and never
losing sight of the grief and never losing sight of
her presence in our lives, because it could we can
so quickly become busy, we can so quickly lose the
connection to the severity of what it means to lose
(45:45):
a mother and the profundity of what it means to
have another day on earth. The poetry of sitting after
you've sobbed to the point of snot coming down your nose,
and you are sitting on the trail and you look
up and I can cry thinking of it, and you
see the leaves dancing in the wind, and you feel
(46:08):
the sun kissing your skin and you come alive again.
You realize I am in this body. I get to live.
I get to continue to walk for her, for everyone
who didn't have the chance. I get to feel the
grief of the world, for all those who don't have
the time and the privilege and the energy to go
(46:30):
into this place. I get to grieve for those who
don't have the time. I get to be a pillar
of light in a dark space for people, and I
get to go to the depth of it in such
a way because no one on that trail is trying
to fix or resolve me. And I have a story
to tell about this. I had a person that I
(46:52):
had seen on the trail. Sometimes, if you're consistent about
the time you wake up and the time that you
the time that you go, the time that you wake
up every day, and the time that you it really
has to do with when you wake up. If you
ended up seeing the same people on the trail, right,
maybe you walk with some people for like three four
days and maybe someone takes a rest day, So when
(47:14):
you wake up and when you take your rest day,
it really dictates if you walk with a group of people.
Maybe these are five to ten people that you see
at the same hotel or hostel or cafes or restaurants
right through the trail. And there was this person, this
woman who would I was seeing, and I had all
this judgment towards her. I had this like wave of bias,
this wave of prejudice just washing over me and cluttering
(47:37):
my view of this person without even meeting her, without
ever having spent a single moment in her presence, every
or even knowing her name. Okay, I mean day three
of the trail, day four of the trail. The grief
hasn't kicked in. I'm kind of like, okay, cool, I'm
putting I'm putting music on music, the songs that remind
(47:58):
me of my mother. To see it was kickstart the
tsunami effect. Still just a little bit here and there.
And then I'm walking on an average trail through the forest,
nothing like mind blowing, nothing like uh you know, and
something just like a wave of grief starts to pour
(48:19):
in and I unearth this ungrieved grief, and I start
to sob and sob and wail to the point that
I even lose a balance. So I sit on the trail.
Who is the person who comes from behind me and
hands me a tissue with a hand on my shoulder.
That woman, and she didn't say a single thing for
(48:42):
a whole like maybe five ten minutes. That felt like eternity.
She just stood there. The person who I had all
this judgment towards was the person that held this beautiful
space for me without trying to fix me, without trying
to resolve me or urge me out of the tonne
of darkness. You know, she just stood there. And then
(49:06):
we didn't even exchange names at that point. It wasn't
until a couple of days later that I ran into
her at a cafe one of the you know, sporadic
stops through the tray where there's a cafe in the
middle of the forest, in the middle of the you know,
on the side of a road or something, that I
was able to just say, hey, thank you so much
for that. That was really meaningful to me. Yeah, So
(49:29):
we never know who will be the messenger of grace,
a stranger that can be a reminder for us to
feel our grief, to not be desensitized by it, and
never to think that grief is too big of an
emotion that you can't hold, you know, never to think
that any feeling is too big, that they're here to
(49:52):
hurt you, or that they're here in a way that
will engo for you and take you out. What takes
us out is our relationship, our feelings.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
You know. Yeah, God, so powerful, so deep, so necessary.
Speaker 4 (50:16):
Okay, where do you want to go next? Because I
could talk about this walk for a while because it's
you know, it really was life affirming and earth shattering.
You know, it really did the number that I never
thought a walk of that magnitude could really like transform
(50:40):
my relationship to grief and to remind me to keep going,
to keep living. You know that grief is a reminder
of paradox. Grief is a reminder to live in paradox.
