December 11, 2025 • 61 mins
In this episode of the New Ashla Podcast, Justin V. Gates and Michael Perry explore the concept of anchoring amidst life's metaphorical storms. They discuss the importance of being a steady presence in chaotic environments, emphasizing that true safety comes from remembering one's power and finding center. The conversation delves into emotional responses, the essence of quiet leadership, and the discipline of presence. They highlight the significance of awareness, trust, and integrating shadows to become an anchor for oneself and others. Practical tips for everyday anchoring practices are shared, along with reflections on the journey of self-mastery and the transformative power of presence.
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Takeaways
- When the storm rises, most people look for shelter.
- True safety comes from remembering your power.
- Anchoring is not emotional suppression.
- Strength comes from surrendering, not controlling.
- Every light casts a shadow; we all have shadows.
- Your presence creates stability for yourself and others.
- Practice is essential for self-mastery.
- You cannot push your way into calm; you surrender into it.
- Peace is not something you discover; it's something you allow.
- Your presence becomes a sanctuary for others.
Keywords
anchoring, emotional intelligence, leadership, mindfulness, self-mastery, presence, chaos, resilience, personal growth, awareness
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When the storm rises, most people look for shelter, but
those who walk in the light learn to become the still point
in the storm itself. Today, we learn what it means to
become the anchor. Hello and welcome to the new
(00:22):
Ashla Podcast. My name is Justin Gates and
joining me today, as always, my boy Michael Perry.
Hey fam. So today we're going to talk
about becoming the anchor. Michael, this is a good topic.
It is a good topic. And no, we're not talking about
actual storms. If you're in an emergency, get
to shelter. We're talking about these kind
(00:42):
of metaphorical storms that we all feel like we're going
through. And life does feel like a like
an emergency sometimes, doesn't it feels like a storm.
And most of us were taught to survive that by escaping it or
avoiding it, right? Yeah, when I think often it's
just we're just trying to get by, trying to make things work.
But often we get so lost in the process of doing that that we
(01:04):
forget the storms around us. Yeah.
And for actual storms, you know,I mean, it's, it's prudent and
it's wise to get it undercover and under shelter, but it
doesn't really work very well for the kind of storms we're
talking about today. Those emotional storms, those,
those, those things that that shut us down, that that cause us
(01:25):
to freeze, that makes us want tobe invisible, right?
We're shutting down or withdrawing and hoping the
moment will pass. The problem with that is that we
are the moment. We are in the moment.
And if we don't learn to face it, those moments can last
forever, it seems like. I've been guilty of that.
(01:45):
I've had it where my life just sort of was chaos around me, but
instead of doing something to change those circumstances to
address the problems at hand, itjust engulfed me non-stop for
years. Well, I, I think we're all
guilty of that, right? Yeah.
There's no shame there, no blame.
It's just when we know better, we do better, but we that we
(02:05):
can't do better until we know better.
And as as I've said before, the path to wisdom is literally
starts with ignorance. So that's why we're here to
learn from each other, right? But the way of light, the way of
Ashley teaches something different, something way more
powerful. What it teaches us with these
kind of storms is that true safety comes from remembering
(02:26):
your power, remembering the things you can control,
remembering where center is, right.
It's especially in those times when everything around us is
just going absolutely bat crap crazy or pulling us away from
center. Now, anchoring is not emotional
suppression. Could you say that for me
louder? Anchoring is not emotional
(02:49):
suppression. It's not clenching your jaw till
you break your teeth. It's not holding your breath
until you pass out. And it's not certainly not
pretending that nothing affects me.
I'm impervious. You're not.
I used to think that and I learned over and over again.
It took me lots of lessons. I feel this is one of those that
(03:10):
does sort of just beach until you finally submit to its will
if you. Don't listen, man.
If you don't, if you don't, you'll go.
You'll, you'll, you'll get dragged kicking and screaming,
man. It's just eventually, right.
This is one of those things where we've talked about
suffering before and it could bemental suffering, spiritual
suffering. It will keep happening until you
(03:32):
take steps to not correct yourself, not fix yourself right
because you're not wrong and you're not broken, but there is
something that needs your attention.
When you start showing an awareness, you start showing
it's tension. It's all it wants.
These are messengers. These are teachers, as we always
say. This is the discipline of of
reclaiming your presence in thatmoment and choosing, choosing
(03:55):
intentional stillness, intentional peace over that
reaction, the reflective reaction.
Well said. Especially in today's world,
right? We talk about this a lot, how
it's just today's world feels crazy.
And you know, it probably felt crazy back then and then and
then and into the future. But it really does feel crazy
for us now. And it seems like this is a hard
(04:17):
thing to do because as you like to talk about, we are, we are
seriously overstimulated. We're over stimulated and we
have so much energy going into these tasks in our daily lives
that are just so not just monotonous, but overwhelming.
But I think in life, you know, Iwas listening to an interview
the other day and something theysaid really hit home.
He was like, he's this guy who helps people manage money and he
(04:39):
was dating this girl from I think Venezuela and he's like,
So what made you decide to move to America?
And she said you can tell a culture's has it good when
they're when what they're fighting over is small things,
irrelevant things, not starvation, not.
Right, Yeah, the the first worldproblems as we, as we call them.
(05:01):
Yeah, no, perfectly said, perfectly said.
And I've been thinking a lot about that interview because
it's it was just that that one line made me really step back
and reflect that. It's like there's this book I
read a couple years back called The Turnings, which is one of my
favorite books. It's fascinating watching the
patterns of society and it's just we go through hard times,
then we have hard people that then build us up from society,
(05:24):
Then we have the nomads, then wehave the heroes, and then it's
followed by the artists. And this whole generational
shifting is where things get so easy.
The things become much we becomemuch easier.
It's easier to be overwhelmed bylife.
Yeah. Yeah, the resilience is just not
as front and center because it'snot as mandatory to Foster and
(05:47):
create. Right, right.
Very few of us have to go through true survival.
Yeah, We have to create survivalor our brains have nothing to
do. Our our nervous systems don't
have a whole lot to do. And This is why we do this work.
We try to retrain them for the moment, for the modern time.
People are over stimulated, constantly triggered.
We are bombarded with information from every single
(06:10):
angle. Things are beeping at us.
Things are blinking. We're bombarded with noise, with
urgency and especially expectations and expectations
that none of us really, if we thought about them would never
agree to. I wouldn't have.
And, and, and, and we're kind ofplugged into this conscious.
(06:32):
There are this collective nervous system in a way, right?
And that thing is frayed and it is exhausted.
Now it's so true. So what we're talking about
today, this, this anchoring, which is really just a kind of a
fancier way to say grounded. Grounded, right?
It is, it is quiet leadership. It's that kind of leadership
(06:53):
that doesn't demand attention, but naturally draws others into
harmony simply by being steady. So this, this conversation we're
going to have today is what we train ultimately our luminari to
be, to be that anchor, be the one so grounded and so centered
(07:13):
when shit hits the fan that everybody else naturally comes
to them as because they are safe, because they are steady,
because they are consistent, they are grounded, right.
And to me, that's the best kind of leadership.
It's that quiet leadership, not like the leadership we see in
the world now. It's very loud.
(07:34):
Yeah, it's very boisterous. And it just drives me crazy.
What's that leadership from? A sense of control, right?
Not trusting in the workers to do their stuff.
Not trusting in the people around them to be able to carry
their own. Well, everything lives in
paradox. Everything lives in opposites,
whether we like it or not. You know, I know a lot of smart
(07:56):
people to say no, it it it's notactually really it's not.
It's just it is what it is. OK, that's true.
But everything has an equal counterbalance to it.
This is why we don't try to destroy the shadow or destroy
the dark. That's why we don't try to
destroy the ego in in favor of the spirit.
(08:17):
Everything coexists, even if they're paradoxical to each
other, because clarity is still possible in chaos.
Peace is possible in chaos. Peace still exists even when the
world around you is not feeling very peaceful.
And you don't have to mirror theinstability around you.
That's what we're talking about as an anchor, which is hard to
(08:38):
do right. I mean, we, we get pulled like
this and it's, it's really easy to fall into that temptation to
just get sucked into the, the chaos and the screaming and the
shouting and the, and the chest beating and all the whatevers.
You know, when it's either that or then being passive, you know,
it's the the two sides of the spectrum at hand here.
(08:58):
And it's finding that middle ground where if you're too
aggressive, it's being able to relax more.
It's being able to master those emotions next to being passive,
which is learning self advocacy or standing up for yourself.
You know, it's there's a delicate dance that happens and
it's so unique to each individual.
But at the heart of it is becoming that assertive leader
that we're talking about. Yeah, and there's an axiom that
(09:21):
that lays the foundation for today's show.
One who walks the path of light does so with acceptance and
contentment, free of conflict. And the idea of anchoring, being
that anchor not just for yourself, but it radiates
outside of you too. That's, that is a living
expression of the truth we're sharing today.
It is. It is the embodiment of that
(09:42):
internal peace and stillness that doesn't doesn't destroy or
defeat the chaos. It integrates it.
Right. We're trying to integrate
because we seek harmony, we seekpeace.
And, and again, peace does not mean quiet.
Peace does not mean lack of things happening around you.
It just means no matter what's happening around you, you find
(10:04):
center, you find stillness, you find peace.
Well, and it's like, I mean, they're part of the paradox with
this is it also doesn't mean complacency.
That's right. Even then, without complacency,
it's being able to truly objectively view things as they
are. You know, you see a lot going on
in society where people are avoiding complacency, but in
turn it's more I don't like thisso I'm leaving instead of how
(10:28):
can how can I either address this properly or create a better
situation for myself? Yes, it is the epitome of
service to others. That's why we say we got to get
to get our crap together before we could truly serve and truly
help people, right? We got to make sure that we
become that calm harbor. And we don't become that by
(10:50):
controlling the storm. We become that by purposely
refusing, choosing to not be shaped by it, no matter what's
happening around you. And the moment that you choose
that you become the shelter. You are the shelter.
And the storm around you tends to, you know, the storms never
go away. They're they come and go, but it
(11:12):
tends to be less threatening. So this is what we're exploring
today. This is this is really what it
means to return to our center, to stand rooted and grounded
when life feels unsteady, which it does constantly for all of
us. What I think this also really
just ties into, you know, the internal locus of control.
(11:32):
When you can accept the things that are out of your control and
work with the things that are, you create this field of pure
potentiality. Because that means when you're
investing effort into things that are within your control,
you get outcomes next to stressing and fretting and
trying to manage anything and everyone and every situation
(11:52):
outside of you, which often is just your ruin.
Yeah, yeah, it creates more suffering for you and others.
Everything we do radiates out. So to me, it seems it seems more
wise to choose the things that creates a better outcome for
everything that I touch, right? And really at the end of the
(12:14):
day, this episode is is about responding versus reacting.
There's another axiom that that I'll kind of throw in here in
passing. Never give Into Darkness.
Should an insidious force take hold.
Let calm and peace be your guide, right?
To become the anchor. What does it mean to become the
anchor, Michael? What are we saying?
You know, to be the anchors, to be the one that is not ruled by
(12:36):
their emotions does not mean that you don't listen to them
because they can be guides. But it's being able to act from
a place of integrity. It's being able to act from a
place of clarity because awesome, when these storms
arise, our judgement is skewed and so is our internal state.
And being able to bring yourselfto a back to peace back-to-back,
(13:00):
to being grounded, gives you theclarity to see through the storm
and really look at the situationfor what it is and what you can
do about it. So let's to really understand
what we're talking about, we need to clear away some
misconceptions. This isn't about being overly
stoic or rigid or completely emotionally shut down.
(13:21):
There are balance in all things.Stoicism is not bad if it's not
allowed to be taken to the extreme.
You think Marcus Aurelius never loved?
Do you think that Marcus Aurelius never sought truth or
connection? You know he talks a lot about
integrity and truth, but do you think he didn't care about life?
These are our ethos. Love, truth, integrity,
(13:44):
connection, sanctity of life. Right?
So I think there's a misconception about being super
rigid and super shut down all the time and being apathetic
versus not engaging type of thing.
Let's back to that paradox. Yeah, to be, to be under
control, but but to also honor these, honor these very human
(14:04):
things that we need love and truth and connection.
We need to respect life. We need these things and I don't
care if that guy on TikTok comesback and says not me.
