November 13, 2023 • 61 mins
What if you could glimpse beyond the veil of mortality to find a deeper understanding of existence? What if you could shift your perspective on death, and in doing so, uncover a more profound appreciation for life? This episode takes you on a journey through time and perception as we explore the intricate dimensions of death.
We often perceive death as the end of the line, a destination that we all reach, but what if we thought of it as a cycle, a process of constant departure and return? We discuss the compelling concept of reincarnation, a continual cycle of endings and beginnings. As we delve deeper, we dissect the concept of 'dying of self', where the ego vanishes to make space for new experiences, leading to a transformative liberation. This isn't solely a dissection of death; it's a celebration of the life we lead, an exploration of how our cultural heritage shapes our perception of life and death.
This episode doesn't shy away from the stark realities of life. We touch upon the harsh experiences of racism, the impacts of which can be felt even in moments of joy. In the midst of all the pain, we find resilience, born out of collective and individual trauma, and the power it holds. We also discuss the magical power of surrender, of letting ourselves be present in moments of joy and grief. We conclude by reflecting on the ever-evolving journey of spiritual growth, the rebirth and changes it brings, and the importance of accepting these changes with an open heart. This episode is a deep dive into the cyclic nature of human existence and a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
All right, so we're talking about death today.
Like what was your thoughtprocess when you were like
Isabel, let's talk about death.
Like what are you looking at inregards to death?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm looking at all aspects of death.
I think it started when Imentioned that movie Arrival.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah, I started watching it but I remembered I'd
watched it before so I didn'tfinish it, but I did see a
little bit of it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
So the reason why I loved that movie was for a bunch
of reasons.
One lately I've just beenobsessed with the concept of
time and how it's not linear inthis idea that everything is
happening now, everything past,present, future and Arrival,
(00:53):
this whole idea that thesepeople, aliens from another
place, come and land and I don'tknow if you remember.
But she ends up talking to thembecause she's a linguist and
they tell her, they give herthis idea of the concept of time
and she realizes that she isgoing to have a child who is
(01:17):
going to die young, and she seeseverything in a moment.
And then she's confused for asecond because she's recognizing
is this happening now?
Has it already happened?
And she's able to stop somethingterrible from happening because
(01:37):
the people, the terrestrialthat she was talking to, give
her some information.
So she's able to stop somethingcatastrophic from happening.
And at the same time sherecognizes that, wow, I am going
to fall in love and have thisincredible life and I have this
chance right now to say no to it.
So I don't go through thisincredible pain.
(01:58):
But she decides she's not goingto go through it.
So she does.
I mean, she decides she isgoing to go through with it and
she falls in love with the guywho she's been working with and
we find out in the verybeginning of the movie that she
has already told him about herexperience and he leaves her
(02:19):
because of it, because he can'tdeal with the pain and yeah, the
hug.
Welcome to Motherland I thoughtyou were cutting this whole part
(02:52):
out.
I didn't know we were going touse that part.
I was just trying to fill youin my thought process.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Let me just give you a spoiler alert.
No, I want to hear the thoughtprocess.
I wanted to know like OK, Iwant to know why.
I don't care.
Like this movie's been out fora while, I'm sure people's
watched it 2016.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
2016.
It's been out.
The guy leaves her, yes, ok, hedivorces her and she still
stays with her daughter.
Her daughter, very young, asksa question about her dad.
I found out something and Itold her dad and he didn't like
(03:30):
what I said.
And this is where we are now.
So the daughter does end updying, but we don't know.
It's interesting because weknow she's lost the daughter.
So this concept of time, it'slike we keep interacting.
I can't even say we keep goingforward and back, because it's
(03:51):
not going forward and back.
It's like you're in this sortof fluid movement of time and
you are almost experiencing herlife and what is happening as
she's doing it.
And I was fascinated by it.
When I first saw it, I willadmit I had an edible, so it's
(04:12):
totally high and it blew me away, right.
But then I was like, let me,was it just the weed or was it
the movie?
And so then I watched it and Iwasn't high and it had even a
bigger impact on me.
And then I was just thinkingabout death in general.
When we leave our bodies, whathappens, thinking about it as a
(04:33):
kid.
Death is a beginning as anending.
So yeah, I'm intrigued.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I don't know where this is going, but I'm intrigued
by it.
So, okay, interesting.
I remember watching the moviebefore and I'm like I don't
remember all of that Like I need.
And even yesterday, I don'tknow why I couldn't get back in,
not yesterday, it was like theother day, I couldn't get back
into it.
And I feel like that's how itwas the first time I watched it,
that I just couldn't get intoit.
But I remember her talking tothe aliens and I remember all of
(05:01):
the things.
So I'm like I know I saw themovie.
It's slow, it's very slow.
Yeah, I'm wondering now if Iwas high when I watched the
movie the first time.
But like I remember seeing likethe alien part of it and then
when I watched it the other day,you know, seeing the daughter,
and I was like, okay, I've seenthis movie before, all right, so
(05:23):
time and death, all right.
I don't even know what to gowith this right now.
I'm a little bit kind of stuck.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Well so, and some African spirituality, and I want
to say it might be Zulu and I'mnot sure on that, so don't at
me if I'm wrong and correct me,listeners, but there's a concept
of Sasha and Zemani, and Iremember reading and learning
about Zemani when I was incollege for a literature class,
(05:54):
and I can't remember what book Iwas reading.
But Zemani is like this spacebetween death and life, past and
future, but it's not thepresent and it's like this, this
sort of liminal space where wehang out.
And then there's this idea ofSasha that is also about
ancestors and the future and thepast, and we sort of live in
(06:19):
this space.
And so it's like you think toyourself well, there is death
because we become, we becomeancestors.
But then there's also thismoment.
So, like, how can we live inthis moment fully knowing that
we're going to be ancestors andthat what we do both impacts
where we're going and wherewe've been?
But that's what we're at, rightnow.
(06:41):
Yeah, but I don't think we talkabout it in terms of, like,
leaving our bodies.
I think it's all inrelationship to being in the
body that we are right now.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Okay, I get what you're saying.
It is in relationship to beingin the body right now.
But once we leave our bodies, Imean I can see what you're
saying and I understand indifferent, in different really
cultures and how they see andhow they view death.
You know everybody's differentbut I do think, like they're
right in what you just said.
Right now, I do think that oncewe, once we leave our body, we
(07:15):
do hit avoid area.
We hit that.
I'm going to call it avoid area.
I don't necessarily thinkthere's nothing there, but
that's the best way I canexplain it.
You know we hit that void area.
That's where I always tellpeople I'm like, yeah, you go
through your life review for awhile and you're kind of just
like there you're going throughyour life review and then making
(07:37):
the decisions of how you wantto go about as a soul to learn
those lessons.
This is pretty deepconversation right now.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I know it's early for you.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It's eight in the morning.
It's eight in the morning hereand I'm like I have to have this
conversation.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I mean this is just how my mind works.
I'm actually down for it.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I'm just like I think , because I'm in thought process
with it right now.
That's why I say like I'm justsitting here going like all
right, like I just think it'sreally beautiful.
I think death is given a badname.
I think that's death is givensuch a bad name.
I think, like you say the worditself and it's like death right
(08:19):
.
I think the connotation of deathis given a bad name.
But I don't think it's it's.
I don't think it's bad.
I don't think that death is bad.
I think we're taught to feardeath, we're taught to be scared
.
But you made a good point whenyou were texting me about all
the different levels of death,because you were like I want to
talk about death in alldifferent types and I was like
(08:42):
explain, like I was like I don'tunderstand, and you're like
death is rebirth, death is abeginning.
Well, same thing beginning ordeath as an ending.
I was thinking death of self.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Death as rebirth and death as a beginning are
actually different, becausedeath as as a like, as rebirth,
can be sort of like the personthat you are born into, somebody
new, and death could be also anew beginning because you're
shedding something of yourselfand starting like a new path.
(09:15):
It doesn't even have to be aboutyou specifically like the death
of like you know, a projectthat you were working on and you
know sort of like letting thatgo, sort of like a closing.
But I think we I think we aredefinitely at least here in the
States are taught to fear death,that it's something that's
(09:35):
scary, it's something that wetry to avoid.
I think, if you look at all ofthe anti-aging conversations
that happen and that everybodyis terrified of getting older
and people don't want to admithow old they are or they're so
happy that they are a certainage and but don't look that age.
(09:56):
I have fallen into that trapand you know, what are we?
What are we really afraid of?
And if we can incorporate thisidea that we leave our bodies
into our conversations, I thinkthe lives that we live while
we're in our bodies can be somuch more beautiful.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I think that freaks people out.
Oh, totally, I mean, Iunderstand what you're saying
and I definitely agree, but Ithink it freaks people out.
Like I always tell people, I'mlike you don't have anything,
there's nothing to fear in death, like there's nothing, there's
nothing to be scared of inregards to death.
I can say that 10 times over,but the thought that I can be
separate of this physical bodyscares people.
You know, so, even though you'relike, if we can all wrap
(10:37):
ourselves in that concept, thenyou know the world would be a
better place, but it's like Ithink it would really scare
people and I actually questionwould the world be a better
place Because people would?
Speaker 2 (10:46):
not be like I would say it would be a better place.
I actually what I said was thatwe would have a better
experience in our lives.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, I guess I misinterpret that as saying like
a better place.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
No, and by, and I don't even think better, I think
more full is what?
Yeah, what I mean.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, yeah, I'm actually wondering myself, like
I'm sitting here going, like,how do I view death?
Like I think like thisconversation is intriguing
because I don't think I've eversat back and really thought
about how I view it.
Like I've never sat back andthought like, oh, what's your
viewpoint of it?
I mean even in the sense thatreading people and seeing spirit
(11:29):
and talking you know to spirit,that I say the other side guys,
again, don't come at me.
I know there's not reallyanother side and here it's part
of this whole realm, but that'sthe best way I can explain it
right now.
But even talking, you know, tospirit, it's like I don't think
I ever really sat back andwatched and really thought about
it.
I remember watching mygrandfather die and being
(11:52):
intrigued of the in and outs ofhim, you know, leaving his body
and being present in his body.
And leaving his body I meanpresent in his body, before he
was finally ready to like makethat change, whatever it is.
And but I guess I've neverreally like thought of it.
I know like death as, like youknow, something dies and then
(12:13):
something grows.
You know, like I know, in thatsense of like, when there's
different things that happen inour life that you know are what
people would deem bad, or is theending.
I don't believe in endings, Ibelieve in new beginnings.
I don't think that anything isever like oh, that's the ending.
I think every ending leads tolike a new beginning and I think
in some way it's the same if wetalk about reincarnation.
(12:35):
Right, like you die, but youare going to have it.
You have an opportunity to havea new beginning.
You know, I don't necessarilythink it's a do over.
You know I get to start over.
It's like no, it's not a doover, but I think we have like
an opportunity to be like okay,I get to.
You know, I know we have anopportunity where we come back
(12:57):
and bring those still lessonsthat we learned.
Yeah, but I wonder, if you knewwhat your life was going to be
like, would you still chooseyour life?
How many people would actuallysay yes, I think it would, I
would.
I think about that like all thetime.
I'm like look it, if I knewthat I was.
That was the point of arrival.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, that was the point of the movie.
Would you still choose it?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
if you knew, yeah, I think I would I would choose it
and that's the whole point,right.
Like we have this thing whenwe're in a soul without a body
and we have what we talked aboutbefore.
Like you have your contract,you make your contract, you kind
of get an idea of what yourlessons are going to be learned,
and then you come down here andyou forget all the things that
you signed up for, all thelessons and experiences that
(13:43):
were going to happen in yourlife and you go through it.