You spoke about this way earlier about can I be
depressed and inspired? Can I be grieving and grateful? You know,
(51:03):
as Mark Nepo says the poet, he says, everything is
beautiful and I'm so sad. That's my state, you know,
And I'm okay, And that's okay because that's what it
means to live a full human life is to not
have boundaries or to reject the transient nature of life,
(51:24):
which means if change is inevitable, then grief is inevitable
because everything's changing, so everything you know is in movement,
So the old version of ourselves, every single experience, will
never happen again. And because of it, grief is weaved
into that tapestry and I won't shy away from it.
(51:46):
I'm now driven by by it to open myself up
to the beauty in that.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
You know, Son, I did a masterclass on reef a
couple of years ago. We taught this together. It was
called the Daily Death. So I know that's on your website.
So if anyone is feeling really connected to kind of
challenging some thoughts they have around grief, please go to
(52:13):
SA's website and check it out. SA's latest book, Spiritually
we The Art of Relating and Connecting from the Heart,
is available now. This is such a special, introspective and
incredibly applicable book to really start repositioning people in your
(52:36):
life and also challenge yourself to the boundaries you hold
for people. Are they healthy, safe boundaries or are they
boundaries that keep you engaged and your experience that keep
you avoiding yourself? And it's just so important to dive
into that. So this book is absolutely such a beautiful
companion for you at this juncture of your journey. So
(52:57):
how can everyone connect with you and continue to connect
with your powerful work.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
I would love for people to get the book Spiritually Weak,
because it's we're living through a loneliness epidemic. You know,
more people are lonely than connected. That's just the statistics,
you know. So I would love for people to get
the book and also if they want to, you know,
shake and dance and scream in a safe, intentional environment.
(53:22):
Come to the Somatic dance floor, come to the somatic
activated healing membership. But do both, you know, like come
and dance. But really this is this is the biggest
offering because I think we've lost the plot and how
to relate. I think we've we have gone so far
away from learning and actually in knowing that relationship and
(53:46):
friendship is a biological, psychological, spiritual nutrient that we can't
live without. Yes, And through the research in the book,
I really found out that like loneliness strikes in a body,
like hunger, it's a you for something that you need,
for something that you're lacking. And this is what the
research has to show. And we're not thought that we're
(54:07):
not trained in that, we're not educated in that we
are in a capitalistic society. And I'm not an anti
capitalist person. I believe there's good things from it as well,
But I think the way how pervasive it is of
the zero sum game, of this competition, of this overachieving,
(54:27):
this do more and the more you do, the better
you feel kind of mindset, right, and how much our
self worth is based on what we have to show
for these aspects of this culture are the toxic traits
that I want us to erase, the lead unsubscribed from.
So the book really addresses this vital need that we
(54:47):
need each other, that we can't do the human gig alone.
It's impossible to do human by yourself. You can't carry
the burden, but alone it's impossible. And your jo is
multiplied in community. And also if you're on a spiritual path,
the relationships will show you how free you are. Because
(55:10):
it's one thing to be free, and you're cushioned by
yourself at home. Then when you bring it that freedom
to the coffee shop, to your mother in law, to
your ex husband, to your ex boyfriend, to whatever, Yeah,
are you really free or can you just talk the
talk because you're free. If you're free in front of
those who annoy you, who trigger you, who've hurt you,
(55:33):
that's when you know that you're free.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
So the book is a call to that absolutely.
Speaker 4 (55:36):
You know, and it's a big call to remind us that, Hey,
so many people in America are experiencing really hard times
in their lives by themselves because they're so profoundly distracted.
The phone that was here, that is here to connect us,
(55:58):
to weave us with the tapesture of connection, is actually
doing the opposite. It's separating us. It's keeping us away
from seeing the poetry and the beauty in human life.
It's pulling us into savoring social media more so than
connection in person.
Speaker 3 (56:17):
I think that's one of the biggest pitfalls because I
think for a lot of people, they're lonely and they
don't understand fully why, and a lot of it is
And this isn't everyone's fault.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
This is the conditioning of social media.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
We've spent the last fifteen years where people thought just
liking someone you know's content or leaving a comment is friendship,
and it's not.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
It's connection online.
Speaker 3 (56:40):
It's you know, kind of like raising your hand, but
that is not the same thing as being in community
with people or being in relationship with other people.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
You have to kind of test it out in real
life too.
