Beyond Figuring It Out

Episode Transcript
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Stephanie Allen (00:04):
In a world where we have everything and
it's still not enough, we'reoften left wondering, is this
really it?

Maren Oslac (00:10):
Deep inside you know, there's more to life. You
are ready to leave behind theold push your way through and
claim the deeper, moremeaningful life that's calling
you.

That's what we invite you to explore with us.
We're your hosts, StephanieAllen and

Maren Oslac, and this is The Soulful Leader
Podcast.

Yay! Hi! Welcome to The Soulful
Leader Podcast. This isStephanie, and I'm here with
Maren, and I'm trying to figurethings out. You ever feel like
that? You ever feel like in yourlife, you are just like, I can't
figure this out. I need help.
I'm puzzled.

If I could just figure this out, if I could just
figure that one thing out,right?

Or, you know, why does this hurt? If I could
just figure out why this hurts,I'd stop doing that.

If I could just figure out how to make enough
money, then I'd be good.

or have enough time.

I love the ones that are... if I could just
figure out how to make thatperson like me.

Like what am I doing wrong? We default to this
thing. And I guess, you know,we're talking about the figuring
it out. Because if you know, ifyou could have figured it out,
you would have already,

Yeah, we're smart people.

Yeah, we're in the future of our past.

Okay! Wait a minute...

Well, we are, you know, it's like, the
hindsight is 20/ 20, right? Youlook back in your time, it's
like, Oh, my God, if I knew now,you know, and then, and take
that back into my past, Iwouldn't, I wouldn't have done
X, Y or Z.

So that's what you mean. You're in the future of
your past. Look back and look atyour past, right?

Right, and I can look back and see myself in
my past and going, yeah, but ifI could have figured it out, you
know, I would have. Andsometimes things show up for us
that are seemingly just notrational, like, how did this
happen? You know, we might callthem coincidences, or we might
call them synchronicities orserendipity, or all these

(02:11):
different things. But what ifyou know, because it alludes our
figuring it out mind, so what'sreally happening? What's really
going on? I used to struggle alot with migraines... alot. I
would have a migraine every,pretty much every week, and I
would be out for a day. And Ialways say, you know, if you
ever had the experience ofmigraines, and they're really,

(02:34):
really horrific, you have onefull horrific day, or two full
horrific days, and then once youstart to come out of that
migraine, then you have a day ofhangover of just like, man, I'm
just wiped out. And I relatethat to the figuring it out. I
used to have this visual of,like, you know, those little
gnomes that they put on thefront lawns. And I always felt

(02:57):
like someone had just piledriven me into the ground, and I
was stuck and all I could havewas my little head was sticking
out, and I was like... oh myGod, if I could just figure out
how to get out of this bind. AndI really, truly believe that
that is what migraines, or atleast that's what mine were. It
was brain confusion, like I waskind of stuck in it, in the

(03:20):
ground, or in the muck and themire, and my head was trying to
figure it out, to get out of it,and it couldn't. And so I would
beat myself up about it. I wouldbe really hard on myself. We're
talking about this because Ithink we're at a place in
humanity where there's a lot ofsocial systems and a lot of
things that are crashing andburning and not going the way

(03:43):
that we thought they would go.
We might feel like we're out ofcontrol, and we're trying to
figure out a new way.

So I'm gonna, you know, kind of pause you there,
because one of the things thatboth you and I are aware of and
that we want to share is thatthere is something beyond
figuring it out. Yes, which mayseem really strange, because our
current culture epitomizesrational and rationality. When I

(04:16):
say it epitomizes it, it's like,that's the top of the totem pole
when you've gotten to that high,rational achiever place, you've
arrived, right? And I canappreciate that, because it
traditionally, if you're notrational, you're irrational. And

(04:38):
we all know what it's like todeal with somebody who's
irrational, including ourselves,right? So what we're bringing to
the table today is somethingthat is considered
'transrational' When I talk topeople about this, I tell them
that there are many, manysmarter people than I am out

