The University of Life
The University of Life podcast has become my personal collection of fascinating learnings from the people I meet and experiences I have as I explore life and journey deeper in to the space of business mentoring & life coaching.
The University of Life
The University of Life & Anna Marie Kramer
What if the “safe” life is the very thing keeping your nervous system on high alert?
In this episode, I sit down with Annie, a somatic practitioner, breathwork guide, and unapologetic wild soul, to explore how chasing safety, performing for approval, and suppressing truth can trap stress in the body that words alone can’t release.
Annie calls trauma what it often is, incomplete stress cycles lodged in the breath, the muscles, and the fascia. The way through isn’t more mindset work, it’s sensation, sound, and movement. The practices that help the body finish what it started.
She shares the rupture that changed everything, being publicly shamed during Covid, losing her studio, and falling into a darkness that mindset work couldn’t touch. Her healing began through somatic practice, shaking, breathing, expressing, and with one deep inhale, she felt hope return.
From there, we dive into the essential polarity of growth, safety and freedom.
How to build safety in the body so your soul can lead.
How to create structures that protect your “yes.”
And how choosing the moment, rather than resisting it, can dissolve stuckness faster than analysis ever will.
We also explore plant medicine, nourishment, and energetic hygiene, how food affects frequency, how numbing can serve for a season, and how true healing is about coming back to feeling.
Annie doesn’t give advice, she asks better questions. The kind that guide you back to your own knowing. Because the thread that runs through it all is worth:
Wealth follows worth. Love follows worth. Breath follows worth.
When you feel deserving of space, you take it.
When you feel deserving of freedom, you build for it.
If you’ve “got it all” but still feel off, start with the body. Shake. Sigh. Stamp. Breathe. Let clarity find you.
If this conversation moved something in you, follow and subscribe for more grounded, body-led talks. Share it with a friend who’s ready to stop performing, and if it resonated, leave a review and tell us where your body says yes next.
If ever you'd like to connect, please don't hesitate to connect via my website www.jamiewhite.com.
I am always open to feedback, reflections, guest / subject recommendations and anything else that might come up.
Thank you for listening, Jamie x
So Anne-Marie, I have this vision of talking to you, right? And in the middle of it, you're like, Jamie, this is my husband, ex-husband, this is my partner. And and as I'm looking at you, remembering that you're kind of walking up barefoot, you've got this badass energy about you. And for me, you just embody this really free spirit. And your work obviously in breath work and somatics and helping people really release trauma. I always think that like the best types are almost their own best uh brand ambassador. And you really embody that for me. So I want to talk into that over this podcast. Is that cool? Everything is open. Lovely. Well, welcome to the University of Life. So for me, I I yeah, I I I just felt there's like from that moment of first meeting you, I was like, wow, this woman is fascinating. I want to learn everything about her. And uh and so maybe this is a bit of an excuse in that regard. But how do you even introduce yourself now?
SPEAKER_00:That's a good question. I go by AMK, Anne-Marie or Annie, whatever, but it's all about returning back to the wild soul that I feel so many of us have lost, and we're conditioned to be on the straight and narrow. And it's just no fun in the straight and narrow. And that my life is about adventure and fun.
SPEAKER_02:So you have to tell me what is this wild soul then? How have you set yourself free?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I've always been a wild soul, but my parents wouldn't let me. You know, I was always too much. You're too loud, you're too expressive, you're too this, and you have to go to college, you have to get straight A's, you can't take art. Everything was college prep. Be smarter, be smarter. And I did that. I was like, okay, I'll do that. And I got all the successes, the you know, the million-dollar home, all the things. Then I woke up, I was like, wow, I'm not happy. And it took me to Burning Man. I went to Burning Man, and I and my daughter was two years old. And I went to Burning Man. I was like, oh wait, how come nobody told me you could live like this? I was like, wait a minute. You know, you can be naked free and doing whatever you want and have a good time without hurting anyone else, and everyone else is accepting and embracing your kink, your freak. And I was like, this is the way to live. And in Burning Man, they we always say Burning Man's the real world, and then this is the default world, the matrix. And so we take up whatever we learned in Burning Man back into the real world. And that same year, I I went, it was my first trip to Bali. So I went to Burning Man in Bali in the same year.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And then from there on out, I was like, I am on a mission to domesticate, undomesticate people.
