August 7, 2017 • 46 mins
On this week's episode of Be Amplified, we dive into the conversation of being intimate with our lives, and what that means for the modern woman. We are joined by Alexi Panos as she shares her thoughts and stories on living an amplified life. Check out the show notes at www.TheAmplifyCollective.com.
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You're listening to be Amplified the Podcastwith Brian Tais, episode fifty seven.
Hey, Amplifiers, welcome to beAmplified the Podcast. My name is Tayis
and I'm Bree Siley. We arethe co founders of the Amplified Collective,
a movement aimed at radically disrupting howpurpose driven women connect and operate in the
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world, because we believe it's notjust what you do, but who you
are that matters. Each week,join us for messages and interviews that will
leave you feeling amplified and ready tochange the world. Let's do this.
Hello, Amplifiers, it's Monday.Hey, it's Taisky, that's Braeciley.
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We sit in closets and talk allthings truths and we're here on this beautiful
Los Angeles day as always, asalways, it's always beautiful in LA.
We have a okay is it isfucking hot though this week, so I
don't know five yeah, um,But we have an incredible guest today,
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Lexi Pantos comes to us, alsofrom Los Angeles. Um, although now
she's kind of around the water.Yeah. Uh. So we have her
on later and she is divine andspeaks a lot of beautiful truths. Um.
But before we bring her on brand, I'm gonna we're gonna do some
riffing, as we usual, becausethat's what we do. What are we
talking about today? We are talkingabout? Don't you remember we just talked
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about it? What are we talkingabout? Just trying to be cool and
ask you conversation we are talking aboutWe're gonna talk a little bit about UM
intimacy and not necessarily in like physicalsex ways, although my mom would love
it if we did, but morelike intimacy in terms of UM, the
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busyness that we all find ourselves inthe ways that we don't UM. We
overload our lives. We have somuch going on that we're unwilling to really
be present and be connected to thethings that are here. Right, Ye,
exactly, yep, that's exactly whatwe're gonna be talking about, the
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intimacy of our lives. What doesit mean to be intimate in our lives?
And by the way, it isthe same, it's the same definition
of intimacy with a partner. Likewhat's required for you to be intimate with
a partner? It requires your presence, it requires your engagement, it requires
an open heart, right Intimacy requirescommunication. Intimacy it requires a lot of
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things, and it's the same thingsthat are required to be intimate with your
life, except we're talking about lifeand not just a partnership. And so
let's dive into this idea of beingintimate with our lives. Let's so one
of the things that I have seenabout intimacy, and like I've kind of
said in the little intro is weas humans tend to avoid things that are
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uncomfortable. Just it's like the humancondition, It's like our thing. We
just don't want to be uncomfortable.Ever, so we just avoid the things
that make us uncomfortable. Even ifthose things have ridiculously awesome, amazing,
you know, expansive, crazy results, we still avoid them. And so
instead of getting intimate with that avoidance, with that fear, with that hesitation
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that's coming up within ourselves, wetake on more things. We say yes
to everything, We overload our calendar. Yeah, exactly. We find all
of these ways. It's like puttingon one of those sumo suits, right,
and you've got all of this patting, all these layers that are keeping
you from really connecting with and beingpresent with the thing that's there. Well.
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So, I'm sure I've shared thisin the past, but I've heard
this someone. I loved it somuch that business is an intimacy issue.
Yes, because fuck being busy.Actually that was our first podcast episode of
season two. Fuck being busy.You know this idea of hustling, it
sounds all sexy. It's not.What it sounds like to me is this
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organization and an inability to be intimatewith the projects that you have at hand,
because you're constantly distracting yourself by tryingto find more things to do instead
of actually looking at why this problem, this challenge, this thing is you
know, why you're not fully givingit your all. And it's a hard
lesson to sit with. It's ahard thing to sit with because we're so
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conditioned to distract ourselves, and we'reso conditioned to look outside of ourselves,
and we're so you know, conditionedto stay busy as a way of being
productive member of society, that whatwe really miss out on is the healing
and the depth and the benefits ofintimacy. Right Like, when you're intimate
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with your partner and you feel thereceiving any of that intimacy, you feel
seen you feel loved connector a connectedYou feel this love that we don't get
to really feel in other ways inother places. And so this is what
we are robbing ourselves of when we'renot intimate with ourselves and in our lives,
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we miss this connection to something greater, We miss a presence, we
miss being seen. And so thenof course it makes sense that because we're
not being seen in ourselves by ourselves, we crave attention from others. We
you know, crave sexual attention,We crave a lot of men falling after
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us. We crave all the otherways social media, you know, bad
attention quote unquote, to be seen, to be validated, because we're not
seeing in validating ourselves. So beingintimate with ourselves it's really important, and
being intimated in our lives is reallyimportant, and being intimate with others is
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really important, and we rob ourselvesof all of those things by being busy
and distracted. I would add beingintimate with our businesses as well, because
those entrepreneurs, I think this islike c trap is that we get so
we say yes to everything and wejust keep hoping that what, you know,
the things we're saying yes to isgoing to take off, and we
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rob our, we deny ourselves fromdoing oftentimes, you know, the two
things a day that would move theneedle significantly further ahead than all of the
fifty things on our to do list. But those things are easier because they
don't cause discomfort. You know,sending out all these emails to people that
are probably never going to respond toyou is easy. Actually picking up a
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phone and making one phone call.It's going to you're going to have more
resistance. You're going to have morediscomfort with that, And so we avoid
doing that, and in not gettingintimate with our business, then we don't
create the results that we desire either. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, intimacy
is important. So I do wantto add another layer to why we're not
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really intimate. That kind of playsoff of what you said. Bury.
You know, what I've seen tobe true is that ever since a very
early age, we develop certain defensivemechanisms to protect ourselves from being hurt,
and we develop these patterns that keepus in a cycle of being triggered and
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being defensive and being closed off.And so we enter this trance every once
in a while where we're not evenreally aware that we're here. It's almost
like we disassociate and we operate inthis trance like experience where we're constantly reactive
and we're not really embodied or grounded. You know, you know that you're
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not embodied in your body. Forexample, when you accidentally leave a cup
of coffee on top of your carand you drop away, or when you
lock yourself out, or when youthrow away your keys, like these are
all signs that you're not really payingattention to what's here. Or when you
get to a location and you pullup and you're like, wait, I
don't remember a minute of the drivethat I just had. Yes, so
that's distraction. That's not being youknow, that's being distract And then if
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we take it to the next level, that's being in a trance is when
you you don't even recognize that you'rein a trance, but you can tell,
like you can tell that you're reactingand overreacting in ways that feels a
little bit superfluous for the circumstance.And when we're in a trance, we're
not in our bodies. When we'rein our trans we can't be intimate with
what's here. When we're in atransfer, disassociated, we're not grounded,
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and so the invitation is to noticewhen you're being in a trance, Notice
what triggered the trance, Notice thepattern, Notice when you're disconnected from your
body, and then bring yourself backto what is here, to your breath,
to your physical body. That's thebody is a great pathway for our
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presence. If you can come backto the body again and again, we
can start to address the chance.But we can't address the chance when we're
in a chance. That's it's allI had to say. So, Bree,
why don't you tell us, youknow, UM, maybe an area
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of your life where you're having challengesbeing intimate with or or you know,
an experience that you had where youhad to challenge being intimate with UM an
aspect of your life. Yeah,I mean my thing lately, it's totally
relating to my business. Is kindof what I said before that like I
have been avoiding you know, acertain two tasks on my list for the
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last I don't know, six weeks, and they're the things that require me
to show up in a really bigway. And you know, Facebook,
potential rejection and all of the thingsthat we face that just are so fucking
hard about being an entrepreneur. Andyou know, I've I've kind of put
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today in tomorrow as the like thethe do or die kind of, like,
you know, I really need tobe more intimate in this area of
my business. And honestly, alot of it is making a lot of
phone calls and there's I don't there'snot much that's more intimate than getting on
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the phone with someone get like apotential client. And man, it's it's
stressful. And I have been avoidingit and numbing myself from it and being
distracted and all of the things forway too long. And it's something that
I'm just I'm really seeing as affectingmy results. And I need to get
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to the place where I'm unwilling toaccept anything different. And I don't know
I'm there yet, but working onit. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
and intimacy also has to do withlike, well, what's stopping us from
doing the task more so than justforcing ourselves to do the task. Yeah,
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because procrastination is just a symptom.Well, and sometimes procrastination is intuition.
Yes, that's so, Yes,that is true in me. So
there's two different things. So Procrastinationcan either be you're procrastinating something because it's
not right for you, and that'swhere your intuition comes in and says this
isn't right for you. In mycase, I'm procrastinating because I know it's
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the exact right thing for me.Yeah, and I'm not doing it.