I look back at that all thetime and I'm like I would never
change my past.
Did some of it suck?
That's the apps of fuckingLutli, but I would never change
it.
I mean, I have four beautifulchildren for a reason and I
don't think I would ever givethat up.
I mean, there's things I regret.
I don't I regret the right word.
(14:04):
There's things I wish I maybedid different.
I don't think regrets are theright word, but it is what it is
and I think if I knew I stillwouldn't, I wouldn't change it.
That's weird.
I'm in a circumstance right nowwhere I'm like I had this
conversation with somebody theother day and I was saying I'm
in a situation right now whereI'm like I'm not reading the
(14:24):
situation, I'm not reading it.
I'm not asking, you know, ifthe person I'm talking to is is
the person you know.
I'm like, no, I'm not readingit.
I was like I sat with spiritand spirits like no, it's the
situation you need to be inright now, so let it be.
Whatever that looks like iswhatever it looks like, and I
was like you know what thatactually makes sense to me.
(14:46):
I was like I have a piece aboutwhatever it is, even if it's a
week, two weeks, a month, acouple months, you know years
from now like it's, like allright, let it be, let it flow.
And yeah, I don't know whatwhere that means, but I was just
saying that in the sense that,again, sometimes it's better
(15:08):
just to let it be.
What's your thoughts?
Do you look?
You're making a face.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
No, I'm listening.
I was listening to what youwere saying.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, the last thing I was telling a client yesterday
.
They had this question.
They were asking us which iskind of interesting that we're
talking about this.
They were asking us to talkabout death of self and I was
like, are you serious?
She's like, yeah, I think youand Onika should talk about
death of self and I was likewe're actually talking about
death tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Oh see, as a kid I used to think about death a lot
and I would think about it inthis, the way that, like
everything's over and I would be.
I would get this sense of fear,you know, like when you're a
kid, and then you realize likethat death is a thing and
(15:59):
everything was sort of over, andI got this like almost this
crippling paralysis, like iseverything just going to be
black?
And will I be conscious of thefact that it's black?
I was like eight, having thesethoughts and then I was thinking
I would miss everything, right,I would miss everybody and I
(16:21):
would miss everything.
And it was all about sort oflike me missing out, like
literally fear of missing outbecause you're gone.
And then, as I got older, Istarted thinking that we needed
to, I needed to practice thisidea of sort of letting go.
And then I started, you know,thinking about is there
(16:41):
something beyond?
You know what happens in thisrealm?
And started in thinking about itthat way.
And then when I started toreally study yoga and the pose,
even Shavasana at the end of ayoga class is corpse pose and
it's practice for death, likeyou can practice it if you allow
yourself to think about it thatway, and it's not some, it's
(17:03):
not a way that we approach ithere, but one of my teachers,
when I studied yoga for cancerand chronic illness, my teacher,
yanni Chapman, who was also adeath doula, talked about.
You know, you can practice thisidea of letting go and it's a
powerful thing and it will allowyou to be more present when
you're in this body, when you'rein Shavasana, like just let
(17:25):
yourself be really heavy andlike sinking into the earth and
allow your breath to just bevery minimal and like nobody
could tell that you werebreathing if they were looking
at you and recognizing that youcome from.
You know the earth and you'llreturn to the earth, and what a
gift that is that we come inthese bodies as humans and we
(17:47):
are able to be conscious of that.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
That's interesting.
That's interesting.
Yeah, I think you do.
That's a cool way.
I've never looked at it likethat when you're in Shavasana of
, like the, you know, practicingletting go.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It's always about rest, just rest and let your
practice be inside your body,and that's cool and all.
But if you really want toappreciate what yoga is and if
you're truly studying the rootsof yoga, it is a way to be fully
connected, right?
Yoga means yoke, so we'reyoking our body, our mind and
(18:28):
spirit to the moment, but notjust to the moment, but to
everything.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah, yeah, I never really was scared of death.
Is that weird?
No Death, never scared.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I'm not considering who you are now.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I think there was a point that the only way, the
only part I was scared of whenit was death was, I think, at
one point when I was really intothe church as a child and it
was like the fire in Brimstone,yeah, and I was like, huh, I
couldn't imagine that must havebeen terrifying.
Yeah, that was really, reallyterrifying.
Like I was really scared that Iwas going to go to hell.
(19:05):
And I remember, like I had anaunt, who I no longer speak with
, who teaches, who preaches fireand Brimstone, to the point of
like I mean, that's why we don'ttalk, you know.
And I was really scared.
I was going to go to hell and Iremember like just always
praying, like forgive me for mysins, forgive me for my sins,
forgive me for my sins.
Because I was just like, oh mygosh, like I did bad.
(19:26):
I got to ask for forgiveness.
Because they say, if you don'task for forgiveness, right, Then
you're not going to be in,you're not going to be allowed
into heaven.
But it was weird because thatwas.
I don't think that's necessarilya reflection of death.
Heaven and hell Like like whenI now think of death, I don't
think of heaven and hell Like afirst thought.
That's a whole differentconversation.
Like there's not a heaven andhell like that.
(19:47):
But I don't think of it likethat.
Like you get what I'm sayingand I didn't think of it like
that.
So I was never scared of it.
But I got scared of it when Iwas taught heaven and hell.
And then I was scared, and thenI was like, oh, I don't want to
die because I don't want to betortured in hell forever,
because of whatever choices I'mgoing to, I'm making in my life.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, I probably didn't make acceptable choices,
and I still don't, and I stilldon't.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
I think that we also think that death is the worst
thing that can happen, and Ijust don't think that.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I think that the death is far worse than death.
Far worse.
I think there's a piece, whenyou start to understand death,
that it's actually quitebeautiful.
It's actually a reallybeautiful thing.
I think it's a time whereyou've done for some, not for
all, everybody's death isdifferent but you did your time.
(20:49):
You did your time, you servedyour purpose, you lived your
lessons.
I know this is again.
I know some lives are cut short, so I don't want to say for all
, but for some it can be like areally beautiful process.
I remember I always say, becauseit's just the recent one when I
(21:10):
really sat with my grandfatherwhen he was dying and, like I
said, I was watching him in andout, in and out, in and out.
And then I remember, whenwatching his family that was on
the other side, or spirits kindof start gathering, I could feel
them right, I could see them.
They're gathering, they'regathering.
And I always thought mygrandmas I say grandmas because
(21:33):
he was married twice were goingto be there and I was like
that's who's going to take youto the other, that's who's going
to ask where you is, likethat's who I'm going to get to
see.
I'm going to get to feel like,oh my gosh, and it wasn't, it
wasn't them.
Okay, so funny story.
I may have already told thisstory before, but I'm going to
say it again.
I was driving really quickly.
I went home because I was likeI'm going to go home, grab some
(21:55):
things, and on the way back tohis house, his father popped in,
who I never met, and I was likeI know you, but I don't know
you.
He was telling me all thesegreat, amazing things about my
grandfather and why he was, whohe was and how he was raised,
which was so intriguing, cause Iwas like all of this makes
sense and I knew none of thisright.
(22:16):
So I got back to the house andI was telling my mom and my aunt
what happened and they've neverreally seen me do a medium ship
read, you know.
And I fully was like that'swhat I have to tell you.
And they were like that, theywere validating, like yeah,
that's true, that's true.
And I was like, well, they'resaying this and this and this
and this.
I said there's a woman here toothat keeps calling him something
(22:37):
I go, I can't hear, but hekeeps saying it, though, it,
though, it though.
And I was like I don't knowwhat she's saying, but like
she's giving mom energy, butshe's not his mom.
Like she's giving like that'smom energy, but she's not his
mom.
I was really confused.
I was like, but she's therewith him.
Anyways, I guess she called himpunch it and it was who raised
(22:57):
him his stepmother, that's.
Who showed for him was hisfather and his stepmother and
that too, was with him.
And I say that because theystayed with him and that day he
was very in and out that day.
That day his first language wasSpanish.
Now, my grandfather banned mefrom speaking Spanish and us
(23:18):
from speaking Spanish because ofall the racial stuff that went
on.
But that day, all of a sudden,he's mama and just he starts
calling out for her and in hisdad, and he introduced us to
them, with his eyes closed, inSpanish.
And it was just we werestanding there and I'm like, oh,
(23:41):
my God, he's really doing thisand he was just like talking to
them in Spanish while tellingthem like this is my family,
like blah, blah, blah, blah.
And yeah, it was pretty cool tosee.
And I'm like, wow, he'sliterally in both worlds right
now, like he's literally in thebody, talking to us, but talking
(24:01):
to them with his eyes closed.
And yeah, it's pretty cool, butit was beautiful.
Right, it wasn't scary, it was,it was.
It was actually reallybeautiful, and I think that's
what that's what we should lookat it as it's funny that we've
been taught to fear it.
(24:21):
I think I forgot to say to that, because I think, if you look
at the way that you know, wetalk a lot about our cultures
and the way we're brought up, Ithink that we're taught to fear
the things that give us freedom.
We're taught to the things thatgive us peace.
Oh, I need you to say thatagain for the people in the back
.
We're taught to fear the thingsthat give us freedom and we're
(24:41):
taught to fear the things thatgive us peace.
Yeah, and that's, that's notthe way that it was.
I mean, so many culturescelebrate death.
You celebrate it.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
So big I just need to sit with that for a second.
I guess I'll just sit with thatfor a second.
We are taught to fear thethings that give us freedom.
I don't think I've ever heardit articulated like that.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
I don't think I really hit itlike that till I was like
thinking about it.
I was like, yeah, I guessthat's what it is all the time,
because when you think about myown work, I'm always giving you
know, bringing people back in topeace, and it's okay to feel
this way.
It's permission to do this,it's permission to do that, it's
permission to do that, and it'slike everybody's, I don't know.
(25:28):
We've been stripped so much ofall the things that come natural
to us, all the things that comenatural to us.
We've, we were taught to fear,you know, and now it's like okay
, you know, we're taught to fearendings where and like we said,
other ways are celebrated.
You know, we're taught to fear.
You know the fact that we haveto die of self when in other, in
(25:51):
other, you know, cultures areagain it's celebrated.
There's huge things that go onand ceremonial things that go on
, you know, and here we are,these stupid ass Americans that
are like one way, one way only,you know, with our blinders on.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, so as soon as I , as you were talking, I was
thinking about that listener whohad asked you to have us talk
about death of self.
Have you ever had a death of?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
self which one.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
That's what I was, so go ahead, talk about one.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Which one.
I think that I think I'm in alight kind of just go in and out
for a bit.
I think the thing is is that wedie of self multiple times
within our life.
That's just the way it is.
And even as I say that rightnow, you know, I'm like I'm
saying that with trepidation,because I can actually hear
(26:52):
Spirit telling me like andthere's one more like I can feel
Spirit telling me and there'sone more right, I'm like oh fuck
, you know she's on the floor.
Oh my God, I love you so much,I love you so much, I love you.
(27:21):
You know, really quickly tobefore I explain you guys, a
death of self is basically islike how you identify and what
you identify with, basicallylike freaking, just imagine it
just falling and crumbling downto the floor Like that's it
right, and like we all have,whether it's our gender identity
(27:41):
or beliefs or morals, right,those are all part of who, you
can even say your ego, right,and so, just to sum it up like
that, I think the biggest onefor me was my divorce was a
death of self.
That was a death of self, butthat came, I think, before I
asked.
I asked for the divorce and I'mnot afraid to say that because
(28:02):
it was a sense of I'm not thisperson who I have to take it on
because of my family beliefs.
I'm not.
I'm not this.
I never was comfortable withbeing a stay at home wife.
I never was comfortable withbeing this.