SPEAKER_02:I I have to kind of rewind you there. Cause what I hear is like you were like, yeah, I was always a wild spirit, a free spirit. And I kind of think a lot of people times when people go on the journey, it's like, oh, you've changed. That's like, actually, for me, my kind of interpretation is no, you've come home, you've stopped the performance. And what I kind of get from you, from what you were sharing, is like you were like, look, I kind of did what I thought I was meant to do, and certainly what everybody was telling me to do. And I found myself in a relationship and I found myself in the fancy home, but it just didn't feel right. And then I'm I'm I'm I'm amazed how you go from that into Burning Man, but it feels like it's almost like a baptize baptism in the burn. And you go there, you see all these people kind of living the way you thought you couldn't, and that in itself gives you massive permission then to come home to yourself, right, and set yourself free.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I think people are waiting for permission.
SPEAKER_02:I always, yeah. I always think in every conversation, if you share a vulnerability and a truth, you give permission to the other person to set themselves free. If you fake, if you put on performance, if you dress yourself up different to how you are, indirectly you lock the other person up. You kind of feel you give the feeling that they should be there. I get a lot of that off social media. Like it's hard not to feel you're not where you want to be when you're looking at everybody's glamorous lies there. And I think it plays out almost in every moment throughout the day, you're either setting people free or locking them up.
SPEAKER_00:I like that.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, so that's why I kind of shared that moment when I met you. I was like, Who is this woman? I love the barefoot, I love the unique fashion, I love the way you talk, the way you express yourself, and even like relational status. Like it was quite a thing to sit at a table where on one side that you're like, Oh yeah, here's my husband or ex-husband, yeah, and then boyfriend. And I was like, this is cool. And there wasn't even a flinch on your side. There wasn't even, you know, the way sometimes when people will share, I let you in a little bit, you can see there's a nervousness, whereas there was no nervousness on your side. You were like, Oh yeah, this is me. Welcome.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you can have as many as you want. We are I was swimming in the ocean with my daughter last night, and uh I I can't remember what we were talking about. Oh my daughter asked my friend if she likes boys or girls, and or my friend asked my daughter if she likes boys or girls, and my daughter said boys, and I said, and sometimes girls, and Moxie's like, no, and I was like, you can like anyone you want. Like when you like both, you there's way more opportunity, you have way more access, you know, if you like both. And so we were talking about open sexuality in the middle of swimming in the ocean with my 10-year-old. And I just think those are beautiful moments where I'm not caging her in, you know, letting her by my own expression, by my own, saying, like, you can love whoever you want, you can play with whoever you want. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Trillion like when you shared that, what comes up for me is I'm like, I'm six, I'm seven, I'm eight, I'm running around a playground with my friends. And I remember one of the bigger insults you could say to somebody is, ooh, you're gay. And I didn't even know what gay was at that stage. Yeah. But I was like, oh my God, geez, whatever that is, I don't want to be that. And then there was a later moment, I remember fear in younger years of like, you know, quiet moments with myself where I'm like, I I hope I'm not gay. Like, because wow, you know, like the judgment, the fear. Yeah. And I I I think it's it's a really it's a really sad thing when like you don't even have the space to actually figure out who you are. You're there's such a kind of a a an imprinted idea of who you should be.
SPEAKER_00:Or what's right or what's wrong. You learn those rules real early of what you can be and what you can't be by the other people's reactions. You know, before the age seven, we're in hypnosis. All of our programming is before the age of seven. All our rules, all of our constructs are patterned in the deep parts of the brain before age seven, and we're not even aware of it because we're just hypnotic. We're in the state of flow, right? Or in those ages.
SPEAKER_02:So this is like there's quite there's quite a lot on this. And I I think it can always be quite confronting as well for somebody who's in the middle of the journey hearing this. I I I'm really curious, like when you reflect back, because you talked about it, I was at a free spirit at heart, but I found myself doing what everybody what so many others do, you know, following the beaten path, doing what everybody or what I thought everybody expected of me. When was the moment that you like like was there a particular moment that you can reflect back on and be like, wait, this is not working? This is this is not feeling right for me.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's happened many times in my life where I I I think one of the things I'm really lucky is I'm connected to soul and I'm connected to some sort of God consciousness even before I was even aware of it, where I have to do something and I don't understand why I have to do it, but I have to do it. You know, I worked in corporate America, I worked for pharmaceutical companies for seven years in in Cleveland, Ohio. I was married to a doctor. I was that was another really good life, you know. Married to a doctor in pharmaceutical sales, making hella money. Like, you know, bought my own home at 24 years old, like all those things. And I just woke up one day and I'm like, this isn't it. I have to move, I have to quit my job and move to California and open yoga studios. And everyone's like, what? You have a pension, you you know, the Midwest mentality, which is you get a good job, you stay. And I just I just had to. It wasn't it was a new choice. I didn't care about the money. I was like, this is what I have to do. And I think that's one of the things I feel lucky about is my soul always pulls me forward, even though it means usually I have to go through some fucking deep shit and some turbulent times, but I I still push through. So I think I've I've just always been connected in that way that I know that there's a bigger purpose for me in life, and I adjust that.