(04:58):
there who have shown that ashuman beings, our evolution is
not, and does not end at highrational, at this rational
place. That there's something,there are actually many layers
beyond it. So if for those ofyou are like, hmm... you can go
look up somebody named KenWilber or Claire Graves, and

(05:21):
they have some beautiful systemsthat they have done a lot of
work on showing that there arestages beyond this rational
thinking that are transrational.
So when I say beyond therational thinking, it's not
letting go of the rationalthinking and becoming
irrational. It's to transcendand include. So it's

(05:44):
understanding. In having that,you have to get to that rational
place, and then there'ssomething beyond it. Before we
came on, you had mentioned thequote....Einstein?

Yeah, so Einstein would say, you know,
when we create a problem, youcannot solve that problem on the
same level that created thatproblem. You have to transcend
it. You have to go to a higherlevel of thinking or being or
understand awareness,understanding you need to

(06:23):
transcend that. It's like beingon the ground level of
something, and you can't reallysee the big picture until you go
up a few floors, or you get in ahelicopter or an airplane, and
you look at it from a higherview, then you can see, oh,
that's where the traffic's allgetting clogged up. I get it.
This is what's needed. But wecan't stay on the ground and
make changes in that. We have tolet go. I have another saying.

(06:48):
You can't steal second base withyour foot on first you have to
let go of where you're at now.
You have to step out and intothe unknown if you want to, to
transcend and include where weare. I mean, there's just so
many things that we could start.
And as a therapist, I'm prettydarn sure... I haven't really
done, you know, experiments inthis. But this is my own

(07:12):
personal experience of 30 yearsof doing this is and even with
myself, that when there is painor suffering in one's body or in
one's mind or heart or soul,it's often because we're on an
edge. We literally have reachedthe pinnacle of that rational
and we now need to transcend it.
We need to go to a new place tohave a look at it from a
different place.

That's what you're talking about with your
headaches, like you're buttingup against that edge of... you
know, in society, society says,well... figure that out...use
your head, you know, do all therational stuff. And there was
something that was calling youto a higher level of awareness,
the transrational, like, what'sbeyond the rational? And there

(07:54):
actually is something beyond it.
Imagine that?

Imagine that.
And I think, as a culture, whatwe think is that's what
meditation is. Like, we'resupposed to just sit there and
figure it out. But that's notmeditation. And I think when
people say, well, I can't Imeditate. I can't sit still, my
mind's going crazy. It's goingall over this place, you know.
And it's like, yeah, that's therational. That's the rational

(08:18):
that you are now transcending bybeing aware of it, if that makes
some sort of sense, but it'slike where you're not sitting
there trying to figure somethingout, you actually are sitting
there being present to the mind,the monkey mind, going
everywhere and witnessing it,but not attaching to it. And
those are hard concepts toreally, to really, you know...

...so this may help. I think of meditation as a
tool to allow me to quiet thatrational mind that wants to talk
about everything and figureeverything out and that I've
given so much power to that I'mlike, all right, you're in
charge, because you're thehighest level that I've ever

(09:05):
achieved, right? And so if Iwant to go beyond that, I can
use a tool like meditation tohelp me to be present to, like
you said, what's beyond that. Sonow this is the word you just
used, the witness of like,there's a part of you when, when
you notice that your mind won'tshut up...who's the you that

(09:30):
noticed that?

Oh, that's brilliant. Exactly. Who is that
Who is that? (laughter) Who isthat you that is seeing out?
you?
This is what Rumi says...whosees with my eyes or speaks with
words with my mouth or hearswith my ears? Like, who is that,
right? Yeah, who just said thator just said that. Did I say
that out loud? You know? Like,well, who was that? There's all

(09:54):
these parts of us, and I thinkit's fascinating, because I
think the hardest part oftransrationalizing (that's what
it is.) But like, you know, tobasically to, I want to say, let
go of figuring it out, almostlike unlearning it, right?

