We are in Asheville and surrounding cities in Western North Carolina providing hurricane Helene relief to a profoundly beautiful community facing a disaster beyond words. In this episode we share what we have experienced and learned and how you can support this region and the world through times of great challenges. We have never been more sure that what people need most right now is love, most importantly: love backed by action. #WNCSTRONG
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As always, we love you! 🤍
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Learn more at www.lovingconsciously.net and connect with us on Instagram @loving.consciously @loving.consciously.podcast @amerislovesyou
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
People just need your love. They just need your love. They just need your presence.
(00:04):
They just need your authentic you to show up and say, I'm here with you in this.
Let it all out. It's safe. I can hold it. If you don't have the capacity to come out here
and volunteer or to be with people who are in their grief, if you're on the other side of the
country and don't know what to do, heal yourself, find your purpose and birth it into this world
(00:29):
and make this place a better place. And so the call here is yes, heal your consciousness so that
these things don't manifest into the external world. Yes, more love, choose love, send love,
radical love, yes, conscious prayer, affirmative prayer and action. Physically, we are needed in
(00:52):
our communities. If anything, I hope that you take from this episode is your capacity to impact
somebody's life and to just hold space and love them, to hold space and love ourselves.
You have the capacity to bring consciousness to your life, to your region, to activate your grid
(01:17):
and do your part. And that can just be as simple as loving one another. Whatever you can find
gratitude for, don't feel guilt. That's not helping. Feel gratitude because as you're grateful for it,
more of it becomes available to others and be so grateful for it that it feels you to get out there
(01:38):
and help those who need it most. Welcome home to the Loving Consciously podcast. My name is Ameris
and my name is Eric and if you are like us, nobody taught you how to love. We are best friends and
life partners here to vulnerably and authentically share our journey while exploring the sacred realms
(01:59):
of love, consciousness, relationships, spirituality and all that they encompass. The intention of this
show is to help you consciously relate to yourself, others and everything else in this universe.
Together, we can embody a more intentional and fulfilling way of giving and receiving love.
Loving Consciously. Through eight years together, we have had the opportunity to overcome deep
(02:21):
patterning and programming as well as trauma related to mental health, addiction, pregnancy,
loss, infidelity and immense grief. After six years of experiencing these challenges with no
knowledge on how to heal or love each other, we separated. After us both spiritually awakening
and recommitting, we formed our conscious partnership and have spent the last two years
(02:42):
cultivating a divine union founded on unconditional love, devotion and commitment to personal growth.
Thank you for joining us and doing the work alongside us as we explore this beautiful world
of love and consciousness to co-create a new world of love. As you courageously walk this path,
remember to have grace with yourself and know that you have both the capacity to love consciously
(03:05):
and the power to always choose love. Namaste and welcome back to the Loving Consciously podcast.
When we last recorded a personal episode, it was 12 days ago and we were on our way to Nashville.
We spent some time in Nashville, we spent some time in Knoxville and then we were finally able
(03:26):
to make the drive into Asheville. If you are not in any way familiar, Asheville is the town in
western North Carolina that was absolutely devastated by Hurricane Haleen one month ago yesterday.
We have had the opportunity to come be in this community for several days now to be volunteering
(03:49):
and be of service and we wanted to come on and record this special episode today,
sharing some of what we are experiencing here and really a call to action. A call to action as always
for more love, a call to action as always for more consciousness and a call to action to not only
support the people here but to support all of the people on this planet because what is happening
(04:12):
here is a reflection of what is happening internally inside the collective. It's really
interesting and kind of challenging to talk about it and not get emotional. From my experience,
as we drove into Asheville, the closer and closer that we got, we were in the western most town
(04:32):
about 30 miles out, there was a moment and we both felt it a very palpable energy shift.
It was like entering an energetic bubble or cloud of gray somber, wailing, grieving energy is how I
experienced it. I experienced it in my mind is hearing the wailing of Mother Earth, of the people.
(04:56):
That first night we both were incredibly tired in shock coming into this town and seeing the
devastation and this is after a month of cleaning up and working on it. The sheer amount of damage
and trees down and pain that is in this town right now is really hard to bear witness to.
(05:19):
I reached out to several of our closest and trusted friends who are energy and grid workers
and I asked for their advice and some things that I got that are really potent that I want to share
is to bear witness and that alone right there is something that the large majority of the
collective is not able to do at this time to truly sit and bear witness to the devastation
(05:42):
and destruction and hold space for it and allow it to be without judgment, without reaction,
without taking it into your experience. You know, we can be human and we can have emotions about it,
but just bearing witness to this community and these people. Another thing that was said to me
was hold space for the new growth and if that isn't a beautiful perspective, I don't know what is,
(06:06):
to be able to sit here in this and hold the vision of the beautiful new vision that this
community will be when they do recover fully. Another thing that was said to me was your presence
is enough. You don't have to do anything just by bringing our consciousness and our love here
into this space. We spiritually, energetically and emotionally support this community because
(06:32):
that's what they need. They don't need money. They don't need donations and it's shocking to see how
absolutely supported they've been in those ways. They need love. They need love and they need support.