SPEAKER_02:There's a part of me thinking that our feeling that everyone has this voice.
SPEAKER_00:100%.
SPEAKER_02:And I I kind of feel like, you know, like your area is trauma, and I obviously from that there's real disease. And for me, I think that like we all have this voice, this voice that's calling up to bring us into greater alignment, to bring us more truth, more authenticity. Some of us follow it, and by the sounds of it, you follow it. And I love what you shared. It was like, no, Jamie, it wasn't just one moment, it's continuous moments. I still have them. And that's your god-like consciousness inside of you, guiding you on your way. Well, the real issue comes, I suppose, when we don't listen to that, when we perhaps put a bit a bigger weight on what the neighbors will think, what our community will think are our safety. You know, oh, it's it's it's dangerous to leave the pension and go into the unknown. You better sit stay safe. But that safety is at a betrayal of your heart and voice. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00:But we're afraid, we've been conditioned to be afraid. You know, and the more fear we have, the more we the safe we stay. Because we have to, you know, the first chakra is safety and belonging. And if we don't feel safe and we don't feel like we belong, we can't expand. But the problem is, is when we give up our authenticity to belong to another group, we never truly belong because we don't belong to ourself. Right. So we we have to come into that inner line. We have to have safety within the body in order to create freedom. Because the first chakra is safety and the the highest chakra is freedom. So we're always working in between those two polarities of being safe and being free. But you can't have one without the other. That like internal safety, not the safety from the outside, which is what most people look for. Right? I'll be safe if I have enough money in the bank. I'll be safe if I have this guy in my life, I'll be safe if I have a pension plan and I can don't have to worry about retirement. But there's never there's there is that safety outside doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So sorry, what I'm hearing is that the greater the weight you put on safety and external factors, in actual fact, the more uh caged you are. But the more insecure you are as well, because it's all outsourced. It's not coming from a place within. And so in actual fact, those are almost like distractions. They're societally impressed upon us. It's like it's a good thing to have money in the bank, to have the partner by your side, to have the home. And they are all nice compliments, but if they come before you've discovered and established that inner safety just within yourself, they perhaps distract you from establishing that. And you might find yourself having all of that, but not feeling safe. An actual fact of feeling ungrounded.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that that is so true. And I remember before I had kids, like I I was way more of a free spirit before I had kids because I'm like, I can sleep on somebody's couch. Like I'll like I'll figure it out. Like I've always been good at making money. That's one of my resources, is like I just make money. It's like easy for me. But then I had kids, all of a sudden I was afraid. Because like, wait a minute, it's not just me I have to take care of. I got two little people that I have to take care of. And then my I lost my sense of safety again. And it was all about making more money, making more money, making more money to make sure everyone in the family was safe. And then I lost my freedom again because I was so scared of losing what I had. But guess what happened? I lost everything that I had, you know. So the universe always likes to, you know, mess with you and and give your soul a little run for its money or wake you up. And and everything turned out even better than I thought.
SPEAKER_02:And this voice inside speaks up again and guides you on your way.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I it's actually quite simple. I think a lot of us we overcomplicate like our life's journey, our life's purpose. And it's like it's pretty simple. It's just like, why don't you just listen to the voice? Why don't you have a little bit of faith and trust that whatever that's calling for will make sense in time? It might not make sense in the moment. It might actually seem like the complete worst thing to be doing. But trust.
SPEAKER_00:But they can't, though. When there's so much trauma in the body and so much stress and so much fear, they're living in their prefrontal cortex, the thinking mind. And the thinking mind's job is to keep us safe. That's it. Its job, keep her safe. It doesn't matter. It's like if you get up in the morning, have three cups of coffee at Starbucks, go to work in a cubicle, you know, fluorescent lights for eight, 10, 12 hours a day, come home, sling back three glasses of wine, watch Netflix, and you wake up in the next morning and do the same. The ego's like, oh, thank God, he's safe. He didn't venture out, so we know he's safe. And that's what the ego's mind does. But it's when we're safe, we can never expand. When we're safe in the mind, we can never expand. It's safety in the body.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. I need to pull you back. Okay. Because there's so much in what you shared. And I love that, like somebody in your space, you're like, you'll throw out so much. And and and it it can all it can be a lot to take in. So can I actually ask you just from the very get-go, how do you even define trauma?