You know, quote stay at homemom that could do whatever the
hell she pleased, whenever shewanted.
(28:22):
And that wasn't who I am.
My purpose was bigger.
I knew my purpose.
I knew in my heart what I wasmeant to do, but in order to do
that, I knew that the life I wasliving was not part of that
life and I had.
It had to fall away and I hadto change what that looked like.
But people don't realize thatwhen I say things had to fall
(28:43):
away, that meant that I, thedaughter of my grandfather, but
also his, the daughter I justrealized.
I said daughter, notgranddaughter, because the
daughter of him.
I was the next in line andcoming up as a matriarch and if
you're Hispanic, you understandthe roles that people play in
the family.
And that was me, right.
(29:03):
I had the parties, I held thefamily together as far as the
cousins and things like that.
So when I died of self.
It wasn't just a sense of medying of self, but it was a
family dying of self andeverything changed.
Everything changed in my family.
Everything my family lifechanged.
I changed.
I had to just step out.
(29:23):
I don't know what else to sayother than dying of self can be
very free.
It can also be very lonely.
There's something in it whenyou get to wake up fully being
who you are, without pretending,and you realize how many masks
you wear for everybody else.
You know, you realize, oh, Iput that mask on.
(29:47):
I put that mask on, but yeah, Idon't know what I mean.
I can answer questions on it,but other than that, like I just
had to go through it, yeah, Ijust had to go through it and I
think, like I say, there's somany different layers to it and
we die of us all so manydifferent times because we build
an ego at such a young age.
(30:07):
We build this ego up at such ayoung age and our ego is how we
are taught to perceive the worldaround us and it's what we
identify with, you know, andit's a fabrication of who we
truly are, but we've createdthat in our mind.
Okay, so like that's, you know,so that's kind of it.
(30:33):
So when you die of self, you'recreating that separation of the
ego that you fully believed wasyou, and that's fucking scary
as hell, because who the fuckare you then, if you aren't the
accurate?
Talk about it.
Yes, you know, and the thing is, the thing is, whoop, all right
(30:55):
spirit thing is, is the factthat we are taught, like I said,
death, right, we're taught tofear death.
So what are we naturally goingto do?
We're going to resist the dyingof the ego.
We're going to naturally resistit because we're taught to
resist it.
So that's the thing.
But I will say there's a senseof and I say this with whoever's
(31:21):
feeling this right now, ifyou're, if you're going through
it right now, where you're likemy life is just went from day to
night or night to day and it'sjust drastically shifting.
I know there's a lot oflisteners that are.
There is a sense of detachmentand dissociation.
That happens during this time,but I don't want you guys to
panic, because people panic inthat too.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Right, I'm thinking of a few things.
I'm thinking that I was goingthrough, I was approaching a
death of self actually, when Iwas interviewed on your podcast.
I think that is why I also feelthat connection with you and I
think you tipped it when youwere like, give me that date,
(32:05):
because I knew it was there,like it was there but I didn't
want to touch it because therewere such a big part of my ego
that was associated with what Idid and I didn't know who I
would be without that and I wasclinging to that.
But I also knew in the clingingthat spiritually and
(32:26):
psychically it was killing me.
And we get comfortable, right,we get comfortable with pain and
I would, I was part of me waswould rather hold on to that
idea of dying than to let go andwhat happens, right, and let
the, the wind take me.
And then, when I did, and thatloneliness and that fear that I
(32:51):
still, that still comes and goesthat I was I, because I don't
think it's completely over, Ithink I'm still sort of evolving
into what's next before my nextdeath.
So, yeah, I was thinking that.
And then I was also thinkingwhen I, when I worked in jail
and you were talking, when youwere talking about ego, how I
(33:14):
can have a sense of who I am.
And there were so many peoplethat I worked with who were
starting to know who they wereand also had to keep on that
mask for protection inside andrecognition of the mask that
they wore, and seeing them realtake that mask off when they
were with me in my office andhow sacred I thought that was
(33:40):
and how much I treasured thatand appreciated what a big, what
a big offering that was to bearwitness to something like that,
because it can be really scaryto reveal your true self just to
yourself, let alone to somebodyelse.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, yeah, it is.
I think that's something that Istruggle with.
I did that the other day.
I said it on my Instagram storyand I was like I don't know how
to put into words the gratitudethat I feel to get to hold that
space for people, that thatthey get to see themselves Like
I don't I don't know how I still, right now, like I'm like I
(34:23):
don't know how to.
I know what you're trying tosay, because I'm like don't know
how to explain that.
You know that I get to help youtake that mask off and just be
there.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
So what about you with your death of self?
I know you were saying like you, you were going through it with
, with, when you chose to leaveRikers, you chose to do the
stuff.
But like, how was that for youand what did you find?
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I.
I felt really afraid andexcited at the same time.
Afraid because it felt similarto another death of self when I
stopped holding on to hatredaround white supremacy and
started to lean more and to loveSuch a big part of my identity
(35:20):
I'm trying to find the words.
I'm saying that's okay.
Such a part of my identity washolding on to racism and the
impact that it had on me and mycommunity, that I completely
identified with that, whichcould make a lot of sense, right
, like you know, fightingagainst that.
And then I realized, as Ireally started to get into my
(35:41):
practice, that holding on tothat connection was actually
only embodying white supremacymore and more.
And if I truly wanted to befree, I needed to offer myself
unconditional love andfriendliness, and that would
mean letting go of that hatred.
(36:02):
And there was a moment of fearin that, because if I let go of
fighting against racism, thenwho?
Who am I really Like?
What is blackness really for me?
And that was that was enough tokeep me up at night for months.
Well, who am I?
What does it mean to be thisblack woman If I'm not pushing
(36:26):
back against the fact of whatwhite people are saying I am and
me saying like I'm not that,I'm not that.
So I never asked myself what Iam, I was just like I'm not that
and that was a huge.
It was a huge awakening and Ithink it ushered in a softness.
So when I came to this deathwith Rikers, it wasn't as scary
(36:51):
because I knew that softness wasthere and, even though I didn't
know what was going to come outof it, I knew I would come out
of it.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I kind of feel like it was almost like two senses of
dying of self at the same time,like you're going through two
senses of dying, two senses ofreleasing.
It wasn't just like, okay,there's Rikers, there was also
the thought process of thisother part of it too.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yeah, because that's a part of your ego, too, that
you wrapped your identity in,like that's a part of you that
you I was talking to yeah, I wastalking to this another black
meditation teacher who lives outof the country, and we've just
been chatting about a meme thatwe saw about a black woman who
(37:47):
was saying that now that shedidn't realize the amount of
tightness and holding on thatshe was doing living in the
United States and all she wasever thinking about was this
idea of blackness andrelationship to herself and
relationship to whiteness, andjust always navigating that
(38:09):
until she left and then shecould just kind of be.
And I remember and I'm gettinga lumpy even now because I
remember reading that and I waslike I don't even know what
that's like.
I think I know what it's likein moments, but just to be like
that all of the time, howfucking cool is that?
Not to have to be inrelationship to protection all
(38:34):
of the time or thinking about itor thinking about how to
transcend it, or thinking justbeing like, oh, this is what it
is, just to be me, and how somany people in the United States
don't get to do that.
White, black, latina, latino,none of it, like nobody does.
You know what I mean?
(38:54):
Like nobody's free of it, andit's not just blackness.
Nobody's free because of thatrelationship to supremacy that
this country was built on.
So we're also caught up in it,and so we were.
Just, he was like you shouldleave Portugal's great, and I
was like there was a moment ofexcitement and fear.
(39:15):
Well, what would that be like?
Just to be me, you know?
Speaker 1 (39:18):
that makes sense.
I was thinking about that whenyou were talking right now and
I'm like that makes sense, why,like you know, I just came back
from Oaxaca and it was like it'sa sense of just like why it
feels like I couldn't put intowords, like, yeah, that's Mexico
and I'm Mexican, but like, oh,because everybody's me,
(39:41):
everybody is just me, you know,yeah, you know interesting.
And then there was somethingthat happened as soon as I
freaking hit that airport.
As soon as I hit that airport,it was like welcome back to
freaking America.
I had this.
My heart just hurt for you.
I had this beautiful experience.
(40:02):
I loved it.
For those that don't know, youknow, for those that when I was
brought up, my grandfather didspeak Spanish to me.
I was fluent, and then Istopped speaking because it was
a whole, like I said already,racist thing.
I don't need to go through it.
My Spanish level is now I'm notvery confident here in America.
I don't, I'm not confident.
Give me a day in Mexico.
(40:25):
It comes back.
And my mom was like, oh, my God, like I was, like I'm confident
.
I'm like, okay, what do youneed?
I got you.
I was like, oh, blah, blah,blah.
I had a beautiful time.
It was amazing.
I think I sent pictures.
I, you know, I saw some land.
I can't put into words whatthat was like.
(40:46):
Even just thinking about itright now I'm being emotional,
like just to be on the land thatI had spent so much time
learning about, and like thewisdom, so much wisdom, like
freaking amazing how people, howwe did in the past right, how
we just created this land with,like, the stars and the
alignment, and knowing how thetrade system was going to work
(41:08):
and all these things, likethere's no maps, there's no
calculations, other than theyjust knew how to lay it out.
But point is beautiful time Iget to the airport and this is
the airport in Oaxaca to go toTJ.
Okay, so you're in there.
I dropped a paper and thisstupid ass sorry guys, I'm gonna
(41:29):
say it's stupid ass white ladypicked it up and she picks up
the paper and she looks at meand she goes oh, did you drop
this?
And I said, oh, thank you somuch.
That's all I said.
She goes, puts her hand on herheart and takes a deep breath
and goes oh, thank goodness youspeak English.
And I turned around to are youthere?
(41:50):
I think you froze.
Oh yeah, I turned around to theperson I'm with and I took me
like a brief second.
It took me a second because Iwould have reacted, how I caught
it and I just kind of liketurned around and put it in
because we were like moving, youknow, when you're going through
checkpoints, right, so we'removing, and then once we get to
the checkpoint, I'm putting mystuff in the container and I
look at my friend and I'm likedid she just did she just say
(42:14):
that?
And my friend's like yes, bitch, yes, yes, she did.
And I was like, fuck, like herewe go, welcome, fucking back.
Uh huh, like I'm just like, areyou fucking serious?
Like I'm just like welcome thefuck back.
(42:37):
Like you just killed my whole,fucking whole lot.
Yeah right, thank God I didn'tcatch it in the moment.
There's a reason I probablywent off.
That was a gift.
That was a gift for you, yeah.
But yeah, my friend knew inside, looked at her like did she
just my friend's like?
Yes, bitch.
(42:57):
I was like, oh, it's like whatthe?
Speaker 2 (43:01):
fuck.
Well, anyway, the juggling,right, the juggling.
Oh, there are things that areworse than death.
There are things that are worsethan death.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
I was talking to, um, we black or brown for a day,
there are things that are worsethan death.
I was talking to a friend lastnight and she's laughing because
I just did air quotes.
I was talking to my friend lastnight and he was saying how he
(43:39):
reminded me, like he, we're justtalking about being with
somebody of of that's not ofcolor, like, just not of color.
You know, I don't know, it wasjust I don't know what the point
of this saying it, but I'mthinking about it as we're
talking about these things rightnow.
Um, yeah, I don't know what mypoint was, other than there was
a point in what I had to say,but I lost track of it.
(44:01):
I lost track of it, but I thinkit's the same, like it would be
really hard when there's justcertain things that you do and I
think that's a part of bringinginto the discussion of sense of
dying of self.
