Ever felt like the fast-paced demands of the business world are at odds with your spiritual journey? Together with BAM community members, Lena and Daria, we tackle the delicate art of weaving spirituality into the fabric of our businesses and daily lives. Lena, with her playful spin on experience design, opens up about her app Spirit World, which promises to infuse self-care with joy. Daria, meanwhile, shares her wisdom as a spiritual embodiment mentor, guiding us through the realms of intuition and the natural rhythms of life as a means to overcome stress and embrace freedom.
As we navigate modern culture's pressures, we often get caught up in the pursuit of external validation, losing touch with our inner compass. This episode is a beacon for those feeling adrift in the sea of prescribed success formulas and societal expectations. It's a candid conversation about the transformative potential that unfolds when we guide ourselves and our clients towards self-discovery and personal sovereignty. Learn how embracing our spiritual path can lead to profound shifts in personal fulfillment and entrepreneurial success, all while staying true to our most authentic selves.
The narrative takes a personal turn as I share my own struggles with anxiety and the search for mindfulness in an age where technology can be both a source of distraction and a vehicle for peace. This episode is a heartfelt invitation to those looking to deepen their connection with themselves and the world, offering a fresh perspective on finding balance amidst the digital noise. Join us as we explore the art of creating accessible spiritual solutions that speak to the soul and ignite a gentler, more enlightened way of living.
Resources:
Lena Mech is a playful experience designer on a mission to make self-care more accessible and fun. Utilizing her expertise in game design, theatre, and meditation, she crafts playful rituals. Her latest endeavour is Spirit World - a self-care app in which you take care of mythical creatures by taking care of your own well-being.
Daria Drake is a spiritual embodiment mentor and somatic yoga practitioner guiding people back home to the wisdom of their body. She currently facilitates womb healing circles and 1:1 somatic yoga therapy sessions.
Kat HoSoo Lee is an Emotional Alchemy Coach, Spiritual Business Mentor and host of The Emotional Alchemy Podcast.
She loves playing in the space where science and spirituality converge because this is where we get to experience emotional alchemy. In her work, she educates space-holders about somatic physiology and environmental biology so they can deepen their practices of listening and presence which ultimately helps them expand their capacity to hold space for others.
As a Spiritual Business Mentor, she guides soulful entrepreneurs to approach their business as a spiritual practice. The work bridges the emotional landscape with practical tools which allow them to cultivate businesses that are rooted in conscious values, relational marketing and purposeful service.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello and welcome to the Rooted Business Podcast.
Today I've got dear friends andBAM community members, lena and
Daria, and this episode isinspired by a group coaching
call that we did last week andin that conversation, this
(00:26):
concept of spirituality and whatplace it has in business, what
has scared us away fromincorporating spirituality into
our businesses and how, aspeople feel insensitive and
(00:48):
empathetic humans, how can webring spirituality into
everything that we do in a waythat feels really empowering?
And after we had that discussion, I was just sitting there and
thinking, oh my God, otherpeople need to hear this, and so
I invited Daria and Lena on tothe podcast so that you know, I
(01:11):
think that was just like alittle like 15 minute blip of a
conversation on our coachingcall, but I really want to just
like sink into it and really doa deep dive with you too,
because I think it's going to besuch a juicy conversation and
you too, in particular, bringssuch depth and warmth to these
concepts.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
(01:32):
So before we get into theseconcepts, I'd love to have you
just do a quick little intro andshare with folks who you are
(01:55):
and what your work is about andwhat sort of go from there and
see where our conversation takesus.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I'm Daria and I am a spiritual embodiment mentor who
claimed this title.
That kind of encapsulates whatI do through this mentorship in
(02:26):
BAM.
I was dancing all aroundspirituality and have many
different tools to help peopleget out of their thinking brain
and then just dropping intotheir body so that we can be the
(02:47):
feeling and intuiting creaturesthat we are and start like
getting better and healing ourbodies from pain and emotional
distress and anxiety.
And, yeah, just really wantingto like I see, I see freedom for
(03:12):
for all beings if we can betapped into and embody our, our
own spiritual nature.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And I'm Lena.
I'm a playful experiencedesigner and I'm on a mission to
make self-care more accessiblefor people, because I feel like,
when I look around the world,so many people are stressed out
and anxious and depressed andthere are so many tools out
(03:46):
there that one can use, but it'sa bit, it can be daunting to
get into it, or it can be feel abit boring, or one feels like,
okay, now I have to sit for halfan hour on a cushion and
meditate, and so I'm creatingthis app called Spirit World, in
which you have bite-sizedself-care techniques that are
(04:09):
mixed with the game to to have afun experience that people are
already used to.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I think two pieces that I like want to like put a
little flag in and come back tofeel is this idea of ritual,
lena, that feels like somethingthat is something that you help
cultivate within your game slashapp is, how can we bring back
(04:42):
ritual?
And to me there's there's suchdeep ties to animism and
spirituality when it comes toritual.
And then for Daria, I just wantto name that.
You know you said that youclaimed this title through this
process that we went through andbam, but it was really just
(05:06):
giving vocabulary to somethingthat you've always done.
You know, like you came in witha very simple toolbox and it's
really just about how can we puta name to that so that you
communicate that to folks, and Ifeel like that's what a lot of
this, like machine space, thespirituality feels like
(05:26):
sometimes to me is like I feelthis all the time, walking on my
property, going for walks inthe woods, hanging out with my
horses, and the struggle is ishow do I put language to it in
such a way that it makes senseto other people and I can find
(05:48):
community and connection withother people, and so, like I'm
hoping that that's what part ofour conversation is going to be
about is is really putting alanguage so that we can bring
this as a, as a connecting piece, because I think that for a lot
(06:11):
of us who do have our own senseof spirituality and oftentimes
is connected to animism in someway, it can feel like we're
really kind of alone in this.
And so, yeah, I just want tolike name those two pieces and
I'm sure this concept of ritualis gonna is gonna weave its way
through, because how can it not?
(06:33):
But before we get into it, I'dlove for you to share what your
idea of spirituality is, becauseif we start with a big
vocabulary word likespirituality, having a sense of
(06:53):
what that means to each of thespeakers, I feel like is an
important place to start.
So let's play with that justconcept of naming what
spirituality is to you first.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
When I think of spirituality, I think of my own
journey through it, where in thebeginning, when I started on
this spiritual journey, I feltlike spirituality is about what
is outside of myself and aboutthe spirit and God or Goddess or
universe, and I was lookingoutside for answers.
(07:34):
And the more I dug deeper andthe longer I was on this journey
, I learned for myself at least,that spirituality is actually
inside of myself and not, andeven more, inside of my body, so
like the embodiment part becameso, so important, because I
(07:55):
feel like spirituality is myability to access my intuition,
my ability to be in sync withnature, my ability to be in sync
with my own rhythm, my abilityalso to see what needs to be
(08:17):
done in my business in a verycentered way, instead of again
looking to the outside world tosee what I'm supposed to do,
coming back to myself andlistening in and then acting
from there.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, I love that, lena, and I think, like, what
ritual and meditation and thesepractices give us is that
opportunity to like turn off theoutside world and connect with
those parts of our body that arecommunicating with us, like
that is spirit communicatingwith us.
(08:55):
So for me, spirituality isdefinitely about being connected
to nature and the elements arecycles and seasons, and you know
this idea that rest isproductive and ritual is
(09:16):
productive.
For me, spirituality issomething definitely that is
deeply within myself and anybodywho, like wants to explore
their own spirituality, like,just like you said, lena, it's
already inside of them and inEastern medicine, the heart, the
(09:39):
heart holds the spirit, and so,like, my practice is so much
about using the wisdom of theheart as like a compass, or like
is our map, and then, like thebody is the compass that's kind
of like pointing us in thedirection, through, like our
sensing and our feeling.
(09:59):
But the map is already insideof us and I think it's just.
You know, for me spiritualityis also about, like, recognizing
the divinity that is withinourselves and then being
reflected out also in the worldand you know that, that weaving
(10:24):
of connection and energy betweenlike beings and animals and
plants and the earth andelements.
Yeah, and like probably so many,so many people, this idea of
spirituality just got sodisordered from, from our life
(10:48):
experiences, which I which was ahuge turn off and definitely it
was like a friction point in mewanting to say, like I am here
for the will of my spirit andI'm here to like talk about
spirituality and be in mypractice and share that with
(11:08):
people because of like thedistortion that you know, my
previous life experiences, youknow, created inside of me.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, I think for me that that were distortion, like
rings of all, because for thelongest time, spirituality felt
like, like a word that I wantedto get far, far away from,
because I grew up withgrandparents who were and
(11:43):
continue to be, you know.
This is not to say that allChristianity is bad or that I,
you know, have a rift withChristianity, but the way that
their church practices inparticular feels very
pressurized, feels verymanipulative, feels very
(12:03):
extractive and hypocritical, andI saw that from an early age
and I wanted to get as far awayfrom that as possible and that
was my only sort of concept ofwhat spirituality was.
Because I grew up, also in avery suburban, like cookie
(12:25):
cutter houses, with, like youknow, malls and and and so you
had to actually like go and likelook for nature in my, in my
childhood was my experience, andso, you know, I feel like I
grew up thinking thatspirituality only meant
(12:46):
spirituality in the way that Isaw my grandparents practicing,
and so when I had, you know,spirituality breakdown,
breakthrough, however you wantto call it in my early 30s, it
really was this return back to,you know, as you were saying,
(13:07):
one of this, like who you alwayswere this concept of being able
to go back to like what iswithin and have all the answers
within, and to me, like that iswhat true spirituality is.
It's like it feels subtractive.
We don't have to look to anysort of higher authority,
whether that be a God or whetherthat be somebody who's higher
(13:34):
up than you in the church.
It's really about you have allthe answers within you and can
you find guides and mentors whowill help you get closer to the
answers within, versus, like,look to them for that sense of
authority.
So yeah, that is, you know.
(13:55):
That's.
That's where I feel like a lotof the people who are in the
church, a lot of them, I think alot of us carry spirituality
wound, if it feels appropriateto call it that.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
So yeah, I would say 100% spirituality wounds like
when you witness hypocrisy, andspirituality like that is
definitely a wound because youtook something that is like my
birthright.
And you, you manipulated me withit.
(14:29):
Basically, I mean, I definitelyexperienced like that hypocrisy
and the hierarchical.
Like you know, you shouldn't bedoing that and you need to stop
doing that and meet theserequirements or whatever so that
you can be a part of thischurch.
And yeah, there was, like that,that inner friction where, like
(14:55):
it just doesn't and, as a child, like we see it so clearly and
feel it so clearly like thatfriction between, like what is
true for us and like what we'rebeing told and we're like this
is not matching up.
That's what I experienced, yeah, yeah, for me.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
I'm wondering also, like where, where does it come
from that we look for answersoutside, you know, because I
just it reminded me so much whenI just started on this virtual
journey and I have these amazingteachers in Denmark.
Every time I asked a question,they were like like directing it
(15:37):
back at me and they were like,and what do you think?
And I was so annoyed I was likecan you just give me an answer?
You know, like I just want toknow what to believe, basically,
yeah, and so I think there issomething in us, ingrained, and
definitely from school, whereyou know like there is one right
answer and you just have toremember it.
But it might go even furtherdown the line, right, but there
(16:01):
is something interesting therethat, like we want that, we want
somebody to take, basically totake responsibility for us.
I think there is a lot there aswell of like how can I take
away responsibility for mydecisions, for my health, for my
wealth, for my happiness, andput it on somebody else, because
(16:27):
then it's safe, like it'ssomething that I don't have to
put myself at risk of failure totry something.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, I think that that has to do like oh my gosh,
this idea of like you have theanswers within versus like you
have to look outside for answers, like that ripples through so
many ways of being.