It's been such a polarizing experience because on one hand there is this
(06:53):
deep heaviness and this grief that is surrounding the city and the community. People here are tired
and then on the other hand you experience this deep, deep love, this gratitude and this coming
(07:13):
together of a community to support one another in such a difficult time. And while we went to
the Unity Spiritual Center here in Asheville for Sunday service, it was shared with us that
a traditional grief ceremony and circle was held for that community and what was supposed to be a
(07:38):
two-hour circle of people coming in, holding space and then authentically and vulnerably
just grieving and I mean wailing, crying, screaming, all of the emotions that come with that and having
a container to be held for that, the ceremony actually took four hours, upwards of four hours
(08:05):
and it really speaks to the love of this community and the intention that they can sit
in that grief and feel it completely, allow it to move through them and hold space for each other
(08:26):
without allowing it to permeate beyond that container and to use that as fuel for coming
together and for rebuilding and for utilizing this catalyst as an opportunity to really wake up.
Yeah, that was our second day in Asheville. We went to that service and it was one of the most
(08:50):
profound talks I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing. You can go look at that on Unity
of Blue Ridge on their YouTube. This would have been Sunday the 27th of October so you can find
that service, Reverend Megan, who is exquisite and of course the service was about the frequency of
(09:10):
love and resonating at love and what we resonate at internally is what we create externally.
You know that day, I don't think I've been that emotionally exhausted in a really long time
because we had this beautiful service and we got to bear witness to this community,
(09:31):
you know, moving in their grief on the one month anniversary and then we got to meet with both a
friend that we knew before and a friend that someone who knew someone in this town connected us with
and we got to hold space for these two individuals. One who wasn't deeply affected by the storm,
though everyone here was, when we say not deeply affected we mean they still have a home.
(09:52):
Didn't even realize that they hadn't had space held for them yet and so we got the opportunity to
do that and we got to see on this person's face, oh yeah I have been holding space for everyone
else for the last month, I still don't have drinking water and that's one thing I really want to drive
home. This wasn't just a natural disaster, this was explained to me by a person's father who was a
(10:20):
I think second in command meteorologist in one of the military branches and was like one of the top
commanders during Katrina. This was a geological event and if you're not aware of what that means,
a geological event means this storm was so powerful that it geologically changed the region of this
Appalachian area. It moved mountains, it moved rivers, that is how powerful the trillions and
(10:48):
trillions and trillions and trillions of gallons of water and tornadoes that came inland to western
North Carolina was and so as I'm sitting here holding space for this person I know who hasn't
had space held for them and then we leave that to our lunch and we go and hold space for someone
we've just met who's exhausted and crying and is like I'm blessed, mind you again, blessed in her
(11:15):
situation means her basement flooded and her beautiful property is in really really poor
shape with downed trees everywhere and her roof on her shed is gone. That's blessed and to see how
exhausted these people are and that we have the honor to come in and share love with them and you
(11:35):
know the the words will fail me right now because it's important right in this show we amplify love,
we amplify consciousness and we always will amplify focusing on what we want to create
and we need to hold space for Asheville right now because these beings don't have water still to this
(11:56):
day one month and one or two days later on our third day in Asheville which was yesterday we had the
opportunity to volunteer we basically volunteered from 7 a.m to 7 p.m mostly at a comfort station
a comfort station is there are five of them in the city they have laundry and showers and emergency
supplies the National Guard is there giving out water because they don't not have water they have
(12:23):
highly toxic red brown or yellow chemical water coming out of their sink and so it's not potable
in any way it's not potable for dishes for washing your laundry for washing your hands so you
essentially only have water to flush your toilet and for a month 32 days of not having water it is
(12:45):
an absolute crisis homes are devastated they're unlivable we now have things like mold being an
issue and mold remediation all these people's homes who flooded so it's a health crisis it's
just a crisis all around and all day we had the blessing and opportunity to sit there and hug
(13:06):
people let them cry with us let them vulnerably share in a safe space with someone who wasn't
attached to that pain who could hold that pain and not make it about them who could hold that pain
and return it with love and consciousness in a way that most of our first responders though
well-intentioned are not appropriately trained to do it was such a blessing and it really goes back
(13:31):
to what we were talking about earlier about the frequency of love and how it does reverberate out
sitting there and consciously holding this frequency of love in the space of people who are
in the midst of one of the most catalytic events of their lives
(13:53):
navigating emotions that they haven't really been faced with up until this point
allowed so many people to shift out of the state of fear out of the state of grief
and really all of these negative emotions that they were working through and to
(14:16):
feel into what is being created feel into where they're being guided now in their life because
so many of these people lost everything in this physical reality we've heard of stories of people
(14:39):
being trapped in the mountainous regions in their properties still you know a month later with
you know FEMA saying we're likely not going to be able to get to you for six months and relying on
locals going and taking supplies and grassroots efforts coming together and being a community
(15:01):
one person that comes to mind is a beautiful woman who walked two and a half miles with no shoes
through the forest to get to the comfort station to ask for supplies and ask for support
(15:22):
and these comfort stations don't have shoes they don't have clothing they have basic needs
like water and MREs and showers and this person on the verge of tears was like I need shoes I can't
walk there are other seven other people who are elderly who can't get here and I need help
(15:49):
and to be able to meet this person with love and go and get her shoes I visibly saw hope come back