And yeah, of course there's stuffto look at there about like what are
the fears that are underlying that?What is the hesitation, what is the
resistance? And yeah, that's whatI'm doing today after I return all the
all the silverware and plates from ourdinner party. Well, and so I
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guess that's the point. That's thepoint of being intimate, is like really
being willing to ask yourselves some ofthe harder questions instead of taking it for
face value, you know, reallylooking into what is here? Why is
this relationship making me unhappy? Youknow? Why is this? Why do
I continue to, you know,do to engage in this activity even though
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I don't enjoy it? Like whydo I keep saying yes instead of taking
things at face value, really askingourselves the deeper questions. This is being
intimate. This is saying I'm willingto look and be seen. I'm willing
to take my life seriously. I'mwilling to not just live by default.
Oftentimes, too, I feel likewe make things way more complicated than they
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need to be. Like asking yourselfthat question is so simple, and oftentimes
the answer is so simple. Wekeep ourselves from doing that. We have
you know, we fill our plates, we distract ourselves, we make things
so fucking complicated, and really allit takes is just the sitting down and
asking those questions. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Oh And another
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way that you can tell you knowwhen you are having the inability of being
intimate is by how often you allowdistractions into your life. Right, So
it's that judgment. But notice ifyou're in a conversation with someone and you're
standing right in front of them,and then you just start pulling out your
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phone, right, And it's sothat prevents you from being intimate with that
person. You just blocked the energyand no one can multitask, so you
are not fully listening to the conversationif you're also on your phone. Bullshit,
Right, So notice where you maybe having a moment in line,
or you know, talking to somebody, or you're engaging in the task and
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then you find yourself on your phone, you find yourself checking social media,
you find yourself, you know,being disconnected. That's a great place where
you may be scared or not usedto being intimate with the moment and here
and what's here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, So we are going to
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bring Alexei on in a minute.We'll be talking a little bit more about
getting intimate with your life. Howto you know, clear your plate a
little bit and really focus on what'simportant. So any last closing brilliance.
I don't know, this is abig topic, and I just think the
invitation here is, you know,begin do the work of noticing where you
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lack intimacy in your life, whereyou're not really engaged, while you're not
really looking, where you're distracting yourself. I'm just a getting curious to why
that is. And the more thatwe can be intimate in our lives,
the more the more love we're goingto feel. Awesome. Well, let's
bring alexe Yan and continue this amplifiedconversation. Let's all right, amplifiers,
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we have an especially radiant, beautiful, kick ass powerful guest for you today.
It's so funny, Brue, andit came on to zoom to record
this podcast, and we've just ledan event last night, so we both
look like a hot mess. Andthen Alexei comes on and she looks like
this radiant goddess. Her hair isall beautiful, so I felt like we
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had to add that. Well,thank you. I don't want to have
context of what this interview is goingto be like, so let me all
introduce you to Miss Alexei Panos.Alexei is a truth junkie, reality architect,
tray insformational badass, and the newit girl on the personal development scene,
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leading with unique style and undeniable soul. Whether she's facilitating workshops for some
of the world's brightest minds, inspiringYouTubers with her compelling video series, or
dishing her personal lessons and breakthroughs inher writings, Alexei shoots straight from the
heart and takes no prisoners. Shebelieves we can live big and be epic
when we throw away our nasty programmedself doubt and radically radiate our divine nature.
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Alexei has inspired hundreds of thousands ofpeople to step into their personal greatness
through her various multimedia, speaking andgive back platforms. Her diverse background as
a TV host, producer, philanthropist, and model gives her a leg up
in the personal development space as she'sredefining what it means to be quote unquote
spiritual, inspiring the lives of bothyoung and old generations alike. Her nonprofit
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organization Epic Everyday People Initiating Change hasbrought clean, sustainable water to tens of
thousands of people in Africa over thelast ten years, developed countless global leaders
through their fellowship program, and hasbrought her closer to her own personal truth
throughout the journey. Welcome, missAlexei. Thank you so much. I'm
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so happy to be here. Solet's start off the way we always start
off. Alexei, tell us whatdoes it look like for you to live
and amplified life. Well, firstof all, I love that word amplified.
Amplified to me means that you're turnedon, that you are just like
radiating at the highest frequency. You'resaying yes to all those dreams and all
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those missions on your heart, andyou're doing it unapologetically, and you're doing
it from the space of bigness,where you know, we're so used to
living in a world of being smalland dimming our light, but amplified means
just shining and radiating it out becausewe know that it's our gift and to
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live that way and apologetically is trulywhy we're here. I love it.
So let's talk about since I knowyou do a lot of this work,
what do you think is then maybenumber one? I know that's hard to
say, so one of the numberone ways or reasons for why we tend
to play small. Yeah, Ithink the biggest thing is we care what
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other people think, you know,And this was a part of my journey
for so long where I was soconsumed with how other people would perceive me
and what judgments they were potentially makingabout me. Because ultimately, the human
species we want to fit in.We want to meld into a tribe,
and that tribe if we feel likethat tribe is going to judge us and
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condemn us, and you know,basically want to separate themselves from us,
then it hits our survival mechanisms.So it's a natural human quality to want
to be liked and to want tobe approved of, but we've let that
get a little bit out of hand, and we even unfortunately let that thing
just like consume us and We seeit in our media. We see it
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in our magazines, where it's thisculture of I have to look a certain
way, talk a certain way,be a certain way, have a certain
amount of intellect, go to acertain school, have a certain title or
position, have X amount of followersin order to be approved of. And
it's just simply not true. Sotell us about your story, like how
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did oh you had a question Iwas just curious about, you know,
like how did you go from kindof caring to maybe reigining that caring in
a little bit. Well, yeah, that's a lot of my question too,
because you do come from that industry, you know, you tell you
come from modeling. You come fromthese areas where you have to give a
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shit what people less. So whatwas that switch for you? And how
do you how did you kind oflike manage that transformation? Yeah, you
know on this, I had beenin an entertainment and modeling industry since I
was a kid. My mom usedto be a talent agent, so I
grew up seeing what it did topeople, and I kind of saw behind
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the curtain. With my mom beinga talent agent, I would see all
of her models, you know,and I'm five six seven years old at
her office, and I see allof her models coming in and talking about
their castings and this, this andthat, and I just saw this constant
quest for approval. And in thatindustry, in the entertainment business, it's
you're constantly being told no, You'reconstantly being told you're not enough. You're
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not pretty enough, you're not commercialenough, you're not high fashioned enough,
you're not tall enough, you're notshort enough, you're not skinny enough,
you're not big enough, you're notcurving enough. I mean, you name
it. You are being told thatyou are not fitting into their mold.
And I saw how damaging that couldbe to people. And there was a
point when I was in my earlytwenties, after particularly hardcore traumatic event that
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I went through where I was rapedand sexually assaulted, where my self esteem
was just shattered, shattered, completelyshattered. And I remember at that point,
I was in the industry, inthe music industry, seguing back into
modeling and entertainment. I let allthat stuff get to me so bad,
and I literally just felt consumed bytrying to mold myself into what I thought
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they wanted me to be so thatI could fit in so I could get
the job, so that I couldpay my bills, so I could survive,
and at one point I just foundmyself completely depleted and exhausted and not
knowing who I was. And itwas in one of my trips in Africa,
in Tanzania, where we're in thiscommunity and you know, these women
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are just so powerful and so incredibleand so extraordinary, and they don't think
about those things, and you cansee the immense amount of happiness and gratitude
and celebration that they live lead theirlives from. And it was in those
moments where I just I saw howdifferent I was from that, how lost
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I was, and how separate Iwas from my own joy. Just they're
seeing the joy of these women whoyou know, seemingly have quote unquote nothing,
who don't have clean water, whodon't have electricity, who sometimes don't
even have a roof over their heads, and yet they're tapped into their joy.
And it really got me down thepath of coming back home to myself.
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And it certainly wasn't an overnight journey, you know, it certainly was.
I feel like that'll be the journeyI'm on my entire lifetime. But
That's when it all started. Andthat's when I truly started to peel away
the layers of what society had laidout for me and said, you know
what we all have within us,exactly what we need. We've just been
looking in the wrong direction. We'vebeen looking out there instead of in here,
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and I started looking inside and that'swhen everything shifted from me. Awesome.
So I love that you talked abouthow like this is going to be
your journey for the rest of yourlife, because yes, I think oftentimes
with the self development industry, youknow, and just the society we live
in general, we want that quickfix. We want that hit, we
want that drug, we want thatthing that's just going to fix it and
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then it'll be over and it'll bedone with. Right. I have so
many clients come to me and Iteach them something or learn something. They're
like, Okay, I got itnow, yeh what I do? Now?