SPEAKER_00:Trauma is uh the word, I wish I really would love a new word for it because it's really not a big deal. Trauma is just survival stress stored in the body. So what that means is we are animals and we've forgotten our animal nature. We have been so domesticated, we've been so put into boxes. We we are so far away from nature that we don't even we go out into nature and like, oh, I need to connect with nature. We forget that we're fucking nature. Like we actually are like we will, I like I want to be buried in the ground, you know, like not in a box. I want to be with with the worms, I want the mushrooms to eat me, you know. Anyway, so we we we are so far away from that that we have forgotten how to release stress out of the body. Like we don't like animals naturally shake, animals naturally yawn. They actually dogs bark, cats you ever hear wild cats make noises? You're like, what is that? Birds sing, they never think twice about expressing themselves. They just that's part of who they are. They're they're in their body. But humans, we feel stress, then what do we do? We hold our breath and we tighten our body and we swallow it down. So every time we do that, we create different neuropeptides that get stored in the body. Neuropeptides don't know the difference between one year and three decades. So every time we soar survival stress and we don't release it by shaking it, by running away from it, you know, the four uh responses to stress fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. When we freeze and fawn, every time we swallow it down, we don't complete the stress cycle.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:When we don't complete the stress cycle, that's trauma. Period. It could be for something so simple that doesn't even seem like anything to a parent because of the kid trauma.
SPEAKER_02:So even so simple as say I'm saying I'm on a date and I'm trying to impress somebody and I I trip up. But in that moment, I'm like, nothing happened. I'm all cool. And I hold that stress in my body, and I don't give it the reaction which was like, whoa, that was a lot, and I shake myself off. I don't do that which would release the stress accumulated in that moment, but instead I like try to pretend like nothing happened. I store that bit of stress, and that becomes a little bit of a weight, and that actually starts to take away from my energetic capacity because it takes a level of energy to hold that stress in the body. Yeah. And if I repeat that a hundred times over, suddenly I'm waking up tired. I don't have the energy that I did, and I'm wondering why I feel so heavy. Exactly. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:You know this stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, no, no, but it's it's it's making it simple. And yeah, the key thing, like when you said the word, I think when somebody hears trauma, they think something big.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and it can be, you know, but the thing is is big things can happen to people and they don't have trauma. I mean, let's just take I hate to use this example, but it's always the one that always comes to me. Someone um has sex against their will. Yeah. One person, they may carry that the rest of their life, and they're like, I am a victim of sexual abuse. And they carry that, and and everything in their filtered life is defined by that. Someone else may go, like, oh, I wasn't in my power. I'm gonna release that, I'm gonna let that go, and I'm gonna come back to my power and become powerful for that. And that moment doesn't define their life. It's just something that happened and they've moved on. Or someone else who stores that and just holds onto it and just holds that thing in their hand and their body are defined by it their whole life.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I think that's sometimes where where people where something may have happened in any aspect of life, but they hold on to it, they hold it dear, and that actually starts to define them. It's so I kind of you talked about this like shaking off, learning to release, and it's almost a part of us that we need to not just release kind of the events that happened, perhaps the challenging events, but also it's like I think it's a very important part of like just letting go of everything, letting go of even some of the good things that we pain ourselves to, because if we're holding on to them, we're not leaving space for something new to come, and we suffer, and we we we anchor ourselves to that past imprint as well. Um, so yeah, I kind of think that there's wisdom sometimes when we take something and we look at it in reverse, and we're all the time looking at, well, how do we release all this bad or all this challenge or this disease? But I think actually a big part of it as well is letting go of some of the good stuff too, because we kind of need to make space for for more. Would that be fair to say?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you think about it, we're born naked with nothing. We die the same way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And everything on life is just an attachment, right? We won't leave here with anything.
SPEAKER_02:It's quite a it's quite a piece of work. So your work is literally meeting people where they're at and helping them lighten their load, uh helping them understand perhaps how they accumulated so much stress, so much disease, so much fatigue, and so much disease as a result. And little by little helping them one stop taking on as much as they are, and then two, release some of which of what they've accumulated, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, through the body, not the mind. Bypass the mind.
SPEAKER_02:How do you mean uh tell me more about that?
SPEAKER_00:Ah, come on, like I mean, how many years of mindset work did you do? So much, so much. No, I get it.