to this human's existence just by holding a container and allowing her to fully express
(16:10):
what she was going through and to be in a state where she could be reassured and say I'm with you
in this we're going to get you some shoes and we're going to get you the support you need
the light came back to this human and that is the power of our consciousness that is the power
(16:38):
of the frequency of love we can deeply impact somebody's life by the frequency that we are
operating on and the consciousness that we choose to live in yeah it was such a beautiful moment and
you know it really comes to you are a human being you are a piece of this one big grand
(17:02):
collective family before anything else and we watched how Eric and I have such a different
frame of consciousness than the greater masses as most conscious people do how that played out in
that moment because in that moment lovingly so doing their job because them three are actual
Red Cross employees well I don't know if they're paid but they actually work for the Red Cross who
(17:27):
was manning the volunteer or excuse me manning the donation deployment to people started referring
this person to you know this place is handing out vouchers you can go you know here down the road
and the woman naturally of course said I don't have shoes and got really upset and walked away
and went to go into the tent to talk with FEMA it was an immediate moment for us of I don't really
(17:52):
care if I'm a volunteer I've agreed to be here like we're going and getting her shoes we're
leaving immediately you know and you did you went and got her shoes and it's not about like
credit or oh look at what we did right it's about that is the human thing to do because if anybody
ever walks up to you and does not have food water shelter or shoes we should be doing something about
(18:18):
that and there's two things that I really want to touch on here after I share one other really
impactful story I had dozens of people come up to me yesterday with so much shame asking for a shower
and I had the opportunity to offer hugs and some took it some didn't a lot of them did eventually
(18:44):
and a lot of tears and just being able to hold them and just allow it and hold them in so much
conscious love while they cried on my shoulder and then seeing their faces when they came out in the
shower and said what a glorious shower it was because these are really nice warm shower pods
and you know it just really goes to show people just need your love they just need your love they
(19:08):
just need your presence they just need your authentic you to show up and say I'm here with you in this
let it all out it's safe I can hold it I can contain it two other things I really wanted to
touch on the first being something that's going around this community that I think is really
impactful for this community being this loving consciously community all of you to hear is
(19:31):
guiltitude and what guiltitude is is the new human emotion for all of these people and for
most people who don't feel it on a normal day of guilt and gratitude together this deep sense of
guilt for I didn't lose everything I only lost my car or my basement or my roof you know and then
(19:55):
this deep gratitude for not having lost everything and so it's this like emotion of I feel so terrible
because this is a really close-knit community I feel so terrible and I feel so grateful and I
don't know what that I don't know how to hold both of those right that is very complex human
relating and we've had the opportunity to sit in that and encourage people to choose a higher
(20:17):
more loving perspective and remind them guilt doesn't serve anyone and at the same side of
that coin if you're listening to this feeling bad for the people of Asheville feeling sad
while it's normal and allow the emotion to flow but identifying with that and staying in that
choosing guilt choosing anger that is not helping anyone because the only thing that the people of
(20:39):
Asheville really need is love that's absolutely true and here's the thing about guilt is that
guilt is not an inherently bad emotion it is a natural occurrence when we witness the suffering
of our fellow humans because we are connected we're all energetically and spiritually connected
(21:04):
and so when something happens to somebody else it is natural to feel guilt because that is the
empathetic response the issue lies when we identify with that guilt and sink into that emotion and use
that to distract ourselves from actually doing something about it and that's when we transition
(21:28):
from guilt into shame and when we make that transition from guilt into shame we then take
that energy and we amplify the negative we make it about us and we sit in these negative emotions
thinking i'm doing the right thing because i'm feeling sadness and guilt in my experience and so
(21:52):
i'm with them right that isn't true what guilt is meant to be used for is the fuel to make changes
that is the beauty of guiltitude the guilt that comes in that acts as a fire that we then
amplify with gratitude to then go out and make significant changes in this world because that
(22:19):
is what these events are pushing us to do that is what suffering is pushing us to do it's to feel
and hold all of this and then to choose to show up for our fellow humans to hold space to go out
and volunteer to find our purpose and live it because that is one of the most important things
(22:45):
that we can all do as a community if you don't have the capacity to come out here and volunteer
or to be with people who are in their grief if you're on the other side of the country and don't
know what to do heal yourself find your purpose and birth it into this world and make this place a
(23:05):
better place that's beautiful love you know in the middle of our comfort station volunteer shift
yesterday we stepped away for a few hours to both purchase some donation supplies from donations that
we collected and then go volunteer at another organization for a few hours which is an interfaith
(23:27):
ministry and we were packaging food boxes and what i heard from the staff there was the sheer
amount of food boxes that are needed i believe it was upwards of 180 per day the amount of need
that is out there is mind-blowing and the amount of abundance out there you could never perceive
(23:53):
how much abundance there is there is no shortage of supplies here there's warehouses of donations
people showed up with that there's so much food this organization said they had three warehouses
of back stock food and supplies there is a shortage of people doing something about it
(24:15):
there is a shortage of getting it into the hands that need it and i'm gonna i'm gonna own this
i have not been a volunteer up until this point for much of my life in fact the last time that i
really truly volunteered was for community service for probation when i didn't have a choice and i've
been really turned off from it since then this has changed my life this will be a consistent and