What exactly? You're like, Um, do you actually have it or
did you practice it? Once?Yeah? Yeah, I'm confused. So
question for you on those days now, because I know we all still have
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them when you're not finding the joy, or when you're struggling, or when
you're frustrated or those kinds of things, like how do you want do you
allow that within yourself? Because sooften I also feel in the industry,
we're like, well just be positive, right, Like fine, my biggest
freaking trigger, I hate that.So one, how do you allow yourself
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to be in that space? Andtwo then how do you tap back into
that joy, tap back into yourselfto find your way back to that path
again? Yeah? Well, youknow there's a saying that the only way
out is through, and that hasnever been more true for myself and my
clients. Um, you know,a deep ethos of my work is that
sadness and the feelings of anxiousness andanger and feeling lost, all of that
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is here for us to teach ussomething. It's here to guide us into
something. It's like a smoke alarmgoing off of your house saying, hey,
something's off, something's off. Andfor the most part, like you
were talking about, Bree, peoplewant to just spiritually bypass it, take
the batteries out, and be likethat is so freaking annoying, Like I
just don't want to hear the alarm, just shut up. And when my
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smoke alarms going off, Yeah,I know I'm totally guilty about and we
take the battery out and we're like, scirit, I just don't want to
hear it anymore. And meanwhile,something's off, right, something's off within
the house. And when it's ourhouse, we have to be a detective
and figure out what's actually off,like what's out of alignment in our bodies,
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where our emotions are being a signal, you know, they're signifying to
us that something is out of alignment. So it's it's really just for me,
I've changed my relationship to emotions.I used to make the emotions bad,
especially early on in my personal developmentjourney, when I was studying the
people who are all about like positiveaffirmations and just reframing your story and blah
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blah blah blah blah. I feltbad and wrong for having off days.
And now I recognize that the offdays are a part of life. Like
just like there's rainy days outside,there's sunny days outside, just like there's
tornadoes, there's you know, beautifulclear weather. Just like there's death,
there's life. And I think whenwe stop making the quote unquote bad things
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bad and we just start accepting thatit's a part of life, then our
whole relationship to its shifts, andthen we can say, Okay, how
do I want to be with what'shere? What do I want to use
this for? Because everything is herefor us if we choose to see it
that way. So I just lookat my emotions and I allow myself to
experience it, not in the termsof like being a victim and a martyr
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and you like going down that hole, but but in just acknowledging them and
saying, Okay, I'm experiencing sadnessright now, and I'm not even sure
why this particular event triggered it,but there's something deeper in there that's sitting
in me that doesn't feel right.And so I'll sit with my sadness for
as long as I need to,until I uncover what the cause of it
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is, until I uncover why.It's like beeping in that fire alarm,
going hey, there's smoke somewhere.So I find the smoke and then I
put out the fire. But Ialso know that putting out the fire doesn't
mean that there's never going to besadness again, or there's never going to
be feelings of unworthiness, or there'snever going to be feelings of anger,
because all of those are part ofthe human experience, It's a part of
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life. And we have just beenlike chasing good. We've been chasing good
for far too long, and wedon't get that that is the exact root
of all of our suffering, isthat we're chasing good. Oh so good.
I love this conversation. I justrecently wrote a blog post myself on
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the tyranny of positivity and how ourobsession with positivity is actually creating a less
resilient collective, a less resilient culturebecause we can't we can't handle stuff as
it comes up. And when I'mseeing a lot and I'm curious your thoughts
on this, is that in thestuff of development world specifically, we're most
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of us are operating from a worldthat we want to like, the world
that we want, versus the worldthat it is. Yes, And well,
I guess some of that is great, that you're idealistic and that you
see the greatness in the world.But if we're not using the tools to
address the world as it is,yes, we can't develop the world that
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we want. I love that.I think that's so powerful because listen,
it's a dance between presence and possibility. Possibility is amazing possibility. It's the
thing that drives human nature. Likewe want to grow, we want to
expand we want to evolve, wewant to get better. But there's life,
and it's like what is present hereand now is it's whatever it is,
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And if we're choosing to just stayin the possibility of what it can
be, we're missing the gold ofwhat's here. And we can't truly address
a systemic issue of what's here untilwe're truly present with what's here. And
I think a lot of people havethese idealistic views of how we want the
world to be and how things getto change, and I'm going to be
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a stand for that and yes,yes, yes, yes, yes,
And what are you doing in thenow moment with what's here and what's available
to address what's happening? And Ifeel like that's that's exact same thing.
Can we apply to ourselves totally?We get so obsessed with how we should
be, you know, how wewant to be our future selves, that
we forget to be radically present withwhere we are and honoring our limitations and
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honoring our messy and that that vehiclewe arrive at our possibility. Absolutely,
I want to read that article.By the way, this is so good,
the dance between presents and possibility.Breach Us quoted that to me,
She's like, so good. Ilove that. I mean, it's it's
really it is difficult because I,I, especially you know, deal so
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much with like manifestation and co creationand really looking into your future and creating
that vision. And I have hada few people push back on me and
be like, well, you know, but then I feel like I'm not
being present And it is a dance, like it is. You have to
be in the present moment, youknow, feel the experiences that are coming
up for you right now, andyou can still then look to the past
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and look to the present. SoI'm curious for you, how much,
like do you have any rituals orthings that you do to kind of like
play that dance. Do you spendmore time in the presence or in the
possibility? Like what how does thatlook like in your life? Yeah,
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you know, something that just cameto mind as you said that is the
possibility of our future vision is actuallyoccurring in the present moment right like who
we are in this now moment?The actions were taking the words we're choosing.
The way of being that we're exemplifyingout to the world and to ourselves
is ultimately creating our future possibility.So it is essentially the same thing,
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right, It's in essence the samething. So I think for me,
you know, there's a lot ofpeople that have the theory of you write
out your ten year vision and likepost it everywhere. I put vision boards
here and here and here, andI used to do that, and all
of that's great, and I'm notsaying there's anything wrong with it. But
if I'm not making decisions in thepresent moment to be my highest self and
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to move deeper into alignment with thetruth of who I am, then it
doesn't matter if I'm moving towards thatvision or that vision or that vision,
because if I'm doing it out ofalignment in the now, then I'm just
chasing some future, some ideas,some possibility that might even just be a
societal implant in my brain, youknow, where it's like, you should
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want this life, you should wantthe house on the beach, you should
want the car that looks like this, and the husband and the kids and
all that stuff versus going what's inmy highest alignment right now? What feels
good in my body? What feelslike a stretch, what feels like a
challenge, what feels like I'm honoringmy gifts? And for me, honestly,
like I always come back to it. And it's so simple. But
(32:02):
nature is like the freaking it's everything, It's the answer. Nature gives us
everything we ever need to know becausethe possibility of the oak tree in a
seed has always been there. It'salways been there, but it starts out
as a seed in this present moment. It's a seed. So what does
(32:23):
the seed need in the present moment? While it needs soil, it needs
a particular type of light and waterand nutrients, and every single day it's
gonna need different things, just likea baby. You think about developing a
baby in a woman's body. Everysingle day it needs different nutrients and different
things. But it's possibility is endless, right, It's going to be this
(32:45):
human with infinite possibilities and different lifepaths and who knows what's going to happen.
But if we're living in that futureidea of some day, we're never
actually making decisions that matter right now, So I think, oh, go
ahead. Oh I just I'm justsaying prea check. Girl. So I
did a scandalous thing the other dayor the other months, scandalous hashtag first
(33:10):
world white woman problems. But Idecided to throw away my vision board.
Yeah. You know, I lovethe process of creating vision boards to girlfriends
and talking about possibilities. I thinkwe all do. We love that energy
of talking about what's possible. Butthen every time I start on my vision
board, I just felt deeply inadequatefor not having that right now. Yeah,
(33:32):
and I just kept thinking, Wow, that really sucks that I've been
staring at that same picture for ninemonths and I'm still I still, in
no way, shape or form,have that in my life. I must
not be doing enough, working hardenough, you know, all the enoughness.
And I really had to realize andcome to terms. So that just
doesn't inspire me. To some people, it is radically inspiring to them,
(33:53):
and they see it as a fuelof possibility that keeps them moving. But
to me, it wasn't inspiring me. And so giving ourselves that permission to
really look at what that balance lookslike for us. For me, it's
more presence than possibility for Bree,I know it's more possibility than presence,
and it's what works, what worksfor you right now, what works tomorrow,
(34:15):
the next day, etc. Totally. I love it you're bringing that
up. I read somewhere and Idon't know where, so I'm sorry who
ever wrote this, but I hopeI read somewhere that there's six different types
of people. There's the future positive, the future negative. There's a present
positive, present negative, past positive, past negative, and that means our
(34:37):
focus. So there are certain peoplewho are future focused, and some are
geared and lean more in towards thepositive, more towards the negative, staying
for present and saying for past.So if you start looking at your life
through that lens, like what amI actually focused on? Some people instantly,
like you can think of people inyour life and you're like, oh,
they're past negative. They're the peoplewho talk about the past and they're
(35:00):
victims to their past and everyone's anasshole and blah blah blah blah. Then
there's people who are past positive,who are reminiscent of the past and living
in the past highlights and the heydaysand all that stuff. And there's people
who are present and like present tolike the gifts and the beauty and the
magic. And then then there's alsopeople who are looking for what's not working
right now right And we can reallystart to see ourselves in that paradigm.