Well I think you're kidding yourself bro.
We all need these things. Well, I think so many people go
to life trying to. Well, we may not want to admit
(14:26):
it, right? Yeah, and that's exactly what it
is, like 11 trend I see everywhere is so many people
want to have that air of having it all together, having it all
figured out when none of us really do.
But people always will stand on their high hill while it is
burning around them because theyrefuse to acknowledge, hey, you
(14:47):
know what, maybe this isn't the right path.
Yeah. So this, this process, this
practice it it's a discipline really.
It, it begins with us. If, if we can't be steady, no
one can be steady around us, right?
And this goes back to things, reoccurring themes that you and
I talk about all the time about recognizing those triggers and
(15:09):
those shut, those subtle little shifts inside our body and our
mind. You know, it could be tightening
of the chest or when your thoughts start to race really
fast or that familiar pull back to our old wounds and things
that scare us. And as always, Michael, the
first step to this is what? Awareness.
(15:32):
As imagine, I do this all the time and it always, it always
confuses you. Like I'm imagining I'm Tony
Stark and I got this giant screen around me and I'm just
like, pause. Like I pause buttons like this
big and I'm like, pause. You laugh.
It's funny, but I do this in real life, right?
Yeah, I do this in real life andwhen something around me starts
(15:57):
to annoy me, I'll do this like Ilike I'm in a big movie.
I just pause it when I'm driving.
You say it's. The way you ground yourself.
It is a yeah, it's definitely a grounding, definitely for me.
But pausing is what's first because when these things starts
happening, we got to stop and listen to the messages.
We have to let our teachers teach us, right?
(16:18):
So we pause, and then we can sitin those moments and say, OK, I
see you and I see you. What can I help you with?
Yeah, I hear you. OK.
But we're not doing that right now.
So you guys get in the back seat, put your seatbelts on and
be quiet, right? We're going to come back to
center before we speak or beforewe react.
(16:41):
Before, before we get kind of swept away in that tornado of
emotion, which, again, happens to all of us.
Here's what. Here's what anchoring provides.
Presence, not control. People who are good anchors,
they don't try to dominate the situation.
Now, I know I hear you. I hear you right now saying,
(17:02):
well, what if it's an emergency?Well, you still got to get back
to center so you can react professionally, so you can react
appropriately and use as much force as necessary.
Only that that's necessary. That doesn't mean you sit there
and you go, hmm, there's a guy here with a, with a stick.
It's going to beat the crap out.It's not trying to.
(17:23):
That's not, that's not what I'm talking about here.
But we have this tendency mentally to try and dominate
things, right? That's what holds us on.
And we grab and we grab and we hold on.
We don't let other people, you know, if something's happening
in front of me and this, this has happened many times, I'm not
always the right person for the right job.
She has to step in. She's the better person to deal
with whatever it is, right? You know, But if I'm always
(17:47):
trying to dominate everything because I'm big and stronger,
right? I may not be.
I might. I might gorilla my way through
it and then make everything worse.
Whereas she might be the best best thing.
Well, I think one side know whatthat is too is as an anchor, as
a leader with the people in yourlife.
I think a lot of people get stuck that whole high horse
(18:08):
thing of like, I'm going to figure everything out.
Utilize the people that you have.
You know, if you need some medical attention for someone in
front of you and you have no medical experience, call upon
those who can benefit the situation.
Don't try to figure it out, right, Right.
It's kind of a rough example, but it may it ties in.
No, it's a no. It's a perfect example, dude.
(18:28):
I have worked with people in my old life.
We were always the first ones onscene, didn't matter what it
was. But do you think just because I
know first aid that I'm going tocall the the fire department and
say, Nah, hey, guys. Yeah, I just forget.
I I'm going to, I'm going to take care of this one.
Yeah, never. No, I'm not.
I don't want to be there doing this.
This is not my like, expertise exactly.
(18:53):
I can help. I can do things that can prolong
a life in an emergency. But I want you here yesterday.
Get here faster than you think you can, because it's because I
I'm not the right guy for that job.
If I wanted to be a doctor, I'd have been a doctor.
I don't like certain parts of that.
(19:14):
No. It's so true though, and I see
so many of these people. This is why the pause is so
important. When you're able to bring
yourself back to center, you're not going to be acting from a
place of chaos, from a place of sporadicness.
You'll be able to compose yourself and really evaluate the
tools at handle what needs to bedone from a much more grounded
place. Yeah, it's true.
(19:34):
Yeah, it's true. And for Ashla, for us, it is
spiritual intelligence. It is the spiritual intelligence
to remain flexible and compassionate and aware even
when everything is moving at lightning speed around us.
That's also why the pause, it's almost like kind of slowing down
time, right? Because this allows us to stay
(19:56):
grounded without becoming frozenor without running.
It allows us to stay open but atthe same time not overwhelmed.
I always think of like the Sherlock Holmes movies where he
stops and he plans out all his. Yeah.
So I was just telling her that the other day I she had never
seen that clip. And I was like, what?
We were watching something and Iwas like, it's like that.
(20:17):
That's like the Robert Downey Junior version of Sherlock
Holmes where he's in the fight and he's like plans it all out
and he like goes through and then and it's all slow.
It's all deliberate to stuff. And then all of a sudden you 5
seconds for the moment and he's just like going at it.
He just does it like real fast. Yeah, You know, that movie was
good. So good.
I was never a big fan of Sherlock Holmes, but I like that
(20:38):
one. I know I'm probably gonna get
some hate mail for that, but. First game.
So when we're grounded in in theliving light and living force to
flow right, clarity becomes easy.
Presence becomes easy and the things start to settle and the
things start to soften and the things start to recalibrate
around us. They really, really do.
At least got to take my word forthat because I can't really
(21:00):
demonstrate that for you. But response comes responding.
Response comes from wisdom. Reacting comes from the ego,
right? Yeah, every time.
But I think that's an important way to look at it too, because
when our emotions do take over the show, there is some type of
survival instinct kicking onlinethat's trying to manage and
(21:22):
firefight the situation at hand.But if you can bring yourself
back to spirit, bring your back self back to a place of
calmness, you no longer have these this chaos trying to run
the show. Because I guarantee you, as you
master this pause, your reactionwithout the pause will be
dramatically different from the one with the pause.
(21:43):
Right, because it's intentional,it's wise, it's spacious, and
it's rooted in awareness. You're you're responding to what
is actually happening, what is actually happening in this
moment, right. Sometimes we get stuck in the
what ifs or the I don't care. This anchoring is the practice,
(22:04):
the discipline of choosing response over the ego's
reaction, choosing wisdom over ego.
We don't fight shadows with force or darkness with force.
We integrate darkness and shadowthrough steady Eddy practice,
right and alignment. And we hold ourselves to that
(22:25):
alignment. And that alignment changes the
environment around us. It changes what people see and
feel from us. Again, it's not about trying to
overpower what's happening. I don't care how big and strong
you are, you cannot physically muscle everything that's
happening around you well. It's kind of like what you're
talking about with the magnetismwe have when we start to
(22:47):
cultivate this type of inner peace.
You know, I think of this quote,the best leaders are often the
ones that don't want to lead. And it's not necessarily that
they don't want to lead, but there's this level of temperance
to the individuals that master this.
Right. That's so powerful.
Yeah, yeah. And they seem to have a lot of
(23:07):
stuff put together, don't they? Yep.
You know, they seem to like. And that brings us to some more
misconceptions. This anchoring is not something
you're born with. In fact, it probably gets
trained out of you a lot when you're little.
You know, it's not a personalitytrait.
It's not reserved for people that that seem to be naturally
(23:27):
calm or unshakeable. They didn't start out that way,
I promise you. Guaranteed.
This, this steadiness is trained.
It's trained. Now, of course, do some people
learn faster, some people assimilate faster, some people
align faster, of course. But that's just that's just how
they're wired. But we all can be this way, and
(23:49):
time is not of the essence here.If it takes you 6 months and it
takes your buddy three weeks, there's nothing wrong with that.
That you should never use othersas a comparison in any part of
this journey. It's.
Horrible, it's horrible, man. So but again, this is a this is
a muscle that we have to work and just like our muscle, our
(24:09):
our physical muscles, we can train our minds to be steady and
we can train our spirit to be aligned with the rest, with the
flow with our with our body and our minds, right.
This is a skill that grows with time and practice and intention.
Every time you choose to pause instead of react, it grows a
(24:31):
little bit better and you start to build that resilience that
you were talking about. You know.
Every time you take a breath before speaking, every time you
return back to yourself, back into your body, back into your
nervous system, you start to strengthen this muscle.
Well, it's like, I know we've harp on it every episode, but
it's just, it's such an important part of all this work
(24:53):
is understanding your nervous system.
Your nervous system is where those emotions live, is where
those triggers live, and is where the ego lives.
Learning to manage the nervous system, learning how to quiet
it, calm it, whatever you need to do is of the utmost
importance when it comes to selfmastery.
Yeah 100%. It's literally nervous system
(25:16):
mastery and spiritual alignment at the same time.
It's no wonder why so many ancient practices focus on the
center of our bodies in a line, in a straight line, all the way
down our what? Down our spine.
Our spine. Yeah, exactly that.
That was the example I was using, the liner on the spine.
And and then if you go into thatdeeper practice where there's
(25:38):
like a billion of them, they allend up at nerve centers and
nerve endings and things like that.
So you practice by pausing and letting your breath become an
anchor for you in those times. Your awareness becoming an
anchor, your connection to the living force, the living light,
the light of creation becomes ananchor.
(25:59):
This isn't the kind of, this isn't the kind of training that
requires the grand movements andgestures and all this stuff.
Those are good too. But this is more of a quiet
practice, right? When it takes a lot of
diligence, I mean, this is something you do have to
practice. One of the hardest lessons I
learned on the healing journey, I think why so many people
struggle who are out there in the healing scene now, is you
(26:21):
can gain all the awareness in the world, but without
experience, without practice, you're never going to be able to
master this. You got to be able to put
yourself in the situation because the minute that nervous
system kicks on, your programming is running the show.
So you got to be able to go intothose moments and start working
on reversing it. And it is brutal.
It is not something that once you know it's a thing, it's
(26:42):
going to just go away. That is just the first step.
Steps 2 through 20 is going intothose situations, getting
triggered and doing something different.
Will be easier every. Time.
It'll be easier and there'll be less tears, there'll be less
blood, be less pain each time. And you'll start to see that the
(27:04):
suffering that you've been underlessons by a lot.
And this is, you know, this is the point of the show where I'll
say, you know, if you need help doing that, it's fine.
Seek, seek help. There's lots of people in the
world waiting to help help you with the things we're talking
about. We can help you with the things
you're talking about that we're talking about, but the the fact
(27:27):
is we cannot serve people in this capacity until we have
learned to navigate our own problems.
If our world, if our inner worldis, is is chaotic, no amount of
wisdom, no amount of intention or self help books or religion
or anything will create that steadiness for you externally.
(27:49):
You must align, you must internalize these things and you
can only do that through practice, practice, practice.
And it's what you just said a minute ago was perfect.
Those of us who are anchors, we,we are stable because we have
learned the hard way through practice and you're going to
learn the hard way too. It's going to hurt and I'm
(28:11):
sorry, there's no other way to do it.
We have to learn how to self regulate in those moments where
we just want to explode or collapse or shut down or escape.
You know. But as we teach here, Michael,
strength does not come from tightening our grip around
things. It doesn't come from pushing
(28:31):
harder. It doesn't come from holding our
self together by force. This is the point where Justin
tells you, like almost every episode, the strength that we
develop here comes from surrender, not strain.
We must let go. The most powerful thing you can
do for yourself. The more you can surrender, the
more you can release your need to control things, the better
(28:55):
your life will become. And I can promise you that.
Yeah, I'd bet my house on it. I'd bet my house on it any day
of the week. It comes from surrendering the
belief that you must control every single moment because you
can't, and to do so is to just invite more suffering.
It comes from trusting that higher thing for you, whatever
(29:17):
it is. I'm not going to tell you what
to believe, but trusting in whatwe call the light to guide what
our fears try to manage For us, it comes from letting go of
urgency and stepping into presence.
Anxiety about the future, pain from the past.
Those things are managed outsideof the moment.