(24:38):
regular part of our life and we do a lot to support this planet we leave everywhere better than we
found it we pick up trash we you know keep water and things in our cars to give to those who are
asking for things on the street and it's not enough it's not enough every single one of us has a duty
as a being on this planet to get out there and help our brothers and sisters because they need it
(25:03):
they need it they need you right now they need us right now they need our love they need our
support yes oh you can pray oh you can donate money physically we are needed in our communities
look around poverty and addiction and houselessness and all of these things are plaguing this planet
(25:27):
and it's a consciousness problem yes and it needs love and it needs prayer and we have to put
action behind that and that is what this experience is teaching me you know i thought that i was
coming here to bring my love and and to help support this community and i am but the reciprocity
of western north carolina i cannot give y'all enough love wow this community the love and welcoming
(25:54):
and gratitude and transformation that i have received from being here i will never be the same
i want to live here like this community is unreal so beautiful and ashville you just went through
so i can't even find the words to describe what this town just went through and it is still one
(26:16):
of the most beautiful towns i've ever seen in spite of miles on miles on miles of thousands
and thousands and thousands of downed trees that just absolutely break my heart it is beautiful
it's just beautiful and so the call here is yes heal your consciousness so that these things
don't manifest into the external world yes more love choose love send love radical love yes
(26:43):
conscious prayer affirmative prayer and action because we've got the love we've got the consciousness
and the prayer right but if we don't have the action it kind of stifles it it stifles the effect
that we can have and so this is an invitation to to do that and you know tonight we get the
(27:04):
opportunity to volunteer at a shelter and we're volunteering it's actually like transitional
living for people coming out of incarceration and then they also have a family shelter and
we're helping at dinnertime and we get to our task is literally the family dorm support we are
going to hold babies and play with kiddos while their parents make dinner that is what they need
(27:26):
they were like this is what we need i'm sold and then tomorrow we will be back at that comfort
station at seven o'clock in the morning hugging people walking them to a warm shower and listening
it's really interesting because we are again the guiltitude right we are so blessed i'm sitting
(27:46):
here listening to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people come to this conversation
and not have water many of them left for a month and are now returning because school just went
back after a month these kids were out of school which we all know how that impacts people and
here we are one of the very blessed ones in the five percent of the city 95 of the city doesn't
(28:09):
have safe water and i'm questioning the five percent because we're in it and last night i took a shower
and it was burning my skin and my face was red so we won't be using this water anymore and that's
where it's deemed safe so you can imagine where it's unsafe we were seeing people come in with
rashes because they didn't know any better and they'd been showering in it and they now have chemical
(28:30):
rashes on their face and so i just invite some gratitude in this moment for your warm shower
for your bed for anything you have whatever you can find gratitude for don't feel guilt that's not
helping feel gratitude because as you're grateful for it more of it becomes available to others
and be so grateful for it that it feels you to get out there and help those who need it most
(28:59):
gratitude is the attitude that gets us through the night and that is a beautiful quote from a song
by laundryle called gratitude i would encourage you to listen to it it's a very powerful song
but it's very true gratitude is the emotion that we utilize to make tangible changes in this world
(29:22):
it gets us out of our victim mentality and really grounds us into the presence of what we have
in our life to be grateful for and then when we are in a state of gratitude for our own existence
(29:43):
we now have the frequency to go and impact other people and that if anything i hope that you take
from this episode is your capacity to impact somebody's life and that doesn't just mean
i mean victims of disaster relief or war or some of these high catalystic moments it means our friends
(30:07):
our families you know conscious relating which we talk about a lot on this show is being able to sit
with our brothers and sisters no matter the perceived magnitude of what their experience is
is to just hold space and love them to hold space and love ourselves and
(30:34):
in journeying across this country and talking with so many different people in so many communities
visiting cities the one thing that i feel the absence of the most is consciousness it's people
(30:57):
going out and living in a conscious way and when we see it in the the pockets that we do see across
the country it is so impactful that it can change the entire dynamic of a city let that sit with
(31:18):
you for a minute we have been to cities where there was almost no consciousness and the energetics
of that city were very low and the suffering very high and we've been to cities with tiny little
pockets of consciousness forming these little buds like in spring of flowers ready to bloom
(31:42):
and the entire city felt alive most of the people in that city were not aware of the
consciousness being birthed in their space of living but they felt it there was a livelihood
to the people that was different you have the capacity to be that bud in your pocket of the
(32:08):
world you have the capacity to bring consciousness to your life to your region to activate your grid
and do your part and that can just be as simple as loving one another so thank you for walking
(32:28):
this journey with us of love thank you for answering the call thank you for choosing gratitude
and thank you for loving one another we are sending you so much love from ashville and ashville
to the friends that we've made here the people far and wide you're beautiful and you have taught me
(32:51):
how to love consciously deeper and i am forever grateful for the opportunity to be here to see
your beautiful city your beautiful community i have no doubt that you are already and will
recover from this and i just am so honored to be here and be a part of this city for the time
(33:16):
that we are and so we love you ashville and we're right here with you as is all of the conscious
community and with love we are getting through this together
People just need your love. They just need your love. They just need your presence.