I'm struggling to find the nameof this book, but I'm in the
(16:58):
middle of reading a book rightnow.
I just started it and he talksabout putting ourselves through
challenges as a way to like tapinto.
He doesn't call it spirituality, but you know, I think that
he's talking about one of thesame, because he's talking about
connection with nature andconnection with self and
(17:21):
connection with you know, yourbroader community.
And there's a whole chapterabout like rites of passage that
a lot of sort of traditionalcultures put their children
through, and like.
It's not like you just pop thatkid out and mill the wilderness
and be like okay, go figureyourself out.
(17:41):
It's like the preparation ofraising the child is to have
them be ready to look within fortheir answers so that when you
do, you know, like theAboriginal communities in
Australia, when you send yourkid out for a walkabout and
they're 12 or 13 ish, you knowthey already know that they have
(18:02):
all the tools within them andthey don't have to look outside
to somebody who's older to likefix that problem or take
responsibility for them, and Ithink that that is something
that is really, really missingin our modern culture is, when
we take away this concept of youhave all the answers within, we
also take away, likesovereignty and autonomy and the
(18:26):
ability for us to take, likeyou were saying, when I like,
responsibility for our own lifein a way that feels empowering.
I'm going to look up the nameof this book, so one of you guys
take over for a second.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, and this is very much related to, you know,
doing business and doing our outof the world.
It's like we've beentraumatized, all of us in some
kind of a way and to to have abusiness for yourself, like you
(19:05):
have to be, you have to have asense of sovereignty and also
like, interbeing.
You know, I wouldn't be able toget where I am without the
support of, like, the communityand what I'm.
You know, what I'm thinking ofin particular is, like you know,
the authority over that had melooking outside of my internal
(19:33):
compass for somebody who wasgoing to take responsibility and
save me and help me turn mypractice into something that was
going to provide money for me,and it doesn't.
You know, I have learned itdoesn't work like that.
Like we can't just takesomebody else's template or what
(19:56):
worked for them and apply it toour own unique codes and expect
it to like not get contortedagain.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, yeah, it's the name of the book before I, you
know, lose it.
It's called the Comfort Crisisby Michael Easter.
I'm just a couple of chaptersin, but it's quite good so far.
And I, you know, that's one ofmy biggest pet peeves in
(20:28):
particularly the onlinemarketing coaching world is this
idea of like hey, if you justdownload my template, hey, if
you just looked at me as theauthority, you know.
These are all the reasons whyI'm going to tell you to a six
figure income versus hey, like,like.
(20:49):
This is going to be a long andhard road if you want to build a
business that's sustainable andyou have all the answers within
you.
I'm here to ask questions andmake sure that like it always
gets directed back towards you,but it's really about like,
having a conversation betweenyou and the unique spirit of
(21:11):
your business.
You know, and so you know, Iget a lot of clients who come in
having taken a lot of thosecourses and those programs,
myself included, and feelinglike but there's something off
about this.
You know, there's somethingthat doesn't feel right about
(21:32):
this.
I'm thinking about a client inparticular, lori, who when she
first came to me, she was justcoming off of a different
program who told her hey, likeyou know, if you want to make
money, the place where you needto go is, like marketing to C
(21:53):
level, you know, ceos andcorporate women, because they're
in pain and they have the moneyto be able to pay you.
And, yeah, the face that Dariais making right now is pretty
much the face that like, and youknow it feels like really
(22:13):
attractive, right, and what wecame up with after working
through this in BAM is shereally wants to do like
ancestral medicine or you know,and it doesn't really matter.
You know the job title that youhave.
It's really about, hey, likeare you curious about your
(22:39):
ancestry and you don't need toknow the exact people in your
ancestry to be able to doancestor work, like I can help
you know, to guide you to thoseplaces within again, you know,
and so I find that the peoplewho are drawn to BAM are also
people who want to practice inthis way of supporting their
(23:01):
clients, to look within andalways be looking within.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, there was like this.
You know, they're like I dothis for these people so that
they can do this, and it's likeyou feel just like this when you
do that.
Yeah, like I am a robot and itjust like it just robs you of
like the magic of youruniqueness and of your spirit
(23:32):
and of your medicine.
And that's the simplest way Ican put it.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, also always find, like I've done many of
those courses too and where Ialso ended up was feeling so
depleted and like there'ssomething wrong with me Because,
like I've read so many booksand I've done so many courses
about online marketing and Istill haven't started, and it's
(24:03):
okay.
But like before BAM, I would belike what everybody's doing?
It like what, how hard is it toput one post a day?
Like it's just, it's not thathard.
And the thing is like goingthrough the understanding, going
within again and understandingokay, why are you afraid?
Like, yeah, I'm afraid, maybefor people to think that I'm
(24:24):
weird or to shine, you know.
And then also, like one of mybiggest understandings was like
it really hurts when you postsomething and nobody reacts to
it and it's very human.
And it's like because it's asif you came into a room and you
said something and there wasjust everybody would just ignore
(24:48):
you.
You would be like what's wrongwith me, you know, like why is
nobody like am I invisible or amI just stupid?
And so like really treatingourselves so, so gently through
these things.
I think it's missing so much.
There's so much of this likepush energy around business and
it's so I think it's reallyharmful, because I think a lot
(25:12):
of people burn out this waybecause you know they push
through all of these like yeah,like that, because I think there
is one one hand there is liketrauma and wounding, but on the
other hand, there's just thislike human thing of like yeah,
it sucks when nobody reacts toyou and you need to hold
(25:34):
yourself very tenderly when thathappens.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, yeah.
But I think that what is taughtnowadays is, instead of holding
yourself tenderly, it's like oh, you're not doing enough, which
goes back to this conceptaround our modern culture that
has divorced us from nature,that's divorced us from natural
cycles, divorced us from ourbodies, and you know, I think
(26:03):
that that way of doing things isnow the normative way of doing
things, which is just pushthrough, just, you know, feel
the fear and do it anyway, andthis whole concept of linear
growth, like that's kind of theworld that we live in now, but
(26:26):
what we forget is that's not theworld that has existed through
the majority of human history.
From our conversation last week, lena Yu recommended this
podcast called the Emerald and Iwas just drawn to this episode,
(26:48):
to listen to this particularepisode, just based on the title
called Animism is the NormativeCulture, and you know, one of
the concepts that he talks about, because it's so easy to feel
like, oh, I'm alone in thisvirtual journey, all by myself,
and I'm the weirdo and you knowI there must be something wrong
(27:11):
with me because I can't seem tolike find my people is like when
you go back into history, youknow, 99% of our, our ancestors
existed in the Paleolithic era,which is the golden age of
animism, and it was just the,the.
(27:32):
We didn't even need to have aname for what animism was,
because it was just what was.
It was just the water that weslam in all the time, and he
gave this really, reallybeautiful example.
That really helps sort ofcontextualize things for me,
because you can say like, ohyeah, like I get it, 99% of my
(27:53):
ancestors cool, but I guess in2020, there was a comet called
the Neowise Comet that we couldsee from Earth for the first
time in 6,800 years, and thatmeans that the Neowise Comet has
, you know, shown up for us tosee on Earth 50 times since
(28:18):
humans have existed on Earth,and only one of those times is
during this like modern era thatwe live in, which is all about
productivity and growth forgrowth's sake, is about how can
we become disembodied in orderto be more and do more, rather
(28:41):
than, like you know, the 49other times that that comet has
passed through, our view hasbeen with people who were
connected to rocks and trees andplants, and mountains and
animals, and so to me, when Isay that, like I talked to rocks
(29:05):
, like I don't feel so alone inthe world, even if, you know,
maybe like 98% of modern humansdon't quite understand that, but
I'm hopeful that that is agrowing number as they become.
You know, we sort of have to,like explore the edges of
(29:26):
discomfort in order to come backto ourselves, and so I'm hoping
that we've got, you know, themomentum of folks who are
wanting to come back to natureand come back to our own bodies.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I mean this you know, the BAM container has been such
a big part of, or is such a bigpart, I feel, of this movement
that you're like you know thatyou're wishing for a cat.
It's, you know, facilitatingpeople getting out of their body
(30:10):
, you're getting out of theirheads.
It's facilitating peoplegetting out of their heads and
into their bodies, like fortheir business.
And us having this conversationlike I'm so excited because
before, when you know somethinglike the word spirituality makes
(30:31):
me feel uncomfortable, I'm like, oh, we're just not going to
use that word, and if I likejust kept eliminating things
that people don't understand orthat our world has contorted,
then, like we're not talkingabout anything of substance
anymore.
And so I think the conversationis so important so we can pull
(30:56):
this back into, like into theconversation, into like the
energy that weaves through us,so that people can define
spirituality on their own termsand instead of, like you know,
hiding from it.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, it's, I just lost the thread.
Yeah, it's interesting withspirituality and and like being
it becoming a bad word,basically like for many
(31:42):
different reasons, and also theostracizing people that are
talking to rocks or like makingfun of them, and what I realized
I also listened to this podcastepisode about animism.
What I what really broke myheart when I listened to it was
(32:06):
that we in the modern society,we somehow decided that
spirituality doesn't existanymore and that intuition is
something like it's just notreally useful and we set it
aside.
And what really breaks my heartis that we still are intuitive,
(32:29):
we're still are spiritual, likethat just doesn't go anywhere.
But the sad story is is that wedon't have the tools to access
it.
You know, nobody teaches usthat, and then we're walking
around half people or maybe evenless than half, because we just
live in our heads and we'relike, oh, but why does
(32:51):
everything feel so out of place?
Why am I so anxious constantly?
Why am I so depressed?
And and it's just really,really sad.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I just read that Silicon Valley declared
loneliness as a health crisislike this week, and to me it's
like yeah, of course, like thatis.
(33:26):
You know, I have some corporateclients and that is the land of
doing versus being, performing,versus allowing, always being on
screen instead of being out innature.
And so, like, even thoughSilicon Valley is like, so
(33:47):
rounded, like beautiful nature,like people are not accessing it
because spirituality and natureand animism no longer has value
in that world.
And so, like, like I read that Ihaven't had a chance to like,
actually do any reading about it, but it was just like a
headline that popped up on myInstagram feed yesterday and
(34:12):
like that it was like an, ofcourse, like.
This is what happens when wehave, you know, don't give
ourselves the opportunities tolike, actually sink into into
who we always were and and startto look outside of ourselves,
(34:34):
which is, you know, one of thereasons why I find your work so
fascinating, lena, is like,instead of like, my inclination
is to just like fight and belike people just get off your
phone, you know, and I love howyou're like, okay, so like, the
thing that we have to accept isthat, like phones are here,
(34:54):
phones are here to stay, and so,instead of fighting that like,
can I bring in spirituality andcan I bring in connection to
self through this thing that wecan't avoid, you know, and so I
(35:16):
find your work completelyfascinating in that way.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah, I find like I think as a, as a designer, but
also, sorry, yeah, I think Ihave an archetype of a
translator inside of me, verylike, strongly present, and so
I've always been fascinated withspirituality and finding
(35:42):
different ways.
How can I bring them to people?
Like before I was doing theaterfor some time and then like
physical games and now it's nowit's a mobile game and the thing
is I, I really I always hadthis feeling of like I would
love to meet people where theyare, you know, and because there
(36:07):
is no way to force people to doanything, like they will just
push back, and I just reallyhope that I can create something
that can, like ease the pain alittle bit, because I felt it
(36:27):
too.
I've been.
I lived with anxiety for mostof my life, like I just couldn't
exist without having constantcriticism inside of me and doubt
, and just like feeling paininside my chest, and for me, it
took my mom to pass away to wakeup, and I just really hope, or
(36:54):
my aim, is to bring something tothe world in a very accessible
way, that people don't need togo through such a huge crisis in
order to, to, to slowly, littleby little, wake up to who they
are.