(35:24):
And like you said, if youcan figure out where you skew where your
focus lifelies, you can really startto find out what motivates you. So,
if you are a future person,then vision boards and affirmations and all
that stuff might be really powerful foryou. If you're a presence person,
maybe going for a walk in natureor somewhere really beautiful or being with someone
(35:45):
you love is enough for you toreally tap into that juiciness, right.
And if you're someone from the past, maybe reframing your past and you know,
having images around of beautiful positive momentsfrom your past will support you in
having a more positive now. Sowe really do have to know where we
where we skew our focus and thenwork within ourselves and within our own needs
(36:07):
to develop what works for us.That's really interesting. I like that a
lot, Like that a lot.Yeah, my question would be so I
am future positive, hands down absolutely, And I've been doing a lot more
to bring in like present positive stuffso what's your view then on pulling like
(36:30):
knowing where you lie but then tryingto I guess it's that conversation of like
strength, So I know I'm strongin this area, do I try to
bring up my weaknesses? I lovethis question. I love this question.
Yeah, because I don't know aboutyou girls, but I'm one of those
people I like to like classify myselfas much as possible, So I'm taking
my personality tests and strength finders,like, how can I classify myself one
(36:54):
more time? Yeah? But thatright, that all being said, like,
Okay, so I'm an I nf J cool, awesome, But
does that not mean that with thatawareness, now I can kind of rise
(37:15):
above a personality type. You know, yes I am. I actually am
a present positive person, but I'mworking on being more of a possibility future
positive person where I'm leaning deeper intothat. So I do believe that we
can work on the areas we wantto work on. It doesn't mean we
(37:37):
have to have them all down,pat, but you know, like you
said, if you've got strengths ina certain area and you know that there's
areas of improvement that you're like,man, that would really support what I'm
up to in the world that wouldreally support my communication with my family and
my friends, or that would reallysupport who I am as a human being,
then hell yeah, Like, youcan absolutely learn anything, and it's
(37:59):
just a matter of being willing tohave that gross mindset and be in the
game and fail a bunch of timesand look stupid and get back up and
do it again. But there aresome things that maybe don't necessarily need in
your life and you're okay with nothaving. So I really think it's a
personal choice. But I absolutely likemy work is and my husband's work,
(38:20):
we're always looking at figuring out howwe identify and then how can we rise
above the identification. Yeah awesome,And also clearly since we're opposites, maybe
we should hang out more often andlike balance each other totally. Well,
it's just also really interesting. Imean, this is something that I know
spiritual women do a lot too,which is well, I'm a Gemini,
(38:44):
so obviously that's that's why I dowhat I do. And then they don't
take into responsibility for the shittiness ofwhat just happened. It's right as if
they're a Gemini. Well I aman I am blah. Blah blah.
So I can't possibly go out toan event that's outside of my comforts,
but I would actually be really goodfor me. And so it's really learning
how to use these labels, likeyou said, and then stepping outside of
(39:07):
them, knowing that we are beyondany label, and a label does not
hook us off of the responsibility ofthe impact of our actions. Yes,
absolutely, and listen, labels arebased on our personality type, which is
a product of our identity, whichis a product of our ego. So
if you want to talk like spiritualCore, you are everything and nothing all
(39:28):
at the same time, right,So it's like you are introvert, you
are extrovert, you are you know, an NSP and an I NFP.
Like spirit doesn't have a label becauseit is all but identity. Personality.
Ego absolutely has a label because it'sgot all these different things that have shaped
it. So of course it's goingto have certain things that it leans towards.
(39:50):
And whether it's your birth sign orhowever we want to label ourselves.
Yes, it's true with a lowercasetea to some extent, but it's not
capital T truth because the capital Ttruth of who we are is everything so
we can embody all of which wesee in everybody else. The only way
we can see it and recognize itis because we have it within ourselves.
(40:13):
And we can also choose not toembody that. So it really is it
boils down to choice for sure.Oh my gosh, I love it.
So let's talk real quick before wewrap up, Like what's next for you?
Like what's exciting you? What areyou, you know, kind of
stepping into, Like maybe what's achallenge that you're experiencing as you're stepping into
(40:34):
this new thing? Well, youknow what's interesting. I am a classic
overachiever. Classic. We have agreat club started fantastic. I'm going to
need a full membership. I ama classic overachiever, and I have so
many ideas, and I'm like oneof those people that I believe I can
(40:58):
do anything. So it's like Ihave an idea, It's like, great,
I'll just start it and do itand figure it out. And that's
worked really well for me my entirelife. And I'm finally at the point
at thirty three where I'm getting essential. I'm like, Okay, yes I
have all these great ideas, YesI can do all these different things.
(41:19):
Yes, I can serve in allthese different ways. Yes, I could
build more of an impact if Idid X, Y, and Z a
thousand different times. But what's essential? What's essential? Like if I boiled
down to like what's essential in mywork, what's essential in my relationship,
what's essential in my environment, what'sessential in my service? If I boiled
down to that and really just goso deep on what's essential, then it
(41:45):
just it leaves room. And roomis something Space is something that I am
so not used to, like havingroom on my plate, you know,
it's like, oh, there's roomhere. You know, I'm the person
who had a buffet fills my platewith everything. And in the buffet of
life, I'm choosing and consciously andintentionally practicing what it's like to leave some
(42:08):
space. And that's been really hardfor me, like really hard for me
to slow down because I am practicedin achieving, I'm practiced in doing,
I'm practiced in you know, accomplishments. So for me, that has been
probably the biggest challenge of my lifeis saying no to things that are really
(42:30):
exciting and leaving space, leaving spacefor possibility. Again, because I'm such
a present person, like let's justdo this right now that I'm leaving space
for possibility, possibility of the family, possibility of just magic, you know,
like who knows what it is.But I just want to play with
(42:50):
space because that is not something thatI'm very good at yet. Yeah,
Brie and I have been experiencing alot of that too, but for us
it's more of the verse induced spacemore than y. So we've been navigating
the challenge of really stepping back fromthat achiever and sitting with what's here,
(43:13):
And yeah, really amazing how challengingthat is for in our society totally,
especially if you're so used to,like I'm so used to being defined by
my achievements, Like since I waslittle, you know, I was a
good student, I was a goodathlete, I was creative, I had
a business at a young age.So I was constantly getting feedback that if
(43:34):
I do, then I'm worthy,then I'm good, then I'm you know,
a step above the rest. Andwho am I without that? Who
am I without all the dudes?Who am I without keeping up with all
the people in my industry who havethis kind of course in this kind of
course, Like who am I ifI don't do that. And I've been
really sitting in that question and lettingthat unpack, and it's been awesome and
(43:57):
challenging and scary and expand it's beengreat, oh so good. So I
oh, go ahead, it's gonnasay. I was just gifted a book
called The One and it's a similarconcept where you Yes, I love that
book. I've just read the introso far, but I'm really excited to
get into it. And it isabout focusing on like one thing, and
how fucking uncomfortable it is, yesfor us to just pick, like pick
(44:22):
one thing, and one one thingreally well, and it's like but but
but you know exactly. I startedworking with um some marketing people and they
were like, get off LinkedIn,get off Twitter, get off Instagram.
And I was like, okay,I'm putting my foot down with the Instagram
thing. And they were like,no, like pick one and I'm like,
(44:43):
god damn it. It's so hardthat intimate now, that one thing.
I know. I know, butit's because there's so many options now,
especially, I mean we see itin everything. We see it in
business, we see in social media, we see it in dating, Like
there are so many options that it'shard to commit. It's really hard to
(45:04):
commit. You know. My momused to joke when we moved from Brazil
to the US, she would spendhours at the grocery store because just picking
a fucking toothpaste talk like, youknow, half an hour, because there's
so many options, and there's definitelya thing of like overwhelm of options and
how in many ways this consumeristic obsessionwith all of the options is actually really
(45:27):
hurting not only our productivity from thestandpoint of being more effective, but also
in our ability to just be withwhat is. Yeah, it's so true.
It's so true. Well, we'reexcited to continue this conversation with you
in our extended cut. If youwant to hear more about what Alexei has
to share in the world, pleasejoin our Facebook group be Amplified dot community
(45:51):
Alexei. Where can people learn aboutyou and your work. You can check
me out all over the web atAlexei Panos dot com or at Alexei Panos
on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.I love it. Go check out her
YouTube. It's fantastic. She isShe's an artist in front of a camera.
Thank you, all right, guys, we will continue this on Facebook.
(46:15):
If you want to find us anywhereelse, you can go at the
amplified co on all the socials andagain join us in our community at be
amplified dot community Peace and Greece.
You're listening to be Amplified the Podcastwith Brian Tais, episode fifty seven.
Hey, Amplifiers, welcome to beAmplified the Podcast. My name is Tayis
and I'm Bree Siley. We arethe co founders of the Amplified Collective,
a movement aimed at radically disrupting howpurpose driven women connect and operate in the
(00:21):
world, because we believe it's notjust what you do, but who you
are that matters. Each week,join us for messages and interviews that will
leave you feeling amplified and ready tochange the world. Let's do this.