(29:40):
Well, we manage them in the moment by not by by addressing
them, by pointing them out and then letting them go.
You can't. You can't fight your pain in the
past. You can't fight your anxiety in
the future. You can only, you can only try
to integrate those things now inthe present by being presents.
And this is where it starts to become transformational like we
(30:03):
were just talking about. Because with the longer you can
hold your center from moment to moment, something that might
feel a little subtle, what really powerful happens.
You will calibrate your internalstate to that most grounded
presence in the room. You will be like the pillar
(30:24):
holding up up the ceiling. Because we do what?
Human beings tend to synchronizearound each other, don't they?
No, no, it's, it's, it's honestly one of the craziest
things is how true that statement is.
Do you have a chaotic boss? There's a good chance that
trickles down to everyone. Same goes for a passive boss.
Everyone sort of starts to be more passive in the workplace.
(30:45):
But if you got someone who is grounded and is rooted in
strength, who has balance. It spreads, Yeah, yeah.
And this type and and this, thisreally, this really transforms
things to where no forces required, no authority, no
overt, no overt authority is required.
No pressure, just presence. Just show up.
(31:08):
Show up authentically. There's another axiom that that
kind of points to this. If you've been sincere in your
efforts, when progress eludes you, do not force action.
Simply accept that you've done all you can do.
That's a hard pill for some people to swallow.
It is, but what it's telling us to do is to reject use of force
and embrace trust. It is.
(31:30):
It is to understand that you cannot push your way into calm.
You surrender into it. You breathe into it.
You allow it. So let's talk about, let's talk
about some of the shadows that prevent us from anchoring or
being the anchor. Every light cast a shadow.
Ma'am, we talked about 1 already.
Control, I tell you what. And this isn't just for the
(31:52):
tyrannical leaders. This is most people's coping
mechanism, whether they're trying to control through
presence and authority or they're trying to control
through manipulation, right? It's like, I used to think that
I was so perfect in relationships and I enabled and
I enabled, but as always, to tryto meet and ends.
And it took a lot of work for meto be able to step back and be
(32:14):
like, holy crap, that was toxic.You didn't think you could be
the toxic one? No man, I'll tell you what I
thought I I thought I shake gold, man.
I was like, I'm a stand up man. I mean I am.
I read all the books, I listenedto all the podcasts, I met all
the gurus and all the life coaches and I can't be the toxic
(32:36):
one. That's impossible.
It's just ignorance, which is which is a good thing.
It's it's the first step into wisdom.
So another one is avoidance. This one's kind of sneaky, this
shadow sneaky because it looks like calm.
It looks like you're just, and you know, we do this by shutting
down emotionally or numbing ourselves up or detaching or
(33:00):
disappearing, right? It's almost like, it's almost
like you tell yourself, no, I'm good, I'm good, I am good.
But you're, you've literally left your body.
The lights are on, but you're not, you're not there.
You're gone. That's not answering.
I think some other things that fall into this too is like hyper
independence, which I kind of fell into.
(33:22):
It's like if I just manage all the important things, then I
don't have to worry about what this person's doing or these
people doing because I know it'staken care of.
Yeah, but again, it ties back into control.
Here's another for you. And no, I'm not calling you out,
not consciously anyway, but another one.
Another shadow of of this is Martindom.
(33:42):
Well, that's the most codependence out there.
Was one of them. It is.
It's a rough place to be becauseof the work required to fix this
type of wound. Yeah, well, it gets awful tiring
carried everybody whose burdens around, doesn't it?
Not exactly. Well, it's just like.
Or taking responsibility for feelings and emotions that
aren't even yours, you're just having to deal with them.
(34:04):
Yeah, you feel. Responsible for everyone.
Yes. That felt a little called out
there. You know, maybe, maybe just a
little. I called myself out for being
too stoic, man. That's something you call me out
for all the time. And then another one is being a
literally being addicted to the chaos.
Man, I think this is one of the greatest plagues in the world
today because when people don't realize how their nervous system
(34:24):
controls them, they're constantly chasing that
emotional high that they think is just normal.
The man, it's just it's one crapshow after another.
Well, especially because we talked about being
overstimulated before. And that's not just our phones.
It's it's literally noise and everything's happening all the
(34:44):
time and silence threatens that because this stuff dominates the
world, the landscape, doesn't it?
So when stuff starts to calm down, it's like, wait a minute,
something's wrong. Especially if you come from a
place of conflict where there's just tons and tons of conflict.
And that I'm not just talking about wars, although that's
(35:04):
something that's happening too over the last 30 years.
But you know, the internal conflict, conflict in
relationships, conflict in the family dynamic.
Pete's doesn't feel real, does it?
It feels fake. Well, it's like everything I
went through over the last eightyears.
Like one of the hardest things Iam still struggling with is
learning that everything feels peaceful.
(35:27):
Not only is that OK, but it's not going anywhere.
It's like that constant hyping myself up, waiting for the next
shoe to drop, something else to go awry in my life.
Yeah, yeah. Well, and, and so, so there,
there are some truths behind these shadows, things that we
must address and call out and have conversations with
(35:48):
ourselves about before we can integrate these right.
A dysregulated ego cannot anchorto anything because it has its
own agenda and that is to keep you safe.
It doesn't want stability in theway that we're talking about.
It wants stimulation. It wants to be active and to be
in charge of how we go about things, right?
(36:11):
And it seeks that intensity because intensity makes it feel
alive, because it doesn't see itself as being harmful.
After all, it was built into us to protect us.
It's almost like a rogue programthat that has 1 mission.
Keep Michael alive by all any and all means necessary, even if
(36:32):
I'm destroying him and breaking his bones to do it.
Well, it's, I mean, it's all learned patterns, right?
We learn how to show up in the way we learn how to manage
different situations. And yes, these parts have our
best intentions in mind, but that does not mean they have the
best strategies for the best life.
No, no, because because they have a split second to think
about it. What we're talking about is
(36:54):
preparing ourselves by practice and discipline to deal with
these things when they come. You know, we know a lot of this
stuff is going to happen to us because that's what human beings
are and that's what human beingsdo.
We are subject to these things. You're not going to find your
your peace and center and then the whole world leave you alone.
(37:15):
It's just not how it's going to work.
This is you were talking about. You talk about we, we must
practice these things. This is one of those things
where the world gives us plenty of chances to practice.
Now, having these shadows, whichby the way we all do light
always casts a shadow, doesn't disqualify you from becoming an
anchor. If you have these things, and
(37:37):
you probably do at least one, that's where you got to
practice. That's where you got to put your
put put more down and you got totrust yourself.
You know, one of my favorite exercises to do is like, find
someone you trust and have a hard conversation, something you
disagree about. Let those triggers come up, let
those responses kick in, and then learn how to manage
(37:58):
yourself with those responses coming online.
Get in your body and separate your mind from your body.
So let's talk about how we become an anchor for others,
because this is what happens when you learn to ground so well
that you become an anchor for yourself.
Again, this radiates outwards and this is where something
extraordinary starts to happen. You literally start affecting
(38:21):
the people around you. And we do anyway, chaotic or
not. But this is where you start to
affect people around you in waysthat you designed, in ways that
you practice, in ways that you built that strength up.
And it starts to happen in ways that almost seem effortless,
because this becomes your new habits, your new patterns, your
(38:43):
new being right? You know, so you know, I think.
Oh, go ahead, go ahead. I was just going to say, you
know, starting with it. I mean, just presence, giving
people your presence is one of the most powerful things you can
do. Being able to just hear what's
going on with them, being steadfast as you listen and
(39:06):
knowing what they're looking for.
Some people like one of the things when Allison's venting to
me is I'll ask her, do you want an ear?
Do you want advice or do you just want to get it out of your
system? You know, it's just like, or do
you want a distraction That was that the other one isn't.
It's just like learning social cues, right?
Because sometimes, more often than not, people don't want
(39:27):
advice. No, no, because they're still
trying to control what's happening, which is, I mean, it
is what it is, you know, not, not bad mouthing anybody here.
That's what we do. I mean, I fall into that
sometimes where I, I already have a plan and this, this
drives her crazy. I've already paused.
I've already breathed. I've already, I've already, I
(39:48):
already know what's going to happen next because I've already
decided what I'm going to do, right.
Regardless of what anybody else does, I'm going to do this,
right? And I'm just telling her because
it's not always fun talking to myself all the time.
But I'm just, I'm just telling you, this is what happened.
This is what I'm going to do. But to be an anchor, like you
(40:11):
said, is to be present. You don't have to lecture
everybody. You don't have to correct
everybody. You don't have to teach or guide
everybody, especially verbally, right?
Like you said, most of the time people don't need more
information. They just need somebody stable.
A safe spot to sit with to wherethey, they can start to go
through this. When you first met me many years
(40:33):
before you became my student, I never lectured you.
I never guided you, never taughtyou.
I just sat with you and we had conversations about whatever it
is we were talking about, you know, And then when you came to
me and said, can you mentor me on these things?
Yes, yes, I can. And then it becomes a different
dynamic. But I don't always always
(40:54):
lecture or correct or teach. Not very often.
You might teach whenever I ask for it, but especially like like
your favorite saying like you don't, you don't got opinions?
I don't, I don't have opinions. I don't.
I don't. And someone out there that knows
me probably said all that bullshit you do.
I I don't. When I speak, I'm speaking from
what I believe to be the truth and that's it.
(41:17):
That's it. I don't have opinions.
And that really, that really that really bugs people, man.
I don't. Know there's a couple times like
just give me your opinion, Dang it.
It's like, I don't got one man like.
I can't give you my opinion on this because I, I, I can't
possibly completely stand in your shoes and make the best
(41:39):
decision for you when people want, when people want someone's
opinion, especially in this kindof setting, they want them to
make the decision for them. And I'm not going to do that.
No, I need you to find your bestsolution.
I need you to find your best Ave. because it will not be the
same thing that I can do or willdo, right?
(42:02):
Goes back to the law of confusion.
You must discern that I am here for you to bounce the ball off
of until you come to a decision,if that's what I need to do
right, because people just simply feel safer around people
that are calm, truly calm, not masking, but truly calm.
(42:22):
That's why we breathe with each other sometimes, right?
For freaking out. Breathe with me.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, here, here, breathe with me.
And those first 25 breaths mightbe just all crazy, but man,
you'll hit a sink, you'll hit, you'll hit that synchronicity
and it'll just start breathing together like you're sharing the
same lungs. And that's right, your, your
(42:45):
regulated nervous system starts to regulate theirs.
Your groundedness becomes a stabilizing influence for them.
And you can change the emotionaltone of an entire room.
And you don't do this through force because, Michael, this is
something that you are or something you become.
You know, it's like, I think oneof the things my wife and I do
(43:06):
with one of us gets over stimulated or gets overwhelmed,
the other one will be there and just hold them in that space.
And that create like our Co regulation skills are just so on
point with that. Because often even if we're both
a little triggered, like if one's more triggered, which
usually is the case, it's like, all right, you need the space
more than I do right now here, let's work through this
(43:28):
together. It's all going to be OK.
And then sometimes I need the grounding.
It's like, but it's being able to have that Co regulation and
being around people you trust, which also ties into that lack
of control, right? Being able to trust people.
Because I think a lot of that avoidance stems from if I don't
show myself for how I truly feel, I don't have to worry
(43:49):
about being vulnerable or being hurt or being let down.
Right. And when you're in this kind of
environment we're talking about,I'm not going to make, I'm not
giving you opinions because I'm not going to make your decisions
for you. I'm not responsible for your
decisions. I'm not responsible for your
feelings and emotions, but when I can provide a place for you to
sit without judgement, sit whereit's calm, sit where we can
(44:14):
breathe, those solutions emerge just naturally because we're
starting to to, to push away thefog, because what we're doing is
we're together. We're we're coming back into
resonance with with the universe.
There's another axiom that kind of caps this You cannot always
(44:34):
use force against that which opposes you.
There are times when it is wise to endure opposition in favor of
a peaceful resolution, endure endurance that only comes
through pain and practice. Out of the word that came to
mind for me was resilience. Like resilience is done when you
are in the fire. It's being able to learn to
handle that stress, and it doesn't mean suppress, but it
(44:57):
means how to manage life when life gets hard.