SPEAKER_02:I mean like I'm starting to get it. I'm like, I'm starting to to do a practice that's huge for me, which is I recognize for me, I want to understand everything, I want to think through things, I want to, I want to yeah, think and analyze. And I understand that I have my processing mind, which thinks through things, but I have a whole other operating system in my body, which is to feel. And and and what I recognize is that if I zone in on my body, and if I, for example, say touch my body, I notice that I feel it more. And as I feel this more, I can actually sense my body moving from this operating system in my mind to my body, and as I do this, I'm actually recognizing that as I switch off, it gives this up an opportunity to calm itself right down. It's almost as if I'm doing this, and the more I'm tuning into feeling my body, I can actually feel the stress start to filter out of my head. It's like an engine just winding down, going, mmm. Yeah, and it's huge, it's huge. It's uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, how many people say they live in their head?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And you know, we talked about God consciousness, the soul speaks through the body. So the body is the the gateway to everything.
SPEAKER_02:That's a funny one for me that I didn't quite appreciate like when it came to meditating. And like it was to get out of your mind and to make space for something internal to speak up all the more. But I didn't quite appreciate that the more I'm in my mind, it shuts this down. It shuts off my gut instinct too. It shuts off my feeling, my inner knowing. Yeah. And so there was a huge part of me that wanted to be so smart and in my head, and what I didn't realize was I was actually undermining so many other aspects of my capacity. Um that's a whole part of your work too.
SPEAKER_00:The wisdom of the body, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Where did it start? Like what I always think there's a definitive moment that when we reflect back on, it's like, oh, that's probably what pointed me in the direction that I'm in now. What was it for you?
SPEAKER_00:I've always been into movement, you know. I've always I have a degree in exercise physiology, so I studied all the science behind exercise and wanted to be fit because my parents were not healthy, and I was like, Well, I don't want to end up like that. And as you know, I had three yoga studios in California, and when COVID hit, I uh didn't stand on the right side of the political, uh, political and COVID. I didn't really believe what was happening. Yeah. Funny enough, and I I could I like literally like I couldn't. I couldn't. I was like, this is fucking bullshit. Like I just in mo the first moment I was like, I call bullshit. Does anyone else call bullshit? And everyone was like, you're not taking this serious, you know, whatever. And uh I was like, okay, am I wrong? But my everything in my gut said this is bullshit.
SPEAKER_02:You know one second. Have all the like the the vaccine lover come like you should be wearing masks, people have they actually come full circle yet and started apologizing?
SPEAKER_00:No, they can't, and you have to understand that they can't because remember, fear. Well, we we were all craving safety in that's because there was so much unknown. Like people are so afraid of the unknown. Most people can't live in the unknown. And to me, that's where the magic happens. It's also scary as fuck sometimes, but it's where the magic happens. So those people can't. And then they can never ever like it's hard for people to go back and and and actually justify what they did, you know. Like they can't.
SPEAKER_02:There was so much bullying justified at that time. There's so much segregation uh justified at that time, and so much authority. I was amazed by people that in my life, certainly, that have had no emphasis on their health, suddenly were geniuses.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And for me, I'd probably spent the prior 10, 15 years very centered in my own health and well-being. And I was being lectured by people that it's not their special.
SPEAKER_00:Well, my big funny thing was when they were like, trust the science. I'm like, bitch, I work for pharma for seven years. Let me tell you about how the science works in pharma. I wouldn't trust it. Let's just say that it's bought and paid for. Like I was behind the scenes seeing, telling, selling things to doctors by the studies that were complete bullshit, you know? Watched it all go down. So when people say trust the science, it's such a propaganda, it's propaganda. Anyway, back to the story. So I called bullshit, and I had a wellness studio, and I was very shocked at how many people in the wellness studio became went to the other side, you know, that were like, you need to social distance, you need to get the vaccine, you did it. And I was like, really? Like, really shocked. And I just couldn't. And and I was backpacking in the woods because every full moon during COVID, I would take women out into some desolation wilderness, and we would do mushrooms under the full moon in the middle of nowhere. It was like the funnest times. Yeah. It was really, really fun. So I came out and hadn't had cell servers for three days because I'm in the middle of you know Lake Tahoe. And my friend's like, Did you see your Instagram? I was like, No, what? And so I was canceled on Instagram. Like everyone was coming after me because I didn't put a black square up for Black Lives Matters. Shame on you. I know I'm such a racist. I'm a racist. Yeah. And then they all came after me, like, you're a grandmother killer, you're a white supremacist, you're a racist, and you're not following COVID guidelines. And literally, the woman that I worked with for this what this one's this is the one that hurts the most, and the one I have I've forgiven, and my heart still hurts over it. You know, as a girl that I worked with for 12 straight years, my my ride or die, instead of calling me, she quit on social media. Like, I will no longer be part of Zuda Yoga because, you know, they're not standing on the right side of history, and I will not be longer associated with that organization. And when