Hello, Amplifiers, it's Monday.Hey, it's Taisky, that's Braeciley.
(00:42):
We sit in closets and talk allthings truths and we're here on this beautiful
Los Angeles day as always, asalways, it's always beautiful in LA.
We have a okay is it isfucking hot though this week, so I
don't know five yeah, um,But we have an incredible guest today,
(01:03):
Lexi Pantos comes to us, alsofrom Los Angeles. Um, although now
she's kind of around the water.Yeah. Uh. So we have her
on later and she is divine andspeaks a lot of beautiful truths. Um.
But before we bring her on brand, I'm gonna we're gonna do some
riffing, as we usual, becausethat's what we do. What are we
talking about today? We are talkingabout? Don't you remember we just talked
(01:27):
about it? What are we talkingabout? Just trying to be cool and
ask you conversation we are talking aboutWe're gonna talk a little bit about UM
intimacy and not necessarily in like physicalsex ways, although my mom would love
it if we did, but morelike intimacy in terms of UM, the
(01:52):
busyness that we all find ourselves inthe ways that we don't UM. We
overload our lives. We have somuch going on that we're unwilling to really
be present and be connected to thethings that are here. Right, Ye,
exactly, yep, that's exactly whatwe're gonna be talking about, the
(02:13):
intimacy of our lives. What doesit mean to be intimate in our lives?
And by the way, it isthe same, it's the same definition
of intimacy with a partner. Likewhat's required for you to be intimate with
a partner? It requires your presence, it requires your engagement, it requires
an open heart, right Intimacy requirescommunication. Intimacy it requires a lot of
(02:34):
things, and it's the same thingsthat are required to be intimate with your
life, except we're talking about lifeand not just a partnership. And so
let's dive into this idea of beingintimate with our lives. Let's so one
of the things that I have seenabout intimacy, and like I've kind of
said in the little intro is weas humans tend to avoid things that are
(03:00):
uncomfortable. Just it's like the humancondition, It's like our thing. We
just don't want to be uncomfortable.Ever, so we just avoid the things
that make us uncomfortable. Even ifthose things have ridiculously awesome, amazing,
you know, expansive, crazy results, we still avoid them. And so
instead of getting intimate with that avoidance, with that fear, with that hesitation
(03:24):
that's coming up within ourselves, wetake on more things. We say yes
to everything, We overload our calendar. Yeah, exactly. We find all
of these ways. It's like puttingon one of those sumo suits, right,
and you've got all of this patting, all these layers that are keeping
you from really connecting with and beingpresent with the thing that's there. Well.
(03:51):
So, I'm sure I've shared thisin the past, but I've heard
this someone. I loved it somuch that business is an intimacy issue.
Yes, because fuck being busy.Actually that was our first podcast episode of
season two. Fuck being busy.You know this idea of hustling, it
sounds all sexy. It's not.What it sounds like to me is this
(04:11):
organization and an inability to be intimatewith the projects that you have at hand,
because you're constantly distracting yourself by tryingto find more things to do instead
of actually looking at why this problem, this challenge, this thing is you
know, why you're not fully givingit your all. And it's a hard
lesson to sit with. It's ahard thing to sit with because we're so
(04:33):
conditioned to distract ourselves, and we'reso conditioned to look outside of ourselves,
and we're so you know, conditionedto stay busy as a way of being
productive member of society, that whatwe really miss out on is the healing
and the depth and the benefits ofintimacy. Right Like, when you're intimate
(04:55):
with your partner and you feel thereceiving any of that intimacy, you feel
seen you feel loved connector a connectedYou feel this love that we don't get
to really feel in other ways inother places. And so this is what
we are robbing ourselves of when we'renot intimate with ourselves and in our lives,
(05:17):
we miss this connection to something greater, We miss a presence, we
miss being seen. And so thenof course it makes sense that because we're
not being seen in ourselves by ourselves, we crave attention from others. We
you know, crave sexual attention,We crave a lot of men falling after
(05:40):
us. We crave all the otherways social media, you know, bad
attention quote unquote, to be seen, to be validated, because we're not
seeing in validating ourselves. So beingintimate with ourselves it's really important, and
being intimated in our lives is reallyimportant, and being intimate with others is
(06:00):
really important, and we rob ourselvesof all of those things by being busy
and distracted. I would add beingintimate with our businesses as well, because
those entrepreneurs, I think this islike c trap is that we get so
we say yes to everything and wejust keep hoping that what, you know,
the things we're saying yes to isgoing to take off, and we
(06:23):
rob our, we deny ourselves fromdoing oftentimes, you know, the two
things a day that would move theneedle significantly further ahead than all of the
fifty things on our to do list. But those things are easier because they
don't cause discomfort. You know,sending out all these emails to people that
are probably never going to respond toyou is easy. Actually picking up a
(06:46):
phone and making one phone call.It's going to you're going to have more
resistance. You're going to have morediscomfort with that, And so we avoid
doing that, and in not gettingintimate with our business, then we don't
create the results that we desire either. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, intimacy
is important. So I do wantto add another layer to why we're not
(07:06):
really intimate. That kind of playsoff of what you said. Bury.
You know, what I've seen tobe true is that ever since a very
early age, we develop certain defensivemechanisms to protect ourselves from being hurt,
and we develop these patterns that keepus in a cycle of being triggered and
(07:30):
being defensive and being closed off.And so we enter this trance every once
in a while where we're not evenreally aware that we're here. It's almost
like we disassociate and we operate inthis trance like experience where we're constantly reactive
and we're not really embodied or grounded. You know, you know that you're
(07:53):
not embodied in your body. Forexample, when you accidentally leave a cup
of coffee on top of your carand you drop away, or when you
lock yourself out, or when youthrow away your keys, like these are
all signs that you're not really payingattention to what's here. Or when you
get to a location and you pullup and you're like, wait, I
don't remember a minute of the drivethat I just had. Yes, so
that's distraction. That's not being youknow, that's being distract And then if
(08:16):
we take it to the next level, that's being in a trance is when
you you don't even recognize that you'rein a trance, but you can tell,
like you can tell that you're reactingand overreacting in ways that feels a
little bit superfluous for the circumstance.And when we're in a trance, we're
not in our bodies. When we'rein our trans we can't be intimate with
what's here. When we're in atransfer, disassociated, we're not grounded,
(08:37):
and so the invitation is to noticewhen you're being in a trance, Notice
what triggered the trance, Notice thepattern, Notice when you're disconnected from your
body, and then bring yourself backto what is here, to your breath,
to your physical body. That's thebody is a great pathway for our
(08:58):
presence. If you can come backto the body again and again, we
can start to address the chance.But we can't address the chance when we're
in a chance. That's it's allI had to say. So, Bree,
why don't you tell us, youknow, UM, maybe an area
(09:20):
of your life where you're having challengesbeing intimate with or or you know,
an experience that you had where youhad to challenge being intimate with UM an
aspect of your life. Yeah,I mean my thing lately, it's totally
relating to my business. Is kindof what I said before that like I
have been avoiding you know, acertain two tasks on my list for the
(09:45):
last I don't know, six weeks, and they're the things that require me
to show up in a really bigway. And you know, Facebook,
potential rejection and all of the thingsthat we face that just are so fucking
hard about being an entrepreneur. Andyou know, I've I've kind of put
(10:09):
today in tomorrow as the like thethe do or die kind of, like,
you know, I really need tobe more intimate in this area of
my business. And honestly, alot of it is making a lot of
phone calls and there's I don't there'snot much that's more intimate than getting on
(10:31):
the phone with someone get like apotential client. And man, it's it's
stressful. And I have been avoidingit and numbing myself from it and being
distracted and all of the things forway too long. And it's something that
I'm just I'm really seeing as affectingmy results. And I need to get
(10:54):
to the place where I'm unwilling toaccept anything different. And I don't know
I'm there yet, but working onit. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
and intimacy also has to do withlike, well, what's stopping us from
doing the task more so than justforcing ourselves to do the task. Yeah,
(11:18):
because procrastination is just a symptom.Well, and sometimes procrastination is intuition.
Yes, that's so, Yes,that is true in me. So
there's two different things. So Procrastinationcan either be you're procrastinating something because it's
not right for you, and that'swhere your intuition comes in and says this
isn't right for you. In mycase, I'm procrastinating because I know it's
(11:43):
the exact right thing for me.Yeah, and I'm not doing it.
And yeah, of course there's stuffto look at there about like what are
the fears that are underlying that?What is the hesitation, what is the
resistance? And yeah, that's whatI'm doing today after I return all the
all the silverware and plates from ourdinner party. Well, and so I
(12:03):
guess that's the point. That's thepoint of being intimate, is like really
being willing to ask yourselves some ofthe harder questions instead of taking it for
face value, you know, reallylooking into what is here? Why is
this relationship making me unhappy? Youknow? Why is this? Why do
I continue to, you know,do to engage in this activity even though
(12:26):
I don't enjoy it? Like whydo I keep saying yes instead of taking
things at face value, really askingourselves the deeper questions. This is being
intimate. This is saying I'm willingto look and be seen. I'm willing
to take my life seriously. I'mwilling to not just live by default.