You know, we do need to let it go. And when I
say, let it go. So I'm going touse a simple example. We
learned, you know, addition andsubtraction, and then we let
that go because we knew it. Andwe learned multiplication and
division. We didn't loseaddition and subtraction because

(10:38):
we let it go. We already knowit. You know how to be rational,
and starting to understandthat's just a part of who you
are.
There IS a time andplace for it. And then when you
let that go to develop theskills and this other part of
you, then you learn where therational fits. Because right

(10:59):
now, it's everything.

And there is a time and place for it.
When I thinkit's letting go of the
attachment to it, the identityright, of saying that is just
who I am, and I feel like thatmight be the part that people
struggle with in meditation, isthat they are going to have to
let go of that identity of therational so that they can step

(11:24):
out of that and it'll allowthemselves to be a witness to
what wants to happen.

So let me ask you this, if somebody is able to do
that, why? What's the benefit?
Why bother?

That is such a great question. Well, I'm gonna
go right back to the migrainesthat I had, right? Like, I'm
sorry, but if anybody's ever hadmigraines, like, don't you want
to, like, let that shit go?
Like, seriously, right? It's sopainful, and I'm using that
because I have experience with

Because you haven't been there yet. It takes me back
that, with myself. But there'sother things that are painful,
whether it's, you know,difficult relationships or
financial problems, or justconstantly reacting to traffic,
or, like being reactive to allkinds of things that are coming
up. It's like, what would lifebe like if you didn't react.
That you didn't come up againstan obstacle and try to force

(12:15):
your way through it? What if youwhat if you had another option?
That's what I'm meaning abouttransrational. Because the
rational was, use your head justbarrel through and get it done
and make it happen, you're notdoing enough, all those things.
If you could actually haveanother option, what would that
be like for you and to know thatthe other option actually not

(12:36):
only will take you to the placethat you want to go, but
actually to a place that's evenbetter, that you can't even
imagine because you haven't beenthere yet.
to the Einstein quote and ourworld, the world that we're in
right now, which has so manyissues and so many problems, and

(12:57):
they seem like they're gettingworse and worse. It is asking us
to step up and beyond, becausethe problems that we've created
have come from our rationalthinking, our rational minds,
and we're brilliant, and if wecould have figured it out, we

(13:18):
would have. And so it's almostlike the world itself is asking
us to step up and do go to thenext level, because if we don't,
we're going to stay in the same,you know, muck and mire that
we're in right now, and it'spretty crappy.

And not only is it crappy for ourselves is that,
you know, we tend to pull otherpeople into it. So that's that
old saying of hurt people hurtpeople. We don't do it
intentionally, but we're hurtingourselves, and we don't realize
that hurting ourselves is alsohurting those that we love and
around us and the planet... allthose different levels. And so
what if there was another way?
And there is and what would itrequire within me is to let go

(14:03):
of who I think I am, so that Ican become who I'm meant to
become. Because there issomething like I said before...
I am the future of my past.
Well, there is a future of me.
I'm in the past of my futureright now too. There is a future
calling me, andhopefully...hopefully, I am
tuning into a future that ismuch more beautiful and evolved

(14:26):
than the one I'm at now. And notto say that the one I'm at now
isn't great, but I feel like asan evolution of a human being is
that we're meant to keeptranscending where we're at, not
from a high, rational achieverkind of thing of like, goal
setting, and got to have this,and got to have that, not
consumerism. I'm not talkingabout that. It's just that we

(14:46):
become more refined. We becomemore deep, more deeper. We
become, you know, more refinedand more beautiful inside.
That's my dream, or my visionfor that and I I know there's a
future Stephanie out there thatis actually probably leaving me

(15:09):
breadcrumbs, like Hansel andGretel, of the fairy tale that's
leaving me little, AHA's alongthe way, and I need to find a
way. So when you said what's theother benefit of having a
practice, whether it'smeditation or whatever your
practices are, to be able tostill one's mind, to let go of
who you think you are, it's sothat you can, you can capture

(15:31):
those little breadcrumbs,because those breadcrumbs are
going to lead you to a magical,mystical, wonderful world that
lifts you up, which empowers youto lift others from that place
too. Because we don't walk onthese paths alone.