I think there's a part of you,um, as a person of color,
whatever, that you do go througha sense of death, of dying of
self.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
And it's.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
I think, in a way, there's a part of us that are
forced to do it too, withoutwithout ask or looking to do it.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I just felt that in my whole body when you said that
.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Yeah, I actually want to cry right now because of
that and now it needs to Like,all right, I like, I'm like I
actually want to bring thistopic up and I'm actually to the
point right now, like I'mthinking about it.
I'm like fuck you, like fuckyou, but you would force me to
(44:57):
do that and, yeah, you areforced to it and you think of,
you know, we had Naya being onand and the sense of like you
know, she talks about thechildren that are.
You know, we're forced to dieof self at such a young age and
look at things in a way, um,that I guess things aren't, you
know others aren't having tolook at.
Anyways, I don't know, I don'tknow if that's a you know, I
(45:23):
don't know if that's a gift in asense, because I think it gives
us strength because, yeah, it'sgoing to be other things in our
life that we'll have to faceand and and keep going and make
other decisions.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
I always get really torn about in the camp where
growth.
I don't, I don't believe inthat.
I believe that, um, it would bebetter if we never had to have
the trauma at all.
Oh and by trauma, I mean likeyeah no because you know how
there's a lot of people are likewell, it's a gift that this
happened to you, because racismis not a gift.
No, I want to prefer that itnever happened.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, I don't.
I'm not talking about you.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I'm not talking about you I'm talking about, like
other people who, um, who saythat um, because you were
talking about, like it's notfair, it's not fair and you're
right, it's not fair.
And there's so many people whoI think are not black and brown,
this idea of post-traumaticgrowth because they are in a
(46:23):
position they impose, withhistorical trauma and systemic
trauma, that the trauma thathappens to them is so you know,
few and far between and don't atme about single incidents of
getting hurt, like I'm not hereto talk about that.
I'm talking about systemic andhistorical trauma to groups of
communities over generations.
(46:45):
That is so built into us thatwe know how to navigate it in
ways that I don't think that weshould have to, but we do
because that's who we are,because we're adaptable and
we're strong and we're resilientand we're capable and we're
fucking magic, and it's stillnot okay that we have to do that
.
So, anyway, so pause.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
No, I think you're a hundred percent right, but we're
magic.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Like we're magical, we're magical and we'd still be
magical if we didn't have todeal with that.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Yeah, I mean I think that we were magical in the
beginning.
I mean, look what I just talkedabout.
I talked about like all theshit and like we built and
things that we did.
That was like better thananything else out there.
So, yeah, we are fuckingmagical, like you know.
I mean that was the whole.
That's the whole reason whywe're trying to be shoved in a
(47:37):
box, because we were too fuckingmagical.
It was like let me shove youall in this, so that that's.
That's really what happened.
That's literally what happened,yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Yeah, yeah, that sucks.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
I don't know what's, that's what's up Because he's so
many different.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I'm glad, I'm really glad.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I am, but it's like you actually made me think for a
while.
It's like, yeah, like there'sso many different ways of death
and you know, yeah, death is abeautiful thing, but, like, as
I'm talking and I'm like, yeah,we were taught to die so many
times over, you know, and, andsome of it we didn't choose to,
we didn't choose to be a part ofthis, Like we didn't choose to
(48:25):
have that experience.
It's just, it was what we weregiven.
You know, I don't think it.
I take back in the sense when Isaid like it makes it easier.
I don't know if it doesnecessarily, but I think, for me
and my reflections ofexperiences, I think, when I'm
talking from my perspective, itgives me a sense of move the
fuck out of my way.
(48:46):
Does that make sense?
And so when I say that's theenergy that I'm talking about
where that's?
That's the vibe that I don't.
I don't have a problem withthat, Like that don't, and it
sucks that.
My experience has caused me tobe that way, you know, but
(49:06):
that's that's the way it is forme.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,but you know.
Anyways, back to that littleminute things of dying himself,
now that we talk about thosethings, you know that's still
(49:26):
fucking scary when we have to dothat too.
It's still scary when we gothrough big life changes and the
shit gets ripped out fromunderneath us and we're like I
don't want to do this, you know,I just don't want to fucking do
this.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
But I'm trying to think of what?
Speaker 1 (49:42):
but I took care of myself, I think the best way and
I was talking to someone theother day the best way that you
can do this is surrender, and Ihate, in a way I sometimes hate
using such cheesy words.
I do Like there's a part I hateusing cheesy words sometimes,
but that's You're reclaiming it.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
You're reclaiming it because you're brown.
So I understand what you meanby it.
But when it's said in differentkinds, like in sort of, you
know spirit landia, it's meantdifferently.
But I know what you mean bythat.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Yeah, I think that's the best way is just that's it.
That's all you can do.
I think you know for me, like Isaid earlier, the lesson for me
is is stop trying to read it,stop trying to predict it, stop
trying to control it, stoptrying to ask the why of it, and
just be in it, Just freaking bein it, and that's the best
thing.
And I find the more that weallow ourselves to be present in
(50:39):
whatever moment we're in,whether it's the highs or
whether it's the lows, and we'represent in those moments, I
think we get stronger and Ithink it goes.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
I don't even know what you heard, but yeah you cut
off, like as soon as youstarted talking in here, any of
it.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
I was saying that when we surrender, or the best
thing that we can do is just bepresent in the moment, whether
it's the high or whether it'sthe low.
And the fact is is that when weallow ourselves to be present,
there is a part of whatever whenyou're dying of self or you're
going through it that instead ofresisting the pain, instead of
resisting the grief, instead ofresisting all these things, and
(51:20):
we accept it, we actually movethrough it faster.
I know it's not about goingthrough it with speed, but we do
because we're just allowingourselves to feel it.
The only reason that things areso hard is because we're making
them hard by resisting theemotions that come with it, and
so that's the whole thing.
It's like let yourselfexperience the emotions and part
(51:42):
of it.
Emotions change seasons.
It's not meant, like we do, tohave highs and lows and bad and
good.
It's just embrace it for whatit is and then, as you embrace
it, you kind of get to movethrough that and see, open up,
have an awareness, createdifferent things.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, when my mom called me on the day
that my dad died.
She called, I picked up thephone and she said thank God you
picked up the phone.
You need to get home right now.
And I was like why?
And I knew I knew, by the way,that she would, I knew what it
(52:27):
was and she wouldn't tell me.
I kept taking me to my parents'house and I remember thinking
this is what it feels like whenyou find out that your father's
about when your father's gone.
This is what it feels like, andI remember telling myself don't
(52:48):
, don't run, because there weremoments I wanted to just like
disappear, like completelydissociate, and it's like don't
run, because this is only goingto happen once.
So you want to remember everysingle part of it, no matter how
much it's going to gut you,because you aren't merely at the
place of being gutted becauseyou haven't heard the word yet.
(53:12):
So be present, because you'regoing to want to remember, like
telling myself that.
So I looked out of the window,I watched cars going by, I
placed my hand on my car.
I was touching my body toreally be in it and completely
collapsing because I told myselfto be in it and not to
(53:33):
disappear.
Right.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
That's good, that's a great day to do anything and
that's the way that youprocessed with it.
I think that was just the rightthing.
I'm just sitting here thinkingI was like I don't have.
It's weird because if you knewme, if you knew Isabel 10 years
ago Isabel 10 years ago, hatedfeelings, isabel freaking.
Five years ago, hated feelings,I hated emotions, I hated crying
(54:00):
, I hated grief.
And it's funny because Iremember my ex-husband.
I would tell him, when mygrandfather's dies, I don't know
what I'm gonna ever do.
This was back before he died.
Right, I was like I think I maydie, like I literally would
feel that I was like I don'tthink, I don't know how I'm
gonna survive.
I remember telling him likewhen he dies, be ready for it,
(54:21):
because I don't know how I'mgonna, I don't know how I'm
gonna survive that.
And I think for me, like I'mlistening to you, it's like the
same thing, though I wasimmersed in it, so I got to be
by him with like two weeks, so Iwas very present in it.
But by then, five years later, Ihad learned how to absorb it,
be in that emotion and grief andjust like be in whatever
(54:45):
feelings were coming up in thosemoments which obviously helped
me to deal with the circumstanceof whatever occurred.
But I think back to because I'mlike, yeah, if I didn't know
how to be in it, I think I stillwould have been str I, it would
have been a darker, it wouldhave been a darker situation for
me.
So, yeah, so I can hear spiritkind of saying like you know,
(55:13):
when we, when you die, whetherit's death of self, whether it's
a rebirth, whether it's youleaving this physical body, it's
a very I'm trying to understandwhat they're saying.
It's a very like all sensesthing.
It's a very all emotions, allsenses type of thing.
(55:33):
There's not a separation ofsadness, happiness, grief.
It's almost like there's tryingto say like there's this
overwhelming all senses.
That makes sense to me why theyalways talk to me about like
emotions and teaching people howto be in the body, anyways.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:59):
Yeah, and for those that ask cause I get this
question a lot too.
On a side note, people alwaysare like oh, did my loved one
suffer?
Like we don't suffer.
I need people to understandthat, like we don't suffer when
we leave this body, we don't, wedon't suffer.
There's not a suffering thathappens when we leave Once the
(56:20):
spirit makes peace with they'reready to go.
There's not a suffering thatever, ever occurs.
You know, once they did likeokay, the physical pain is done,
the physical pain is done.
I don't know why people askthat Such a weird question.
When you think about it, theysuffer.
What does that mean?
Did they suffer?
No, they did not, and now we donot.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
Anyways, yeah, I think that's more for the person
right.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
A person asking Living with it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
But like, why do people get the belief that they
suffer and I don't mean in aselfish way, I don't mean I'm
like a selfish woman.
Yeah, I think it's for causethey?
I think I wonder if it'ssomebody just trying to make
sense of it.
Speaker 1 (57:05):
I don't know, I don't know, like to me, like it was
never, like I never thought,like I don't know, like I guess
maybe they're trying to makesense of it.
Did they suffer?
Oh, I think maybe they'retalking about the physical pain
that the person's living right,like maybe they can't talk, or
their chest hurts or thoseelements of it.
But once we leave, that it'sgone, it's like.
(57:26):
Once we leave that, it's likeokay, you know, I don't suffer
going into the next stage of mylife because I was physically in
pain while leaving that body.
No, it's like, once you leavethe body, it's like no, I'm at
peace, I'm good, yeah.
And there's like this weird youhave to remember too, they're
going in and out of their body,so they're not sitting in that
body with that pain the wholetime as much as we see them
(57:47):
right With our own eyes, right,right, yeah, any other things I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
No, I think that's good.
I feel like we could talk aboutthis forever.
This is, I think, one of thosethings that it's a topic that I
feel like needs to happen moreand all different, I think,
spiritual places that we're justwe're so focused on and you say
(58:26):
talking about dominant culture.
I think we're so focused on,like the warm and fuzzy aspects
of spirituality that we don'tallow ourselves to feel the
wholeness of it all and we cutourselves off that, and I think
that causes harm.
And I'm glad that we were ableto have this conversation,
(58:49):
because this is what I thinkit's all about, like.
I think this is we get calm sowe can be reborn, yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:04):
Yeah, exactly, I mean that's a representation of
every life that we have about us, whether it's nature right,
whether it's however, it is Likethat's always in representation
.
I mean that's the whole point.
I think that's the whole pointof us as the human experience.
It's constant evolving, it's aconstant rebirth, it's a
(59:27):
constant dying of self.
And it sounds kind of weirdwhen I say it's a constant dying
of self, but it really is Like.
It is a constant like, okay,you know, there's my ego, or
okay, there's this or whateverit is.
You know, time for the nextstage, time for this stage.