Yeah, and and again.
(37:16):
With the phones, the thing isis just like they're here,
technology is here, and eventhough sometimes, like I'm
sometimes like can I just go tothe mountains somewhere and live
there alone without anybodyever talking to me, like I have
definitely hermit inside ofmyself.
But then, on the other hand,when I look also at, like the
(37:38):
crisis that Gen Z's are goingthrough, where there is like I
don't I don't know the name forit, of course, but there is
something that they're like sodistraught about the future of
the planet, and that's againthat something is like you're
looking outside, but like whatis inside of you, and so my, my,
(38:01):
my mission is to like okay, wehave this phone that you
constantly use when you're,especially when you're stressed
out or bored or anxious.
Can I create something that isactually of value to you and can
bring you to peace, instead ofmore agitation through I don't
know social media, for example?
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Yeah, yeah, and you know, I think that there are
it's.
I would.
I would say it's a relativelynew concept to bring mindfulness
into.
You know, a technology, butthere's a wave of products out
there that are coming through.
Like you, you were showing melike a like a sleep app where
(38:47):
one of the activities was, youknow, coloring is like a
coloring book, like a 3Dcoloring book to help you sort
of wind down.
And you know, I've used like ameditation app before and you
know, a lot of us are reallyfamiliar with calm and you know,
I think, that a lot of otherpeople are starting to look at
(39:08):
technology and being like, okay,so like technology is fair to
say and can we, you know,harness the good of it instead
of, you know, looking to it aslike another way to extract from
people?
Can we help people get backinto themselves?
(39:28):
And I feel like that's a reallyimportant piece.
Moving forward is, like, youknow, as much as I want to fight
technology and be like peopleare going to get out their
phones, like the generation thatcome after us, you know, I
(39:49):
think we're all millennial age.
They never lived in a worldwhere these products didn't
exist, you know.
And so for us to say we got toget rid of these things in such
an extreme way would actuallynot be helpful for them.
So I love that you're doingthis work of like meeting people
(40:12):
where you're at.
As you were saying, we've gotto meet them where they're at.
If this is the thing that theyare going to spend X amount of
time on every day, can a certainpercentage of that be the help
bring them into regulation?
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yeah, I was.
There was something you said,kat, and then Lena said and
we're you're talking about likerights of passage and how like
those are moments where we getto that, where we get to meet
spirit and like have that moment.
(40:56):
And I think about what thatlooked like for me growing up,
like what kind of rights ofpassage I went through and like,
specifically with the churchthey do like this confirmation,
and what I remember about it wasyou're like you're writing
(41:20):
answers and with a you know tolike a form basically, and you
have these two mentors that areadults and they spend time with
you and kind of coach youthrough it, but like there was
no spirituality in that for me.
(41:40):
And then I think about likehaving my first menstrual cycle.
That would have been an amazingmoment to have some kind of
right of passage spirit momentof like welcoming me into young,
young womanhood.
And yeah, like again it's, theconcept of spirituality just has
(42:09):
been expressed in in a way thathas not really been supportive
of of my life.
And yeah, using this moment inmy life to reclaim that is is a
(42:31):
really big deal.
Yeah, I would say.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, I feel like that's where the concept of
ritual comes in, in a way, where, like, how can we create
rituals for ourselves?
Because, at least in theWestern world, we don't really
have the rituals of ourancestors, are lost or depends,
of course, but like, more orless, they haven't been, we
(42:59):
haven't gotten them fromdirectly from our ancestors.
But I feel it really likebeautiful, this thing of like,
okay, inserting little ritualsinto your life as a way of
marking, marking somethingimportant, so like, as you were
saying, okay, my first meant my,the beginning of my
(43:22):
menstruating life.
Like it is a big deal, it'ssomething that like then follows
you throughout your whole life,basically until you, of course,
stop.
And so the question for me isalways like, okay, how can we
start adding these rituals backinto our lives, because we have
so few of them left?
You know, we have Christmas,christmas dinner, we have
(43:45):
birthday, maybe for somebodydepends, and that's kind of
almost it.
And so, like, how can we?
What is, maybe?
I think also, the question ishere like, what is worth marking
for you, for each of us, youknow?
Like, what is it that youactually want to put a point
(44:07):
into?
And like, okay, this wasimportant, and I think this is
also a way how we can not letlife slip away from us with all
this like, okay, more, more,faster, faster, and it's like
what is the end of it?
I remember there was some kindof quote I read at some point
(44:28):
where I was like where are yourunning to?
The end goal is death, you know.
So, like, what's your like?
Are you really rushing towardsthat?
And so, like finding the waysof what is important, like for
me, for example, it becameimportant to have a ritual every
(44:49):
single morning, and likedrinking my cacao and welcoming
the day, because it brings thisslowness to it and it brings
this like okay, what do I feeltoday?
How do I feel today?
What is my rhythm?
How do I want to step into theday?
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Yeah, yeah, like groundiness, yeah Like and just
to your point, lena, like noteven just these high moments,
like, yeah, we can have ritual,like special ritual for these
high moments, but even our dailyritual.
Because I can tell you, everysingle day, if I don't do some
(45:27):
practice to get in my body, thenmy energy like just wants to be
in my head and then I can endup scrolling or just kind of
piddling the day away because Ihaven't like rooted myself.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah, yeah, I feel the need to differentiate Like I
too have an inner translator,lena differentiate between
ritual and rites of passage.
Because what I'm hearing and Idon't think I've ever had to
(46:05):
like really differentiate thisbefore, but like what I'm
hearing is like ritual brings asense of connection, whether
it's to yourself or like in thecase of, you know, coming into
menstruation, connectingyourself to what other women who
have also menstruated you know.
But I think rites of passageneeds to have significant
(46:31):
challenge, with a fairly highchance of failing.
I think about my business asbeing a rite of passage.
You know there's a pretty highchance that, like businesses,
the way that we're running themmight not work out or might not
(46:52):
work out in the way that youenvision it in your head.
And so can you believe insomething so strongly that, even
the face of it potentially notworking out, you still for your
heart and your energy and yourlove into it and the effort is
(47:12):
enough.
You know, I think about therites of passage that you know
traditional cultures will puttheir kids still similar right,
like there's a higher than likenormal chances that that kid
might not come back.
You know I also.
(47:33):
You know in this book that I'mreading.
One of the things that one ofthe stories that he highlights
is there's a doctor who runs aprogram in Santa Barbara.
He runs it for professionalathletes and he specifically,
you know, has all thistechnology to help them like,
(47:53):
really understand you know,different body patterns and
movements and how they canimprove you know, performance
for professional athletes.
His passion project this guy'slike the doctor's passion
project is twice a year he putson what he calls a misogy
challenge and it is like aphysical challenge that they're
(48:19):
potentially not going to be ableto do as professional athletes,
and so one of the things thathe like one example is a 25-mile
paddle boarding challenge from,you know, I think it was from
the coast of Santa Barbara tolike one of the islands, and you
(48:41):
know the particular day thatthey set out to do this, there
was like a lot of wind and likeeveryone was falling into the
water.
And so it becomes thischallenge of like hey, instead
of like looking like I need toget there in 20 miles.
It was.
Can I have like one perfectstroke in this moment, like one
(49:03):
foot in front of the other, andone of the basketball players
said that he used it as like aconcept that he like came back
to during a playoff game is likeyou know people would be
talking to him about like okay,so like we need to win this game
.
He was like no, I just need tolike have one perfect stroke,
one step at a time.
(49:23):
And I think that that's whatlike rites of passages do for us
is like when we have somethingthat seems like a fairly big,
impossible goal and we mightfail at it, like what can we
still gain from those lessons?
(49:43):
You know, it made me think ofmy my at the time he was my
boyfriend, but he's now myhusband.
I remember one time he just likeon a whim, decided he was like
I'm going to walk 100 miles in aday.
He was like I really want to dothis and you know, at the time
(50:05):
he was, you know, more fit thanhe is now, but like not like
what you would think of as likean ultra marathoner at all.
Like he's like a big, burly guywho carries a lot of weight and
I think he got to like 14 or 15miles.
So like he didn't reach thegoal, but in that process of of
(50:29):
doing that challenge, like hewas able to come away with
lessons around hate.
Like I actually went furtherthan I thought I would.
He was, like, you know, Iwanted to do 100 miles but like
I didn't know if I could dothree or four miles even so, the
fact that he, like, he was ableto like get to 14 or 15 miles
(50:50):
was like a big thing and, youknow, he was able to walk away
with different lessons that,like I think that people are
just so afraid of failing thatthey miss that there are lessons
within just doing the challenge, just doing that hard thing,
(51:10):
double narrow, middle, middle,middleklein.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
I'm wanting to come up with a challenge for myself
now.
What could that be?
Yeah, kat, as soon as you saidthat you started differentiating
between, like, rights ofpassage and rituals, I was like
definitely, business is a rightof passage.
Yeah, definitely, no guarantees, and it's like just keep
(51:39):
following your heart.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
basically, yeah, and you don't know, like you know, I
say this as somebody who hasseveral quote unquote failed
businesses.
You know, I started out as acalligraphy artist and then that
business quote unquote failed.
And then I shifted into myacupuncture business and that
(52:03):
quote unquote failed.
And then I was a relationshipcoach, and that quote unquote
failed.
And now, like I'm a businesscoach but like everything that I
learned, from the calligraphybusiness, the acupuncture
business to the relationshipcoaching business, like it goes
through my work now and so, likeyou know, we're collecting
(52:27):
lessons all along the way and wedon't know what the end goal is
.
I honestly don't know if thisis going to be the thing that I
do for the rest of my life andand this business may also quote
unquote fail, but for sure,like it will have been worth
doing.
Regardless of whether it's, youknow it's going to sort of be a
(52:54):
success in the way that, likeother people would define
success, which is like it lastsfor 30 years.
You know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
It reminds me of we talked once with my.
It reminds me when we oncetalked with my partner and he
was saying of like oh, I'm above40.
And what have I done?
Like some people who are my age, they, I don't know they're
(53:26):
making so much money, they havea Tesla and they have a house
and so on and so forth, and andI was telling him like yeah,
okay, that's, that's fine, butlike you had these, all these
businesses that, as you say,like quote unquote, fail.
But have you what have you beenlike?
Have you been doing what youreally wanted to do the whole
(53:50):
time?
And his answer was yes, and Ifeel like that's also one part
of it.
Like I, for example, I had abusiness that it kind of failed,
but then I also sold it, whichwas in the end.
It was a huge success actually.
But I've been struggling for solong and I've had like almost no
(54:14):
money and like really livingfrom paycheck to paycheck, but I
was living my life like I couldtake a free day whenever I
wanted or you know, like I couldjust I could go out for a walk
and just be in nature if Iwanted to.
So there is always these thingsof like.
I think the question is morelike, are you doing what you
(54:37):
really want to do?
And then yeah, and then, ofcourse, the challenges come.
But I think that's also whatthe rites of passage can teach
us.
Like I was once on a it wasn'texactly a vision quest, but it
was inspired by a vision questwhere we were alone in the woods
(54:59):
spending, I think, a week intotal, and there is something
about, there's something sobeautiful about being outside of
your comfort zone, where you,first of all, you really learn
(55:23):
how incredibly strong you areit's like unbelievable.
And then also you find youredges, like the real edges of
the comfort zone.
You know like okay, this wastoo much, and so I think that's
really also really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yeah, there's like, there's definitely a trade off.
You know we were talking abouthumans and comfort.
Like, are we, are we choosingthe comfortable life where we
have somebody who's in authority, they give us a paycheck and we
(56:02):
get to drive a nice Tesla andmaybe we can drive, you know, a
nice Tesla when we have ourbusiness?