Oftentimes, too, I feel likewe make things way more complicated than they
(12:48):
need to be. Like asking yourselfthat question is so simple, and oftentimes
the answer is so simple. Wekeep ourselves from doing that. We have
you know, we fill our plates, we distract ourselves, we make things
so fucking complicated, and really allit takes is just the sitting down and
asking those questions. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Oh And another
(13:15):
way that you can tell you knowwhen you are having the inability of being
intimate is by how often you allowdistractions into your life. Right, So
it's that judgment. But notice ifyou're in a conversation with someone and you're
standing right in front of them,and then you just start pulling out your
(13:37):
phone, right, And it's sothat prevents you from being intimate with that
person. You just blocked the energyand no one can multitask, so you
are not fully listening to the conversationif you're also on your phone. Bullshit,
Right, So notice where you maybe having a moment in line,
or you know, talking to somebody, or you're engaging in the task and
(13:58):
then you find yourself on your phone, you find yourself checking social media,
you find yourself, you know,being disconnected. That's a great place where
you may be scared or not usedto being intimate with the moment and here
and what's here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, So we are going to
(14:20):
bring Alexei on in a minute.We'll be talking a little bit more about
getting intimate with your life. Howto you know, clear your plate a
little bit and really focus on what'simportant. So any last closing brilliance.
I don't know, this is abig topic, and I just think the
invitation here is, you know,begin do the work of noticing where you
(14:43):
lack intimacy in your life, whereyou're not really engaged, while you're not
really looking, where you're distracting yourself. I'm just a getting curious to why
that is. And the more thatwe can be intimate in our lives,
the more the more love we're goingto feel. Awesome. Well, let's
bring alexe Yan and continue this amplifiedconversation. Let's all right, amplifiers,
(15:16):
we have an especially radiant, beautiful, kick ass powerful guest for you today.
It's so funny, Brue, andit came on to zoom to record
this podcast, and we've just ledan event last night, so we both
look like a hot mess. Andthen Alexei comes on and she looks like
this radiant goddess. Her hair isall beautiful, so I felt like we
(15:41):
had to add that. Well,thank you. I don't want to have
context of what this interview is goingto be like, so let me all
introduce you to Miss Alexei Panos.Alexei is a truth junkie, reality architect,
tray insformational badass, and the newit girl on the personal development scene,
(16:03):
leading with unique style and undeniable soul. Whether she's facilitating workshops for some
of the world's brightest minds, inspiringYouTubers with her compelling video series, or
dishing her personal lessons and breakthroughs inher writings, Alexei shoots straight from the
heart and takes no prisoners. Shebelieves we can live big and be epic
when we throw away our nasty programmedself doubt and radically radiate our divine nature.
(16:30):
Alexei has inspired hundreds of thousands ofpeople to step into their personal greatness
through her various multimedia, speaking andgive back platforms. Her diverse background as
a TV host, producer, philanthropist, and model gives her a leg up
in the personal development space as she'sredefining what it means to be quote unquote
spiritual, inspiring the lives of bothyoung and old generations alike. Her nonprofit
(16:55):
organization Epic Everyday People Initiating Change hasbrought clean, sustainable water to tens of
thousands of people in Africa over thelast ten years, developed countless global leaders
through their fellowship program, and hasbrought her closer to her own personal truth
throughout the journey. Welcome, missAlexei. Thank you so much. I'm
(17:17):
so happy to be here. Solet's start off the way we always start
off. Alexei, tell us whatdoes it look like for you to live
and amplified life. Well, firstof all, I love that word amplified.
Amplified to me means that you're turnedon, that you are just like
radiating at the highest frequency. You'resaying yes to all those dreams and all
(17:38):
those missions on your heart, andyou're doing it unapologetically, and you're doing
it from the space of bigness,where you know, we're so used to
living in a world of being smalland dimming our light, but amplified means
just shining and radiating it out becausewe know that it's our gift and to
(17:59):
live that way and apologetically is trulywhy we're here. I love it.
So let's talk about since I knowyou do a lot of this work,
what do you think is then maybenumber one? I know that's hard to
say, so one of the numberone ways or reasons for why we tend
to play small. Yeah, Ithink the biggest thing is we care what
(18:21):
other people think, you know,And this was a part of my journey
for so long where I was soconsumed with how other people would perceive me
and what judgments they were potentially makingabout me. Because ultimately, the human
species we want to fit in.We want to meld into a tribe,
and that tribe if we feel likethat tribe is going to judge us and
(18:42):
condemn us, and you know,basically want to separate themselves from us,
then it hits our survival mechanisms.So it's a natural human quality to want
to be liked and to want tobe approved of, but we've let that
get a little bit out of hand, and we even unfortunately let that thing
just like consume us and We seeit in our media. We see it
(19:06):
in our magazines, where it's thisculture of I have to look a certain
way, talk a certain way,be a certain way, have a certain
amount of intellect, go to acertain school, have a certain title or
position, have X amount of followersin order to be approved of. And
it's just simply not true. Sotell us about your story, like how
(19:27):
did oh you had a question Iwas just curious about, you know,
like how did you go from kindof caring to maybe reigining that caring in
a little bit. Well, yeah, that's a lot of my question too,
because you do come from that industry, you know, you tell you
come from modeling. You come fromthese areas where you have to give a
(19:49):
shit what people less. So whatwas that switch for you? And how
do you how did you kind oflike manage that transformation? Yeah, you
know on this, I had beenin an entertainment and modeling industry since I
was a kid. My mom usedto be a talent agent, so I
grew up seeing what it did topeople, and I kind of saw behind
(20:10):
the curtain. With my mom beinga talent agent, I would see all
of her models, you know,and I'm five six seven years old at
her office, and I see allof her models coming in and talking about
their castings and this, this andthat, and I just saw this constant
quest for approval. And in thatindustry, in the entertainment business, it's
you're constantly being told no, You'reconstantly being told you're not enough. You're
(20:33):
not pretty enough, you're not commercialenough, you're not high fashioned enough,
you're not tall enough, you're notshort enough, you're not skinny enough,
you're not big enough, you're notcurving enough. I mean, you name
it. You are being told thatyou are not fitting into their mold.
And I saw how damaging that couldbe to people. And there was a
point when I was in my earlytwenties, after particularly hardcore traumatic event that
(20:56):
I went through where I was rapedand sexually assaulted, where my self esteem
was just shattered, shattered, completelyshattered. And I remember at that point,
I was in the industry, inthe music industry, seguing back into
modeling and entertainment. I let allthat stuff get to me so bad,
and I literally just felt consumed bytrying to mold myself into what I thought
(21:22):
they wanted me to be so thatI could fit in so I could get
the job, so that I couldpay my bills, so I could survive,
and at one point I just foundmyself completely depleted and exhausted and not
knowing who I was. And itwas in one of my trips in Africa,
in Tanzania, where we're in thiscommunity and you know, these women
(21:44):
are just so powerful and so incredibleand so extraordinary, and they don't think
about those things, and you cansee the immense amount of happiness and gratitude
and celebration that they live lead theirlives from. And it was in those
moments where I just I saw howdifferent I was from that, how lost
(22:07):
I was, and how separate Iwas from my own joy. Just they're
seeing the joy of these women whoyou know, seemingly have quote unquote nothing,
who don't have clean water, whodon't have electricity, who sometimes don't
even have a roof over their heads, and yet they're tapped into their joy.
And it really got me down thepath of coming back home to myself.
(22:29):
And it certainly wasn't an overnight journey, you know, it certainly was.
I feel like that'll be the journeyI'm on my entire lifetime. But
That's when it all started. Andthat's when I truly started to peel away
the layers of what society had laidout for me and said, you know
what we all have within us,exactly what we need. We've just been
looking in the wrong direction. We'vebeen looking out there instead of in here,
(22:53):
and I started looking inside and that'swhen everything shifted from me. Awesome.
So I love that you talked abouthow like this is going to be
your journey for the rest of yourlife, because yes, I think oftentimes
with the self development industry, youknow, and just the society we live
in general, we want that quickfix. We want that hit, we
want that drug, we want thatthing that's just going to fix it and
(23:15):
then it'll be over and it'll bedone with. Right. I have so
many clients come to me and Iteach them something or learn something. They're
like, Okay, I got itnow, yeh what I do? Now?