Yeah, I'm having someintrospective looks at right now
.
I'm like, okay, I can see whereI'm at right now, you know, I
(59:51):
know I was like, oh, I'm gonnago through it again.
I think, in a way, I'm goingthrough it now, but it's just
that it's not like a painfuldying of self, it's just a sense
of like I'm expanding up.
So it's like okay, there's alot of different changes coming
right now.
I can feel that I'm like, okay,but I'm just okay, what can I
say?
What can I do?
Just stop fighting it.
So, all right, you're underGreat conversation, guys.
(01:00:17):
Let us know if you have anyquestions?
I guess that's it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Yeah, okay, bye, yes.
All right, so we're talking about death today.
Like what was your thoughtprocess when you were like
Isabel, let's talk about death.
Like what are you looking at inregards to death?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm looking at all aspects of death.
I think it started when Imentioned that movie Arrival.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah, I started watching it but I remembered I'd
watched it before so I didn'tfinish it, but I did see a
little bit of it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
So the reason why I loved that movie was for a bunch
of reasons.
One lately I've just beenobsessed with the concept of
time and how it's not linear inthis idea that everything is
happening now, everything past,present, future and Arrival,
(00:53):
this whole idea that thesepeople, aliens from another
place, come and land and I don'tknow if you remember.
But she ends up talking to thembecause she's a linguist and
they tell her, they give herthis idea of the concept of time
and she realizes that she isgoing to have a child who is
(01:17):
going to die young, and she seeseverything in a moment.
And then she's confused for asecond because she's recognizing
is this happening now?
Has it already happened?
And she's able to stop somethingterrible from happening because
(01:37):
the people, the terrestrialthat she was talking to, give
her some information.
So she's able to stop somethingcatastrophic from happening.
And at the same time sherecognizes that, wow, I am going
to fall in love and have thisincredible life and I have this
chance right now to say no to it.
So I don't go through thisincredible pain.
(01:58):
But she decides she's not goingto go through it.
So she does.
I mean, she decides she isgoing to go through with it and
she falls in love with the guywho she's been working with and
we find out in the verybeginning of the movie that she
has already told him about herexperience and he leaves her
(02:19):
because of it, because he can'tdeal with the pain and yeah, the
hug.
Welcome to Motherland I thoughtyou were cutting this whole part
(02:52):
out.
I didn't know we were going touse that part.
I was just trying to fill youin my thought process.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Let me just give you a spoiler alert.
No, I want to hear the thoughtprocess.
I wanted to know like OK, Iwant to know why.
I don't care.
Like this movie's been out fora while, I'm sure people's
watched it 2016.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
2016.
It's been out.
The guy leaves her, yes, ok, hedivorces her and she still
stays with her daughter.
Her daughter, very young, asksa question about her dad.
I found out something and Itold her dad and he didn't like
(03:30):
what I said.
And this is where we are now.
So the daughter does end updying, but we don't know.
It's interesting because weknow she's lost the daughter.
So this concept of time, it'slike we keep interacting.
I can't even say we keep goingforward and back, because it's
(03:51):
not going forward and back.
It's like you're in this sortof fluid movement of time and
you are almost experiencing herlife and what is happening as
she's doing it.
And I was fascinated by it.
When I first saw it, I willadmit I had an edible, so it's
(04:12):
totally high and it blew me away, right.
But then I was like, let me,was it just the weed or was it
the movie?
And so then I watched it and Iwasn't high and it had even a
bigger impact on me.
And then I was just thinkingabout death in general.
When we leave our bodies, whathappens, thinking about it as a
(04:33):
kid.
Death is a beginning as anending.
So yeah, I'm intrigued.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I don't know where this is going, but I'm intrigued
by it.
So, okay, interesting.
I remember watching the moviebefore and I'm like I don't
remember all of that Like I need.
And even yesterday, I don'tknow why I couldn't get back in,
not yesterday, it was like theother day, I couldn't get back
into it.
And I feel like that's how itwas the first time I watched it,
that I just couldn't get intoit.
But I remember her talking tothe aliens and I remember all of
(05:01):
the things.
So I'm like I know I saw themovie.
It's slow, it's very slow.
Yeah, I'm wondering now if Iwas high when I watched the
movie the first time.
But like I remember seeing likethe alien part of it and then
when I watched it the other day,you know, seeing the daughter,
and I was like, okay, I've seenthis movie before, all right, so
(05:23):
time and death, all right.
I don't even know what to gowith this right now.
I'm a little bit kind of stuck.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Well so, and some African spirituality, and I want
to say it might be Zulu and I'mnot sure on that, so don't at
me if I'm wrong and correct me,listeners, but there's a concept
of Sasha and Zemani, and Iremember reading and learning
about Zemani when I was incollege for a literature class,
(05:54):
and I can't remember what book Iwas reading.
But Zemani is like this spacebetween death and life, past and
future, but it's not thepresent and it's like this, this
sort of liminal space where wehang out.
And then there's this idea ofSasha that is also about
ancestors and the future and thepast, and we sort of live in
(06:19):
this space.
And so it's like you think toyourself well, there is death
because we become, we becomeancestors.
But then there's also thismoment.
So, like, how can we live inthis moment fully knowing that
we're going to be ancestors andthat what we do both impacts
where we're going and wherewe've been?
But that's what we're at, rightnow.
(06:41):
Yeah, but I don't think we talkabout it in terms of, like,
leaving our bodies.
I think it's all inrelationship to being in the
body that we are right now.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Okay, I get what you're saying.
It is in relationship to beingin the body right now.
But once we leave our bodies, Imean I can see what you're
saying and I understand indifferent, in different really
cultures and how they see andhow they view death.
You know everybody's differentbut I do think, like they're
right in what you just said.
Right now, I do think that oncewe, once we leave our body, we
(07:15):
do hit avoid area.
We hit that.
I'm going to call it avoid area.
I don't necessarily thinkthere's nothing there, but
that's the best way I canexplain it.
You know we hit that void area.
That's where I always tellpeople I'm like, yeah, you go
through your life review for awhile and you're kind of just
like there you're going throughyour life review and then making
(07:37):
the decisions of how you wantto go about as a soul to learn
those lessons.
This is pretty deepconversation right now.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I know it's early for you.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It's eight in the morning.
It's eight in the morning hereand I'm like I have to have this
conversation.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I mean this is just how my mind works.
I'm actually down for it.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I'm just like I think , because I'm in thought process
with it right now.
That's why I say like I'm justsitting here going like all
right, like I just think it'sreally beautiful.
I think death is given a badname.
I think that's death is givensuch a bad name.
I think, like you say the worditself and it's like death right
(08:19):
.
I think the connotation of deathis given a bad name.
But I don't think it's it's.
I don't think it's bad.
I don't think that death is bad.
I think we're taught to feardeath, we're taught to be scared
.
But you made a good point whenyou were texting me about all
the different levels of death,because you were like I want to
talk about death in alldifferent types and I was like
(08:42):
explain, like I was like I don'tunderstand, and you're like
death is rebirth, death is abeginning.
Well, same thing beginning ordeath as an ending.
I was thinking death of self.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Death as rebirth and death as a beginning are
actually different, becausedeath as as a like, as rebirth,
can be sort of like the personthat you are born into, somebody
new, and death could be also anew beginning because you're
shedding something of yourselfand starting like a new path.
(09:15):
It doesn't even have to be aboutyou specifically like the death
of like you know, a projectthat you were working on and you
know sort of like letting thatgo, sort of like a closing.
But I think we I think we aredefinitely at least here in the
States are taught to fear death,that it's something that's
(09:35):
scary, it's something that wetry to avoid.
I think, if you look at all ofthe anti-aging conversations
that happen and that everybodyis terrified of getting older
and people don't want to admithow old they are or they're so
happy that they are a certainage and but don't look that age.
(09:56):
I have fallen into that trapand you know, what are we?
What are we really afraid of?
And if we can incorporate thisidea that we leave our bodies
into our conversations, I thinkthe lives that we live while
we're in our bodies can be somuch more beautiful.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I think that freaks people out.
Oh, totally, I mean, Iunderstand what you're saying
and I definitely agree, but Ithink it freaks people out.
Like I always tell people, I'mlike you don't have anything,
there's nothing to fear in death, like there's nothing, there's
nothing to be scared of inregards to death.
I can say that 10 times over,but the thought that I can be
separate of this physical bodyscares people.
You know, so, even though you'relike, if we can all wrap
(10:37):
ourselves in that concept, thenyou know the world would be a
better place, but it's like Ithink it would really scare
people and I actually questionwould the world be a better
place Because people would?
Speaker 2 (10:46):
not be like I would say it would be a better place.
I actually what I said was thatwe would have a better
experience in our lives.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, I guess I misinterpret that as saying like
a better place.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
No, and by, and I don't even think better, I think
more full is what?
Yeah, what I mean.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, yeah, I'm actually wondering myself, like
I'm sitting here going, like,how do I view death?
Like I think like thisconversation is intriguing
because I don't think I've eversat back and really thought
about how I view it.
Like I've never sat back andthought like, oh, what's your
viewpoint of it?
I mean even in the sense thatreading people and seeing spirit
(11:29):
and talking you know to spirit,that I say the other side guys,
again, don't come at me.
I know there's not reallyanother side and here it's part
of this whole realm, but that'sthe best way I can explain it
right now.
But even talking, you know, tospirit, it's like I don't think
I ever really sat back andwatched and really thought about
it.
I remember watching mygrandfather die and being
(11:52):
intrigued of the in and outs ofhim, you know, leaving his body
and being present in his body.
And leaving his body I meanpresent in his body, before he
was finally ready to like makethat change, whatever it is.
And but I guess I've neverreally like thought of it.
I know like death as, like youknow, something dies and then
(12:13):
something grows.
You know, like I know, in thatsense of like, when there's
different things that happen inour life that you know are what
people would deem bad, or is theending.
I don't believe in endings, Ibelieve in new beginnings.
I don't think that anything isever like oh, that's the ending.
I think every ending leads tolike a new beginning and I think
in some way it's the same if wetalk about reincarnation.
(12:35):
Right, like you die, but youare going to have it.
You have an opportunity to havea new beginning.
You know, I don't necessarilythink it's a do over.
You know I get to start over.
It's like no, it's not a doover, but I think we have like
an opportunity to be like okay,I get to.
You know, I know we have anopportunity where we come back
(12:57):
and bring those still lessonsthat we learned.
Yeah, but I wonder, if you knewwhat your life was going to be
like, would you still chooseyour life?
How many people would actuallysay yes, I think it would, I
would.
I think about that like all thetime.
I'm like look it, if I knewthat I was.
That was the point of arrival.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, that was the point of the movie.
Would you still choose it?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
if you knew, yeah, I think I would I would choose it
and that's the whole point,right.
Like we have this thing whenwe're in a soul without a body
and we have what we talked aboutbefore.
Like you have your contract,you make your contract, you kind
of get an idea of what yourlessons are going to be learned,
and then you come down here andyou forget all the things that
you signed up for, all thelessons and experiences that
(13:43):
were going to happen in yourlife and you go through it.
I look back at that all thetime and I'm like I would never
change my past.
Did some of it suck?
That's the apps of fuckingLutli, but I would never change
it.
I mean, I have four beautifulchildren for a reason and I
don't think I would ever givethat up.
I mean, there's things I regret.
I don't I regret the right word.
(14:04):
There's things I wish I maybedid different.
I don't think regrets are theright word, but it is what it is
and I think if I knew I stillwouldn't, I wouldn't change it.
That's weird.
I'm in a circumstance right nowwhere I'm like I had this
conversation with somebody theother day and I was saying I'm
in a situation right now whereI'm like I'm not reading the
(14:24):
situation, I'm not reading it.