But you know the journey ofbecoming.
You know I think I mentionedthis before or we talked about
this before of it not reallybeing about the destination, but
it is like the challenges thatyou meet every single day and
(56:26):
how you move through them onyour quest to like follow the
will of your heart and like, bein integrity with your spirit
and your purpose.
And so, yeah, like, the tradeoff is maybe, lena, we're going
to live paycheck to paycheck fora little bit longer and then
(56:49):
maybe one day, we look back onthese days and we're like, wow,
I, you know, I never gave up.
I believed so much in what myheart was telling me and I
persevered and I met thesechallenges every day and I
didn't hide and I learned somany things and like, how much
(57:11):
more like fulfilling and rich,that part can an abundant, and
thinking of the word abundancelike an experience compared to
like the comfortable journey ofyeah the comfortable journey,
and I mean I think that, likethat, comfortable journey can be
(57:33):
a little bit of a misnomer aswell, because you know, I have
plenty of clients who work inthe corporate space and they
struggle with a lot of the samethings that we struggle with,
you know, it's just in adifferent outfit.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
So instead of us needing to hold boundaries with
our clients, they need to holdboundaries with their.
You know, boss, or you knowlike we struggle to sometimes
find the time in the space forourselves within.
(58:08):
You know all the things thatyou have to do as an
entrepreneur like you are a oneperson show who is doing the
practitioner in, you are doingthe like, scheduling in the
booking, and then all the thingsthat we have to do as
entrepreneurs, and so you knowit's up to us to figure out.
(58:33):
Okay, so we need to carve out.
This time is sacred times forfor me to step away, and so I
think my corporate clients whodrive Tesla's have to do the
same work, and so it's.
It's also about choosing.
Your heart is, I think, ashuman, and so we I think our
(58:58):
souls are here to like, reallytry to figure something out.
I tend to think of that as likethe journey of the Dow and
really trying to understand whatyour purpose is, and like you
can try to figure out how tolive in alignment with your
(59:19):
purpose by, you know, workingfor somebody else, or you can do
that also by working foryourself, and you know, it's not
like one path is better thanthe other.
I think that it's just aboutchoosing which hard is going to
be the most in alignment for you.
Yeah, yeah, I'm curious.
(59:46):
I feel like we've talked a lotabout like rights of passage,
but what kind of rituals?
What are the rituals for yourpersonal life and for your
business life, or is there not adifferentiation between the two
(01:00:08):
for you?
Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
I'm not sure if I differentiate them or not.
I think it's like acontinuation.
But yeah, for my personal lifeI always start a morning with a
cup of cacao and meditation andsometimes yoga, and then I try
(01:00:38):
to follow writing.
I have like a notion, differentquestions for the day and also
gratitude journals.
So then I, just before I startworking, to get into the mood of
being grateful, then alsoasking I ask my business what it
wants to tell me today.
So, just like then I jot acouple of notes and then I
(01:01:04):
started also to decide on theone to three things I'm going to
do today.
So it's just like very smallamount of things to do.
And then for bigger rituals ormaybe I would call them
ceremonies, even though I don'tactually it's always has been a
(01:01:27):
bit hard for me to differentiatebetween the ritual and the
ceremony, but I feel likeceremonies are a bit bigger in
time and space and also effort.
And once in a while for mypersonal, especially for my
personal life, I do like in away, death ritual, where I like
(01:01:50):
I have an altar by my bedsideand I always like collect rocks
and take them away and then putthem back in.
And then, once in a while I'mlike okay, it's time to clean it
out.
And I think that's the timewhen I'm like, somehow
subconsciously, I know that it'stime for some of some parts of
me to let go and let them die.
(01:02:10):
And so I collect, I like feelinto all the things that I don't
want on my altar anymore, andthen I and they are also
sometimes connected to mybusiness as well and then I go
somewhere in nature and have aceremony.
Where I arrange depends verymuch.
Sometimes I arrange them inlike a mandala and let them
(01:02:34):
there, or sometimes I like hidethem away around the forest or
throw them in water and so on.
Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
So I love that.
I don't think I like maybe Ihave like a slight like hoarding
tendency with my ritualisticthings when, like I, I've never
considered putting them back.
That's an interesting concept.
(01:03:03):
I'm gonna start with that one.
Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
Yeah, it happened to me for the first time when I it
was on my vision quest.
I created this like really weirdbut really beautiful tool where
it had like a heart, like itwas like made out of a branch,
and on one side it had a spoon.
On the other hand, on the otherside it had gosh, what was on
(01:03:30):
the other side, I don't remember.
So it was like three, three.
It had like three spikes Onewas a spoon, one was something
and the third one was like aspear and in the middle was a
heart.
And I was like this is my toolfor like healing, nurturing and
killing what needs to die.
And and I was like really proudof it and I was really attached
(01:03:51):
to it because I carved it outmyself with like a knife over
many, many days.
And then one day at a somewhereI was at some kind of cacao
ceremony or something, I thinkand I stepped on it and it broke
and it was like and I was likeso upset.
But then it just came to me.
It's like, yes, sometimes youneed like you need to let go of
(01:04:14):
some of the tools.
It's time for it to go.
And so from then on, I think Istarted to be like oh okay, this
doesn't feel alive anymore forme.
I think it's time to saygoodbye.
Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
I love it.
What about you, Daria?
Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Yeah, I, I'm still like I just moved a couple
months ago and I'm still likefinding my new rhythm here.
But most of my my practices areI too, enjoy having a little
(01:04:56):
cacao in the morning and justhaving a moment of quiet with
that to let whatever needs tocome forward come forward.
I find it to be like incredibly, an incredibly grounding way to
start my day and I'm somebodywho is always dropping into body
(01:05:20):
practices and then, like, fromthose I may do a meditation, and
there's always a journalkicking around with like lots of
different colored pens andsparkly pens and neon pens.
And so my, my like bodypractice is I might put on like
(01:05:44):
two or three songs and just moveor and sometimes that turns
into like shaking and just likebucking around basically in my
studio and then like when I,when I get quiet, you know,
because a lot, of, a lot oftimes there's like a lot of
(01:06:06):
build up in our bodies and solike that movement just helps
move the energy up and out andthrough, and then so like
there's like this, the stillwaters that come after that,
where I can hear my heartspeaking, and then I keep the
journal there, so like anythingthat comes up, it just goes in
(01:06:28):
the journal or my notebook.
I've, like I have a shelf ofjust notebooks and yeah, cat,
you asked if there's adifferentiation between, like
personal and business, and forme, as like a spiritual
embodiment mentor, it's all thesame, because I want my life to
be a reflection of spirit, whichis like the work that I'm here
(01:06:53):
to do in the world, help otherslike yeah, and myself like
reflect spirit out into theworld and like bring our
spirituality into the world andlike bring our spirituality into
our everyday lives.
And so I know like if I need acertain practice, it's serving
me personally, then it's alsoserving my business, because I
(01:07:15):
for me to override the personal,like that personal need in
order to like do my business ormy work.
That's just like I'm not anintegrity there and whatever
comes out of me like it's notquite, it's just not quite the
(01:07:36):
same.
I mean, I think there's stilltruth there and there's still,
like you know, there is stillthat direct transmission.
But, like you know, I have apart time job and like I can
open up my laptop and do a fewthings the part time job but
like what comes out of me thenand there, compared to when I'm
(01:07:59):
like in my body and moving andmeditating and whatever,
whatever else.
Then, like it just lookscompletely different Because the
direct connection is like muchmore palpable in that way.
I have a yoga practice, I workwith mantra and sound healing
(01:08:26):
and singing and, as Katmentioned, I there's like a
whole two kit and I definitelyjust into it like what I need in
every moment and give it tomyself.
Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
I hope that people can hearsome amazing examples and bring
them in for themselves or orthink some ideas for themselves.
I think for me, the two that Iwant to bring into this space is
like a hopeful inspiration isin my personal life now being on
(01:09:07):
this land.
There's this concept of likechocolate carry water, which I
don't have to do quite yet, butthe thing that I do have to do
every day is move horse poop,and so, you know, my horses live
in their fancy arena slash barn.
I have to clean up poop, andthen I've been moving it out
(01:09:29):
into a space that we'rehopefully going to build our
house on in the next five to 10years, and in the meantime I
really want there to be a reallyvibrant vegetable garden,
flower garden out there, and sowe're building out that bed
(01:09:49):
space.
But over the wintertime Icouldn't cart the horse poop out
and so I actually left a pileof it.
I can actually look at it rightnow as we're talking.
I left a pile of it like on inthe front of our property and
the other day my neighbor waslike you know, like I come and
bring the tractor and like movethat for you.
(01:10:10):
And I had this like moment oflike.
No, but my ritual is to likemove poop out like with a wagon,
you know, with a little handwagon and and so there's
something about like not takingthe convenient road all the time
(01:10:32):
if it helps you be in your body.
It's something that you knowAndre, who's my business partner
, but he's also my ex romanticpartner.
Like he, when he makes a meal,it is like a full day situation
(01:10:52):
where he has to like grind thespices in a mortar and pestle,
even though we have like anelectric grinder.
You know like it's.
It's like there's somethingabout doing things with your
hands in the ways that, likewe've always done them without
the technology.
That I feel like it feelsreally connecting, at least for
(01:11:13):
me personally.
I think that folks who sort offollow my work and understand
what I mean when I say like I'ma woody type person, like I
think woody type people need tolike move things with their
hands and with their bodies, andthat can be a ritual to bring
in, and a business ritual that Ido now is I think that I grew
(01:11:41):
up only having these like bigmoments celebrated, so like if I
got a good grade on a, you know, report card or if I passed
some sort of test or you know,these sort of like externalized
ways of like bringing incelebration and like marking
that moment.
(01:12:01):
And so something I've been doingwith my husband is like like
celebrating the small things,like you know, the more internal
things, like hey, like I held aboundary with a client and it
was really hard and I reallylike like that's not something
(01:12:22):
that I would necessarily be,like that deserves a gold star,
but I feel like the internalwork that it took to like have
that hard conversation withsomebody, you know.
I think that those moments alsoneed to be celebrated, and so
that's why I have thecelebration channel in our like
(01:12:43):
band slot group is because Iwant to be able to celebrate not
just the like tangible hey Ilaunched or hey, I signed a
client but also the moreintangible things of like, you
know, I followed my creativityand I like, like I think I have
the start of an offering, youknow, and being able to
(01:13:06):
celebrate those little momentsbefore they're ready to share
with the world, because thatlike first step is like a really
, really brave moment.
So those are the two ritualsthat I think I want to just like
share in this space and hopethat you know folks who are
listening can take what theywish and you know, using the
(01:13:28):
wisdom, that when I brought inis like really what doesn't work
for you.
So, yeah, wow, my dear, I feellike that was a really lovely
way to start my morning.
Anyway, I love talking to thetop of an allay yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
Yeah, thank you so much.
Also, I have so many likeprickling thoughts about other
things I can't wait to thinkabout.
It Just sparked so many ideasin my head and so many thoughts.
That's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Yeah, definitely ideas for my own practices, and
yeah, yeah, we could probablytalk for another hour.
Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
And after reading this book I feel I really sort
of like compelled to come upwith some sort of like right of
passage, like physical challengetype of a thing.
I don't know what it is yet,but yeah, I think I need that
too, Kat.
Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
My tendency is to fall into like very yin and
almost immobilize, and so mypractice is always like no, I
gotta be strong in my body andlike definitely some kind of a
challenge I think would help getme there.
So I'm gonna be thinking aboutone too.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
Maybe I need to do like a yearly BAM physical
challenge, where we do somethingon my land and it's like hey,
we might fill out this and it'sokay.