What exactly? You're like, Um, do you actually have it or
did you practice it? Once?Yeah? Yeah, I'm confused. So
question for you on those days now, because I know we all still have
(23:40):
them when you're not finding the joy, or when you're struggling, or when
you're frustrated or those kinds of things, like how do you want do you
allow that within yourself? Because sooften I also feel in the industry,
we're like, well just be positive, right, Like fine, my biggest
freaking trigger, I hate that.So one, how do you allow yourself
(24:02):
to be in that space? Andtwo then how do you tap back into
that joy, tap back into yourselfto find your way back to that path
again? Yeah? Well, youknow there's a saying that the only way
out is through, and that hasnever been more true for myself and my
clients. Um, you know,a deep ethos of my work is that
sadness and the feelings of anxiousness andanger and feeling lost, all of that
(24:30):
is here for us to teach ussomething. It's here to guide us into
something. It's like a smoke alarmgoing off of your house saying, hey,
something's off, something's off. Andfor the most part, like you
were talking about, Bree, peoplewant to just spiritually bypass it, take
the batteries out, and be likethat is so freaking annoying, Like I
just don't want to hear the alarm, just shut up. And when my
(24:52):
smoke alarms going off, Yeah,I know I'm totally guilty about and we
take the battery out and we're like, scirit, I just don't want to
hear it anymore. And meanwhile,something's off, right, something's off within
the house. And when it's ourhouse, we have to be a detective
and figure out what's actually off,like what's out of alignment in our bodies,
(25:15):
where our emotions are being a signal, you know, they're signifying to
us that something is out of alignment. So it's it's really just for me,
I've changed my relationship to emotions.I used to make the emotions bad,
especially early on in my personal developmentjourney, when I was studying the
people who are all about like positiveaffirmations and just reframing your story and blah
(25:38):
blah blah blah blah. I feltbad and wrong for having off days.
And now I recognize that the offdays are a part of life. Like
just like there's rainy days outside,there's sunny days outside, just like there's
tornadoes, there's you know, beautifulclear weather. Just like there's death,
there's life. And I think whenwe stop making the quote unquote bad things
(26:02):
bad and we just start accepting thatit's a part of life, then our
whole relationship to its shifts, andthen we can say, Okay, how
do I want to be with what'shere? What do I want to use
this for? Because everything is herefor us if we choose to see it
that way. So I just lookat my emotions and I allow myself to
experience it, not in the termsof like being a victim and a martyr
(26:25):
and you like going down that hole, but but in just acknowledging them and
saying, Okay, I'm experiencing sadnessright now, and I'm not even sure
why this particular event triggered it,but there's something deeper in there that's sitting
in me that doesn't feel right.And so I'll sit with my sadness for
as long as I need to,until I uncover what the cause of it
(26:47):
is, until I uncover why.It's like beeping in that fire alarm,
going hey, there's smoke somewhere.So I find the smoke and then I
put out the fire. But Ialso know that putting out the fire doesn't
mean that there's never going to besadness again, or there's never going to
be feelings of unworthiness, or there'snever going to be feelings of anger,
because all of those are part ofthe human experience, It's a part of
(27:10):
life. And we have just beenlike chasing good. We've been chasing good
for far too long, and wedon't get that that is the exact root
of all of our suffering, isthat we're chasing good. Oh so good.
I love this conversation. I justrecently wrote a blog post myself on
(27:33):
the tyranny of positivity and how ourobsession with positivity is actually creating a less
resilient collective, a less resilient culturebecause we can't we can't handle stuff as
it comes up. And when I'mseeing a lot and I'm curious your thoughts
on this, is that in thestuff of development world specifically, we're most
(27:55):
of us are operating from a worldthat we want to like, the world
that we want, versus the worldthat it is. Yes, And well,
I guess some of that is great, that you're idealistic and that you
see the greatness in the world.But if we're not using the tools to
address the world as it is,yes, we can't develop the world that
(28:15):
we want. I love that.I think that's so powerful because listen,
it's a dance between presence and possibility. Possibility is amazing possibility. It's the
thing that drives human nature. Likewe want to grow, we want to
expand we want to evolve, wewant to get better. But there's life,
and it's like what is present hereand now is it's whatever it is,
(28:40):
And if we're choosing to just stayin the possibility of what it can
be, we're missing the gold ofwhat's here. And we can't truly address
a systemic issue of what's here untilwe're truly present with what's here. And
I think a lot of people havethese idealistic views of how we want the
world to be and how things getto change, and I'm going to be
(29:00):
a stand for that and yes,yes, yes, yes, yes,
And what are you doing in thenow moment with what's here and what's available
to address what's happening? And Ifeel like that's that's exact same thing.
Can we apply to ourselves totally?We get so obsessed with how we should
be, you know, how wewant to be our future selves, that
we forget to be radically present withwhere we are and honoring our limitations and
(29:25):
honoring our messy and that that vehiclewe arrive at our possibility. Absolutely,
I want to read that article.By the way, this is so good,
the dance between presents and possibility.Breach Us quoted that to me,
She's like, so good. Ilove that. I mean, it's it's
really it is difficult because I,I, especially you know, deal so
(29:48):
much with like manifestation and co creationand really looking into your future and creating
that vision. And I have hada few people push back on me and
be like, well, you know, but then I feel like I'm not
being present And it is a dance, like it is. You have to
be in the present moment, youknow, feel the experiences that are coming
up for you right now, andyou can still then look to the past
(30:12):
and look to the present. SoI'm curious for you, how much,
like do you have any rituals orthings that you do to kind of like
play that dance. Do you spendmore time in the presence or in the
possibility? Like what how does thatlook like in your life? Yeah,
(30:32):
you know, something that just cameto mind as you said that is the
possibility of our future vision is actuallyoccurring in the present moment right like who
we are in this now moment?The actions were taking the words we're choosing.
The way of being that we're exemplifyingout to the world and to ourselves
is ultimately creating our future possibility.So it is essentially the same thing,
(30:57):
right, It's in essence the samething. So I think for me,
you know, there's a lot ofpeople that have the theory of you write
out your ten year vision and likepost it everywhere. I put vision boards
here and here and here, andI used to do that, and all
of that's great, and I'm notsaying there's anything wrong with it. But
if I'm not making decisions in thepresent moment to be my highest self and
(31:21):
to move deeper into alignment with thetruth of who I am, then it
doesn't matter if I'm moving towards thatvision or that vision or that vision,
because if I'm doing it out ofalignment in the now, then I'm just
chasing some future, some ideas,some possibility that might even just be a
societal implant in my brain, youknow, where it's like, you should
(31:41):
want this life, you should wantthe house on the beach, you should
want the car that looks like this, and the husband and the kids and
all that stuff versus going what's inmy highest alignment right now? What feels
good in my body? What feelslike a stretch, what feels like a
challenge, what feels like I'm honoringmy gifts? And for me, honestly,
like I always come back to it. And it's so simple. But
(32:02):
nature is like the freaking it's everything, It's the answer. Nature gives us
everything we ever need to know becausethe possibility of the oak tree in a
seed has always been there. It'salways been there, but it starts out
as a seed in this present moment. It's a seed. So what does
(32:23):
the seed need in the present moment? While it needs soil, it needs
a particular type of light and waterand nutrients, and every single day it's
gonna need different things, just likea baby. You think about developing a
baby in a woman's body. Everysingle day it needs different nutrients and different
things. But it's possibility is endless, right, It's going to be this
(32:45):
human with infinite possibilities and different lifepaths and who knows what's going to happen.
But if we're living in that futureidea of some day, we're never
actually making decisions that matter right now, So I think, oh, go
ahead. Oh I just I'm justsaying prea check. Girl. So I
did a scandalous thing the other dayor the other months, scandalous hashtag first
(33:10):
world white woman problems. But Idecided to throw away my vision board.
Yeah. You know, I lovethe process of creating vision boards to girlfriends
and talking about possibilities. I thinkwe all do. We love that energy
of talking about what's possible. Butthen every time I start on my vision
board, I just felt deeply inadequatefor not having that right now. Yeah,
(33:32):
and I just kept thinking, Wow, that really sucks that I've been
staring at that same picture for ninemonths and I'm still I still, in
no way, shape or form,have that in my life. I must
not be doing enough, working hardenough, you know, all the enoughness.
And I really had to realize andcome to terms. So that just
doesn't inspire me. To some people, it is radically inspiring to them,
(33:53):
and they see it as a fuelof possibility that keeps them moving. But
to me, it wasn't inspiring me. And so giving ourselves that permission to
really look at what that balance lookslike for us. For me, it's
more presence than possibility for Bree,I know it's more possibility than presence,
and it's what works, what worksfor you right now, what works tomorrow,
(34:15):
the next day, etc. Totally. I love it you're bringing that
up. I read somewhere and Idon't know where, so I'm sorry who
ever wrote this, but I hopeI read somewhere that there's six different types
of people. There's the future positive, the future negative. There's a present
positive, present negative, past positive, past negative, and that means our
(34:37):
focus. So there are certain peoplewho are future focused, and some are
geared and lean more in towards thepositive, more towards the negative, staying
for present and saying for past.So if you start looking at your life
through that lens, like what amI actually focused on? Some people instantly,
like you can think of people inyour life and you're like, oh,
they're past negative. They're the peoplewho talk about the past and they're
(35:00):
victims to their past and everyone's anasshole and blah blah blah blah. Then
there's people who are past positive,who are reminiscent of the past and living
in the past highlights and the heydaysand all that stuff. And there's people
who are present and like present tolike the gifts and the beauty and the
magic. And then then there's alsopeople who are looking for what's not working
right now right And we can reallystart to see ourselves in that paradigm.