that happened, like everyone just the chips started to fall, and my organization just went and people were coming after me. And and I think normally I don't really care what people think, like like me or not. I'd rather you not like me and me live myself, be myself, than pretend. So I always had that in my yoga studio, like, this is what we do, and if you like it, great. If you don't, there's another yoga studio, like this is what we do. I'm not changing for you. I appreciate your feedback, but we have a thing going here. But at that time, my safety was pulled out from underneath me because I grew up very, very poor, and I was like, I will never be poor. And I created this multi-million dollar business, and all of a sudden my income was gone. And so that safety, that fear that was so deep in me of scarcity of like, oh my God, you know, was taken from me and I fell. I like I literally went into the darkest times of my life. I closed my business, sold my house, ate suitcases, took my random randomly, literally randomly, which sounds romantic, but it was like the most devastating thing in my life. And that's how I found the somatic practice because I was doing my meditation, I was doing yoga, and I was doing even some breath work, and I wanted to kill myself. I was going to vipassana, like thinking for three straight days, like how I could commit suicide. You know, like I was in that deep of despair. And when I found the somatic practice, I thought it was the strangest, weirdest thing. I would never ever do it again. I was like, oh my God, this is so weird. But in the moments after that practice, when I was lying in integration in Shivasana, I had this like like that breath of hope, like that feeling of hope came back in my body. I was like, what is this? Like, I haven't felt good in two years. And all of a sudden, something was lighting up inside of me, like all that darkness, there was like a flicker of candle. And so I started just doing more and more of those practices. And I realized that wow, I was fucking holding this in my body. Like my body was sick. And what the more I would shed, the more I would release, the more I would scream and rage and all those feelings that I stuffed down, the better I felt. And that's how I came into becoming a somatic practitioner.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. So in my example before where I said, like, you know, you'll you'll hold a level of stress in you. As you start to multiply all that space, it makes complete sense that you can't breathe as deep anymore. And that moment that you shared where it's suddenly like, oh, yeah. Breathe again as you release some of the stress accumulating your body. I've heard that that moment, I've experienced it once or twice too, as well. And it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01:It's like, oh wow.
SPEAKER_02:I had I had actually settled in this out of sorts state, and now I remember I've come back to that deeper breath, that lighter body.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Because I think that's one of the more interesting things about us as humans. We settle very quickly, we forget what we had, we give away our freedom internally and externally. Like that moment that you talked about. I remember it obviously with COVID, and we were all we were all meant to be showing up a certain way, and and we were meant to do the right thing for society. And if we didn't, how self-centered and selfish we were. And then only a couple of months later, it was Black Lives Matters, and it was completely okay for a bunch of absolute terrorists to be running around burning half of America, and we should be backing them. That they're doing a great job, and this is fantastic for the civil rights movement. It's just like what is going on? And then there was the Me Too movement. And if you were a man, you were privileged and a pig. I remember I held a door open for a woman, and she looked at me and she was like, You're such a man. Ugh. I was like, Okay, so chivalry is dead, but I still have doors open. Thank you. I didn't put a black mark up on my my Instagram, but it was so hard. It was it was like it's mad that I know there are friends in my life who I love, they're really lovely people. They haven't talked to me since one or two, kind of contrary contrary to the kind of public narrative posts I put up around COVID. I don't think there's anybody that held anything against me for not putting up a black square, but that was definitely more passionate in America.
SPEAKER_00:And I was like, And I was a leader, but I was the leader because I had a yoga studio, you know. You can be a CrossFit person, people give no fucks about what you do. You get a fucking whoever you want, you have a DUI, but if you're a yoga teacher, that's that was such bullshit, you know.
SPEAKER_02:That projected responsibility of you, you you're in a position of authority, you have a couple of thousand followers, you need to educate yourself. I remember actually somebody did send me loads of books and said you need to read these books.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I had I started doing that at my studio. Like we were starting to educate ourselves on this whole whatever was happening, and I was like, I was crawling out of my skin. I'm like, well, this is such fucking bullshit. Like, why are we talking diversity instead of talking unity?
SPEAKER_02:I know. It's this weird idea of um of segregation. Yeah. And it's under under the guise of like understanding, and it's like, wait, one second, we're focusing on all the these like obscure differences when there's so many collective norms here and there's so many things that can bring us together. Why are we thinking that divisiveness is something that should be encouraged?
SPEAKER_00:It's it's crazy because kids don't think that way. Like my kids are here in Bali and they go to school with people from all over the world, and I'll say, Oh, like who's where's that kid from? And they're like, I don't know. Like, they don't even care. Like, this is like I know there's just a kid where I'm playing with, like, they care where they're from, what color, they don't care at all. I they don't, they have not, my kids have not learned that.