Yeah, horse poop is ritual.
Yeah, horse poop is ritual forsure, beautiful.
(01:15:30):
Yeah, alrighty, my dears, havea wonderful rest of your day.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Before we log off, I would loveme to drop in with how people
can find you.
Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
You can find me on my Instagram.
Oh my gosh, ruby.
Sorry, you can find me on myInstagram.
My handle is alifealignedco.
Speaker 3 (01:16:03):
Yeah, and you can find me on Instagram too, and
the handle is intospiritworld.
Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
And Ruby always seems to know when Mike calls her
pretty much over, so she canover here to say hello, hi, ruby
.
Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
What's your?
Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
Instagram Ruby, hi Ruby.
Well, my dears thank you again.
Lena, do you have?
Speaker 3 (01:16:32):
something to say?
I actually.
I just wanted to ask how wasthat book called?
Again, I forgot oh it is Gosh.
Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
It's not the catchiest title.
Hey, like Comfort.
Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
Crisis Comfort Crisis .
Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:16:49):
And it's.
The author is Michael Easter.
Yeah, perfect, embrace thiscomfort to reclaim your wild,
happy, healthy soul.
Nice, okay, love that.
Thank you, of course.
We'll chat soon.
Bye.
Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to the Rooted Business Podcast.
Today I've got dear friends andBAM community members, lena and
Daria, and this episode isinspired by a group coaching
call that we did last week andin that conversation, this
(00:26):
concept of spirituality and whatplace it has in business, what
has scared us away fromincorporating spirituality into
our businesses and how, aspeople feel insensitive and
(00:48):
empathetic humans, how can webring spirituality into
everything that we do in a waythat feels really empowering?
And after we had that discussion, I was just sitting there and
thinking, oh my God, otherpeople need to hear this, and so
I invited Daria and Lena on tothe podcast so that you know, I
(01:11):
think that was just like alittle like 15 minute blip of a
conversation on our coachingcall, but I really want to just
like sink into it and really doa deep dive with you too,
because I think it's going to besuch a juicy conversation and
you too, in particular, bringssuch depth and warmth to these
concepts.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
(01:32):
So before we get into theseconcepts, I'd love to have you
just do a quick little intro andshare with folks who you are
(01:55):
and what your work is about andwhat sort of go from there and
see where our conversation takesus.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I'm Daria and I am a spiritual embodiment mentor who
claimed this title.
That kind of encapsulates whatI do through this mentorship in
(02:26):
BAM.
I was dancing all aroundspirituality and have many
different tools to help peopleget out of their thinking brain
and then just dropping intotheir body so that we can be the
(02:47):
feeling and intuiting creaturesthat we are and start like
getting better and healing ourbodies from pain and emotional
distress and anxiety.
And, yeah, just really wantingto like I see, I see freedom for
(03:12):
for all beings if we can betapped into and embody our, our
own spiritual nature.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And I'm Lena.
I'm a playful experiencedesigner and I'm on a mission to
make self-care more accessiblefor people, because I feel like,
when I look around the world,so many people are stressed out
and anxious and depressed andthere are so many tools out
(03:46):
there that one can use, but it'sa bit, it can be daunting to
get into it, or it can be feel abit boring, or one feels like,
okay, now I have to sit for halfan hour on a cushion and
meditate, and so I'm creatingthis app called Spirit World, in
which you have bite-sizedself-care techniques that are
(04:09):
mixed with the game to to have afun experience that people are
already used to.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I think two pieces that I like want to like put a
little flag in and come back tofeel is this idea of ritual,
lena, that feels like somethingthat is something that you help
cultivate within your game slashapp is, how can we bring back
(04:42):
ritual?
And to me there's there's suchdeep ties to animism and
spirituality when it comes toritual.
And then for Daria, I just wantto name that.
You know you said that youclaimed this title through this
process that we went through andbam, but it was really just
(05:06):
giving vocabulary to somethingthat you've always done.
You know, like you came in witha very simple toolbox and it's
really just about how can we puta name to that so that you
communicate that to folks, and Ifeel like that's what a lot of
this, like machine space, thespirituality feels like
(05:26):
sometimes to me is like I feelthis all the time, walking on my
property, going for walks inthe woods, hanging out with my
horses, and the struggle is ishow do I put language to it in
such a way that it makes senseto other people and I can find
(05:48):
community and connection withother people, and so, like I'm
hoping that that's what part ofour conversation is going to be
about is is really putting alanguage so that we can bring
this as a, as a connecting piece, because I think that for a lot
(06:11):
of us who do have our own senseof spirituality and oftentimes
is connected to animism in someway, it can feel like we're
really kind of alone in this.
And so, yeah, I just want tolike name those two pieces and
I'm sure this concept of ritualis gonna is gonna weave its way
through, because how can it not?
(06:33):
But before we get into it, I'dlove for you to share what your
idea of spirituality is, becauseif we start with a big
vocabulary word likespirituality, having a sense of
(06:53):
what that means to each of thespeakers, I feel like is an
important place to start.
So let's play with that justconcept of naming what
spirituality is to you first.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
When I think of spirituality, I think of my own
journey through it, where in thebeginning, when I started on
this spiritual journey, I feltlike spirituality is about what
is outside of myself and aboutthe spirit and God or Goddess or
universe, and I was lookingoutside for answers.
(07:34):
And the more I dug deeper andthe longer I was on this journey
, I learned for myself at least,that spirituality is actually
inside of myself and not, andeven more, inside of my body, so
like the embodiment part becameso, so important, because I
(07:55):
feel like spirituality is myability to access my intuition,
my ability to be in sync withnature, my ability to be in sync
with my own rhythm, my abilityalso to see what needs to be
(08:17):
done in my business in a verycentered way, instead of again
looking to the outside world tosee what I'm supposed to do,
coming back to myself andlistening in and then acting
from there.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, I love that, lena, and I think, like, what
ritual and meditation and thesepractices give us is that
opportunity to like turn off theoutside world and connect with
those parts of our body that arecommunicating with us, like
that is spirit communicatingwith us.
(08:55):
So for me, spirituality isdefinitely about being connected
to nature and the elements arecycles and seasons, and you know
this idea that rest isproductive and ritual is
(09:16):
productive.
For me, spirituality issomething definitely that is
deeply within myself and anybodywho, like wants to explore
their own spirituality, like,just like you said, lena, it's
already inside of them and inEastern medicine, the heart, the
(09:39):
heart holds the spirit, and so,like, my practice is so much
about using the wisdom of theheart as like a compass, or like
is our map, and then, like thebody is the compass that's kind
of like pointing us in thedirection, through, like our
sensing and our feeling.
(09:59):
But the map is already insideof us and I think it's just.
You know, for me spiritualityis also about, like, recognizing
the divinity that is withinourselves and then being
reflected out also in the worldand you know that, that weaving
(10:24):
of connection and energy betweenlike beings and animals and
plants and the earth andelements.
Yeah, and like probably so many,so many people, this idea of
spirituality just got sodisordered from, from our life
(10:48):
experiences, which I which was ahuge turn off and definitely it
was like a friction point in mewanting to say, like I am here
for the will of my spirit andI'm here to like talk about
spirituality and be in mypractice and share that with
(11:08):
people because of like thedistortion that you know, my
previous life experiences, youknow, created inside of me.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, I think for me that that were distortion, like
rings of all, because for thelongest time, spirituality felt
like, like a word that I wantedto get far, far away from,
because I grew up withgrandparents who were and
(11:43):
continue to be, you know.
This is not to say that allChristianity is bad or that I,
you know, have a rift withChristianity, but the way that
their church practices inparticular feels very
pressurized, feels verymanipulative, feels very
(12:03):
extractive and hypocritical, andI saw that from an early age
and I wanted to get as far awayfrom that as possible and that
was my only sort of concept ofwhat spirituality was.
Because I grew up, also in avery suburban, like cookie
(12:25):
cutter houses, with, like youknow, malls and and and so you
had to actually like go and likelook for nature in my, in my
childhood was my experience, andso, you know, I feel like I
grew up thinking thatspirituality only meant
(12:46):
spirituality in the way that Isaw my grandparents practicing,
and so when I had, you know,spirituality breakdown,
breakthrough, however you wantto call it in my early 30s, it
really was this return back to,you know, as you were saying,
(13:07):
one of this, like who you alwayswere this concept of being able
to go back to like what iswithin and have all the answers
within, and to me, like that iswhat true spirituality is.
It's like it feels subtractive.
We don't have to look to anysort of higher authority,
whether that be a God or whetherthat be somebody who's higher
(13:34):
up than you in the church.
It's really about you have allthe answers within you and can
you find guides and mentors whowill help you get closer to the
answers within, versus, like,look to them for that sense of
authority.
So yeah, that is, you know.
(13:55):
That's.
That's where I feel like a lotof the people who are in the
church, a lot of them, I think alot of us carry spirituality
wound, if it feels appropriateto call it that.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
So yeah, I would say 100% spirituality wounds like
when you witness hypocrisy, andspirituality like that is
definitely a wound because youtook something that is like my
birthright.
And you, you manipulated me withit.
(14:29):
Basically, I mean, I definitelyexperienced like that hypocrisy
and the hierarchical.
Like you know, you shouldn't bedoing that and you need to stop
doing that and meet theserequirements or whatever so that
you can be a part of thischurch.
And yeah, there was, like that,that inner friction where, like
(14:55):
it just doesn't and, as a child, like we see it so clearly and
feel it so clearly like thatfriction between, like what is
true for us and like what we'rebeing told and we're like this
is not matching up.
That's what I experienced, yeah, yeah, for me.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
I'm wondering also, like where, where does it come
from that we look for answersoutside, you know, because I
just it reminded me so much whenI just started on this virtual
journey and I have these amazingteachers in Denmark.
Every time I asked a question,they were like like directing it
(15:37):
back at me and they were like,and what do you think?
And I was so annoyed I was likecan you just give me an answer?
You know, like I just want toknow what to believe, basically,
yeah, and so I think there issomething in us, ingrained, and
definitely from school, whereyou know like there is one right
answer and you just have toremember it.
But it might go even furtherdown the line, right, but there
(16:01):
is something interesting therethat, like we want that, we want
somebody to take, basically totake responsibility for us.
I think there is a lot there aswell of like how can I take
away responsibility for mydecisions, for my health, for my
wealth, for my happiness, andput it on somebody else, because
(16:27):
then it's safe, like it'ssomething that I don't have to
put myself at risk of failure totry something.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, I think that that has to do like oh my gosh,
this idea of like you have theanswers within versus like you
have to look outside for answers, like that ripples through so
many ways of being.
I'm struggling to find the nameof this book, but I'm in the
(16:58):
middle of reading a book rightnow.
I just started it and he talksabout putting ourselves through
challenges as a way to like tapinto.
He doesn't call it spirituality, but you know, I think that
he's talking about one of thesame, because he's talking about
connection with nature andconnection with self and
(17:21):
connection with you know, yourbroader community.
And there's a whole chapterabout like rites of passage that
a lot of sort of traditionalcultures put their children
through, and like.
It's not like you just pop thatkid out and mill the wilderness
and be like okay, go figureyourself out.
(17:41):
It's like the preparation ofraising the child is to have
them be ready to look within fortheir answers so that when you
do, you know, like theAboriginal communities in
Australia, when you send yourkid out for a walkabout and
they're 12 or 13 ish, you knowthey already know that they have
(18:02):
all the tools within them andthey don't have to look outside
to somebody who's older to likefix that problem or take
responsibility for them, and Ithink that that is something
that is really, really missingin our modern culture is, when
we take away this concept of youhave all the answers within, we
also take away, likesovereignty and autonomy and the
(18:26):
ability for us to take, likeyou were saying, when I like,
responsibility for our own lifein a way that feels empowering.