Your piece becomes an unwritten permission slip for others to
respond, for others to find a new pathway emotionally, a new
reference point for them to now grow from there.
And and you're not always leading them with words unless
you are a teacher or a guide or a mentor.
(45:19):
And even then, you should be modeling the behavior more than
you are Speaking of what you're supposed to be doing.
You can. I mean, really, You're
demonstrating a truth before they really even can understand
the words. So let's talk about some
practical anchoring in everyday life.
Well, I think tying back into that nervous system, I mean just
(45:39):
learning how to breathe. I know we harp on breathing all
the time and you hear it and allthe all the different scenes out
there. But there is a reason it is so
powerful, you know, box breathing, the calming breath,
allowing yourself to regulate your nervous system, to bring
yourself down to baseline breathing is where you will find
that pause and where you will gain mastery over yourself.
(46:01):
Blood without oxygen isn't useless to us.
Breathing is everything without oxygen.
The blood has really nothing to carry.
That's why. That's why it is the center
point of every, literally every everything out there, every
scene, as you said, right? And this isn't just something we
do in deep meditation or during these really major crazy life
(46:23):
crisis is right. This is something that we do in
even the smallest moments of each moment of each day.
The quiet moments, the ordinary moments, the ones where our
choices shape everything in our life without even realizing it.
That's why it's important to integrate this into every
(46:46):
moment. Be the anchor.
So yes, pause before a breathe before speaking. 2nd is to
recognize the triggers. Notice when you're being pulled
into an emotional contagion. We'll call it, right?
You know, because we absorb eachother's emotions, we absorb each
(47:09):
other's energy, we absorb each other's stress.
If someone is super anxious, stressed, or they're just angry,
your energy may try to naturallymatch those there so you can
have a connection. We do this naturally.
Anchoring means recognizing whenthis pool, when this black hole
(47:29):
is trying to suck us into it andsaying, Nope, not going there.
I'll sit with you, but I'm not getting sucked into whatever
this is, right? We don't have to rise and fall
with people's waves. We just don't.
You can remain steady on your little tugboat.
Just now, sometimes it's good toassess the situation.
You know, someone's flaring up super angry.
(47:50):
There's no headway you're going to gain there.
Maybe it's best to disengage from this until the emotions
have calmed down. I will never forget I took a
class on having good arguments in a relationship.
And it's like after the heart rate gets past 99, like you
disengage from the conversation because no one's going to be
acting from a rational mind at that point.
(48:11):
No, their body is, but he's freaking out.
That's that's just Physiology that that skill has saved my
life more times than I can count.
Assessing, knowing when to step in and when not to step in,
which brings us to the next one.Intention and presence over
urgency. Because we want to act.
We want to go out and save the world.
(48:32):
We want to, you know, do all these things right now and we
got to solve all the problems right now.
But that, as you said, especially if you get your heart
rate up and your body starts to react as if it's everything is
urgent, you start leading to mistakes and misunderstandings
and then that creates unnecessary conflict.
We're now we're fighting for no reason because we got sucked
(48:55):
into that black hole. And again, anchoring invites us
to slow down, to pause, to breathe and move into deliberate
action and deliberate intention instead of panic.
You know, it's often in those moments we do want to, we want
everything to be OK right now, especially when everything is
going through the roof and it's just 5 minutes is not going to
(49:16):
hurt anybody more than likely. Yeah, it's not.
It's not. And even if it is, well, you do
what you got to do. And then you'd make sure you
give yourself that 5 or 10 minutes afterwards, immediately
afterwards to come back, come back to center.
This is why when you see first responders or soldiers or nurses
(49:38):
and doctors and whoever, when they react, they're reacting.
They're going to their lowest level of training and they fall
back to. That's why it's important for
them to train and train and train and train and train all
the time. Because even them, even the
people that literally their job is to react to the most horrible
crisis, they, their bodies, their minds start going into
(50:02):
crazy mode too. It's why it's important for them
to train for us in this atmosphere.
We say we fall back to our lowest level of what?
Healing. You know, that's why we must
continue to practice. What about grounding?
Physical grounding, when our mind starts to freak out, like,
you know, feet on the ground or or relaxing or unclenching our
(50:26):
hands, things like that. Well, I mean, I tell you what,
one of the greatest practices, Istarted meditating every day,
which I'm not saying meditate inthese high pressure moments,
that's going to be a little difficult.
But yeah, looking at the cues inyour body, when I first started
meditating, my first two minutesis to grounding, which is
checking my shoulders. They drop them.
Am I clenching my jaw? Am I, where am I tense, allowing
(50:49):
my body to relax? Because that's pulling me out of
that move ahead mode and gets meinto a place of stillness, a
place of calm. You know, allowing yourself room
to meditate throughout the day, not for these high intense
moments, but allowing meditationto be a part of your lifestyle
can help gain you so much power over your mind.
(51:12):
And it'll fight that cortisol and it'll fight that hidden
stress. It'll help you breathe better.
Remember, your body needs, needsair, needs oxygen and the bet
the better you breathe, the better your body feels.
There's lots of benefit now there.
There's there's no downside to that that I've seen unless
you're unless you're doing the wrong kinds of meditation that
(51:33):
you're not ready for yet, like, you know, kind of extreme void
meditations when you're dealing with a lot of PTSD or something.
You should not do those without,without somebody, you know, some
professional present. But there is no downside to
breathing. I promise you it literally keeps
you alive. If that's the, if that's the
only upside for you, then keep doing that.
(51:55):
It's good for you. There's something that every
officer is taught in what we call the force continuum, and
that's officer presence. There's a reason why that's the
most, the first, first and foremost thing, right?
Because we must allow our energyand our presence, our presence
(52:16):
to settle the room before we even speak, right?
It's a reason why that's the first thing, officer presence,
and then verbal commands and then hard commands and then so
on and so forth. OK?
Your presence must be able to befelt and seen before you ever
utter a word. Because I can tell you there
(52:38):
have been more than 100 times, probably way more than that,
when saying less was more powerful for me than even saying
the right thing. Just showing up, right?
It shifts. It shifts dynamics almost
instantly. And people respond.
And I mean people like everyone in that room responds to your
(53:02):
state long before it responds toanything you're saying.
Yeah, well, it's just, I mean, you can always say something
after the silence, but if you allow words to carry your
thoughts, your emotions in the heat of the moment, you can't
take that back. That's a very good point.
You cannot take that back. You might actually say, and I've
I've, I've said this to her. Gosh, I really wish I didn't say
(53:26):
that. I know I can't take it back, but
I'm really regretting saying that to you right now.
Right. That's beautiful.
That's perfect. Yeah.
That's you can't take that back.You can always show up
differently next time, but you. But once you say something
that's hurtful or that's out of pocket, it's there forever, man.
You know, they say everything's,you know, the Internet is
(53:47):
forever. Yeah, there was something before
the Internet that was forever too.
The things you said to someone you love and hurtful.
We didn't need the Internet for that.
No, we didn't. So do you have any final
thoughts for the for the show today?
One thing I love that you brought up in this conversation
is that this isn't something that's only for the select few.
(54:09):
Anyone can hit this point. Really think about that scale of
aggressive and passive and whereyou fall on it and the steps you
need to take to become more assertive.
Whether that's you need to learnto stop controlling so much or
allowing your anger to rule you,or you're letting fear control
you and you're not advocating for yourself.
Find balance within your life, but above all, don't make the
(54:31):
goal being right at the middle. Take the steps from where you're
at, wherever that's at. This isn't a race, this isn't a
comparison. This is just you showing up for
you and learning how to get to the top of the mountain by going
step by step and not jumping to the top because that's where you
will fail. Practice, practice, practice,
(54:52):
practice, practice. I knew you weren't going to let
me down today. You coined that.
I give you all the credit for that.
I'll take it. It's deserved.
It's deserved. I might have said it to you
before that we ever did a show, but you kept on.
You held on to it. Neil, I did learn it from you,
but yeah, I definitely took thatfrom you.
(55:13):
I may have made him say it a lotbecause it's important.
So the exercise we're going to do today, the still point
practice and the purpose is to start to train our mind and our
body and our spirit to become that stable, that stable center
of light, of stillness, of peacein chaotic environments which we
(55:36):
find ourselves in all the time, especially the ones we can't
escape from, the ones that are in here.
So as always, you guys know how much I love to put my hand in my
heart. I love it feels good.
First step is we're going to sitcomfortably and, and fix your
posture, right? Let's get a good posture.
(55:57):
No, no, no slouching here. Sit up and we're going to place
our hand over our heart. And on the inhale, we're going
to say I return. On the exhale, we're going to
say I anchor. And as you're breathing, as
you're breathing in saying I return and as you're exhaling, I
anchor. I want you to visualize a
(56:18):
beautiful bright column of lightaligning you and grounding you,
going right through the top of your head and down that perfect,
beautiful spine because you're sitting all upright and butt
comfortable, you know, don't break your bones here.
And I want you to bring to mind a person or situation that's
filled with turmoil, something you're dealing with in the
(56:39):
moment or lately without trying to fix anything.
I want you to radiate that light, that column of light
outward, and I want you to radiate it, its steadiness and
its consistency. And I want you to allow that
light to guide the field, guide the action, guide the intention,
(57:00):
guide your motivations, not yourmind.
We're not judging this because an anchor does not force change.
We invite, we allow, we get out of the way for things to
transform us, right? And then of course, every time
you do this exercise, I want youto write down what you
experienced. Keep that information handy
(57:21):
because as you do this practice more and more and more and more,
you'll start seeing a shift in how you start to think about
dealing with this stuff. Any extra tips and and tricks on
the exercise for today? No, that was good.
Our five affirmations for anchoring 5 exactly.
I don't know why I said 5, because we usually do 5.
(57:41):
Maybe 5 is the perfect number here. 5 1/2, five and a half.
I'm the calm center where light gathers and grows.
My presence creates stability for myself and others.
In chaos, I remain grounded in the living force.
I anchor myself in purpose, clarity, and peace.
My steadiness is a gift that shifts the energy of every room
(58:05):
I enter and are journaling prompts for this episode.
Where do I lose my center most easily and why?
What does anchoring feel like inmy body?
Who in my life benefits most when I am steady and grounded?
What beliefs or fears disrupt myability to become an anchor?
What daily practice can help me return to my inner steel point?
(58:26):
Hint, The exercise I just gave you, There's one.
There's one way. So look, you're not always going
to be the anchor all the time. It's not about perfection, it's
about showing up. It's about presence.
Presence over perfection, every time.
And it's never been about controlling the world around us.
It's never been about tighteningour grip or pushing and forcing
(58:47):
until we give out, or making everything, everything bend to
our will. You will bend to me because I
demand it, right? Anchoring is about alignment
with love and truth and integrity and connection and the
reverence for life, the sanctityof life.
It's about aligning with the light.
(59:08):
It's remembering that peace is not something that you chase.
It's something that you rememberand that returns to you and that
you return to. It's not something that you
discover or uncover you, something that you allow to
happen. It's there.
And when you study yourself, youstudy the world around you, your
presence becomes that quiet protection, that quiet place,
(59:32):
that place of stability. And not only just for your own
heart and your for your own good, for the hearts and, and
others connected to you, that presence becomes protection.
And that silence becomes guidance.
And that stillness becomes strength.
Those of us who are the anchor do not.
We're not resisting the storm. Storms happen whether we want
(59:53):
them to or not. We're the ones who remembers who
we are within it, the one who stands rooted in that truth, the
one who chooses clarity over chaos and awareness over
impulse, the truth over fear. This is what spiritual maturity
looks like. This is what emotionally mastery
looks like. It's what it feels like, and
(01:00:14):
this is what transformation becomes when it's lived instead
of forced. So this week, I invite you to
practice the Still point exercise at least once a day,
and you only need to spend a fewminutes on it.
But every time, even outside of that exercise, every time you
pause, every time you breathe before you speak, every time
that you do your best to show upmore calm, more stable, you
(01:00:41):
will, you will become the anchor.
Those muscles will get beefy, man.
You keep doing these practices and there's some things I want
you to notice and, and the things you'll start to notice
how your presence will transformconversations, how it will
actually transform the energy inyour relationships and the
people around you, how people will start responding
(01:01:02):
differently to you because of your calm and steadiness, right?
I want you to notice how your clarity creates space for others
to find their own anchors for them to become the anchor.