(00:04):
They just need your authentic you to show up and say, I'm here with you in this.
Let it all out. It's safe. I can hold it. If you don't have the capacity to come out here
and volunteer or to be with people who are in their grief, if you're on the other side of the
country and don't know what to do, heal yourself, find your purpose and birth it into this world
(00:29):
and make this place a better place. And so the call here is yes, heal your consciousness so that
these things don't manifest into the external world. Yes, more love, choose love, send love,
radical love, yes, conscious prayer, affirmative prayer and action. Physically, we are needed in
(00:52):
our communities. If anything, I hope that you take from this episode is your capacity to impact
somebody's life and to just hold space and love them, to hold space and love ourselves.
You have the capacity to bring consciousness to your life, to your region, to activate your grid
(01:17):
and do your part. And that can just be as simple as loving one another. Whatever you can find
gratitude for, don't feel guilt. That's not helping. Feel gratitude because as you're grateful for it,
more of it becomes available to others and be so grateful for it that it feels you to get out there
(01:38):
and help those who need it most. Welcome home to the Loving Consciously podcast. My name is Ameris
and my name is Eric and if you are like us, nobody taught you how to love. We are best friends and
life partners here to vulnerably and authentically share our journey while exploring the sacred realms
(01:59):
of love, consciousness, relationships, spirituality and all that they encompass. The intention of this
show is to help you consciously relate to yourself, others and everything else in this universe.
Together, we can embody a more intentional and fulfilling way of giving and receiving love.
Loving Consciously. Through eight years together, we have had the opportunity to overcome deep
(02:21):
patterning and programming as well as trauma related to mental health, addiction, pregnancy,
loss, infidelity and immense grief. After six years of experiencing these challenges with no
knowledge on how to heal or love each other, we separated. After us both spiritually awakening
and recommitting, we formed our conscious partnership and have spent the last two years
(02:42):
cultivating a divine union founded on unconditional love, devotion and commitment to personal growth.
Thank you for joining us and doing the work alongside us as we explore this beautiful world
of love and consciousness to co-create a new world of love. As you courageously walk this path,
remember to have grace with yourself and know that you have both the capacity to love consciously
(03:05):
and the power to always choose love. Namaste and welcome back to the Loving Consciously podcast.
When we last recorded a personal episode, it was 12 days ago and we were on our way to Nashville.
We spent some time in Nashville, we spent some time in Knoxville and then we were finally able
(03:26):
to make the drive into Asheville. If you are not in any way familiar, Asheville is the town in
western North Carolina that was absolutely devastated by Hurricane Haleen one month ago yesterday.
We have had the opportunity to come be in this community for several days now to be volunteering
(03:49):
and be of service and we wanted to come on and record this special episode today,
sharing some of what we are experiencing here and really a call to action. A call to action as always
for more love, a call to action as always for more consciousness and a call to action to not only
support the people here but to support all of the people on this planet because what is happening
(04:12):
here is a reflection of what is happening internally inside the collective. It's really
interesting and kind of challenging to talk about it and not get emotional. From my experience,
as we drove into Asheville, the closer and closer that we got, we were in the western most town
(04:32):
about 30 miles out, there was a moment and we both felt it a very palpable energy shift.
It was like entering an energetic bubble or cloud of gray somber, wailing, grieving energy is how I
experienced it. I experienced it in my mind is hearing the wailing of Mother Earth, of the people.
(04:56):
That first night we both were incredibly tired in shock coming into this town and seeing the
devastation and this is after a month of cleaning up and working on it. The sheer amount of damage
and trees down and pain that is in this town right now is really hard to bear witness to.
(05:19):
I reached out to several of our closest and trusted friends who are energy and grid workers
and I asked for their advice and some things that I got that are really potent that I want to share
is to bear witness and that alone right there is something that the large majority of the
collective is not able to do at this time to truly sit and bear witness to the devastation
(05:42):
and destruction and hold space for it and allow it to be without judgment, without reaction,
without taking it into your experience. You know, we can be human and we can have emotions about it,
but just bearing witness to this community and these people. Another thing that was said to me
was hold space for the new growth and if that isn't a beautiful perspective, I don't know what is,
(06:06):
to be able to sit here in this and hold the vision of the beautiful new vision that this
community will be when they do recover fully. Another thing that was said to me was your presence
is enough. You don't have to do anything just by bringing our consciousness and our love here
into this space. We spiritually, energetically and emotionally support this community because
(06:32):
that's what they need. They don't need money. They don't need donations and it's shocking to see how
absolutely supported they've been in those ways. They need love. They need love and they need support.