I'm not asking, you know, ifthe person I'm talking to is is
the person you know.
I'm like, no, I'm not readingit.
I was like I sat with spiritand spirits like no, it's the
situation you need to be inright now, so let it be.
Whatever that looks like iswhatever it looks like, and I
was like you know what thatactually makes sense to me.
(14:46):
I was like I have a piece aboutwhatever it is, even if it's a
week, two weeks, a month, acouple months, you know years
from now like it's, like allright, let it be, let it flow.
And yeah, I don't know whatwhere that means, but I was just
saying that in the sense that,again, sometimes it's better
(15:08):
just to let it be.
What's your thoughts?
Do you look?
You're making a face.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
No, I'm listening.
I was listening to what youwere saying.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, the last thing I was telling a client yesterday
.
They had this question.
They were asking us which iskind of interesting that we're
talking about this.
They were asking us to talkabout death of self and I was
like, are you serious?
She's like, yeah, I think youand Onika should talk about
death of self and I was likewe're actually talking about
death tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Oh see, as a kid I used to think about death a lot
and I would think about it inthis, the way that, like
everything's over and I would be.
I would get this sense of fear,you know, like when you're a
kid, and then you realize likethat death is a thing and
(15:59):
everything was sort of over, andI got this like almost this
crippling paralysis, like iseverything just going to be
black?
And will I be conscious of thefact that it's black?
I was like eight, having thesethoughts and then I was thinking
I would miss everything, right,I would miss everybody and I
(16:21):
would miss everything.
And it was all about sort oflike me missing out, like
literally fear of missing outbecause you're gone.
And then, as I got older, Istarted thinking that we needed
to, I needed to practice thisidea of sort of letting go.
And then I started, you know,thinking about is there
(16:41):
something beyond?
You know what happens in thisrealm?
And started in thinking about itthat way.
And then when I started toreally study yoga and the pose,
even Shavasana at the end of ayoga class is corpse pose and
it's practice for death, likeyou can practice it if you allow
yourself to think about it thatway, and it's not some, it's
(17:03):
not a way that we approach ithere, but one of my teachers,
when I studied yoga for cancerand chronic illness, my teacher,
yanni Chapman, who was also adeath doula, talked about.
You know, you can practice thisidea of letting go and it's a
powerful thing and it will allowyou to be more present when
you're in this body, when you'rein Shavasana, like just let
(17:25):
yourself be really heavy andlike sinking into the earth and
allow your breath to just bevery minimal and like nobody
could tell that you werebreathing if they were looking
at you and recognizing that youcome from.
You know the earth and you'llreturn to the earth, and what a
gift that is that we come inthese bodies as humans and we
(17:47):
are able to be conscious of that.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
That's interesting.
That's interesting.
Yeah, I think you do.
That's a cool way.
I've never looked at it likethat when you're in Shavasana of
, like the, you know, practicingletting go.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It's always about rest, just rest and let your
practice be inside your body,and that's cool and all.
But if you really want toappreciate what yoga is and if
you're truly studying the rootsof yoga, it is a way to be fully
connected, right?
Yoga means yoke, so we'reyoking our body, our mind and
(18:28):
spirit to the moment, but notjust to the moment, but to
everything.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah, yeah, I never really was scared of death.
Is that weird?
No Death, never scared.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I'm not considering who you are now.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I think there was a point that the only way, the
only part I was scared of whenit was death was, I think, at
one point when I was really intothe church as a child and it
was like the fire in Brimstone,yeah, and I was like, huh, I
couldn't imagine that must havebeen terrifying.
Yeah, that was really, reallyterrifying.
Like I was really scared that Iwas going to go to hell.
(19:05):
And I remember, like I had anaunt, who I no longer speak with
, who teaches, who preaches fireand Brimstone, to the point of
like I mean, that's why we don'ttalk, you know.
And I was really scared.
I was going to go to hell and Iremember like just always
praying, like forgive me for mysins, forgive me for my sins,
forgive me for my sins.
Because I was just like, oh mygosh, like I did bad.
(19:26):
I got to ask for forgiveness.
Because they say, if you don'task for forgiveness, right, Then
you're not going to be in,you're not going to be allowed
into heaven.
But it was weird because thatwas.
I don't think that's necessarilya reflection of death.
Heaven and hell Like like whenI now think of death, I don't
think of heaven and hell Like afirst thought.
That's a whole differentconversation.
Like there's not a heaven andhell like that.
(19:47):
But I don't think of it likethat.
Like you get what I'm sayingand I didn't think of it like
that.
So I was never scared of it.
But I got scared of it when Iwas taught heaven and hell.
And then I was scared, and thenI was like, oh, I don't want to
die because I don't want to betortured in hell forever,
because of whatever choices I'mgoing to, I'm making in my life.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, I probably didn't make acceptable choices,
and I still don't, and I stilldon't.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
I think that we also think that death is the worst
thing that can happen, and Ijust don't think that.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I think that the death is far worse than death.
Far worse.
I think there's a piece, whenyou start to understand death,
that it's actually quitebeautiful.
It's actually a reallybeautiful thing.
I think it's a time whereyou've done for some, not for
all, everybody's death isdifferent but you did your time.
(20:49):
You did your time, you servedyour purpose, you lived your
lessons.
I know this is again.
I know some lives are cut short, so I don't want to say for all
, but for some it can be like areally beautiful process.
I remember I always say, becauseit's just the recent one when I
(21:10):
really sat with my grandfatherwhen he was dying and, like I
said, I was watching him in andout, in and out, in and out.
And then I remember, whenwatching his family that was on
the other side, or spirits kindof start gathering, I could feel
them right, I could see them.
They're gathering, they'regathering.
And I always thought mygrandmas I say grandmas because
(21:33):
he was married twice were goingto be there and I was like
that's who's going to take youto the other, that's who's going
to ask where you is, likethat's who I'm going to get to
see.
I'm going to get to feel like,oh my gosh, and it wasn't, it
wasn't them.
Okay, so funny story.
I may have already told thisstory before, but I'm going to
say it again.
I was driving really quickly.
I went home because I was likeI'm going to go home, grab some
(21:55):
things, and on the way back tohis house, his father popped in,
who I never met, and I was likeI know you, but I don't know
you.
He was telling me all thesegreat, amazing things about my
grandfather and why he was, whohe was and how he was raised,
which was so intriguing, cause Iwas like all of this makes
sense and I knew none of thisright.
(22:16):
So I got back to the house andI was telling my mom and my aunt
what happened and they've neverreally seen me do a medium ship
read, you know.
And I fully was like that'swhat I have to tell you.
And they were like that, theywere validating, like yeah,
that's true, that's true.
And I was like, well, they'resaying this and this and this
and this.
I said there's a woman here toothat keeps calling him something
(22:37):
I go, I can't hear, but hekeeps saying it, though, it,
though, it though.
And I was like I don't knowwhat she's saying, but like
she's giving mom energy, butshe's not his mom.
Like she's giving like that'smom energy, but she's not his
mom.
I was really confused.
I was like, but she's therewith him.
Anyways, I guess she called himpunch it and it was who raised
(22:57):
him his stepmother, that's.
Who showed for him was hisfather and his stepmother and
that too, was with him.
And I say that because theystayed with him and that day he
was very in and out that day.
That day his first language wasSpanish.
Now, my grandfather banned mefrom speaking Spanish and us
(23:18):
from speaking Spanish because ofall the racial stuff that went
on.
But that day, all of a sudden,he's mama and just he starts
calling out for her and in hisdad, and he introduced us to
them, with his eyes closed, inSpanish.
And it was just we werestanding there and I'm like, oh,
(23:41):
my God, he's really doing thisand he was just like talking to
them in Spanish while tellingthem like this is my family,
like blah, blah, blah, blah.
And yeah, it was pretty cool tosee.
And I'm like, wow, he'sliterally in both worlds right
now, like he's literally in thebody, talking to us, but talking
(24:01):
to them with his eyes closed.
And yeah, it's pretty cool, butit was beautiful.
Right, it wasn't scary, it was,it was.
It was actually reallybeautiful, and I think that's
what that's what we should lookat it as it's funny that we've
been taught to fear it.
(24:21):
I think I forgot to say to that, because I think, if you look
at the way that you know, wetalk a lot about our cultures
and the way we're brought up, Ithink that we're taught to fear
the things that give us freedom.
We're taught to the things thatgive us peace.
Oh, I need you to say thatagain for the people in the back
.
We're taught to fear the thingsthat give us freedom and we're
(24:41):
taught to fear the things thatgive us peace.
Yeah, and that's, that's notthe way that it was.
I mean, so many culturescelebrate death.
You celebrate it.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
So big I just need to sit with that for a second.
I guess I'll just sit with thatfor a second.
We are taught to fear thethings that give us freedom.
I don't think I've ever heardit articulated like that.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
I don't think I really hit itlike that till I was like
thinking about it.
I was like, yeah, I guessthat's what it is all the time,
because when you think about myown work, I'm always giving you
know, bringing people back in topeace, and it's okay to feel
this way.
It's permission to do this,it's permission to do that, it's
permission to do that, and it'slike everybody's, I don't know.
(25:28):
We've been stripped so much ofall the things that come natural
to us, all the things that comenatural to us.
We've, we were taught to fear,you know, and now it's like okay
, you know, we're taught to fearendings where and like we said,
other ways are celebrated.
You know, we're taught to fear.
You know the fact that we haveto die of self when in other, in
(25:51):
other, you know, cultures areagain it's celebrated.
There's huge things that go onand ceremonial things that go on
, you know, and here we are,these stupid ass Americans that
are like one way, one way only,you know, with our blinders on.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, so as soon as I , as you were talking, I was
thinking about that listener whohad asked you to have us talk
about death of self.
Have you ever had a death of?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
self which one.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
That's what I was, so go ahead, talk about one.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Which one.
I think that I think I'm in alight kind of just go in and out
for a bit.
I think the thing is is that wedie of self multiple times
within our life.
That's just the way it is.
And even as I say that rightnow, you know, I'm like I'm
saying that with trepidation,because I can actually hear
(26:52):
Spirit telling me like andthere's one more like I can feel
Spirit telling me and there'sone more right, I'm like oh fuck
, you know she's on the floor.
Oh my God, I love you so much,I love you so much, I love you.
(27:21):
You know, really quickly tobefore I explain you guys, a
death of self is basically islike how you identify and what
you identify with, basicallylike freaking, just imagine it
just falling and crumbling downto the floor Like that's it
right, and like we all have,whether it's our gender identity
(27:41):
or beliefs or morals, right,those are all part of who, you
can even say your ego, right,and so, just to sum it up like
that, I think the biggest onefor me was my divorce was a
death of self.
That was a death of self, butthat came, I think, before I
asked.
I asked for the divorce and I'mnot afraid to say that because
(28:02):
it was a sense of I'm not thisperson who I have to take it on
because of my family beliefs.
I'm not.
I'm not this.
I never was comfortable withbeing a stay at home wife.
I never was comfortable withbeing this.
You know, quote stay at homemom that could do whatever the
hell she pleased, whenever shewanted.
(28:22):
And that wasn't who I am.
My purpose was bigger.
I knew my purpose.
I knew in my heart what I wasmeant to do, but in order to do
that, I knew that the life I wasliving was not part of that
life and I had.
It had to fall away and I hadto change what that looked like.
But people don't realize thatwhen I say things had to fall
(28:43):
away, that meant that I, thedaughter of my grandfather, but
also his, the daughter I justrealized.
I said daughter, notgranddaughter, because the
daughter of him.