And I, and I just want to leave you with this.
Say the living light rise withinyou like a quiet sunrise, and
may your heart remain unmoved bythe winds that shaped the world.
(01:01:25):
And may your presence become a sanctuary for yourself and for
all those who cross your path. Thank you guys so much for
joining us. Please check out all our
socials, our Youtubes, our Tik Toks, Facebook's, our Spotify.
Well, you're listening on Spotify and of course our
website newashla.com. Best website ever.
(01:01:46):
Best website ever. So until next time, with love
and gratitude, add Luchum. Add luchum.
When the storm rises, most people look for shelter, but
those who walk in the light learn to become the still point
in the storm itself. Today, we learn what it means to
become the anchor. Hello and welcome to the new
(00:22):
Ashla Podcast. My name is Justin Gates and
joining me today, as always, my boy Michael Perry.
Hey fam. So today we're going to talk
about becoming the anchor. Michael, this is a good topic.
It is a good topic. And no, we're not talking about
actual storms. If you're in an emergency, get
to shelter. We're talking about these kind
(00:42):
of metaphorical storms that we all feel like we're going
through. And life does feel like a like
an emergency sometimes, doesn't it feels like a storm.
And most of us were taught to survive that by escaping it or
avoiding it, right? Yeah, when I think often it's
just we're just trying to get by, trying to make things work.
But often we get so lost in the process of doing that that we
(01:04):
forget the storms around us. Yeah.
And for actual storms, you know,I mean, it's, it's prudent and
it's wise to get it undercover and under shelter, but it
doesn't really work very well for the kind of storms we're
talking about today. Those emotional storms, those,
those, those things that that shut us down, that that cause us
(01:25):
to freeze, that makes us want tobe invisible, right?
We're shutting down or withdrawing and hoping the
moment will pass. The problem with that is that we
are the moment. We are in the moment.
And if we don't learn to face it, those moments can last
forever, it seems like. I've been guilty of that.
(01:45):
I've had it where my life just sort of was chaos around me, but
instead of doing something to change those circumstances to
address the problems at hand, itjust engulfed me non-stop for
years. Well, I, I think we're all
guilty of that, right? Yeah.
There's no shame there, no blame.
It's just when we know better, we do better, but we that we
(02:05):
can't do better until we know better.
And as as I've said before, the path to wisdom is literally
starts with ignorance. So that's why we're here to
learn from each other, right? But the way of light, the way of
Ashley teaches something different, something way more
powerful. What it teaches us with these
kind of storms is that true safety comes from remembering
(02:26):
your power, remembering the things you can control,
remembering where center is, right.
It's especially in those times when everything around us is
just going absolutely bat crap crazy or pulling us away from
center. Now, anchoring is not emotional
suppression. Could you say that for me
louder? Anchoring is not emotional
(02:49):
suppression. It's not clenching your jaw till
you break your teeth. It's not holding your breath
until you pass out. And it's not certainly not
pretending that nothing affects me.
I'm impervious. You're not.
I used to think that and I learned over and over again.
It took me lots of lessons. I feel this is one of those that
(03:10):
does sort of just beach until you finally submit to its will
if you. Don't listen, man.
If you don't, if you don't, you'll go.
You'll, you'll, you'll get dragged kicking and screaming,
man. It's just eventually, right.
This is one of those things where we've talked about
suffering before and it could bemental suffering, spiritual
suffering. It will keep happening until you
(03:32):
take steps to not correct yourself, not fix yourself right
because you're not wrong and you're not broken, but there is
something that needs your attention.
When you start showing an awareness, you start showing
it's tension. It's all it wants.
These are messengers. These are teachers, as we always
say. This is the discipline of of
reclaiming your presence in thatmoment and choosing, choosing
(03:55):
intentional stillness, intentional peace over that
reaction, the reflective reaction.
Well said. Especially in today's world,
right? We talk about this a lot, how
it's just today's world feels crazy.
And you know, it probably felt crazy back then and then and
then and into the future. But it really does feel crazy
for us now. And it seems like this is a hard
(04:17):
thing to do because as you like to talk about, we are, we are
seriously overstimulated. We're over stimulated and we
have so much energy going into these tasks in our daily lives
that are just so not just monotonous, but overwhelming.
But I think in life, you know, Iwas listening to an interview
the other day and something theysaid really hit home.
He was like, he's this guy who helps people manage money and he
(04:39):
was dating this girl from I think Venezuela and he's like,
So what made you decide to move to America?
And she said you can tell a culture's has it good when
they're when what they're fighting over is small things,
irrelevant things, not starvation, not.
Right, Yeah, the the first worldproblems as we, as we call them.
(05:01):
Yeah, no, perfectly said, perfectly said.
And I've been thinking a lot about that interview because
it's it was just that that one line made me really step back
and reflect that. It's like there's this book I
read a couple years back called The Turnings, which is one of my
favorite books. It's fascinating watching the
patterns of society and it's just we go through hard times,
then we have hard people that then build us up from society,
(05:24):
Then we have the nomads, then wehave the heroes, and then it's
followed by the artists. And this whole generational
shifting is where things get so easy.
The things become much we becomemuch easier.
It's easier to be overwhelmed bylife.
Yeah. Yeah, the resilience is just not
as front and center because it'snot as mandatory to Foster and
(05:47):
create. Right, right.
Very few of us have to go through true survival.
Yeah, We have to create survivalor our brains have nothing to
do. Our our nervous systems don't
have a whole lot to do. And This is why we do this work.
We try to retrain them for the moment, for the modern time.
People are over stimulated, constantly triggered.
We are bombarded with information from every single
(06:10):
angle. Things are beeping at us.
Things are blinking. We're bombarded with noise, with
urgency and especially expectations and expectations
that none of us really, if we thought about them would never
agree to. I wouldn't have.
And, and, and, and we're kind ofplugged into this conscious.
(06:32):
There are this collective nervous system in a way, right?
And that thing is frayed and it is exhausted.
Now it's so true. So what we're talking about
today, this, this anchoring, which is really just a kind of a
fancier way to say grounded. Grounded, right?
It is, it is quiet leadership. It's that kind of leadership
(06:53):
that doesn't demand attention, but naturally draws others into
harmony simply by being steady. So this, this conversation we're
going to have today is what we train ultimately our luminari to
be, to be that anchor, be the one so grounded and so centered
(07:13):
when shit hits the fan that everybody else naturally comes
to them as because they are safe, because they are steady,
because they are consistent, they are grounded, right.
And to me, that's the best kind of leadership.
It's that quiet leadership, not like the leadership we see in
the world now. It's very loud.
(07:34):
Yeah, it's very boisterous. And it just drives me crazy.
What's that leadership from? A sense of control, right?
Not trusting in the workers to do their stuff.
Not trusting in the people around them to be able to carry
their own. Well, everything lives in
paradox. Everything lives in opposites,
whether we like it or not. You know, I know a lot of smart
(07:56):
people to say no, it it it's notactually really it's not.
It's just it is what it is. OK, that's true.
But everything has an equal counterbalance to it.
This is why we don't try to destroy the shadow or destroy
the dark. That's why we don't try to
destroy the ego in in favor of the spirit.
(08:17):
Everything coexists, even if they're paradoxical to each
other, because clarity is still possible in chaos.
Peace is possible in chaos. Peace still exists even when the
world around you is not feeling very peaceful.
And you don't have to mirror theinstability around you.
That's what we're talking about as an anchor, which is hard to
(08:38):
do right. I mean, we, we get pulled like
this and it's, it's really easy to fall into that temptation to
just get sucked into the, the chaos and the screaming and the
shouting and the, and the chest beating and all the whatevers.
You know, when it's either that or then being passive, you know,
it's the the two sides of the spectrum at hand here.
(08:58):
And it's finding that middle ground where if you're too
aggressive, it's being able to relax more.
It's being able to master those emotions next to being passive,
which is learning self advocacy or standing up for yourself.
You know, it's there's a delicate dance that happens and
it's so unique to each individual.
But at the heart of it is becoming that assertive leader
that we're talking about. Yeah, and there's an axiom that
(09:21):
that lays the foundation for today's show.
One who walks the path of light does so with acceptance and
contentment, free of conflict. And the idea of anchoring, being
that anchor not just for yourself, but it radiates
outside of you too. That's, that is a living
expression of the truth we're sharing today.
It is. It is the embodiment of that
(09:42):
internal peace and stillness that doesn't doesn't destroy or
defeat the chaos. It integrates it.
Right. We're trying to integrate
because we seek harmony, we seekpeace.
And, and again, peace does not mean quiet.
Peace does not mean lack of things happening around you.
It just means no matter what's happening around you, you find
(10:04):
center, you find stillness, you find peace.
Well, and it's like, I mean, they're part of the paradox with
this is it also doesn't mean complacency.
That's right. Even then, without complacency,
it's being able to truly objectively view things as they
are. You know, you see a lot going on
in society where people are avoiding complacency, but in
turn it's more I don't like thisso I'm leaving instead of how
(10:28):
can how can I either address this properly or create a better
situation for myself? Yes, it is the epitome of
service to others. That's why we say we got to get
to get our crap together before we could truly serve and truly
help people, right? We got to make sure that we
become that calm harbor. And we don't become that by
(10:50):
controlling the storm. We become that by purposely
refusing, choosing to not be shaped by it, no matter what's
happening around you. And the moment that you choose
that you become the shelter. You are the shelter.
And the storm around you tends to, you know, the storms never
go away. They're they come and go, but it
(11:12):
tends to be less threatening. So this is what we're exploring
today. This is this is really what it
means to return to our center, to stand rooted and grounded
when life feels unsteady, which it does constantly for all of
us. What I think this also really
just ties into, you know, the internal locus of control.
(11:32):
When you can accept the things that are out of your control and
work with the things that are, you create this field of pure
potentiality. Because that means when you're
investing effort into things that are within your control,
you get outcomes next to stressing and fretting and
trying to manage anything and everyone and every situation
(11:52):
outside of you, which often is just your ruin.
Yeah, yeah, it creates more suffering for you and others.
Everything we do radiates out. So to me, it seems it seems more
wise to choose the things that creates a better outcome for
everything that I touch, right? And really at the end of the
(12:14):
day, this episode is is about responding versus reacting.
There's another axiom that that I'll kind of throw in here in
passing. Never give Into Darkness.
Should an insidious force take hold.
Let calm and peace be your guide, right?
To become the anchor. What does it mean to become the
anchor, Michael? What are we saying?
You know, to be the anchors, to be the one that is not ruled by
(12:36):
their emotions does not mean that you don't listen to them
because they can be guides. But it's being able to act from
a place of integrity. It's being able to act from a
place of clarity because awesome, when these storms
arise, our judgement is skewed and so is our internal state.
And being able to bring yourselfto a back to peace back-to-back,
(13:00):
to being grounded, gives you theclarity to see through the storm
and really look at the situationfor what it is and what you can
do about it. So let's to really understand
what we're talking about, we need to clear away some
misconceptions. This isn't about being overly
stoic or rigid or completely emotionally shut down.
(13:21):
There are balance in all things.Stoicism is not bad if it's not
allowed to be taken to the extreme.
You think Marcus Aurelius never loved?
Do you think that Marcus Aurelius never sought truth or
connection? You know he talks a lot about
integrity and truth, but do you think he didn't care about life?
These are our ethos. Love, truth, integrity,
(13:44):
connection, sanctity of life. Right?
So I think there's a misconception about being super
rigid and super shut down all the time and being apathetic
versus not engaging type of thing.
Let's back to that paradox. Yeah, to be, to be under
control, but but to also honor these, honor these very human
(14:04):
things that we need love and truth and connection.
We need to respect life. We need these things and I don't
care if that guy on TikTok comesback and says not me.
Well I think you're kidding yourself bro.
We all need these things. Well, I think so many people go
to life trying to. Well, we may not want to admit
(14:26):
it, right? Yeah, and that's exactly what it
is, like 11 trend I see everywhere is so many people
want to have that air of having it all together, having it all
figured out when none of us really do.
But people always will stand on their high hill while it is
burning around them because theyrefuse to acknowledge, hey, you
(14:47):
know what, maybe this isn't the right path.
Yeah. So this, this process, this
practice it it's a discipline really.