I'm going to look up the nameof this book, so one of you guys
take over for a second.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, and this is very much related to, you know,
doing business and doing our outof the world.
It's like we've beentraumatized, all of us in some
kind of a way and to to have abusiness for yourself, like you
(19:05):
have to be, you have to have asense of sovereignty and also
like, interbeing.
You know, I wouldn't be able toget where I am without the
support of, like, the communityand what I'm.
You know, what I'm thinking ofin particular is, like you know,
the authority over that had melooking outside of my internal
(19:33):
compass for somebody who wasgoing to take responsibility and
save me and help me turn mypractice into something that was
going to provide money for me,and it doesn't.
You know, I have learned itdoesn't work like that.
Like we can't just takesomebody else's template or what
(19:56):
worked for them and apply it toour own unique codes and expect
it to like not get contortedagain.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, yeah, it's the name of the book before I, you
know, lose it.
It's called the Comfort Crisisby Michael Easter.
I'm just a couple of chaptersin, but it's quite good so far.
And I, you know, that's one ofmy biggest pet peeves in
(20:28):
particularly the onlinemarketing coaching world is this
idea of like hey, if you justdownload my template, hey, if
you just looked at me as theauthority, you know.
These are all the reasons whyI'm going to tell you to a six
figure income versus hey, like,like.
(20:49):
This is going to be a long andhard road if you want to build a
business that's sustainable andyou have all the answers within
you.
I'm here to ask questions andmake sure that like it always
gets directed back towards you,but it's really about like,
having a conversation betweenyou and the unique spirit of
(21:11):
your business.
You know, and so you know, Iget a lot of clients who come in
having taken a lot of thosecourses and those programs,
myself included, and feelinglike but there's something off
about this.
You know, there's somethingthat doesn't feel right about
(21:32):
this.
I'm thinking about a client inparticular, lori, who when she
first came to me, she was justcoming off of a different
program who told her hey, likeyou know, if you want to make
money, the place where you needto go is, like marketing to C
(21:53):
level, you know, ceos andcorporate women, because they're
in pain and they have the moneyto be able to pay you.
And, yeah, the face that Dariais making right now is pretty
much the face that like, and youknow it feels like really
(22:13):
attractive, right, and what wecame up with after working
through this in BAM is shereally wants to do like
ancestral medicine or you know,and it doesn't really matter.
You know the job title that youhave.
It's really about, hey, likeare you curious about your
(22:39):
ancestry and you don't need toknow the exact people in your
ancestry to be able to doancestor work, like I can help
you know, to guide you to thoseplaces within again, you know,
and so I find that the peoplewho are drawn to BAM are also
people who want to practice inthis way of supporting their
(23:01):
clients, to look within andalways be looking within.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, there was like this.
You know, they're like I dothis for these people so that
they can do this, and it's likeyou feel just like this when you
do that.
Yeah, like I am a robot and itjust like it just robs you of
like the magic of youruniqueness and of your spirit
(23:32):
and of your medicine.
And that's the simplest way Ican put it.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, also always find, like I've done many of
those courses too and where Ialso ended up was feeling so
depleted and like there'ssomething wrong with me Because,
like I've read so many booksand I've done so many courses
about online marketing and Istill haven't started, and it's
(24:03):
okay.
But like before BAM, I would belike what everybody's doing?
It like what, how hard is it toput one post a day?
Like it's just, it's not thathard.
And the thing is like goingthrough the understanding, going
within again and understandingokay, why are you afraid?
Like, yeah, I'm afraid, maybefor people to think that I'm
(24:24):
weird or to shine, you know.
And then also, like one of mybiggest understandings was like
it really hurts when you postsomething and nobody reacts to
it and it's very human.
And it's like because it's asif you came into a room and you
said something and there wasjust everybody would just ignore
(24:48):
you.
You would be like what's wrongwith me, you know, like why is
nobody like am I invisible or amI just stupid?
And so like really treatingourselves so, so gently through
these things.
I think it's missing so much.
There's so much of this likepush energy around business and
it's so I think it's reallyharmful, because I think a lot
(25:12):
of people burn out this waybecause you know they push
through all of these like yeah,like that, because I think there
is one one hand there is liketrauma and wounding, but on the
other hand, there's just thislike human thing of like yeah,
it sucks when nobody reacts toyou and you need to hold
(25:34):
yourself very tenderly when thathappens.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, yeah.
But I think that what is taughtnowadays is, instead of holding
yourself tenderly, it's like oh, you're not doing enough, which
goes back to this conceptaround our modern culture that
has divorced us from nature,that's divorced us from natural
cycles, divorced us from ourbodies, and you know, I think
(26:03):
that that way of doing things isnow the normative way of doing
things, which is just pushthrough, just, you know, feel
the fear and do it anyway, andthis whole concept of linear
growth, like that's kind of theworld that we live in now, but
(26:26):
what we forget is that's not theworld that has existed through
the majority of human history.
From our conversation last week, lena Yu recommended this
podcast called the Emerald and Iwas just drawn to this episode,
(26:48):
to listen to this particularepisode, just based on the title
called Animism is the NormativeCulture, and you know, one of
the concepts that he talks about, because it's so easy to feel
like, oh, I'm alone in thisvirtual journey, all by myself,
and I'm the weirdo and you knowI there must be something wrong
(27:11):
with me because I can't seem tolike find my people is like when
you go back into history, youknow, 99% of our, our ancestors
existed in the Paleolithic era,which is the golden age of
animism, and it was just the,the.
(27:32):
We didn't even need to have aname for what animism was,
because it was just what was.
It was just the water that weslam in all the time, and he
gave this really, reallybeautiful example.
That really helps sort ofcontextualize things for me,
because you can say like, ohyeah, like I get it, 99% of my
(27:53):
ancestors cool, but I guess in2020, there was a comet called
the Neowise Comet that we couldsee from Earth for the first
time in 6,800 years, and thatmeans that the Neowise Comet has
, you know, shown up for us tosee on Earth 50 times since
(28:18):
humans have existed on Earth,and only one of those times is
during this like modern era thatwe live in, which is all about
productivity and growth forgrowth's sake, is about how can
we become disembodied in orderto be more and do more, rather
(28:41):
than, like you know, the 49other times that that comet has
passed through, our view hasbeen with people who were
connected to rocks and trees andplants, and mountains and
animals, and so to me, when Isay that, like I talked to rocks
(29:05):
, like I don't feel so alone inthe world, even if, you know,
maybe like 98% of modern humansdon't quite understand that, but
I'm hopeful that that is agrowing number as they become.
You know, we sort of have to,like explore the edges of
(29:26):
discomfort in order to come backto ourselves, and so I'm hoping
that we've got, you know, themomentum of folks who are
wanting to come back to natureand come back to our own bodies.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I mean this you know, the BAM container has been such
a big part of, or is such a bigpart, I feel, of this movement
that you're like you know thatyou're wishing for a cat.
It's, you know, facilitatingpeople getting out of their body
(30:10):
, you're getting out of theirheads.
It's facilitating peoplegetting out of their heads and
into their bodies, like fortheir business.
And us having this conversationlike I'm so excited because
before, when you know somethinglike the word spirituality makes
(30:31):
me feel uncomfortable, I'm like, oh, we're just not going to
use that word, and if I likejust kept eliminating things
that people don't understand orthat our world has contorted,
then, like we're not talkingabout anything of substance
anymore.
And so I think the conversationis so important so we can pull
(30:56):
this back into, like into theconversation, into like the
energy that weaves through us,so that people can define
spirituality on their own termsand instead of, like you know,
hiding from it.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, it's, I just lost the thread.
Yeah, it's interesting withspirituality and and like being
it becoming a bad word,basically like for many
(31:42):
different reasons, and also theostracizing people that are
talking to rocks or like makingfun of them, and what I realized
I also listened to this podcastepisode about animism.
What I what really broke myheart when I listened to it was
(32:06):
that we in the modern society,we somehow decided that
spirituality doesn't existanymore and that intuition is
something like it's just notreally useful and we set it
aside.
And what really breaks my heartis that we still are intuitive,
(32:29):
we're still are spiritual, likethat just doesn't go anywhere.
But the sad story is is that wedon't have the tools to access
it.
You know, nobody teaches usthat, and then we're walking
around half people or maybe evenless than half, because we just
live in our heads and we'relike, oh, but why does
(32:51):
everything feel so out of place?
Why am I so anxious constantly?
Why am I so depressed?
And and it's just really,really sad.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I just read that Silicon Valley declared
loneliness as a health crisislike this week, and to me it's
like yeah, of course, like thatis.
(33:26):
You know, I have some corporateclients and that is the land of
doing versus being, performing,versus allowing, always being on
screen instead of being out innature.
And so, like, even thoughSilicon Valley is like, so
(33:47):
rounded, like beautiful nature,like people are not accessing it
because spirituality and natureand animism no longer has value
in that world.
And so, like, like I read that Ihaven't had a chance to like,
actually do any reading about it, but it was just like a
headline that popped up on myInstagram feed yesterday and
(34:12):
like that it was like an, ofcourse, like.
This is what happens when wehave, you know, don't give
ourselves the opportunities tolike, actually sink into into
who we always were and and startto look outside of ourselves,
(34:34):
which is, you know, one of thereasons why I find your work so
fascinating, lena, is like,instead of like, my inclination
is to just like fight and belike people just get off your
phone, you know, and I love howyou're like, okay, so like, the
thing that we have to accept isthat, like phones are here,
(34:54):
phones are here to stay, and so,instead of fighting that like,
can I bring in spirituality andcan I bring in connection to
self through this thing that wecan't avoid, you know, and so I
(35:16):
find your work completelyfascinating in that way.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah, I find like I think as a, as a designer, but
also, sorry, yeah, I think Ihave an archetype of a
translator inside of me, verylike, strongly present, and so
I've always been fascinated withspirituality and finding
(35:42):
different ways.
How can I bring them to people?
Like before I was doing theaterfor some time and then like
physical games and now it's nowit's a mobile game and the thing
is I, I really I always hadthis feeling of like I would
love to meet people where theyare, you know, and because there
(36:07):
is no way to force people to doanything, like they will just
push back, and I just reallyhope that I can create something
that can, like ease the pain alittle bit, because I felt it
(36:27):
too.
I've been.
I lived with anxiety for mostof my life, like I just couldn't
exist without having constantcriticism inside of me and doubt
, and just like feeling paininside my chest, and for me, it
took my mom to pass away to wakeup, and I just really hope, or
(36:54):
my aim, is to bring something tothe world in a very accessible
way, that people don't need togo through such a huge crisis in
order to, to, to slowly, littleby little, wake up to who they
are.
Yeah, and and again.
(37:16):
With the phones, the thing isis just like they're here,
technology is here, and eventhough sometimes, like I'm
sometimes like can I just go tothe mountains somewhere and live
there alone without anybodyever talking to me, like I have
definitely hermit inside ofmyself.
But then, on the other hand,when I look also at, like the
(37:38):
crisis that Gen Z's are goingthrough, where there is like I
don't I don't know the name forit, of course, but there is
something that they're like sodistraught about the future of
the planet, and that's againthat something is like you're
looking outside, but like whatis inside of you, and so my, my,
(38:01):
my mission is to like okay, wehave this phone that you
constantly use when you're,especially when you're stressed
out or bored or anxious.
Can I create something that isactually of value to you and can
bring you to peace, instead ofmore agitation through I don't
know social media, for example?
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Yeah, yeah, and you know, I think that there are
it's.
I would.
I would say it's a relativelynew concept to bring mindfulness
into.
You know, a technology, butthere's a wave of products out
there that are coming through.
Like you, you were showing melike a like a sleep app where
(38:47):
one of the activities was, youknow, coloring is like a
coloring book, like a 3Dcoloring book to help you sort
of wind down.