We don't and I'm going to bring science into
this, because oftentimes when wehear that, that magical world
and right, it becomes kind ofWooWoo. And the cool thing about
Woo is that science is backingit up. So when we're talking
about that, there's somethingbeyond the rational, quantum

(16:06):
physics is showing thateverything exists all at once,
past, present and future. Well,that's not rational, right?

Yeah..that my brain can't even capture that.

Correct. And the fact that we have the same cells
in our brain, we have some ofthose exact same cells, both in
our heart and in our gut,there's a reason for that. We're
not meant to...there's a greatsir Ken Robinson that has got a
great YouTube video where hetalks about the epitome of life

(16:48):
is the professor, because, butthey walk around and they're
everything is their heads areeverything is up and to the left
because their heads are soheavy, because they've worked so
hard on following their brainson the left side. On the left
side, that's the rational right.
And while I said, like I said,it's important, it's not
everything though, we are fullbodied human beings. We have

(17:11):
bodies. We have a right side.
And like I said, the cells,there are cells, the cells that
exist in our brain that are ourthinking cells. We have exactly
the same cells also in ourhearts, in our guts. And so
again, we're looking at sciencethat is showing us that we don't

(17:32):
actually live in a rationalworld. It's transrational. So
it's our duty. I feel like it'sour duty to, for those of us
that can even grasp this, it'sour duty to step up and go,
okay, I don't really understandit and what it means, and how do

(17:53):
I go there?

Where do I begin? Where do I begin?

And so for those of you that are listening, we have
we actually do this. We've got a12 days of Christmas that we do,
which is an ancient mysticalpractice. Our teacher, Daniel
Goodenough had introduced us toit probably 20 years ago or
more, and we do it every year.
And so it's presencing thefuture that wants to happen,

(18:21):
because each of the 12 days ofChristmas relates to a month of
the following year. And soyou're actually being present,
and you're going completelytransrational here, because this
is not like you can't figure outwhat's going to happen in
January, February, March, April.
You can set goals.

It's playful.
It's playful. The right side ofour brain is actually the
creative side. And just like SirKen Robinson, most of the
education system doesn't developthe right side of the brain.
It's working primarily on theleft side, the logical, linear
part of the world, the doer,instead of the receptive part of

(19:04):
being able to presence thosebreadcrumbs to Hansel and
Gretel... like to home. So whatif there was a way... which
there has been a mysticalpractice of the 12 Days of
Christmas that we are actuallygoing to call the 12 days of
presence, and whether you spellit with a -T or an -ENCE, it's
up to you. It's the 12 days ofpresence to allow you to really

(19:26):
capture what wants to happen,what your future self has laid
down as possibilities in yourupcoming year. And it's
delightful and fun and playful.
And I know the first time I didit like Maren has been saying,
we've probably been doing thisfor close to 20 years, it's
taken me a long time to do the12 days, because I don't know
about you, but I have not reallybeen encouraged to play. And so

(19:48):
it's like a muscle that needs tobe developed. And so I find it
such a beautiful way to learnhow to develop that playful
joyful, creative part ofyourself.

Yeah, that's so true. I'm just kind of struck by
that I hadn't thought about itfrom the playful part and how
much we "should" ourselves, youknow, I mean, because both you
and I have talked about this inthe past, where, you know, for
the first few years, we would doa couple of days, or maybe get
through six days and not do therest of them. And there's that,

(20:24):
oh, I should have, and we wouldshould on ourselves. And I
hadn't actually considered itfrom a place of that I hadn't
developed the muscle of beingplayful, of allowing myself to
just explore and be imaginaryand say, hmm, I don't know, what
did I notice today?