It, it begins with us. If, if we can't be steady, no
one can be steady around us, right?
And this goes back to things, reoccurring themes that you and
I talk about all the time about recognizing those triggers and
(15:09):
those shut, those subtle little shifts inside our body and our
mind. You know, it could be tightening
of the chest or when your thoughts start to race really
fast or that familiar pull back to our old wounds and things
that scare us. And as always, Michael, the
first step to this is what? Awareness.
(15:32):
As imagine, I do this all the time and it always, it always
confuses you. Like I'm imagining I'm Tony
Stark and I got this giant screen around me and I'm just
like, pause. Like I pause buttons like this
big and I'm like, pause. You laugh.
It's funny, but I do this in real life, right?
Yeah, I do this in real life andwhen something around me starts
(15:57):
to annoy me, I'll do this like Ilike I'm in a big movie.
I just pause it when I'm driving.
You say it's. The way you ground yourself.
It is a yeah, it's definitely a grounding, definitely for me.
But pausing is what's first because when these things starts
happening, we got to stop and listen to the messages.
We have to let our teachers teach us, right?
(16:18):
So we pause, and then we can sitin those moments and say, OK, I
see you and I see you. What can I help you with?
Yeah, I hear you. OK.
But we're not doing that right now.
So you guys get in the back seat, put your seatbelts on and
be quiet, right? We're going to come back to
center before we speak or beforewe react.
(16:41):
Before, before we get kind of swept away in that tornado of
emotion, which, again, happens to all of us.
Here's what. Here's what anchoring provides.
Presence, not control. People who are good anchors,
they don't try to dominate the situation.
Now, I know I hear you. I hear you right now saying,
(17:02):
well, what if it's an emergency?Well, you still got to get back
to center so you can react professionally, so you can react
appropriately and use as much force as necessary.
Only that that's necessary. That doesn't mean you sit there
and you go, hmm, there's a guy here with a, with a stick.
It's going to beat the crap out.It's not trying to.
(17:23):
That's not, that's not what I'm talking about here.
But we have this tendency mentally to try and dominate
things, right? That's what holds us on.
And we grab and we grab and we hold on.
We don't let other people, you know, if something's happening
in front of me and this, this has happened many times, I'm not
always the right person for the right job.
She has to step in. She's the better person to deal
with whatever it is, right? You know, But if I'm always
(17:47):
trying to dominate everything because I'm big and stronger,
right? I may not be.
I might. I might gorilla my way through
it and then make everything worse.
Whereas she might be the best best thing.
Well, I think one side know whatthat is too is as an anchor, as
a leader with the people in yourlife.
I think a lot of people get stuck that whole high horse
(18:08):
thing of like, I'm going to figure everything out.
Utilize the people that you have.
You know, if you need some medical attention for someone in
front of you and you have no medical experience, call upon
those who can benefit the situation.
Don't try to figure it out, right, Right.
It's kind of a rough example, but it may it ties in.
No, it's a no. It's a perfect example, dude.
(18:28):
I have worked with people in my old life.
We were always the first ones onscene, didn't matter what it
was. But do you think just because I
know first aid that I'm going tocall the the fire department and
say, Nah, hey, guys. Yeah, I just forget.
I I'm going to, I'm going to take care of this one.
Yeah, never. No, I'm not.
I don't want to be there doing this.
This is not my like, expertise exactly.
(18:53):
I can help. I can do things that can prolong
a life in an emergency. But I want you here yesterday.
Get here faster than you think you can, because it's because I
I'm not the right guy for that job.
If I wanted to be a doctor, I'd have been a doctor.
I don't like certain parts of that.
(19:14):
No. It's so true though, and I see
so many of these people. This is why the pause is so
important. When you're able to bring
yourself back to center, you're not going to be acting from a
place of chaos, from a place of sporadicness.
You'll be able to compose yourself and really evaluate the
tools at handle what needs to bedone from a much more grounded
place. Yeah, it's true.
(19:34):
Yeah, it's true. And for Ashla, for us, it is
spiritual intelligence. It is the spiritual intelligence
to remain flexible and compassionate and aware even
when everything is moving at lightning speed around us.
That's also why the pause, it's almost like kind of slowing down
time, right? Because this allows us to stay
(19:56):
grounded without becoming frozenor without running.
It allows us to stay open but atthe same time not overwhelmed.
I always think of like the Sherlock Holmes movies where he
stops and he plans out all his. Yeah.
So I was just telling her that the other day I she had never
seen that clip. And I was like, what?
We were watching something and Iwas like, it's like that.
(20:17):
That's like the Robert Downey Junior version of Sherlock
Holmes where he's in the fight and he's like plans it all out
and he like goes through and then and it's all slow.
It's all deliberate to stuff. And then all of a sudden you 5
seconds for the moment and he's just like going at it.
He just does it like real fast. Yeah, You know, that movie was
good. So good.
I was never a big fan of Sherlock Holmes, but I like that
(20:38):
one. I know I'm probably gonna get
some hate mail for that, but. First game.
So when we're grounded in in theliving light and living force to
flow right, clarity becomes easy.
Presence becomes easy and the things start to settle and the
things start to soften and the things start to recalibrate
around us. They really, really do.
At least got to take my word forthat because I can't really
(21:00):
demonstrate that for you. But response comes responding.
Response comes from wisdom. Reacting comes from the ego,
right? Yeah, every time.
But I think that's an important way to look at it too, because
when our emotions do take over the show, there is some type of
survival instinct kicking onlinethat's trying to manage and
(21:22):
firefight the situation at hand.But if you can bring yourself
back to spirit, bring your back self back to a place of
calmness, you no longer have these this chaos trying to run
the show. Because I guarantee you, as you
master this pause, your reactionwithout the pause will be
dramatically different from the one with the pause.
(21:43):
Right, because it's intentional,it's wise, it's spacious, and
it's rooted in awareness. You're you're responding to what
is actually happening, what is actually happening in this
moment, right. Sometimes we get stuck in the
what ifs or the I don't care. This anchoring is the practice,
(22:04):
the discipline of choosing response over the ego's
reaction, choosing wisdom over ego.
We don't fight shadows with force or darkness with force.
We integrate darkness and shadowthrough steady Eddy practice,
right and alignment. And we hold ourselves to that
(22:25):
alignment. And that alignment changes the
environment around us. It changes what people see and
feel from us. Again, it's not about trying to
overpower what's happening. I don't care how big and strong
you are, you cannot physically muscle everything that's
happening around you well. It's kind of like what you're
talking about with the magnetismwe have when we start to
(22:47):
cultivate this type of inner peace.
You know, I think of this quote,the best leaders are often the
ones that don't want to lead. And it's not necessarily that
they don't want to lead, but there's this level of temperance
to the individuals that master this.
Right. That's so powerful.
Yeah, yeah. And they seem to have a lot of
(23:07):
stuff put together, don't they? Yep.
You know, they seem to like. And that brings us to some more
misconceptions. This anchoring is not something
you're born with. In fact, it probably gets
trained out of you a lot when you're little.
You know, it's not a personalitytrait.
It's not reserved for people that that seem to be naturally
(23:27):
calm or unshakeable. They didn't start out that way,
I promise you. Guaranteed.
This, this steadiness is trained.
It's trained. Now, of course, do some people
learn faster, some people assimilate faster, some people
align faster, of course. But that's just that's just how
they're wired. But we all can be this way, and
(23:49):
time is not of the essence here.If it takes you 6 months and it
takes your buddy three weeks, there's nothing wrong with that.
That you should never use othersas a comparison in any part of
this journey. It's.
Horrible, it's horrible, man. So but again, this is a this is
a muscle that we have to work and just like our muscle, our
(24:09):
our physical muscles, we can train our minds to be steady and
we can train our spirit to be aligned with the rest, with the
flow with our with our body and our minds, right.
This is a skill that grows with time and practice and intention.
Every time you choose to pause instead of react, it grows a
(24:31):
little bit better and you start to build that resilience that
you were talking about. You know.
Every time you take a breath before speaking, every time you
return back to yourself, back into your body, back into your
nervous system, you start to strengthen this muscle.
Well, it's like, I know we've harp on it every episode, but
it's just, it's such an important part of all this work
(24:53):
is understanding your nervous system.
Your nervous system is where those emotions live, is where
those triggers live, and is where the ego lives.
Learning to manage the nervous system, learning how to quiet
it, calm it, whatever you need to do is of the utmost
importance when it comes to selfmastery.
Yeah 100%. It's literally nervous system
(25:16):
mastery and spiritual alignment at the same time.
It's no wonder why so many ancient practices focus on the
center of our bodies in a line, in a straight line, all the way
down our what? Down our spine.
Our spine. Yeah, exactly that.
That was the example I was using, the liner on the spine.
And and then if you go into thatdeeper practice where there's
(25:38):
like a billion of them, they allend up at nerve centers and
nerve endings and things like that.
So you practice by pausing and letting your breath become an
anchor for you in those times. Your awareness becoming an
anchor, your connection to the living force, the living light,
the light of creation becomes ananchor.
(25:59):
This isn't the kind of, this isn't the kind of training that
requires the grand movements andgestures and all this stuff.
Those are good too. But this is more of a quiet
practice, right? When it takes a lot of
diligence, I mean, this is something you do have to
practice. One of the hardest lessons I
learned on the healing journey, I think why so many people
struggle who are out there in the healing scene now, is you
(26:21):
can gain all the awareness in the world, but without
experience, without practice, you're never going to be able to
master this. You got to be able to put
yourself in the situation because the minute that nervous
system kicks on, your programming is running the show.
So you got to be able to go intothose moments and start working
on reversing it. And it is brutal.
It is not something that once you know it's a thing, it's
(26:42):
going to just go away. That is just the first step.
Steps 2 through 20 is going intothose situations, getting
triggered and doing something different.
Will be easier every. Time.
It'll be easier and there'll be less tears, there'll be less
blood, be less pain each time. And you'll start to see that the
(27:04):
suffering that you've been underlessons by a lot.
And this is, you know, this is the point of the show where I'll
say, you know, if you need help doing that, it's fine.
Seek, seek help. There's lots of people in the
world waiting to help help you with the things we're talking
about. We can help you with the things
you're talking about that we're talking about, but the the fact
(27:27):
is we cannot serve people in this capacity until we have
learned to navigate our own problems.
If our world, if our inner worldis, is is chaotic, no amount of
wisdom, no amount of intention or self help books or religion
or anything will create that steadiness for you externally.
(27:49):
You must align, you must internalize these things and you
can only do that through practice, practice, practice.
And it's what you just said a minute ago was perfect.
Those of us who are anchors, we,we are stable because we have
learned the hard way through practice and you're going to
learn the hard way too. It's going to hurt and I'm
(28:11):
sorry, there's no other way to do it.
We have to learn how to self regulate in those moments where
we just want to explode or collapse or shut down or escape.
You know. But as we teach here, Michael,
strength does not come from tightening our grip around
things. It doesn't come from pushing
(28:31):
harder. It doesn't come from holding our
self together by force. This is the point where Justin
tells you, like almost every episode, the strength that we
develop here comes from surrender, not strain.
We must let go. The most powerful thing you can
do for yourself. The more you can surrender, the
more you can release your need to control things, the better
(28:55):
your life will become. And I can promise you that.
Yeah, I'd bet my house on it. I'd bet my house on it any day
of the week. It comes from surrendering the
belief that you must control every single moment because you
can't, and to do so is to just invite more suffering.
It comes from trusting that higher thing for you, whatever
(29:17):
it is. I'm not going to tell you what
to believe, but trusting in whatwe call the light to guide what
our fears try to manage For us, it comes from letting go of
urgency and stepping into presence.
Anxiety about the future, pain from the past.
Those things are managed outsideof the moment.
(29:40):
Well, we manage them in the moment by not by by addressing
them, by pointing them out and then letting them go.
You can't. You can't fight your pain in the
past. You can't fight your anxiety in
the future. You can only, you can only try
to integrate those things now inthe present by being presents.
And this is where it starts to become transformational like we
(30:03):
were just talking about. Because with the longer you can
hold your center from moment to moment, something that might
feel a little subtle, what really powerful happens.
You will calibrate your internalstate to that most grounded
presence in the room. You will be like the pillar
(30:24):
holding up up the ceiling. Because we do what?