It's been such a polarizing experience because on one hand there is this
(06:53):
deep heaviness and this grief that is surrounding the city and the community. People here are tired
and then on the other hand you experience this deep, deep love, this gratitude and this coming
(07:13):
together of a community to support one another in such a difficult time. And while we went to
the Unity Spiritual Center here in Asheville for Sunday service, it was shared with us that
a traditional grief ceremony and circle was held for that community and what was supposed to be a
(07:38):
two-hour circle of people coming in, holding space and then authentically and vulnerably
just grieving and I mean wailing, crying, screaming, all of the emotions that come with that and having
a container to be held for that, the ceremony actually took four hours, upwards of four hours
(08:05):
and it really speaks to the love of this community and the intention that they can sit
in that grief and feel it completely, allow it to move through them and hold space for each other
(08:26):
without allowing it to permeate beyond that container and to use that as fuel for coming
together and for rebuilding and for utilizing this catalyst as an opportunity to really wake up.
Yeah, that was our second day in Asheville. We went to that service and it was one of the most
(08:50):
profound talks I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing. You can go look at that on Unity
of Blue Ridge on their YouTube. This would have been Sunday the 27th of October so you can find
that service, Reverend Megan, who is exquisite and of course the service was about the frequency of
(09:10):
love and resonating at love and what we resonate at internally is what we create externally.
You know that day, I don't think I've been that emotionally exhausted in a really long time
because we had this beautiful service and we got to bear witness to this community,
(09:31):
you know, moving in their grief on the one month anniversary and then we got to meet with both a
friend that we knew before and a friend that someone who knew someone in this town connected us with
and we got to hold space for these two individuals. One who wasn't deeply affected by the storm,
though everyone here was, when we say not deeply affected we mean they still have a home.
(09:52):
Didn't even realize that they hadn't had space held for them yet and so we got the opportunity to
do that and we got to see on this person's face, oh yeah I have been holding space for everyone
else for the last month, I still don't have drinking water and that's one thing I really want to drive
home. This wasn't just a natural disaster, this was explained to me by a person's father who was a
(10:20):
I think second in command meteorologist in one of the military branches and was like one of the top
commanders during Katrina. This was a geological event and if you're not aware of what that means,
a geological event means this storm was so powerful that it geologically changed the region of this
Appalachian area. It moved mountains, it moved rivers, that is how powerful the trillions and
(10:48):
trillions and trillions and trillions of gallons of water and tornadoes that came inland to western
North Carolina was and so as I'm sitting here holding space for this person I know who hasn't
had space held for them and then we leave that to our lunch and we go and hold space for someone
we've just met who's exhausted and crying and is like I'm blessed, mind you again, blessed in her
(11:15):
situation means her basement flooded and her beautiful property is in really really poor
shape with downed trees everywhere and her roof on her shed is gone. That's blessed and to see how
exhausted these people are and that we have the honor to come in and share love with them and you
(11:35):
know the the words will fail me right now because it's important right in this show we amplify love,
we amplify consciousness and we always will amplify focusing on what we want to create
and we need to hold space for Asheville right now because these beings don't have water still to this
(11:56):
day one month and one or two days later on our third day in Asheville which was yesterday we had the
opportunity to volunteer we basically volunteered from 7 a.m to 7 p.m mostly at a comfort station
a comfort station is there are five of them in the city they have laundry and showers and emergency
supplies the National Guard is there giving out water because they don't not have water they have
(12:23):
highly toxic red brown or yellow chemical water coming out of their sink and so it's not potable
in any way it's not potable for dishes for washing your laundry for washing your hands so you
essentially only have water to flush your toilet and for a month 32 days of not having water it is
(12:45):
an absolute crisis homes are devastated they're unlivable we now have things like mold being an
issue and mold remediation all these people's homes who flooded so it's a health crisis it's
just a crisis all around and all day we had the blessing and opportunity to sit there and hug
(13:06):
people let them cry with us let them vulnerably share in a safe space with someone who wasn't
attached to that pain who could hold that pain and not make it about them who could hold that pain
and return it with love and consciousness in a way that most of our first responders though
well-intentioned are not appropriately trained to do it was such a blessing and it really goes back
(13:31):
to what we were talking about earlier about the frequency of love and how it does reverberate out
sitting there and consciously holding this frequency of love in the space of people who are
in the midst of one of the most catalytic events of their lives
(13:53):
navigating emotions that they haven't really been faced with up until this point
allowed so many people to shift out of the state of fear out of the state of grief
and really all of these negative emotions that they were working through and to
(14:16):
feel into what is being created feel into where they're being guided now in their life because
so many of these people lost everything in this physical reality we've heard of stories of people
(14:39):
being trapped in the mountainous regions in their properties still you know a month later with
you know FEMA saying we're likely not going to be able to get to you for six months and relying on
locals going and taking supplies and grassroots efforts coming together and being a community
(15:01):
one person that comes to mind is a beautiful woman who walked two and a half miles with no shoes
through the forest to get to the comfort station to ask for supplies and ask for support
(15:22):
and these comfort stations don't have shoes they don't have clothing they have basic needs
like water and MREs and showers and this person on the verge of tears was like I need shoes I can't
walk there are other seven other people who are elderly who can't get here and I need help
(15:49):
and to be able to meet this person with love and go and get her shoes I visibly saw hope come back