SPEAKER_02:There was a beautiful moment. I remember I was in a in a sauna here in Bali, which is kind of like the social place, it's almost like the equivalent of an Irish pub back then.
SPEAKER_01:That's true.
SPEAKER_02:But I remember asking, just like, guys, what nationalities are there? And there was out of 22, 23 people, there's 20 different nationalities. And then I remember in COVID, like, I'd ask all the different nationalities. I was like, How is your country telling you? Every country was being told different things about it, different norms, different understandings, even like, even sitting in In front of a bunch of Russian friends and a bunch of Ukrainian friends and be like, guys, talk to us about the war. What's actually happening here? Amazing how how quickly I realized the news that, like, how what and what we're being taught is actually very, very different to what a lot of people are experiencing on the ground in their local countries. And it really, in a very lovely way, it helps me pull back. It helped me disconnect. And I know so many people are like, no, no, you you need to be in the middle of this. But if you I kind of felt like I was a bit a pinboil, sorry, a pinball machine, being misled from one misunderstanding to the next to the next, and being completely overwhelmed and confused. And the only piece I could find was withdrawing and just being like, Do you know what? I'm actually just going to concentrate my energy on showing up as best as I can.
SPEAKER_00:And for the people around us, because we, you know, most of us are not Mother Teresa. There are Mother Teresa's out there that that's their calling. And I 100% that we the only place we can make it different is the 15 people that we surround ourselves with, the hundred people we surround ourselves with.
SPEAKER_02:I think that's a really interesting one for me because I think a lot of people will carry a crazy burden of like, I want to make an impact on the world. I I I need purpose. What's my purpose? And if only it certainly from my belief, my understanding is that if only people realize how much just their own true authenticity is purposeful and how unbelievably impacting and inspiring it is to just live in your truth. Um and be kind. Yeah. That's it. That's be kind. So I I have to ask you kind of because what I'm kind of getting the impression the impression of is that every time you swallow a mistruth, every time you're out of your truth, um you are essentially accumulating stress in the body, which is so subtle in its in the individuality that it goes unnoticed until it starts to accumulate. And by the time it starts to really accumulate, that weight where you can't breathe as much, that fatigue as a result, is settled upon. And it can be very hard for people to remember how they used to live before and how they can journey back. And you've obviously gone on a hell of a personal journey in that regard, and you help people now. What is the like the how do you help people? One realize they're really not where they should be, and two, how to journey back.
SPEAKER_00:I feel it's through the body, and it it sounds so simple, but just getting people just to like literally shake and make sound and do breath work, they come in one way and they leave like whoa, just so much lighter. That's you're putting the sandbags down from the body because trauma feels like sandbags, it's heaviness, you know, it's like heart grief that you haven't dealt with.
SPEAKER_02:So sorry, that that first bit. So, in terms of understanding the feeling, it's like if you're feeling heavy, if you're feeling fatigued, if you're feeling out of sorts, as much as you think, oh, I might have flu or I might need to go to a doctor or something, actually, what you're what I'm kind of hearing you saying is are you could just look in the mirror and you could practice moving a little bit, you could practice breathing that little bit deeper, and that's kind of the start. The one, the realization, and then two, the simplicity at which you can start to move this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because the body can heal itself. The body has an intel our body has an intelligence that our prefrontal cortex cannot even comprehend.
SPEAKER_02:Do you think that's something that we're purposefully almost misled on? Like I I I I fully believe this too. I a lot of the time when I'm working with clients, I'm like, stop setting these big goals because you actually have no idea what's possible for you. And if you just show up as best as you can day by day, I'm a big believer in like this 1% daily method, just little improvements daily, you will end up in a world far beyond whatever you could imagine for yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, don't limit yourself to goals. That's silly.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Follow I'm a follow-the yeses kind of girl. Like if it's a like if my body says yes, I'm doing it. If my body says no, I'm not doing it. Because, you know, we think we make decisions with the mind, but we make them with the body every time. And then we go back and reason why we make that decision.
SPEAKER_02:So what your practice is really suggesting is it's like, look, you're so much more wise than you know, you're so much more capable than you know. It doesn't need to be overcomplicated. And perhaps if you're taking in external medicines or supplements, you are complicating the process. But in the most natural sense, if you can actually just feel that you're out of sorts, the healing will kick into gear. And if you want to complement your healing, it's movement, it's breath work. And that's going to do a hell of a lot to point you in the right direction. And at that point, perhaps that and medicine work.