Human beings tend to synchronizearound each other, don't they?
No, no, it's, it's, it's honestly one of the craziest
things is how true that statement is.
Do you have a chaotic boss? There's a good chance that
trickles down to everyone. Same goes for a passive boss.
Everyone sort of starts to be more passive in the workplace.
(30:45):
But if you got someone who is grounded and is rooted in
strength, who has balance. It spreads, Yeah, yeah.
And this type and and this, thisreally, this really transforms
things to where no forces required, no authority, no
overt, no overt authority is required.
No pressure, just presence. Just show up.
(31:08):
Show up authentically. There's another axiom that that
kind of points to this. If you've been sincere in your
efforts, when progress eludes you, do not force action.
Simply accept that you've done all you can do.
That's a hard pill for some people to swallow.
It is, but what it's telling us to do is to reject use of force
and embrace trust. It is.
(31:30):
It is to understand that you cannot push your way into calm.
You surrender into it. You breathe into it.
You allow it. So let's talk about, let's talk
about some of the shadows that prevent us from anchoring or
being the anchor. Every light cast a shadow.
Ma'am, we talked about 1 already.
Control, I tell you what. And this isn't just for the
(31:52):
tyrannical leaders. This is most people's coping
mechanism, whether they're trying to control through
presence and authority or they're trying to control
through manipulation, right? It's like, I used to think that
I was so perfect in relationships and I enabled and
I enabled, but as always, to tryto meet and ends.
And it took a lot of work for meto be able to step back and be
(32:14):
like, holy crap, that was toxic.You didn't think you could be
the toxic one? No man, I'll tell you what I
thought I I thought I shake gold, man.
I was like, I'm a stand up man. I mean I am.
I read all the books, I listenedto all the podcasts, I met all
the gurus and all the life coaches and I can't be the toxic
(32:36):
one. That's impossible.
It's just ignorance, which is which is a good thing.
It's it's the first step into wisdom.
So another one is avoidance. This one's kind of sneaky, this
shadow sneaky because it looks like calm.
It looks like you're just, and you know, we do this by shutting
down emotionally or numbing ourselves up or detaching or
(33:00):
disappearing, right? It's almost like, it's almost
like you tell yourself, no, I'm good, I'm good, I am good.
But you're, you've literally left your body.
The lights are on, but you're not, you're not there.
You're gone. That's not answering.
I think some other things that fall into this too is like hyper
independence, which I kind of fell into.
(33:22):
It's like if I just manage all the important things, then I
don't have to worry about what this person's doing or these
people doing because I know it'staken care of.
Yeah, but again, it ties back into control.
Here's another for you. And no, I'm not calling you out,
not consciously anyway, but another one.
Another shadow of of this is Martindom.
(33:42):
Well, that's the most codependence out there.
Was one of them. It is.
It's a rough place to be becauseof the work required to fix this
type of wound. Yeah, well, it gets awful tiring
carried everybody whose burdens around, doesn't it?
Not exactly. Well, it's just like.
Or taking responsibility for feelings and emotions that
aren't even yours, you're just having to deal with them.
(34:04):
Yeah, you feel. Responsible for everyone.
Yes. That felt a little called out
there. You know, maybe, maybe just a
little. I called myself out for being
too stoic, man. That's something you call me out
for all the time. And then another one is being a
literally being addicted to the chaos.
Man, I think this is one of the greatest plagues in the world
today because when people don't realize how their nervous system
(34:24):
controls them, they're constantly chasing that
emotional high that they think is just normal.
The man, it's just it's one crapshow after another.
Well, especially because we talked about being
overstimulated before. And that's not just our phones.
It's it's literally noise and everything's happening all the
(34:44):
time and silence threatens that because this stuff dominates the
world, the landscape, doesn't it?
So when stuff starts to calm down, it's like, wait a minute,
something's wrong. Especially if you come from a
place of conflict where there's just tons and tons of conflict.
And that I'm not just talking about wars, although that's
(35:04):
something that's happening too over the last 30 years.
But you know, the internal conflict, conflict in
relationships, conflict in the family dynamic.
Pete's doesn't feel real, does it?
It feels fake. Well, it's like everything I
went through over the last eightyears.
Like one of the hardest things Iam still struggling with is
learning that everything feels peaceful.
(35:27):
Not only is that OK, but it's not going anywhere.
It's like that constant hyping myself up, waiting for the next
shoe to drop, something else to go awry in my life.
Yeah, yeah. Well, and, and so, so there,
there are some truths behind these shadows, things that we
must address and call out and have conversations with
(35:48):
ourselves about before we can integrate these right.
A dysregulated ego cannot anchorto anything because it has its
own agenda and that is to keep you safe.
It doesn't want stability in theway that we're talking about.
It wants stimulation. It wants to be active and to be
in charge of how we go about things, right?
(36:11):
And it seeks that intensity because intensity makes it feel
alive, because it doesn't see itself as being harmful.
After all, it was built into us to protect us.
It's almost like a rogue programthat that has 1 mission.
Keep Michael alive by all any and all means necessary, even if
(36:32):
I'm destroying him and breaking his bones to do it.
Well, it's, I mean, it's all learned patterns, right?
We learn how to show up in the way we learn how to manage
different situations. And yes, these parts have our
best intentions in mind, but that does not mean they have the
best strategies for the best life.
No, no, because because they have a split second to think
about it. What we're talking about is
(36:54):
preparing ourselves by practice and discipline to deal with
these things when they come. You know, we know a lot of this
stuff is going to happen to us because that's what human beings
are and that's what human beingsdo.
We are subject to these things. You're not going to find your
your peace and center and then the whole world leave you alone.
(37:15):
It's just not how it's going to work.
This is you were talking about. You talk about we, we must
practice these things. This is one of those things
where the world gives us plenty of chances to practice.
Now, having these shadows, whichby the way we all do light
always casts a shadow, doesn't disqualify you from becoming an
anchor. If you have these things, and
(37:37):
you probably do at least one, that's where you got to
practice. That's where you got to put your
put put more down and you got totrust yourself.
You know, one of my favorite exercises to do is like, find
someone you trust and have a hard conversation, something you
disagree about. Let those triggers come up, let
those responses kick in, and then learn how to manage
(37:58):
yourself with those responses coming online.
Get in your body and separate your mind from your body.
So let's talk about how we become an anchor for others,
because this is what happens when you learn to ground so well
that you become an anchor for yourself.
Again, this radiates outwards and this is where something
extraordinary starts to happen. You literally start affecting
(38:21):
the people around you. And we do anyway, chaotic or
not. But this is where you start to
affect people around you in waysthat you designed, in ways that
you practice, in ways that you built that strength up.
And it starts to happen in ways that almost seem effortless,
because this becomes your new habits, your new patterns, your
(38:43):
new being right? You know, so you know, I think.
Oh, go ahead, go ahead. I was just going to say, you
know, starting with it. I mean, just presence, giving
people your presence is one of the most powerful things you can
do. Being able to just hear what's
going on with them, being steadfast as you listen and
(39:06):
knowing what they're looking for.
Some people like one of the things when Allison's venting to
me is I'll ask her, do you want an ear?
Do you want advice or do you just want to get it out of your
system? You know, it's just like, or do
you want a distraction That was that the other one isn't.
It's just like learning social cues, right?
Because sometimes, more often than not, people don't want
(39:27):
advice. No, no, because they're still
trying to control what's happening, which is, I mean, it
is what it is, you know, not, not bad mouthing anybody here.
That's what we do. I mean, I fall into that
sometimes where I, I already have a plan and this, this
drives her crazy. I've already paused.
I've already breathed. I've already, I've already, I
(39:48):
already know what's going to happen next because I've already
decided what I'm going to do, right.
Regardless of what anybody else does, I'm going to do this,
right? And I'm just telling her because
it's not always fun talking to myself all the time.
But I'm just, I'm just telling you, this is what happened.
This is what I'm going to do. But to be an anchor, like you
(40:11):
said, is to be present. You don't have to lecture
everybody. You don't have to correct
everybody. You don't have to teach or guide
everybody, especially verbally, right?
Like you said, most of the time people don't need more
information. They just need somebody stable.
A safe spot to sit with to wherethey, they can start to go
through this. When you first met me many years
(40:33):
before you became my student, I never lectured you.
I never guided you, never taughtyou.
I just sat with you and we had conversations about whatever it
is we were talking about, you know, And then when you came to
me and said, can you mentor me on these things?
Yes, yes, I can. And then it becomes a different
dynamic. But I don't always always
(40:54):
lecture or correct or teach. Not very often.
You might teach whenever I ask for it, but especially like like
your favorite saying like you don't, you don't got opinions?
I don't, I don't have opinions. I don't.
I don't. And someone out there that knows
me probably said all that bullshit you do.
I I don't. When I speak, I'm speaking from
what I believe to be the truth and that's it.
(41:17):
That's it. I don't have opinions.
And that really, that really that really bugs people, man.
I don't. Know there's a couple times like
just give me your opinion, Dang it.
It's like, I don't got one man like.
I can't give you my opinion on this because I, I, I can't
possibly completely stand in your shoes and make the best
(41:39):
decision for you when people want, when people want someone's
opinion, especially in this kindof setting, they want them to
make the decision for them. And I'm not going to do that.
No, I need you to find your bestsolution.
I need you to find your best Ave. because it will not be the
same thing that I can do or willdo, right?
(42:02):
Goes back to the law of confusion.
You must discern that I am here for you to bounce the ball off
of until you come to a decision,if that's what I need to do
right, because people just simply feel safer around people
that are calm, truly calm, not masking, but truly calm.
(42:22):
That's why we breathe with each other sometimes, right?
For freaking out. Breathe with me.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, here, here, breathe with me.
And those first 25 breaths mightbe just all crazy, but man,
you'll hit a sink, you'll hit, you'll hit that synchronicity
and it'll just start breathing together like you're sharing the
same lungs. And that's right, your, your
(42:45):
regulated nervous system starts to regulate theirs.
Your groundedness becomes a stabilizing influence for them.
And you can change the emotionaltone of an entire room.
And you don't do this through force because, Michael, this is
something that you are or something you become.
You know, it's like, I think oneof the things my wife and I do
(43:06):
with one of us gets over stimulated or gets overwhelmed,
the other one will be there and just hold them in that space.
And that create like our Co regulation skills are just so on
point with that. Because often even if we're both
a little triggered, like if one's more triggered, which
usually is the case, it's like, all right, you need the space
more than I do right now here, let's work through this
(43:28):
together. It's all going to be OK.
And then sometimes I need the grounding.
It's like, but it's being able to have that Co regulation and
being around people you trust, which also ties into that lack
of control, right? Being able to trust people.
Because I think a lot of that avoidance stems from if I don't
show myself for how I truly feel, I don't have to worry
(43:49):
about being vulnerable or being hurt or being let down.
Right. And when you're in this kind of
environment we're talking about,I'm not going to make, I'm not
giving you opinions because I'm not going to make your decisions
for you. I'm not responsible for your
decisions. I'm not responsible for your
feelings and emotions, but when I can provide a place for you to
sit without judgement, sit whereit's calm, sit where we can
(44:14):
breathe, those solutions emerge just naturally because we're
starting to to, to push away thefog, because what we're doing is
we're together. We're we're coming back into
resonance with with the universe.
There's another axiom that kind of caps this You cannot always
(44:34):
use force against that which opposes you.
There are times when it is wise to endure opposition in favor of
a peaceful resolution, endure endurance that only comes
through pain and practice. Out of the word that came to
mind for me was resilience. Like resilience is done when you
are in the fire. It's being able to learn to
handle that stress, and it doesn't mean suppress, but it
(44:57):
means how to manage life when life gets hard.
Your piece becomes an unwritten permission slip for others to
respond, for others to find a new pathway emotionally, a new
reference point for them to now grow from there.
And and you're not always leading them with words unless
you are a teacher or a guide or a mentor.
(45:19):
And even then, you should be modeling the behavior more than
you are Speaking of what you're supposed to be doing.
You can. I mean, really, You're
demonstrating a truth before they really even can understand
the words. So let's talk about some
practical anchoring in everyday life.