And you know, I've used like ameditation app before and you
know, a lot of us are reallyfamiliar with calm and you know,
I think, that a lot of otherpeople are starting to look at
(39:08):
technology and being like, okay,so like technology is fair to
say and can we, you know,harness the good of it instead
of, you know, looking to it aslike another way to extract from
people?
Can we help people get backinto themselves?
(39:28):
And I feel like that's a reallyimportant piece.
Moving forward is, like, youknow, as much as I want to fight
technology and be like peopleare going to get out their
phones, like the generation thatcome after us, you know, I
(39:49):
think we're all millennial age.
They never lived in a worldwhere these products didn't
exist, you know.
And so for us to say we got toget rid of these things in such
an extreme way would actuallynot be helpful for them.
So I love that you're doingthis work of like meeting people
(40:12):
where you're at.
As you were saying, we've gotto meet them where they're at.
If this is the thing that theyare going to spend X amount of
time on every day, can a certainpercentage of that be the help
bring them into regulation?
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yeah, I was.
There was something you said,kat, and then Lena said and
we're you're talking about likerights of passage and how like
those are moments where we getto that, where we get to meet
spirit and like have that moment.
(40:56):
And I think about what thatlooked like for me growing up,
like what kind of rights ofpassage I went through and like,
specifically with the churchthey do like this confirmation,
and what I remember about it wasyou're like you're writing
(41:20):
answers and with a you know tolike a form basically, and you
have these two mentors that areadults and they spend time with
you and kind of coach youthrough it, but like there was
no spirituality in that for me.
(41:40):
And then I think about likehaving my first menstrual cycle.
That would have been an amazingmoment to have some kind of
right of passage spirit momentof like welcoming me into young,
young womanhood.
And yeah, like again it's, theconcept of spirituality just has
(42:09):
been expressed in in a way thathas not really been supportive
of of my life.
And yeah, using this moment inmy life to reclaim that is is a
(42:31):
really big deal.
Yeah, I would say.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, I feel like that's where the concept of
ritual comes in, in a way, where, like, how can we create
rituals for ourselves?
Because, at least in theWestern world, we don't really
have the rituals of ourancestors, are lost or depends,
of course, but like, more orless, they haven't been, we
(42:59):
haven't gotten them fromdirectly from our ancestors.
But I feel it really likebeautiful, this thing of like,
okay, inserting little ritualsinto your life as a way of
marking, marking somethingimportant, so like, as you were
saying, okay, my first meant my,the beginning of my
(43:22):
menstruating life.
Like it is a big deal, it'ssomething that like then follows
you throughout your whole life,basically until you, of course,
stop.
And so the question for me isalways like, okay, how can we
start adding these rituals backinto our lives, because we have
so few of them left?
You know, we have Christmas,christmas dinner, we have
(43:45):
birthday, maybe for somebodydepends, and that's kind of
almost it.
And so, like, how can we?
What is, maybe?
I think also, the question ishere like, what is worth marking
for you, for each of us, youknow?
Like, what is it that youactually want to put a point
(44:07):
into?
And like, okay, this wasimportant, and I think this is
also a way how we can not letlife slip away from us with all
this like, okay, more, more,faster, faster, and it's like
what is the end of it?
I remember there was some kindof quote I read at some point
(44:28):
where I was like where are yourunning to?
The end goal is death, you know.
So, like, what's your like?
Are you really rushing towardsthat?
And so, like finding the waysof what is important, like for
me, for example, it becameimportant to have a ritual every
(44:49):
single morning, and likedrinking my cacao and welcoming
the day, because it brings thisslowness to it and it brings
this like okay, what do I feeltoday?
How do I feel today?
What is my rhythm?
How do I want to step into theday?
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Yeah, yeah, like groundiness, yeah Like and just
to your point, lena, like noteven just these high moments,
like, yeah, we can have ritual,like special ritual for these
high moments, but even our dailyritual.
Because I can tell you, everysingle day, if I don't do some
(45:27):
practice to get in my body, thenmy energy like just wants to be
in my head and then I can endup scrolling or just kind of
piddling the day away because Ihaven't like rooted myself.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah, yeah, I feel the need to differentiate Like I
too have an inner translator,lena differentiate between
ritual and rites of passage.
Because what I'm hearing and Idon't think I've ever had to
(46:05):
like really differentiate thisbefore, but like what I'm
hearing is like ritual brings asense of connection, whether
it's to yourself or like in thecase of, you know, coming into
menstruation, connectingyourself to what other women who
have also menstruated you know.
But I think rites of passageneeds to have significant
(46:31):
challenge, with a fairly highchance of failing.
I think about my business asbeing a rite of passage.
You know there's a pretty highchance that, like businesses,
the way that we're running themmight not work out or might not
(46:52):
work out in the way that youenvision it in your head.
And so can you believe insomething so strongly that, even
the face of it potentially notworking out, you still for your
heart and your energy and yourlove into it and the effort is
(47:12):
enough.
You know, I think about therites of passage that you know
traditional cultures will puttheir kids still similar right,
like there's a higher than likenormal chances that that kid
might not come back.
You know I also.
(47:33):
You know in this book that I'mreading.
One of the things that one ofthe stories that he highlights
is there's a doctor who runs aprogram in Santa Barbara.
He runs it for professionalathletes and he specifically,
you know, has all thistechnology to help them like,
(47:53):
really understand you know,different body patterns and
movements and how they canimprove you know, performance
for professional athletes.
His passion project this guy'slike the doctor's passion
project is twice a year he putson what he calls a misogy
challenge and it is like aphysical challenge that they're
(48:19):
potentially not going to be ableto do as professional athletes,
and so one of the things thathe like one example is a 25-mile
paddle boarding challenge from,you know, I think it was from
the coast of Santa Barbara tolike one of the islands, and you
(48:41):
know the particular day thatthey set out to do this, there
was like a lot of wind and likeeveryone was falling into the
water.
And so it becomes thischallenge of like hey, instead
of like looking like I need toget there in 20 miles.
It was.
Can I have like one perfectstroke in this moment, like one
(49:03):
foot in front of the other, andone of the basketball players
said that he used it as like aconcept that he like came back
to during a playoff game is likeyou know people would be
talking to him about like okay,so like we need to win this game
.
He was like no, I just need tolike have one perfect stroke,
one step at a time.
(49:23):
And I think that that's whatlike rites of passages do for us
is like when we have somethingthat seems like a fairly big,
impossible goal and we mightfail at it, like what can we
still gain from those lessons?
(49:43):
You know, it made me think ofmy my at the time he was my
boyfriend, but he's now myhusband.
I remember one time he just likeon a whim, decided he was like
I'm going to walk 100 miles in aday.
He was like I really want to dothis and you know, at the time
(50:05):
he was, you know, more fit thanhe is now, but like not like
what you would think of as likean ultra marathoner at all.
Like he's like a big, burly guywho carries a lot of weight and
I think he got to like 14 or 15miles.
So like he didn't reach thegoal, but in that process of of
(50:29):
doing that challenge, like hewas able to come away with
lessons around hate.
Like I actually went furtherthan I thought I would.
He was, like, you know, Iwanted to do 100 miles but like
I didn't know if I could dothree or four miles even so, the
fact that he, like, he was ableto like get to 14 or 15 miles
(50:50):
was like a big thing and, youknow, he was able to walk away
with different lessons that,like I think that people are
just so afraid of failing thatthey miss that there are lessons
within just doing the challenge, just doing that hard thing,
(51:10):
double narrow, middle, middle,middleklein.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
I'm wanting to come up with a challenge for myself
now.
What could that be?
Yeah, kat, as soon as you saidthat you started differentiating
between, like, rights ofpassage and rituals, I was like
definitely, business is a rightof passage.
Yeah, definitely, no guarantees, and it's like just keep
(51:39):
following your heart.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
basically, yeah, and you don't know, like you know, I
say this as somebody who hasseveral quote unquote failed
businesses.
You know, I started out as acalligraphy artist and then that
business quote unquote failed.
And then I shifted into myacupuncture business and that
(52:03):
quote unquote failed.
And then I was a relationshipcoach, and that quote unquote
failed.
And now, like I'm a businesscoach but like everything that I
learned, from the calligraphybusiness, the acupuncture
business to the relationshipcoaching business, like it goes
through my work now and so, likeyou know, we're collecting
(52:27):
lessons all along the way and wedon't know what the end goal is
.
I honestly don't know if thisis going to be the thing that I
do for the rest of my life andand this business may also quote
unquote fail, but for sure,like it will have been worth
doing.
Regardless of whether it's, youknow it's going to sort of be a
(52:54):
success in the way that, likeother people would define
success, which is like it lastsfor 30 years.
You know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
It reminds me of we talked once with my.
It reminds me when we oncetalked with my partner and he
was saying of like oh, I'm above40.
And what have I done?
Like some people who are my age, they, I don't know they're
(53:26):
making so much money, they havea Tesla and they have a house
and so on and so forth, and andI was telling him like yeah,
okay, that's, that's fine, butlike you had these, all these
businesses that, as you say,like quote unquote, fail.
But have you what have you beenlike?
Have you been doing what youreally wanted to do the whole
(53:50):
time?
And his answer was yes, and Ifeel like that's also one part
of it.
Like I, for example, I had abusiness that it kind of failed,
but then I also sold it, whichwas in the end.
It was a huge success actually.
But I've been struggling for solong and I've had like almost no
(54:14):
money and like really livingfrom paycheck to paycheck, but I
was living my life like I couldtake a free day whenever I
wanted or you know, like I couldjust I could go out for a walk
and just be in nature if Iwanted to.
So there is always these thingsof like.
I think the question is morelike, are you doing what you
(54:37):
really want to do?
And then yeah, and then, ofcourse, the challenges come.
But I think that's also whatthe rites of passage can teach
us.
Like I was once on a it wasn'texactly a vision quest, but it
was inspired by a vision questwhere we were alone in the woods
(54:59):
spending, I think, a week intotal, and there is something
about, there's something sobeautiful about being outside of
your comfort zone, where you,first of all, you really learn
(55:23):
how incredibly strong you areit's like unbelievable.
And then also you find youredges, like the real edges of
the comfort zone.
You know like okay, this wastoo much, and so I think that's
really also really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yeah, there's like, there's definitely a trade off.
You know we were talking abouthumans and comfort.
Like, are we, are we choosingthe comfortable life where we
have somebody who's in authority, they give us a paycheck and we
(56:02):
get to drive a nice Tesla andmaybe we can drive, you know, a
nice Tesla when we have ourbusiness?
But you know the journey ofbecoming.
You know I think I mentionedthis before or we talked about
this before of it not reallybeing about the destination, but
it is like the challenges thatyou meet every single day and
(56:26):
how you move through them onyour quest to like follow the
will of your heart and like, bein integrity with your spirit
and your purpose.
And so, yeah, like, the tradeoff is maybe, lena, we're going
to live paycheck to paycheck fora little bit longer and then
(56:49):
maybe one day, we look back onthese days and we're like, wow,
I, you know, I never gave up.
I believed so much in what myheart was telling me and I
persevered and I met thesechallenges every day and I
didn't hide and I learned somany things and like, how much
(57:11):
more like fulfilling and rich,that part can an abundant, and
thinking of the word abundancelike an experience compared to
like the comfortable journey ofyeah the comfortable journey,
and I mean I think that, likethat, comfortable journey can be
(57:33):
a little bit of a misnomer aswell, because you know, I have
plenty of clients who work inthe corporate space and they
struggle with a lot of the samethings that we struggle with,
you know, it's just in adifferent outfit.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
So instead of us needing to hold boundaries with
our clients, they need to holdboundaries with their.