(35:24):
And like you said, if youcan figure out where you skew where your
focus lifelies, you can really startto find out what motivates you. So,
if you are a future person,then vision boards and affirmations and all
that stuff might be really powerful foryou. If you're a presence person,
maybe going for a walk in natureor somewhere really beautiful or being with someone
(35:45):
you love is enough for you toreally tap into that juiciness, right.
And if you're someone from the past, maybe reframing your past and you know,
having images around of beautiful positive momentsfrom your past will support you in
having a more positive now. Sowe really do have to know where we
where we skew our focus and thenwork within ourselves and within our own needs
(36:07):
to develop what works for us.That's really interesting. I like that a
lot, Like that a lot.Yeah, my question would be so I
am future positive, hands down absolutely, And I've been doing a lot more
to bring in like present positive stuffso what's your view then on pulling like
(36:30):
knowing where you lie but then tryingto I guess it's that conversation of like
strength, So I know I'm strongin this area, do I try to
bring up my weaknesses? I lovethis question. I love this question.
Yeah, because I don't know aboutyou girls, but I'm one of those
people I like to like classify myselfas much as possible, So I'm taking
my personality tests and strength finders,like, how can I classify myself one
(36:54):
more time? Yeah? But thatright, that all being said, like,
Okay, so I'm an I nf J cool, awesome, But
does that not mean that with thatawareness, now I can kind of rise
(37:15):
above a personality type. You know, yes I am. I actually am
a present positive person, but I'mworking on being more of a possibility future
positive person where I'm leaning deeper intothat. So I do believe that we
can work on the areas we wantto work on. It doesn't mean we
(37:37):
have to have them all down,pat, but you know, like you
said, if you've got strengths ina certain area and you know that there's
areas of improvement that you're like,man, that would really support what I'm
up to in the world that wouldreally support my communication with my family and
my friends, or that would reallysupport who I am as a human being,
then hell yeah, Like, youcan absolutely learn anything, and it's
(37:59):
just a matter of being willing tohave that gross mindset and be in the
game and fail a bunch of timesand look stupid and get back up and
do it again. But there aresome things that maybe don't necessarily need in
your life and you're okay with nothaving. So I really think it's a
personal choice. But I absolutely likemy work is and my husband's work,
(38:20):
we're always looking at figuring out howwe identify and then how can we rise
above the identification. Yeah awesome,And also clearly since we're opposites, maybe
we should hang out more often andlike balance each other totally. Well,
it's just also really interesting. Imean, this is something that I know
spiritual women do a lot too,which is well, I'm a Gemini,
(38:44):
so obviously that's that's why I dowhat I do. And then they don't
take into responsibility for the shittiness ofwhat just happened. It's right as if
they're a Gemini. Well I aman I am blah. Blah blah.
So I can't possibly go out toan event that's outside of my comforts,
but I would actually be really goodfor me. And so it's really learning
how to use these labels, likeyou said, and then stepping outside of
(39:07):
them, knowing that we are beyondany label, and a label does not
hook us off of the responsibility ofthe impact of our actions. Yes,
absolutely, and listen, labels arebased on our personality type, which is
a product of our identity, whichis a product of our ego. So
if you want to talk like spiritualCore, you are everything and nothing all
(39:28):
at the same time, right,So it's like you are introvert, you
are extrovert, you are you know, an NSP and an I NFP.
Like spirit doesn't have a label becauseit is all but identity. Personality.
Ego absolutely has a label because it'sgot all these different things that have shaped
it. So of course it's goingto have certain things that it leans towards.
(39:50):
And whether it's your birth sign orhowever we want to label ourselves.
Yes, it's true with a lowercasetea to some extent, but it's not
capital T truth because the capital Ttruth of who we are is everything so
we can embody all of which wesee in everybody else. The only way
we can see it and recognize itis because we have it within ourselves.
(40:13):
And we can also choose not toembody that. So it really is it
boils down to choice for sure.Oh my gosh, I love it.
So let's talk real quick before wewrap up, Like what's next for you?
Like what's exciting you? What areyou, you know, kind of
stepping into, Like maybe what's achallenge that you're experiencing as you're stepping into
(40:34):
this new thing? Well, youknow what's interesting. I am a classic
overachiever. Classic. We have agreat club started fantastic. I'm going to
need a full membership. I ama classic overachiever, and I have so
many ideas, and I'm like oneof those people that I believe I can
(40:58):
do anything. So it's like Ihave an idea, It's like, great,
I'll just start it and do itand figure it out. And that's
worked really well for me my entirelife. And I'm finally at the point
at thirty three where I'm getting essential. I'm like, Okay, yes I
have all these great ideas, YesI can do all these different things.
(41:19):
Yes, I can serve in allthese different ways. Yes, I could
build more of an impact if Idid X, Y, and Z a
thousand different times. But what's essential? What's essential? Like if I boiled
down to like what's essential in mywork, what's essential in my relationship,
what's essential in my environment, what'sessential in my service? If I boiled
down to that and really just goso deep on what's essential, then it
(41:45):
just it leaves room. And roomis something Space is something that I am
so not used to, like havingroom on my plate, you know,
it's like, oh, there's roomhere. You know, I'm the person
who had a buffet fills my platewith everything. And in the buffet of
life, I'm choosing and consciously andintentionally practicing what it's like to leave some
(42:08):
space. And that's been really hardfor me, like really hard for me
to slow down because I am practicedin achieving, I'm practiced in doing,
I'm practiced in you know, accomplishments. So for me, that has been
probably the biggest challenge of my lifeis saying no to things that are really
(42:30):
exciting and leaving space, leaving spacefor possibility. Again, because I'm such
a present person, like let's justdo this right now that I'm leaving space
for possibility, possibility of the family, possibility of just magic, you know,
like who knows what it is.But I just want to play with
(42:50):
space because that is not something thatI'm very good at yet. Yeah,
Brie and I have been experiencing alot of that too, but for us
it's more of the verse induced spacemore than y. So we've been navigating
the challenge of really stepping back fromthat achiever and sitting with what's here,
(43:13):
And yeah, really amazing how challengingthat is for in our society totally,
especially if you're so used to,like I'm so used to being defined by
my achievements, Like since I waslittle, you know, I was a
good student, I was a goodathlete, I was creative, I had
a business at a young age.So I was constantly getting feedback that if
(43:34):
I do, then I'm worthy,then I'm good, then I'm you know,
a step above the rest. Andwho am I without that? Who
am I without all the dudes?Who am I without keeping up with all
the people in my industry who havethis kind of course in this kind of
course, Like who am I ifI don't do that. And I've been
really sitting in that question and lettingthat unpack, and it's been awesome and
(43:57):
challenging and scary and expand it's beengreat, oh so good. So I
oh, go ahead, it's gonnasay. I was just gifted a book
called The One and it's a similarconcept where you Yes, I love that
book. I've just read the introso far, but I'm really excited to
get into it. And it isabout focusing on like one thing, and
how fucking uncomfortable it is, yesfor us to just pick, like pick
(44:22):
one thing, and one one thingreally well, and it's like but but
but you know exactly. I startedworking with um some marketing people and they
were like, get off LinkedIn,get off Twitter, get off Instagram.
And I was like, okay,I'm putting my foot down with the Instagram
thing. And they were like,no, like pick one and I'm like,
(44:43):
god damn it. It's so hardthat intimate now, that one thing.
I know. I know, butit's because there's so many options now,
especially, I mean we see itin everything. We see it in
business, we see in social media, we see it in dating, Like
there are so many options that it'shard to commit. It's really hard to
(45:04):
commit. You know. My momused to joke when we moved from Brazil
to the US, she would spendhours at the grocery store because just picking
a fucking toothpaste talk like, youknow, half an hour, because there's
so many options, and there's definitelya thing of like overwhelm of options and
how in many ways this consumeristic obsessionwith all of the options is actually really
(45:27):
hurting not only our productivity from thestandpoint of being more effective, but also
in our ability to just be withwhat is. Yeah, it's so true.
It's so true. Well, we'reexcited to continue this conversation with you
in our extended cut. If youwant to hear more about what Alexei has
to share in the world, pleasejoin our Facebook group be Amplified dot community
(45:51):
Alexei. Where can people learn aboutyou and your work. You can check
me out all over the web atAlexei Panos dot com or at Alexei Panos
on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.I love it. Go check out her
YouTube. It's fantastic. She isShe's an artist in front of a camera.
Thank you, all right, guys, we will continue this on Facebook.
(46:15):
If you want to find us anywhereelse, you can go at the
amplified co on all the socials andagain join us in our community at be
amplified dot community Peace and Greece.
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