That's so cool.
And for those of you who arekind of at that age of
considering retirement, which,whatever that might mean to you.
But I think of what,traditionally, what many people
are thinking of retirementslike.. okay, I've worked for,
you know, 25- 30 years. It'stime for me to play now and
enjoy my life. And I have adifferent presencing of that of

(21:04):
like, what if your life could beplayful no matter what, whether
you're at work or at home,there's not that separation and
that when you are ready totranscend your work life that
you have already have built thatmuscle to really be receptive,
to be playful and joyful withyour life and those you love.

(21:25):
And to me, that's what thispractice is.

And one of the things that we started last
year, and when it went overreally well, was that we did a
year long mastermind that tookthe presencing that we did
through those 12 because, Imean, it's new material. It's
kind of outside the box. It'sit's not just kind of outside of

(21:52):
it is.

It is outside the box, right? And it's going
to stretch your right brain.

It stretches your right brain...

in a safe and playful way.

So we work with that throughout the entire year.
So we've got a 2025, mastermind.
It is open now. It's called theco creation circle, because
we're literally co-creating ourlives with life itself, which is
a really, again, outside the boxconcept. And if you're one of
those people that'sready...that's like, I don't
know what that means, and that'sinteresting. Like, what I find

(22:24):
for myself is my body leans in.
I'm like, oh, I've leaned in.
Why have I leaned in? I don'tknow, because my brain doesn't
get it. I've started to learn totrust my body. Of like, oh, I've
leaned in. There's somethingthere for me. If there's
something there for you. Give usa contact. You know, call us or
find us on Facebook or LinkedInor whatever, and, you know, ask

(22:45):
us about it. Let's get on a calland we'll talk about it.

Yeah, and if you want to have more joy and
play in your life and you needsome help to give yourself
permission to do so, theco-creation circle is totally
that and it will uplift you. AndI love playing with other people
who are on that same kind ofoutside of that box wavelength
is that it's a safe place.

It's a totally different way of transforming
your life and doing, you know,the whole new year's resolutions
and goal setting and blah blahblah of that stuff that we're so
tired of. If you're tired of itand you really do want to change
things, I invite you to join us.
You can find information aboutit, because I know there are
people are like, okay, you'vetalked about it. How do I find

(23:29):
information on it? It's on ourwebsite www.tslp.life which
stands for The Soulful LeaderProject, because we stand for
life. Or you can just contactus, poke at us, we always like
to hear from you guys.

You can let figuring go and welcome play in.
So one of the new things that weare doing now is that we are
inviting you all to ask usquestions that we are going to
integrate into our podcast. So Iknow I've talked to a few of you
out there that have had somereally good insights for me to

(24:11):
say, hey, I really loved whatyou talked about, but I don't
quite understand this. Or canyou say this another different
way, so that I can, I can applyit in my life, and I love those
things. So what Maren and I aretalking about doing now, and
what we're going to be doingmoving forward, is that when you
send us the questions, we areactually going to put those into

(24:32):
a lovely newsletter with likekind of questions and answers
and practices and and littledelight things for you all to
deepen what we have just talkedabout, so that you really,
really feel like you areconnected because you are.
You're so connected to us and wewant to help and serve in the
best possible ways that you can,you can understand as we realize

(24:53):
that sometimes, you know, Marenand I get talking into our own
language, and yeah, you know,it's like when you were a kid
and you had Pig Latin, right?
Sometimes it can sound like piglatin and so we would love to be
able to talk your language too.
So please tell us what that is,and we'd be delighted to unpack
it with you.

Yeah. So if you have a question, like, as you
were listening to this podcastand you thought, what does that
mean? Or you were going to golook something up on Google, go
look it up, and also poke at usabout it, because if you have
the question, somebody else doestoo... excellent! So we'll talk
to you guys all in two weeks andmake sure that you're on our

(25:33):
email list, so that you get ouremail in between the podcasts.
Thanks for listening.

And that wraps up another episode of The
Soulful Leader Podcast with yourhosts, Stephanie Allen

and Maren Oslac.
Thank you for listening. Ifyou'd like to dive deeper, head
over to our website, at TheSoulful Leader Podcast.com

Until next time...

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