Speaker 3 (56:53):
So everyone has been getting like nourished by junk food
by thinking they're so connected to people, but when it
actually comes to them having life experiences, their ability to relate,
I think really goes down. So this book is available
in stores right now. Spiritually We and of course Saw
has his incredible podcast, his first book, such a so
(57:17):
many beautiful tools for real embodiment of your process to
be who you want to be, not just to speak
in theory about who you want to be, to actually
live it. So Sadi Simone dot com is how you
can check out salv courses Instagram at Saudi Simone. Closing thought,
(57:38):
I always like to extend a little soul work to
everybody listening. What is a practice that those connecting with
this episode can take with them for this week.
Speaker 1 (57:47):
It could be a thought starter, it could be a
question of inquiry.
Speaker 4 (57:52):
I got you, I got you. It's something that I
speak about in a book called Social Integration. I want
you to say hi to your neighbor. I want you
to say hi to the person that the coffee shop.
I want you to humanize every human you see, not
just see them as a as a passer by, as
someone who doesn't have depth or that doesn't suffer the
(58:14):
same ways that you do. I want you to see
everyone that you come in contact with, even if you
live in a big city. Well maybe if you're walking
down New York City and you're you know, in contact
with one hundred people on the sidewalk, maybe not.
Speaker 1 (58:27):
But yeah, have discernment, have discernment, that's right.
Speaker 4 (58:29):
Yeah, but really try to humanize every human being. Can
you touch their humanity? Can you realize that just like you,
they want to be happy and they don't want to suffer,
And also, just like you, they do suffer, you know,
and their moms may die, and their partners may leave them,
and things like this may happen. So don't gloss over people.
(58:52):
Don't see people as a as a hologram without depth
and feeling in a whole human experience them that they're
you know, living through. Humanize everyone and come in contact
with and test your material. See if you can offer
a genuine compliment to a stranger this week, See if
you can say, I like your shoes, nice hair, you
(59:14):
look great, you know, like test your capacity to engage
and see what happens inside of you because it will
lift them up. But look at the high that you
are creating for yourself. You know, it's a beautiful experience
to relate where we've lost the plot when it comes
to relationships and we're missing such a beautiful way of
(59:36):
feeling good by being.
Speaker 1 (59:38):
Seen, beautiful, beautiful. I love you, I love you back.
Thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 4 (59:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (59:49):
And one more thing.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
I am so excited to be with everyone in Atlanta
on April twenty seventh, the year twenty twenty four, So
make sure to check me out at the end annual
Black Effect Podcast Festival. It's happening Saturday, April twenty seventh.
It's in Atlanta, which I can't wait because I love
going to Atlanta. Live podcasts are going down from your
(01:00:12):
favorite shows from the Black Effect Network.
Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
I will be there.
Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
I'll be doing my podcast live from the stage so
you can see deeply well on stage. I have two
special guests that I will be announcing soon and I
am so ready to meet everyone. I've already gotten dms
of really dope people in the city letting me know
that they're going to be there, so I hope to
connect with everyone that is there, everyone.
Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
That listens to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
Tickets are available at Black Effect dot com Backslash Podcast Festival,
Easy Easy Easy, Black Effect dot Com Backslash Podcast Festival.
Get your tickets. I will see you in Atlanta April
twenty seventh. Deeply Well Live at the Black Evac Podcast Festival.
Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Now Misday, Misday ho Misday.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
The content presented on Deeply Well solely for educational and
informational purposes. It should not be considered a replacement for
personalized medical or mental health guidance and does not constitute
a provider patient relationship. As always, it is advisable to
consult with your healthcare provider or health team for any
(01:01:18):
specific concerns or questions that you may have. Connect with
me on social at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram,
or you can go to my website Debbie Brown dot com.
And if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Don't forget.
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
Please rate, review, and subscribe and send this episode to
a friend. Deeply Well is a production of iHeartRadio and
the Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jacqueis Thomas. Samantha
Timmins and me Debbie Brown. The Beautiful Soundbath You Heard.
That's by Jarrelen Glass from Crystal Cadence. For more podcasts
(01:01:55):
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Host
Devi Brown
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