I was the next in line andcoming up as a matriarch and if
you're Hispanic, you understandthe roles that people play in
the family.
And that was me, right.
(29:03):
I had the parties, I held thefamily together as far as the
cousins and things like that.
So when I died of self.
It wasn't just a sense of medying of self, but it was a
family dying of self andeverything changed.
Everything changed in my family.
Everything my family lifechanged.
I changed.
I had to just step out.
(29:23):
I don't know what else to sayother than dying of self can be
very free.
It can also be very lonely.
There's something in it whenyou get to wake up fully being
who you are, without pretending,and you realize how many masks
you wear for everybody else.
You know, you realize, oh, Iput that mask on.
(29:47):
I put that mask on, but yeah, Idon't know what I mean.
I can answer questions on it,but other than that, like I just
had to go through it, yeah, Ijust had to go through it and I
think, like I say, there's somany different layers to it and
we die of us all so manydifferent times because we build
an ego at such a young age.
(30:07):
We build this ego up at such ayoung age and our ego is how we
are taught to perceive the worldaround us and it's what we
identify with, you know, andit's a fabrication of who we
truly are, but we've createdthat in our mind.
Okay, so like that's, you know,so that's kind of it.
(30:33):
So when you die of self, you'recreating that separation of the
ego that you fully believed wasyou, and that's fucking scary
as hell, because who the fuckare you then, if you aren't the
accurate?
Talk about it.
Yes, you know, and the thing is, the thing is, whoop, all right
(30:55):
spirit thing is, is the factthat we are taught, like I said,
death, right, we're taught tofear death.
So what are we naturally goingto do?
We're going to resist the dyingof the ego.
We're going to naturally resistit because we're taught to
resist it.
So that's the thing.
But I will say there's a senseof and I say this with whoever's
(31:21):
feeling this right now, ifyou're, if you're going through
it right now, where you're likemy life is just went from day to
night or night to day and it'sjust drastically shifting.
I know there's a lot oflisteners that are.
There is a sense of detachmentand dissociation.
That happens during this time,but I don't want you guys to
panic, because people panic inthat too.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Right, I'm thinking of a few things.
I'm thinking that I was goingthrough, I was approaching a
death of self actually, when Iwas interviewed on your podcast.
I think that is why I also feelthat connection with you and I
think you tipped it when youwere like, give me that date,
(32:05):
because I knew it was there,like it was there but I didn't
want to touch it because therewere such a big part of my ego
that was associated with what Idid and I didn't know who I
would be without that and I wasclinging to that.
But I also knew in the clingingthat spiritually and
(32:26):
psychically it was killing me.
And we get comfortable, right,we get comfortable with pain and
I would, I was part of me waswould rather hold on to that
idea of dying than to let go andwhat happens, right, and let
the, the wind take me.
And then, when I did, and thatloneliness and that fear that I
(32:51):
still, that still comes and goesthat I was I, because I don't
think it's completely over, Ithink I'm still sort of evolving
into what's next before my nextdeath.
So, yeah, I was thinking that.
And then I was also thinkingwhen I, when I worked in jail
and you were talking, when youwere talking about ego, how I
(33:14):
can have a sense of who I am.
And there were so many peoplethat I worked with who were
starting to know who they wereand also had to keep on that
mask for protection inside andrecognition of the mask that
they wore, and seeing them realtake that mask off when they
were with me in my office andhow sacred I thought that was
(33:40):
and how much I treasured thatand appreciated what a big, what
a big offering that was to bearwitness to something like that,
because it can be really scaryto reveal your true self just to
yourself, let alone to somebodyelse.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, yeah, it is.
I think that's something that Istruggle with.
I did that the other day.
I said it on my Instagram storyand I was like I don't know how
to put into words the gratitudethat I feel to get to hold that
space for people, that thatthey get to see themselves Like
I don't I don't know how I still, right now, like I'm like I
(34:23):
don't know how to.
I know what you're trying tosay, because I'm like don't know
how to explain that.
You know that I get to help youtake that mask off and just be
there.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
So what about you with your death of self?
I know you were saying like you, you were going through it with
, with, when you chose to leaveRikers, you chose to do the
stuff.
But like, how was that for youand what did you find?
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I.
I felt really afraid andexcited at the same time.
Afraid because it felt similarto another death of self when I
stopped holding on to hatredaround white supremacy and
started to lean more and to loveSuch a big part of my identity
(35:20):
I'm trying to find the words.
I'm saying that's okay.
Such a part of my identity washolding on to racism and the
impact that it had on me and mycommunity, that I completely
identified with that, whichcould make a lot of sense, right
, like you know, fightingagainst that.
And then I realized, as Ireally started to get into my
(35:41):
practice, that holding on tothat connection was actually
only embodying white supremacymore and more.
And if I truly wanted to befree, I needed to offer myself
unconditional love andfriendliness, and that would
mean letting go of that hatred.
(36:02):
And there was a moment of fearin that, because if I let go of
fighting against racism, thenwho?
Who am I really Like?
What is blackness really for me?
And that was that was enough tokeep me up at night for months.
Well, who am I?
What does it mean to be thisblack woman If I'm not pushing
(36:26):
back against the fact of whatwhite people are saying I am and
me saying like I'm not that,I'm not that.
So I never asked myself what Iam, I was just like I'm not that
and that was a huge.
It was a huge awakening and Ithink it ushered in a softness.
So when I came to this deathwith Rikers, it wasn't as scary
(36:51):
because I knew that softness wasthere and, even though I didn't
know what was going to come outof it, I knew I would come out
of it.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I kind of feel like it was almost like two senses of
dying of self at the same time,like you're going through two
senses of dying, two senses ofreleasing.
It wasn't just like, okay,there's Rikers, there was also
the thought process of thisother part of it too.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yeah, because that's a part of your ego, too, that
you wrapped your identity in,like that's a part of you that
you I was talking to yeah, I wastalking to this another black
meditation teacher who lives outof the country, and we've just
been chatting about a meme thatwe saw about a black woman who
(37:47):
was saying that now that shedidn't realize the amount of
tightness and holding on thatshe was doing living in the
United States and all she wasever thinking about was this
idea of blackness andrelationship to herself and
relationship to whiteness, andjust always navigating that
(38:09):
until she left and then shecould just kind of be.
And I remember and I'm gettinga lumpy even now because I
remember reading that and I waslike I don't even know what
that's like.
I think I know what it's likein moments, but just to be like
that all of the time, howfucking cool is that?
Not to have to be inrelationship to protection all
(38:34):
of the time or thinking about itor thinking about how to
transcend it, or thinking justbeing like, oh, this is what it
is, just to be me, and how somany people in the United States
don't get to do that.
White, black, latina, latino,none of it, like nobody does.
You know what I mean?
(38:54):
Like nobody's free of it, andit's not just blackness.
Nobody's free because of thatrelationship to supremacy that
this country was built on.
So we're also caught up in it,and so we were.
Just, he was like you shouldleave Portugal's great, and I
was like there was a moment ofexcitement and fear.
(39:15):
Well, what would that be like?
Just to be me, you know?
Speaker 1 (39:18):
that makes sense.
I was thinking about that whenyou were talking right now and
I'm like that makes sense, why,like you know, I just came back
from Oaxaca and it was like it'sa sense of just like why it
feels like I couldn't put intowords, like, yeah, that's Mexico
and I'm Mexican, but like, oh,because everybody's me,
(39:41):
everybody is just me, you know,yeah, you know interesting.
And then there was somethingthat happened as soon as I
freaking hit that airport.
As soon as I hit that airport,it was like welcome back to
freaking America.
I had this.
My heart just hurt for you.
I had this beautiful experience.
(40:02):
I loved it.
For those that don't know, youknow, for those that when I was
brought up, my grandfather didspeak Spanish to me.
I was fluent, and then Istopped speaking because it was
a whole, like I said already,racist thing.
I don't need to go through it.
My Spanish level is now I'm notvery confident here in America.
I don't, I'm not confident.
Give me a day in Mexico.
(40:25):
It comes back.
And my mom was like, oh, my God, like I was, like I'm confident
.
I'm like, okay, what do youneed?
I got you.
I was like, oh, blah, blah,blah.
I had a beautiful time.
It was amazing.
I think I sent pictures.
I, you know, I saw some land.
I can't put into words whatthat was like.
(40:46):
Even just thinking about itright now I'm being emotional,
like just to be on the land thatI had spent so much time
learning about, and like thewisdom, so much wisdom, like
freaking amazing how people, howwe did in the past right, how
we just created this land with,like, the stars and the
alignment, and knowing how thetrade system was going to work
(41:08):
and all these things, likethere's no maps, there's no
calculations, other than theyjust knew how to lay it out.
But point is beautiful time Iget to the airport and this is
the airport in Oaxaca to go toTJ.
Okay, so you're in there.
I dropped a paper and thisstupid ass sorry guys, I'm gonna
(41:29):
say it's stupid ass white ladypicked it up and she picks up
the paper and she looks at meand she goes oh, did you drop
this?
And I said, oh, thank you somuch.
That's all I said.
She goes, puts her hand on herheart and takes a deep breath
and goes oh, thank goodness youspeak English.
And I turned around to are youthere?
(41:50):
I think you froze.
Oh yeah, I turned around to theperson I'm with and I took me
like a brief second.
It took me a second because Iwould have reacted, how I caught
it and I just kind of liketurned around and put it in
because we were like moving, youknow, when you're going through
checkpoints, right, so we'removing, and then once we get to
the checkpoint, I'm putting mystuff in the container and I
look at my friend and I'm likedid she just did she just say
(42:14):
that?
And my friend's like yes, bitch, yes, yes, she did.
And I was like, fuck, like herewe go, welcome, fucking back.
Uh huh, like I'm just like, areyou fucking serious?
Like I'm just like welcome thefuck back.
(42:37):
Like you just killed my whole,fucking whole lot.
Yeah right, thank God I didn'tcatch it in the moment.
There's a reason I probablywent off.
That was a gift.
That was a gift for you, yeah.
But yeah, my friend knew inside, looked at her like did she
just my friend's like?
Yes, bitch.
(42:57):
I was like, oh, it's like whatthe?
Speaker 2 (43:01):
fuck.
Well, anyway, the juggling,right, the juggling.
Oh, there are things that areworse than death.
There are things that are worsethan death.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
I was talking to, um, we black or brown for a day,
there are things that are worsethan death.
I was talking to a friend lastnight and she's laughing because
I just did air quotes.
I was talking to my friend lastnight and he was saying how he
(43:39):
reminded me, like he, we're justtalking about being with
somebody of of that's not ofcolor, like, just not of color.
You know, I don't know, it wasjust I don't know what the point
of this saying it, but I'mthinking about it as we're
talking about these things rightnow.
Um, yeah, I don't know what mypoint was, other than there was
a point in what I had to say,but I lost track of it.
(44:01):
I lost track of it, but I thinkit's the same, like it would be
really hard when there's justcertain things that you do and I
think that's a part of bringinginto the discussion of sense of
dying of self.
I think there's a part of you,um, as a person of color,
whatever, that you do go througha sense of death, of dying of
self.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
And it's.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
I think, in a way, there's a part of us that are
forced to do it too, withoutwithout ask or looking to do it.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I just felt that in my whole body when you said that
.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Yeah, I actually want to cry right now because of
that and now it needs to Like,all right, I like, I'm like I
actually want to bring thistopic up and I'm actually to the
point right now, like I'mthinking about it.
I'm like fuck you, like fuckyou, but you would force me to
(44:57):
do that and, yeah, you areforced to it and you think of,
you know, we had Naya being onand and the sense of like you
know, she talks about thechildren that are.