Well, I think tying back into that nervous system, I mean just
(45:39):
learning how to breathe. I know we harp on breathing all
the time and you hear it and allthe all the different scenes out
there. But there is a reason it is so
powerful, you know, box breathing, the calming breath,
allowing yourself to regulate your nervous system, to bring
yourself down to baseline breathing is where you will find
that pause and where you will gain mastery over yourself.
(46:01):
Blood without oxygen isn't useless to us.
Breathing is everything without oxygen.
The blood has really nothing to carry.
That's why. That's why it is the center
point of every, literally every everything out there, every
scene, as you said, right? And this isn't just something we
do in deep meditation or during these really major crazy life
(46:23):
crisis is right. This is something that we do in
even the smallest moments of each moment of each day.
The quiet moments, the ordinary moments, the ones where our
choices shape everything in our life without even realizing it.
That's why it's important to integrate this into every
(46:46):
moment. Be the anchor.
So yes, pause before a breathe before speaking. 2nd is to
recognize the triggers. Notice when you're being pulled
into an emotional contagion. We'll call it, right?
You know, because we absorb eachother's emotions, we absorb each
(47:09):
other's energy, we absorb each other's stress.
If someone is super anxious, stressed, or they're just angry,
your energy may try to naturallymatch those there so you can
have a connection. We do this naturally.
Anchoring means recognizing whenthis pool, when this black hole
(47:29):
is trying to suck us into it andsaying, Nope, not going there.
I'll sit with you, but I'm not getting sucked into whatever
this is, right? We don't have to rise and fall
with people's waves. We just don't.
You can remain steady on your little tugboat.
Just now, sometimes it's good toassess the situation.
You know, someone's flaring up super angry.
(47:50):
There's no headway you're going to gain there.
Maybe it's best to disengage from this until the emotions
have calmed down. I will never forget I took a
class on having good arguments in a relationship.
And it's like after the heart rate gets past 99, like you
disengage from the conversation because no one's going to be
acting from a rational mind at that point.
(48:11):
No, their body is, but he's freaking out.
That's that's just Physiology that that skill has saved my
life more times than I can count.
Assessing, knowing when to step in and when not to step in,
which brings us to the next one.Intention and presence over
urgency. Because we want to act.
We want to go out and save the world.
(48:32):
We want to, you know, do all these things right now and we
got to solve all the problems right now.
But that, as you said, especially if you get your heart
rate up and your body starts to react as if it's everything is
urgent, you start leading to mistakes and misunderstandings
and then that creates unnecessary conflict.
We're now we're fighting for no reason because we got sucked
(48:55):
into that black hole. And again, anchoring invites us
to slow down, to pause, to breathe and move into deliberate
action and deliberate intention instead of panic.
You know, it's often in those moments we do want to, we want
everything to be OK right now, especially when everything is
going through the roof and it's just 5 minutes is not going to
(49:16):
hurt anybody more than likely. Yeah, it's not.
It's not. And even if it is, well, you do
what you got to do. And then you'd make sure you
give yourself that 5 or 10 minutes afterwards, immediately
afterwards to come back, come back to center.
This is why when you see first responders or soldiers or nurses
(49:38):
and doctors and whoever, when they react, they're reacting.
They're going to their lowest level of training and they fall
back to. That's why it's important for
them to train and train and train and train and train all
the time. Because even them, even the
people that literally their job is to react to the most horrible
crisis, they, their bodies, their minds start going into
(50:02):
crazy mode too. It's why it's important for them
to train for us in this atmosphere.
We say we fall back to our lowest level of what?
Healing. You know, that's why we must
continue to practice. What about grounding?
Physical grounding, when our mind starts to freak out, like,
you know, feet on the ground or or relaxing or unclenching our
(50:26):
hands, things like that. Well, I mean, I tell you what,
one of the greatest practices, Istarted meditating every day,
which I'm not saying meditate inthese high pressure moments,
that's going to be a little difficult.
But yeah, looking at the cues inyour body, when I first started
meditating, my first two minutesis to grounding, which is
checking my shoulders. They drop them.
Am I clenching my jaw? Am I, where am I tense, allowing
(50:49):
my body to relax? Because that's pulling me out of
that move ahead mode and gets meinto a place of stillness, a
place of calm. You know, allowing yourself room
to meditate throughout the day, not for these high intense
moments, but allowing meditationto be a part of your lifestyle
can help gain you so much power over your mind.
(51:12):
And it'll fight that cortisol and it'll fight that hidden
stress. It'll help you breathe better.
Remember, your body needs, needsair, needs oxygen and the bet
the better you breathe, the better your body feels.
There's lots of benefit now there.
There's there's no downside to that that I've seen unless
you're unless you're doing the wrong kinds of meditation that
(51:33):
you're not ready for yet, like, you know, kind of extreme void
meditations when you're dealing with a lot of PTSD or something.
You should not do those without,without somebody, you know, some
professional present. But there is no downside to
breathing. I promise you it literally keeps
you alive. If that's the, if that's the
only upside for you, then keep doing that.
(51:55):
It's good for you. There's something that every
officer is taught in what we call the force continuum, and
that's officer presence. There's a reason why that's the
most, the first, first and foremost thing, right?
Because we must allow our energyand our presence, our presence
(52:16):
to settle the room before we even speak, right?
It's a reason why that's the first thing, officer presence,
and then verbal commands and then hard commands and then so
on and so forth. OK?
Your presence must be able to befelt and seen before you ever
utter a word. Because I can tell you there
(52:38):
have been more than 100 times, probably way more than that,
when saying less was more powerful for me than even saying
the right thing. Just showing up, right?
It shifts. It shifts dynamics almost
instantly. And people respond.
And I mean people like everyone in that room responds to your
(53:02):
state long before it responds toanything you're saying.
Yeah, well, it's just, I mean, you can always say something
after the silence, but if you allow words to carry your
thoughts, your emotions in the heat of the moment, you can't
take that back. That's a very good point.
You cannot take that back. You might actually say, and I've
I've, I've said this to her. Gosh, I really wish I didn't say
(53:26):
that. I know I can't take it back, but
I'm really regretting saying that to you right now.
Right. That's beautiful.
That's perfect. Yeah.
That's you can't take that back.You can always show up
differently next time, but you. But once you say something
that's hurtful or that's out of pocket, it's there forever, man.
You know, they say everything's,you know, the Internet is
(53:47):
forever. Yeah, there was something before
the Internet that was forever too.
The things you said to someone you love and hurtful.
We didn't need the Internet for that.
No, we didn't. So do you have any final
thoughts for the for the show today?
One thing I love that you brought up in this conversation
is that this isn't something that's only for the select few.
(54:09):
Anyone can hit this point. Really think about that scale of
aggressive and passive and whereyou fall on it and the steps you
need to take to become more assertive.
Whether that's you need to learnto stop controlling so much or
allowing your anger to rule you,or you're letting fear control
you and you're not advocating for yourself.
Find balance within your life, but above all, don't make the
(54:31):
goal being right at the middle. Take the steps from where you're
at, wherever that's at. This isn't a race, this isn't a
comparison. This is just you showing up for
you and learning how to get to the top of the mountain by going
step by step and not jumping to the top because that's where you
will fail. Practice, practice, practice,
(54:52):
practice, practice. I knew you weren't going to let
me down today. You coined that.
I give you all the credit for that.
I'll take it. It's deserved.
It's deserved. I might have said it to you
before that we ever did a show, but you kept on.
You held on to it. Neil, I did learn it from you,
but yeah, I definitely took thatfrom you.
(55:13):
I may have made him say it a lotbecause it's important.
So the exercise we're going to do today, the still point
practice and the purpose is to start to train our mind and our
body and our spirit to become that stable, that stable center
of light, of stillness, of peacein chaotic environments which we
(55:36):
find ourselves in all the time, especially the ones we can't
escape from, the ones that are in here.
So as always, you guys know how much I love to put my hand in my
heart. I love it feels good.
First step is we're going to sitcomfortably and, and fix your
posture, right? Let's get a good posture.
(55:57):
No, no, no slouching here. Sit up and we're going to place
our hand over our heart. And on the inhale, we're going
to say I return. On the exhale, we're going to
say I anchor. And as you're breathing, as
you're breathing in saying I return and as you're exhaling, I
anchor. I want you to visualize a
(56:18):
beautiful bright column of lightaligning you and grounding you,
going right through the top of your head and down that perfect,
beautiful spine because you're sitting all upright and butt
comfortable, you know, don't break your bones here.
And I want you to bring to mind a person or situation that's
filled with turmoil, something you're dealing with in the
(56:39):
moment or lately without trying to fix anything.
I want you to radiate that light, that column of light
outward, and I want you to radiate it, its steadiness and
its consistency. And I want you to allow that
light to guide the field, guide the action, guide the intention,
(57:00):
guide your motivations, not yourmind.
We're not judging this because an anchor does not force change.
We invite, we allow, we get out of the way for things to
transform us, right? And then of course, every time
you do this exercise, I want youto write down what you
experienced. Keep that information handy
(57:21):
because as you do this practice more and more and more and more,
you'll start seeing a shift in how you start to think about
dealing with this stuff. Any extra tips and and tricks on
the exercise for today? No, that was good.
Our five affirmations for anchoring 5 exactly.
I don't know why I said 5, because we usually do 5.
(57:41):
Maybe 5 is the perfect number here. 5 1/2, five and a half.
I'm the calm center where light gathers and grows.
My presence creates stability for myself and others.
In chaos, I remain grounded in the living force.
I anchor myself in purpose, clarity, and peace.
My steadiness is a gift that shifts the energy of every room
(58:05):
I enter and are journaling prompts for this episode.
Where do I lose my center most easily and why?
What does anchoring feel like inmy body?
Who in my life benefits most when I am steady and grounded?
What beliefs or fears disrupt myability to become an anchor?
What daily practice can help me return to my inner steel point?
(58:26):
Hint, The exercise I just gave you, There's one.
There's one way. So look, you're not always going
to be the anchor all the time. It's not about perfection, it's
about showing up. It's about presence.
Presence over perfection, every time.
And it's never been about controlling the world around us.
It's never been about tighteningour grip or pushing and forcing
(58:47):
until we give out, or making everything, everything bend to
our will. You will bend to me because I
demand it, right? Anchoring is about alignment
with love and truth and integrity and connection and the
reverence for life, the sanctityof life.
It's about aligning with the light.
(59:08):
It's remembering that peace is not something that you chase.
It's something that you rememberand that returns to you and that
you return to. It's not something that you
discover or uncover you, something that you allow to
happen. It's there.
And when you study yourself, youstudy the world around you, your
presence becomes that quiet protection, that quiet place,
(59:32):
that place of stability. And not only just for your own
heart and your for your own good, for the hearts and, and
others connected to you, that presence becomes protection.
And that silence becomes guidance.
And that stillness becomes strength.
Those of us who are the anchor do not.
We're not resisting the storm. Storms happen whether we want
(59:53):
them to or not. We're the ones who remembers who
we are within it, the one who stands rooted in that truth, the
one who chooses clarity over chaos and awareness over
impulse, the truth over fear. This is what spiritual maturity
looks like. This is what emotionally mastery
looks like. It's what it feels like, and
(01:00:14):
this is what transformation becomes when it's lived instead
of forced. So this week, I invite you to
practice the Still point exercise at least once a day,
and you only need to spend a fewminutes on it.
But every time, even outside of that exercise, every time you
pause, every time you breathe before you speak, every time
that you do your best to show upmore calm, more stable, you
(01:00:41):
will, you will become the anchor.
Those muscles will get beefy, man.
You keep doing these practices and there's some things I want
you to notice and, and the things you'll start to notice
how your presence will transformconversations, how it will
actually transform the energy inyour relationships and the
people around you, how people will start responding
(01:01:02):
differently to you because of your calm and steadiness, right?
I want you to notice how your clarity creates space for others
to find their own anchors for them to become the anchor.
And I, and I just want to leave you with this.
Say the living light rise withinyou like a quiet sunrise, and
may your heart remain unmoved bythe winds that shaped the world.
(01:01:25):
And may your presence become a sanctuary for yourself and for
all those who cross your path. Thank you guys so much for
joining us. Please check out all our
socials, our Youtubes, our Tik Toks, Facebook's, our Spotify.
Well, you're listening on Spotify and of course our
website newashla.com. Best website ever.
(01:01:46):
Best website ever. So until next time, with love
and gratitude, add Luchum. Add luchum.
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