to this human's existence just by holding a container and allowing her to fully express
(16:10):
what she was going through and to be in a state where she could be reassured and say I'm with you
in this we're going to get you some shoes and we're going to get you the support you need
the light came back to this human and that is the power of our consciousness that is the power
(16:38):
of the frequency of love we can deeply impact somebody's life by the frequency that we are
operating on and the consciousness that we choose to live in yeah it was such a beautiful moment and
you know it really comes to you are a human being you are a piece of this one big grand
(17:02):
collective family before anything else and we watched how Eric and I have such a different
frame of consciousness than the greater masses as most conscious people do how that played out in
that moment because in that moment lovingly so doing their job because them three are actual
Red Cross employees well I don't know if they're paid but they actually work for the Red Cross who
(17:27):
was manning the volunteer or excuse me manning the donation deployment to people started referring
this person to you know this place is handing out vouchers you can go you know here down the road
and the woman naturally of course said I don't have shoes and got really upset and walked away
and went to go into the tent to talk with FEMA it was an immediate moment for us of I don't really
(17:52):
care if I'm a volunteer I've agreed to be here like we're going and getting her shoes we're
leaving immediately you know and you did you went and got her shoes and it's not about like
credit or oh look at what we did right it's about that is the human thing to do because if anybody
ever walks up to you and does not have food water shelter or shoes we should be doing something about
(18:18):
that and there's two things that I really want to touch on here after I share one other really
impactful story I had dozens of people come up to me yesterday with so much shame asking for a shower
and I had the opportunity to offer hugs and some took it some didn't a lot of them did eventually
(18:44):
and a lot of tears and just being able to hold them and just allow it and hold them in so much
conscious love while they cried on my shoulder and then seeing their faces when they came out in the
shower and said what a glorious shower it was because these are really nice warm shower pods
and you know it just really goes to show people just need your love they just need your love they
(19:08):
just need your presence they just need your authentic you to show up and say I'm here with you in this
let it all out it's safe I can hold it I can contain it two other things I really wanted to
touch on the first being something that's going around this community that I think is really
impactful for this community being this loving consciously community all of you to hear is
(19:31):
guiltitude and what guiltitude is is the new human emotion for all of these people and for
most people who don't feel it on a normal day of guilt and gratitude together this deep sense of
guilt for I didn't lose everything I only lost my car or my basement or my roof you know and then
(19:55):
this deep gratitude for not having lost everything and so it's this like emotion of I feel so terrible
because this is a really close-knit community I feel so terrible and I feel so grateful and I
don't know what that I don't know how to hold both of those right that is very complex human
relating and we've had the opportunity to sit in that and encourage people to choose a higher
(20:17):
more loving perspective and remind them guilt doesn't serve anyone and at the same side of
that coin if you're listening to this feeling bad for the people of Asheville feeling sad
while it's normal and allow the emotion to flow but identifying with that and staying in that
choosing guilt choosing anger that is not helping anyone because the only thing that the people of
(20:39):
Asheville really need is love that's absolutely true and here's the thing about guilt is that
guilt is not an inherently bad emotion it is a natural occurrence when we witness the suffering
of our fellow humans because we are connected we're all energetically and spiritually connected
(21:04):
and so when something happens to somebody else it is natural to feel guilt because that is the
empathetic response the issue lies when we identify with that guilt and sink into that emotion and use
that to distract ourselves from actually doing something about it and that's when we transition
(21:28):
from guilt into shame and when we make that transition from guilt into shame we then take
that energy and we amplify the negative we make it about us and we sit in these negative emotions
thinking i'm doing the right thing because i'm feeling sadness and guilt in my experience and so
(21:52):
i'm with them right that isn't true what guilt is meant to be used for is the fuel to make changes
that is the beauty of guiltitude the guilt that comes in that acts as a fire that we then
amplify with gratitude to then go out and make significant changes in this world because that
(22:19):
is what these events are pushing us to do that is what suffering is pushing us to do it's to feel
and hold all of this and then to choose to show up for our fellow humans to hold space to go out
and volunteer to find our purpose and live it because that is one of the most important things
(22:45):
that we can all do as a community if you don't have the capacity to come out here and volunteer
or to be with people who are in their grief if you're on the other side of the country and don't
know what to do heal yourself find your purpose and birth it into this world and make this place a
(23:05):
better place that's beautiful love you know in the middle of our comfort station volunteer shift
yesterday we stepped away for a few hours to both purchase some donation supplies from donations that
we collected and then go volunteer at another organization for a few hours which is an interfaith
(23:27):
ministry and we were packaging food boxes and what i heard from the staff there was the sheer
amount of food boxes that are needed i believe it was upwards of 180 per day the amount of need
that is out there is mind-blowing and the amount of abundance out there you could never perceive
(23:53):
how much abundance there is there is no shortage of supplies here there's warehouses of donations
people showed up with that there's so much food this organization said they had three warehouses
of back stock food and supplies there is a shortage of people doing something about it
(24:15):
there is a shortage of getting it into the hands that need it and i'm gonna i'm gonna own this
i have not been a volunteer up until this point for much of my life in fact the last time that i
really truly volunteered was for community service for probation when i didn't have a choice and i've