You know, boss, or you knowlike we struggle to sometimes
find the time in the space forourselves within.
(58:08):
You know all the things thatyou have to do as an
entrepreneur like you are a oneperson show who is doing the
practitioner in, you are doingthe like, scheduling in the
booking, and then all the thingsthat we have to do as
entrepreneurs, and so you knowit's up to us to figure out.
(58:33):
Okay, so we need to carve out.
This time is sacred times forfor me to step away, and so I
think my corporate clients whodrive Tesla's have to do the
same work, and so it's.
It's also about choosing.
Your heart is, I think, ashuman, and so we I think our
(58:58):
souls are here to like, reallytry to figure something out.
I tend to think of that as likethe journey of the Dow and
really trying to understand whatyour purpose is, and like you
can try to figure out how tolive in alignment with your
(59:19):
purpose by, you know, workingfor somebody else, or you can do
that also by working foryourself, and you know, it's not
like one path is better thanthe other.
I think that it's just aboutchoosing which hard is going to
be the most in alignment for you.
Yeah, yeah, I'm curious.
(59:46):
I feel like we've talked a lotabout like rights of passage,
but what kind of rituals?
What are the rituals for yourpersonal life and for your
business life, or is there not adifferentiation between the two
(01:00:08):
for you?
Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
I'm not sure if I differentiate them or not.
I think it's like acontinuation.
But yeah, for my personal lifeI always start a morning with a
cup of cacao and meditation andsometimes yoga, and then I try
(01:00:38):
to follow writing.
I have like a notion, differentquestions for the day and also
gratitude journals.
So then I, just before I startworking, to get into the mood of
being grateful, then alsoasking I ask my business what it
wants to tell me today.
So, just like then I jot acouple of notes and then I
(01:01:04):
started also to decide on theone to three things I'm going to
do today.
So it's just like very smallamount of things to do.
And then for bigger rituals ormaybe I would call them
ceremonies, even though I don'tactually it's always has been a
(01:01:27):
bit hard for me to differentiatebetween the ritual and the
ceremony, but I feel likeceremonies are a bit bigger in
time and space and also effort.
And once in a while for mypersonal, especially for my
personal life, I do like in away, death ritual, where I like
(01:01:50):
I have an altar by my bedsideand I always like collect rocks
and take them away and then putthem back in.
And then, once in a while I'mlike okay, it's time to clean it
out.
And I think that's the timewhen I'm like, somehow
subconsciously, I know that it'stime for some of some parts of
me to let go and let them die.
(01:02:10):
And so I collect, I like feelinto all the things that I don't
want on my altar anymore, andthen I and they are also
sometimes connected to mybusiness as well and then I go
somewhere in nature and have aceremony.
Where I arrange depends verymuch.
Sometimes I arrange them inlike a mandala and let them
(01:02:34):
there, or sometimes I like hidethem away around the forest or
throw them in water and so on.
Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
So I love that.
I don't think I like maybe Ihave like a slight like hoarding
tendency with my ritualisticthings when, like I, I've never
considered putting them back.
That's an interesting concept.
(01:03:03):
I'm gonna start with that one.
Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
Yeah, it happened to me for the first time when I it
was on my vision quest.
I created this like really weirdbut really beautiful tool where
it had like a heart, like itwas like made out of a branch,
and on one side it had a spoon.
On the other hand, on the otherside it had gosh, what was on
(01:03:30):
the other side, I don't remember.
So it was like three, three.
It had like three spikes Onewas a spoon, one was something
and the third one was like aspear and in the middle was a
heart.
And I was like this is my toolfor like healing, nurturing and
killing what needs to die.
And and I was like really proudof it and I was really attached
(01:03:51):
to it because I carved it outmyself with like a knife over
many, many days.
And then one day at a somewhereI was at some kind of cacao
ceremony or something, I thinkand I stepped on it and it broke
and it was like and I was likeso upset.
But then it just came to me.
It's like, yes, sometimes youneed like you need to let go of
(01:04:14):
some of the tools.
It's time for it to go.
And so from then on, I think Istarted to be like oh okay, this
doesn't feel alive anymore forme.
I think it's time to saygoodbye.
Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
I love it.
What about you, Daria?
Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Yeah, I, I'm still like I just moved a couple
months ago and I'm still likefinding my new rhythm here.
But most of my my practices areI too, enjoy having a little
(01:04:56):
cacao in the morning and justhaving a moment of quiet with
that to let whatever needs tocome forward come forward.
I find it to be like incredibly, an incredibly grounding way to
start my day and I'm somebodywho is always dropping into body
(01:05:20):
practices and then, like, fromthose I may do a meditation, and
there's always a journalkicking around with like lots of
different colored pens andsparkly pens and neon pens.
And so my, my like bodypractice is I might put on like
(01:05:44):
two or three songs and just moveor and sometimes that turns
into like shaking and just likebucking around basically in my
studio and then like when I,when I get quiet, you know,
because a lot, of, a lot oftimes there's like a lot of
(01:06:06):
build up in our bodies and solike that movement just helps
move the energy up and out andthrough, and then so like
there's like this, the stillwaters that come after that,
where I can hear my heartspeaking, and then I keep the
journal there, so like anythingthat comes up, it just goes in
(01:06:28):
the journal or my notebook.
I've, like I have a shelf ofjust notebooks and yeah, cat,
you asked if there's adifferentiation between, like
personal and business, and forme, as like a spiritual
embodiment mentor, it's all thesame, because I want my life to
be a reflection of spirit, whichis like the work that I'm here
(01:06:53):
to do in the world, help otherslike yeah, and myself like
reflect spirit out into theworld and like bring our
spirituality into the world andlike bring our spirituality into
our everyday lives.
And so I know like if I need acertain practice, it's serving
me personally, then it's alsoserving my business, because I
(01:07:15):
for me to override the personal,like that personal need in
order to like do my business ormy work.
That's just like I'm not anintegrity there and whatever
comes out of me like it's notquite, it's just not quite the
(01:07:36):
same.
I mean, I think there's stilltruth there and there's still,
like you know, there is stillthat direct transmission.
But, like you know, I have apart time job and like I can
open up my laptop and do a fewthings the part time job but
like what comes out of me thenand there, compared to when I'm
(01:07:59):
like in my body and moving andmeditating and whatever,
whatever else.
Then, like it just lookscompletely different Because the
direct connection is like muchmore palpable in that way.
I have a yoga practice, I workwith mantra and sound healing
(01:08:26):
and singing and, as Katmentioned, I there's like a
whole two kit and I definitelyjust into it like what I need in
every moment and give it tomyself.
Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
I hope that people can hearsome amazing examples and bring
them in for themselves or orthink some ideas for themselves.
I think for me, the two that Iwant to bring into this space is
like a hopeful inspiration isin my personal life now being on
(01:09:07):
this land.
There's this concept of likechocolate carry water, which I
don't have to do quite yet, butthe thing that I do have to do
every day is move horse poop,and so, you know, my horses live
in their fancy arena slash barn.
I have to clean up poop, andthen I've been moving it out
(01:09:29):
into a space that we'rehopefully going to build our
house on in the next five to 10years, and in the meantime I
really want there to be a reallyvibrant vegetable garden,
flower garden out there, and sowe're building out that bed
(01:09:49):
space.
But over the wintertime Icouldn't cart the horse poop out
and so I actually left a pileof it.
I can actually look at it rightnow as we're talking.
I left a pile of it like on inthe front of our property and
the other day my neighbor waslike you know, like I come and
bring the tractor and like movethat for you.
(01:10:10):
And I had this like moment oflike.
No, but my ritual is to likemove poop out like with a wagon,
you know, with a little handwagon and and so there's
something about like not takingthe convenient road all the time
(01:10:32):
if it helps you be in your body.
It's something that you knowAndre, who's my business partner
, but he's also my ex romanticpartner.
Like he, when he makes a meal,it is like a full day situation
(01:10:52):
where he has to like grind thespices in a mortar and pestle,
even though we have like anelectric grinder.
You know like it's.
It's like there's somethingabout doing things with your
hands in the ways that, likewe've always done them without
the technology.
That I feel like it feelsreally connecting, at least for
(01:11:13):
me personally.
I think that folks who sort offollow my work and understand
what I mean when I say like I'ma woody type person, like I
think woody type people need tolike move things with their
hands and with their bodies, andthat can be a ritual to bring
in, and a business ritual that Ido now is I think that I grew
(01:11:41):
up only having these like bigmoments celebrated, so like if I
got a good grade on a, you know, report card or if I passed
some sort of test or you know,these sort of like externalized
ways of like bringing incelebration and like marking
that moment.
(01:12:01):
And so something I've been doingwith my husband is like like
celebrating the small things,like you know, the more internal
things, like hey, like I held aboundary with a client and it
was really hard and I reallylike like that's not something
(01:12:22):
that I would necessarily be,like that deserves a gold star,
but I feel like the internalwork that it took to like have
that hard conversation withsomebody, you know.
I think that those moments alsoneed to be celebrated, and so
that's why I have thecelebration channel in our like
(01:12:43):
band slot group is because Iwant to be able to celebrate not
just the like tangible hey Ilaunched or hey, I signed a
client but also the moreintangible things of like, you
know, I followed my creativityand I like, like I think I have
the start of an offering, youknow, and being able to
(01:13:06):
celebrate those little momentsbefore they're ready to share
with the world, because thatlike first step is like a really
, really brave moment.
So those are the two ritualsthat I think I want to just like
share in this space and hopethat you know folks who are
listening can take what theywish and you know, using the
(01:13:28):
wisdom, that when I brought inis like really what doesn't work
for you.
So, yeah, wow, my dear, I feellike that was a really lovely
way to start my morning.
Anyway, I love talking to thetop of an allay yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
Yeah, thank you so much.
Also, I have so many likeprickling thoughts about other
things I can't wait to thinkabout.
It Just sparked so many ideasin my head and so many thoughts.
That's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Yeah, definitely ideas for my own practices, and
yeah, yeah, we could probablytalk for another hour.
Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
And after reading this book I feel I really sort
of like compelled to come upwith some sort of like right of
passage, like physical challengetype of a thing.
I don't know what it is yet,but yeah, I think I need that
too, Kat.
Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
My tendency is to fall into like very yin and
almost immobilize, and so mypractice is always like no, I
gotta be strong in my body andlike definitely some kind of a
challenge I think would help getme there.
So I'm gonna be thinking aboutone too.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
Maybe I need to do like a yearly BAM physical
challenge, where we do somethingon my land and it's like hey,
we might fill out this and it'sokay.
Yeah, horse poop is ritual.
Yeah, horse poop is ritual forsure, beautiful.
(01:15:30):
Yeah, alrighty, my dears, havea wonderful rest of your day.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Before we log off, I would loveme to drop in with how people
can find you.
Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
You can find me on my Instagram.
Oh my gosh, ruby.
Sorry, you can find me on myInstagram.
My handle is alifealignedco.
Speaker 3 (01:16:03):
Yeah, and you can find me on Instagram too, and
the handle is intospiritworld.
Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
And Ruby always seems to know when Mike calls her
pretty much over, so she canover here to say hello, hi, ruby
.
Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
What's your?
Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
Instagram Ruby, hi Ruby.
Well, my dears thank you again.
Lena, do you have?
Speaker 3 (01:16:32):
something to say?
I actually.
I just wanted to ask how wasthat book called?
Again, I forgot oh it is Gosh.
Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
It's not the catchiest title.
Hey, like Comfort.
Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
Crisis Comfort Crisis .
Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:16:49):
And it's.
The author is Michael Easter.
Yeah, perfect, embrace thiscomfort to reclaim your wild,
happy, healthy soul.
Nice, okay, love that.
Thank you, of course.
We'll chat soon.
Bye.
Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
Thank you.
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