You know, we're forced to dieof self at such a young age and
look at things in a way, um,that I guess things aren't, you
know others aren't having tolook at.
Anyways, I don't know, I don'tknow if that's a you know, I
(45:23):
don't know if that's a gift in asense, because I think it gives
us strength because, yeah, it'sgoing to be other things in our
life that we'll have to faceand and and keep going and make
other decisions.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
I always get really torn about in the camp where
growth.
I don't, I don't believe inthat.
I believe that, um, it would bebetter if we never had to have
the trauma at all.
Oh and by trauma, I mean likeyeah no because you know how
there's a lot of people are likewell, it's a gift that this
happened to you, because racismis not a gift.
No, I want to prefer that itnever happened.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, I don't.
I'm not talking about you.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I'm not talking about you I'm talking about, like
other people who, um, who saythat um, because you were
talking about, like it's notfair, it's not fair and you're
right, it's not fair.
And there's so many people whoI think are not black and brown,
this idea of post-traumaticgrowth because they are in a
(46:23):
position they impose, withhistorical trauma and systemic
trauma, that the trauma thathappens to them is so you know,
few and far between and don't atme about single incidents of
getting hurt, like I'm not hereto talk about that.
I'm talking about systemic andhistorical trauma to groups of
communities over generations.
(46:45):
That is so built into us thatwe know how to navigate it in
ways that I don't think that weshould have to, but we do
because that's who we are,because we're adaptable and
we're strong and we're resilientand we're capable and we're
fucking magic, and it's stillnot okay that we have to do that
.
So, anyway, so pause.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
No, I think you're a hundred percent right, but we're
magic.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Like we're magical, we're magical and we'd still be
magical if we didn't have todeal with that.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Yeah, I mean I think that we were magical in the
beginning.
I mean, look what I just talkedabout.
I talked about like all theshit and like we built and
things that we did.
That was like better thananything else out there.
So, yeah, we are fuckingmagical, like you know.
I mean that was the whole.
That's the whole reason whywe're trying to be shoved in a
(47:37):
box, because we were too fuckingmagical.
It was like let me shove youall in this, so that that's.
That's really what happened.
That's literally what happened,yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Yeah, yeah, that sucks.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
I don't know what's, that's what's up Because he's so
many different.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I'm glad, I'm really glad.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I am, but it's like you actually made me think for a
while.
It's like, yeah, like there'sso many different ways of death
and you know, yeah, death is abeautiful thing, but, like, as
I'm talking and I'm like, yeah,we were taught to die so many
times over, you know, and, andsome of it we didn't choose to,
we didn't choose to be a part ofthis, Like we didn't choose to
(48:25):
have that experience.
It's just, it was what we weregiven.
You know, I don't think it.
I take back in the sense when Isaid like it makes it easier.
I don't know if it doesnecessarily, but I think, for me
and my reflections ofexperiences, I think, when I'm
talking from my perspective, itgives me a sense of move the
fuck out of my way.
(48:46):
Does that make sense?
And so when I say that's theenergy that I'm talking about
where that's?
That's the vibe that I don't.
I don't have a problem withthat, Like that don't, and it
sucks that.
My experience has caused me tobe that way, you know, but
(49:06):
that's that's the way it is forme.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,but you know.
Anyways, back to that littleminute things of dying himself,
now that we talk about thosethings, you know that's still
(49:26):
fucking scary when we have to dothat too.
It's still scary when we gothrough big life changes and the
shit gets ripped out fromunderneath us and we're like I
don't want to do this, you know,I just don't want to fucking do
this.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
But I'm trying to think of what?
Speaker 1 (49:42):
but I took care of myself, I think the best way and
I was talking to someone theother day the best way that you
can do this is surrender, and Ihate, in a way I sometimes hate
using such cheesy words.
I do Like there's a part I hateusing cheesy words sometimes,
but that's You're reclaiming it.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
You're reclaiming it because you're brown.
So I understand what you meanby it.
But when it's said in differentkinds, like in sort of, you
know spirit landia, it's meantdifferently.
But I know what you mean bythat.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Yeah, I think that's the best way is just that's it.
That's all you can do.
I think you know for me, like Isaid earlier, the lesson for me
is is stop trying to read it,stop trying to predict it, stop
trying to control it, stoptrying to ask the why of it, and
just be in it, Just freaking bein it, and that's the best
thing.
And I find the more that weallow ourselves to be present in
(50:39):
whatever moment we're in,whether it's the highs or
whether it's the lows, and we'represent in those moments, I
think we get stronger and Ithink it goes.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
I don't even know what you heard, but yeah you cut
off, like as soon as youstarted talking in here, any of
it.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
I was saying that when we surrender, or the best
thing that we can do is just bepresent in the moment, whether
it's the high or whether it'sthe low.
And the fact is is that when weallow ourselves to be present,
there is a part of whatever whenyou're dying of self or you're
going through it that instead ofresisting the pain, instead of
resisting the grief, instead ofresisting all these things, and
(51:20):
we accept it, we actually movethrough it faster.
I know it's not about goingthrough it with speed, but we do
because we're just allowingourselves to feel it.
The only reason that things areso hard is because we're making
them hard by resisting theemotions that come with it, and
so that's the whole thing.
It's like let yourselfexperience the emotions and part
(51:42):
of it.
Emotions change seasons.
It's not meant, like we do, tohave highs and lows and bad and
good.
It's just embrace it for whatit is and then, as you embrace
it, you kind of get to movethrough that and see, open up,
have an awareness, createdifferent things.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, when my mom called me on the day
that my dad died.
She called, I picked up thephone and she said thank God you
picked up the phone.
You need to get home right now.
And I was like why?
And I knew I knew, by the way,that she would, I knew what it
(52:27):
was and she wouldn't tell me.
I kept taking me to my parents'house and I remember thinking
this is what it feels like whenyou find out that your father's
about when your father's gone.
This is what it feels like, andI remember telling myself don't
(52:48):
, don't run, because there weremoments I wanted to just like
disappear, like completelydissociate, and it's like don't
run, because this is only goingto happen once.
So you want to remember everysingle part of it, no matter how
much it's going to gut you,because you aren't merely at the
place of being gutted becauseyou haven't heard the word yet.
(53:12):
So be present, because you'regoing to want to remember, like
telling myself that.
So I looked out of the window,I watched cars going by, I
placed my hand on my car.
I was touching my body toreally be in it and completely
collapsing because I told myselfto be in it and not to
(53:33):
disappear.
Right.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
That's good, that's a great day to do anything and
that's the way that youprocessed with it.
I think that was just the rightthing.
I'm just sitting here thinkingI was like I don't have.
It's weird because if you knewme, if you knew Isabel 10 years
ago Isabel 10 years ago, hatedfeelings, isabel freaking.
Five years ago, hated feelings,I hated emotions, I hated crying
(54:00):
, I hated grief.
And it's funny because Iremember my ex-husband.
I would tell him, when mygrandfather's dies, I don't know
what I'm gonna ever do.
This was back before he died.
Right, I was like I think I maydie, like I literally would
feel that I was like I don'tthink, I don't know how I'm
gonna survive.
I remember telling him likewhen he dies, be ready for it,
(54:21):
because I don't know how I'mgonna, I don't know how I'm
gonna survive that.
And I think for me, like I'mlistening to you, it's like the
same thing, though I wasimmersed in it, so I got to be
by him with like two weeks, so Iwas very present in it.
But by then, five years later, Ihad learned how to absorb it,
be in that emotion and grief andjust like be in whatever
(54:45):
feelings were coming up in thosemoments which obviously helped
me to deal with the circumstanceof whatever occurred.
But I think back to because I'mlike, yeah, if I didn't know
how to be in it, I think I stillwould have been str I, it would
have been a darker, it wouldhave been a darker situation for
me.
So, yeah, so I can hear spiritkind of saying like you know,
(55:13):
when we, when you die, whetherit's death of self, whether it's
a rebirth, whether it's youleaving this physical body, it's
a very I'm trying to understandwhat they're saying.
It's a very like all sensesthing.
It's a very all emotions, allsenses type of thing.
(55:33):
There's not a separation ofsadness, happiness, grief.
It's almost like there's tryingto say like there's this
overwhelming all senses.
That makes sense to me why theyalways talk to me about like
emotions and teaching people howto be in the body, anyways.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:59):
Yeah, and for those that ask cause I get this
question a lot too.
On a side note, people alwaysare like oh, did my loved one
suffer?
Like we don't suffer.
I need people to understandthat, like we don't suffer when
we leave this body, we don't, wedon't suffer.
There's not a suffering thathappens when we leave Once the
(56:20):
spirit makes peace with they'reready to go.
There's not a suffering thatever, ever occurs.
You know, once they did likeokay, the physical pain is done,
the physical pain is done.
I don't know why people askthat Such a weird question.
When you think about it, theysuffer.
What does that mean?
Did they suffer?
No, they did not, and now we donot.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
Anyways, yeah, I think that's more for the person
right.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
A person asking Living with it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
But like, why do people get the belief that they
suffer and I don't mean in aselfish way, I don't mean I'm
like a selfish woman.
Yeah, I think it's for causethey?
I think I wonder if it'ssomebody just trying to make
sense of it.
Speaker 1 (57:05):
I don't know, I don't know, like to me, like it was
never, like I never thought,like I don't know, like I guess
maybe they're trying to makesense of it.
Did they suffer?
Oh, I think maybe they'retalking about the physical pain
that the person's living right,like maybe they can't talk, or
their chest hurts or thoseelements of it.
But once we leave, that it'sgone, it's like.
(57:26):
Once we leave that, it's likeokay, you know, I don't suffer
going into the next stage of mylife because I was physically in
pain while leaving that body.
No, it's like, once you leavethe body, it's like no, I'm at
peace, I'm good, yeah.
And there's like this weird youhave to remember too, they're
going in and out of their body,so they're not sitting in that
body with that pain the wholetime as much as we see them
(57:47):
right With our own eyes, right,right, yeah, any other things I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
No, I think that's good.
I feel like we could talk aboutthis forever.
This is, I think, one of thosethings that it's a topic that I
feel like needs to happen moreand all different, I think,
spiritual places that we're justwe're so focused on and you say
(58:26):
talking about dominant culture.
I think we're so focused on,like the warm and fuzzy aspects
of spirituality that we don'tallow ourselves to feel the
wholeness of it all and we cutourselves off that, and I think
that causes harm.
And I'm glad that we were ableto have this conversation,
(58:49):
because this is what I thinkit's all about, like.
I think this is we get calm sowe can be reborn, yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:04):
Yeah, exactly, I mean that's a representation of
every life that we have about us, whether it's nature right,
whether it's however, it is Likethat's always in representation
.
I mean that's the whole point.
I think that's the whole pointof us as the human experience.
It's constant evolving, it's aconstant rebirth, it's a
(59:27):
constant dying of self.
And it sounds kind of weirdwhen I say it's a constant dying
of self, but it really is Like.
It is a constant like, okay,you know, there's my ego, or
okay, there's this or whateverit is.
You know, time for the nextstage, time for this stage.
Yeah, I'm having someintrospective looks at right now
.
I'm like, okay, I can see whereI'm at right now, you know, I
(59:51):
know I was like, oh, I'm gonnago through it again.
I think, in a way, I'm goingthrough it now, but it's just
that it's not like a painfuldying of self, it's just a sense
of like I'm expanding up.
So it's like okay, there's alot of different changes coming
right now.
I can feel that I'm like, okay,but I'm just okay, what can I
say?
What can I do?
Just stop fighting it.
So, all right, you're underGreat conversation, guys.
(01:00:17):
Let us know if you have anyquestions?
I guess that's it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Yeah, okay, bye, yes.
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