been really turned off from it since then this has changed my life this will be a consistent and
(24:38):
regular part of our life and we do a lot to support this planet we leave everywhere better than we
found it we pick up trash we you know keep water and things in our cars to give to those who are
asking for things on the street and it's not enough it's not enough every single one of us has a duty
as a being on this planet to get out there and help our brothers and sisters because they need it
(25:03):
they need it they need you right now they need us right now they need our love they need our
support yes oh you can pray oh you can donate money physically we are needed in our communities
look around poverty and addiction and houselessness and all of these things are plaguing this planet
(25:27):
and it's a consciousness problem yes and it needs love and it needs prayer and we have to put
action behind that and that is what this experience is teaching me you know i thought that i was
coming here to bring my love and and to help support this community and i am but the reciprocity
of western north carolina i cannot give y'all enough love wow this community the love and welcoming
(25:54):
and gratitude and transformation that i have received from being here i will never be the same
i want to live here like this community is unreal so beautiful and ashville you just went through
so i can't even find the words to describe what this town just went through and it is still one
(26:16):
of the most beautiful towns i've ever seen in spite of miles on miles on miles of thousands
and thousands and thousands of downed trees that just absolutely break my heart it is beautiful
it's just beautiful and so the call here is yes heal your consciousness so that these things
don't manifest into the external world yes more love choose love send love radical love yes
(26:43):
conscious prayer affirmative prayer and action because we've got the love we've got the consciousness
and the prayer right but if we don't have the action it kind of stifles it it stifles the effect
that we can have and so this is an invitation to to do that and you know tonight we get the
(27:04):
opportunity to volunteer at a shelter and we're volunteering it's actually like transitional
living for people coming out of incarceration and then they also have a family shelter and
we're helping at dinnertime and we get to our task is literally the family dorm support we are
going to hold babies and play with kiddos while their parents make dinner that is what they need
(27:26):
they were like this is what we need i'm sold and then tomorrow we will be back at that comfort
station at seven o'clock in the morning hugging people walking them to a warm shower and listening
it's really interesting because we are again the guiltitude right we are so blessed i'm sitting
(27:46):
here listening to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people come to this conversation
and not have water many of them left for a month and are now returning because school just went
back after a month these kids were out of school which we all know how that impacts people and
here we are one of the very blessed ones in the five percent of the city 95 of the city doesn't
(28:09):
have safe water and i'm questioning the five percent because we're in it and last night i took a shower
and it was burning my skin and my face was red so we won't be using this water anymore and that's
where it's deemed safe so you can imagine where it's unsafe we were seeing people come in with
rashes because they didn't know any better and they'd been showering in it and they now have chemical
(28:30):
rashes on their face and so i just invite some gratitude in this moment for your warm shower
for your bed for anything you have whatever you can find gratitude for don't feel guilt that's not
helping feel gratitude because as you're grateful for it more of it becomes available to others
and be so grateful for it that it feels you to get out there and help those who need it most
(28:59):
gratitude is the attitude that gets us through the night and that is a beautiful quote from a song
by laundryle called gratitude i would encourage you to listen to it it's a very powerful song
but it's very true gratitude is the emotion that we utilize to make tangible changes in this world
(29:22):
it gets us out of our victim mentality and really grounds us into the presence of what we have
in our life to be grateful for and then when we are in a state of gratitude for our own existence
(29:43):
we now have the frequency to go and impact other people and that if anything i hope that you take
from this episode is your capacity to impact somebody's life and that doesn't just mean
i mean victims of disaster relief or war or some of these high catalystic moments it means our friends
(30:07):
our families you know conscious relating which we talk about a lot on this show is being able to sit
with our brothers and sisters no matter the perceived magnitude of what their experience is
is to just hold space and love them to hold space and love ourselves and
(30:34):
in journeying across this country and talking with so many different people in so many communities
visiting cities the one thing that i feel the absence of the most is consciousness it's people
(30:57):
going out and living in a conscious way and when we see it in the the pockets that we do see across
the country it is so impactful that it can change the entire dynamic of a city let that sit with
(31:18):
you for a minute we have been to cities where there was almost no consciousness and the energetics
of that city were very low and the suffering very high and we've been to cities with tiny little
pockets of consciousness forming these little buds like in spring of flowers ready to bloom
(31:42):
and the entire city felt alive most of the people in that city were not aware of the
consciousness being birthed in their space of living but they felt it there was a livelihood
to the people that was different you have the capacity to be that bud in your pocket of the
(32:08):
world you have the capacity to bring consciousness to your life to your region to activate your grid
and do your part and that can just be as simple as loving one another so thank you for walking
(32:28):
this journey with us of love thank you for answering the call thank you for choosing gratitude
and thank you for loving one another we are sending you so much love from ashville and ashville
to the friends that we've made here the people far and wide you're beautiful and you have taught me
(32:51):
how to love consciously deeper and i am forever grateful for the opportunity to be here to see
your beautiful city your beautiful community i have no doubt that you are already and will
recover from this and i just am so honored to be here and be a part of this city for the time
(33:16):
that we are and so we love you ashville and we're right here with you as is all of the conscious
community and with love we are getting through this together
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