SPEAKER_00:I'm a big believer in plant medicines, you know, for people who need to get do some serious work. I really think that's a great starting tool. I think it's misused a lot and people don't integrate and they don't actually do the work. It just shows you where you need to do the work. But I do think that some people can really benefit from plant medicine.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you talked about mushrooms. So the image you gave of like in the middle of COVID. So my memory of COVID was like a lot of work had stopped, a lot of building had stopped. And when you said like under a full moon in the forest, I was like, oh my God, the sky must have been incredible. Oh, wait. If ever there was a setting.
SPEAKER_00:Wait. Lake Tahoe. I don't know if you've ever been to Lake Tahoe, but Lake Tahoe is like the third deepest alpine lake in the world. And so in the summertime, there are boats everywhere. It's really beautiful snow capped mountains behind. Well, because COVID has shut down the lake, and my girlfriend had a private dock on this lake. We sat on this dock with not a single sound of anything. And we're sitting there on mushrooms, and everyone's like, Where's the moon? Where is it coming? You know, we're all a little bit high. And then all of a sudden, the moon rises again from behind the mountains. Everyone's like, whoa. It was like so dramatic because there was nothing else besides this beautiful blue alpine lake, snow-covered mountains, and this moon rising. It was one of the most magical moments of my entire life. Like I'll never ever forget that moment of seeing nature in its glory, just like, here I am, you know.
SPEAKER_02:So you said a lot of plant medicine is misused. But you were like, look, I'm a big advocate of plant medicine. And in actual fact, like when we're talking about trauma, when we're talking about releasing trauma and reconnecting back with our true selves, plant medicines can be really impacting. What do you mean by that? Like what plant medicine are you talking about? I like them all. Me too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I think all for different reasons. I mean, yeah, I think that for me, when I when people say they want to do plant medicine, it's I feel it's a calling and yet you answer the call. Like I never would say you should do this. I I might say, have you heard of this? And you know, some people when they hear of something and it's a yes for them, they'll find they'll find it and it will it will come true. It will it'll work itself out. But I never really push anything on anyone because I always feel like that's just something that people need to be called to do and let them find their own journey in that.
SPEAKER_02:It's quite an interesting thing that I do feel every plant medicine has its space. Um for me, uh I remember the first time I smoked a joint, and at that time I was going through extraordinary stress, but stress I really wasn't aware of. And in that literally that first inhale, it and you talked about sandbags, it's like literally some angel came over my shoulders and took those weights off. And for what the next hour or two, I was just like, oh my god, I can breathe again and I can actually float a little bit. I was just so tied up in work and stress and the dis-ease from that that I actually just didn't know any better anymore. And it woke like that joint in that regard woke me up to like, hey, you can experience different here. And and I I'm a big believer, it's like that that for me is their their prods. I think the overindulgence, like the excessive use, I think that's a I that doesn't work for me. But the reminders of like, hey, this this isn't your norm, and actually this can be your norm, make you make your way back. Is you have to do the work, you know.
SPEAKER_00:That's when the work begins, that's when the breath work, the shaking, the meditation, whatever your whatever your modality is.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it's similar as well with like you know, it's similar again with mushrooms. Mushrooms were this big calling home of like, dude, you're way out of sorts. Like, yeah, you're way out of sorts. You talked about this inner voice that comes up, and I think when you suppress it for too much, it just goes. When you don't listen to it, it stops speaking up. But certainly, my first experience with mushrooms was like that voice roared back up again to be like, you've been ignoring me. Here's all the ways you're completely out of sorts, and if you want your path home, this is the direction to go. It's quite fascinating, like really, really fascinating. And so, what what I'm kind of interpreting from you is like, look, if you're as aware to feel that you're out of sorts, begin your journey, dip into your breath work, dip into your movement. But perhaps if actually you're so lost and so out of sorts that you're you're disconnected and there isn't that inner voice that's giving you a level of guidance, perhaps the good conscious use of plant medicines can be really, really prompting. So it's there's a subtle uh a subtle.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, some people need that. Yeah, you know some people are so disconnected that they that even breath work they won't let go. You know, I mean I work with people from all over the world and I can I can't tell you how many people come from north north like uh what is it like Germany, uh Poland, like women that come from those areas, they're like, Oh, I was gonna cry, but I just couldn't, so I just stopped breathing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I am really curious about me as an Irishman. Like, because oftentimes when you're in the middle of things, you can't quite appreciate how things are. You know, you're you're normalized by your community, uh your environment.
SPEAKER_00:But you guys have spiritual people, yeah. You guys have some things going on in your country where I think it's so cool. Like I'm going there soon. I have a lot, I work with a lot of Irish people again lately. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Do you see any norms or any trends in us?
SPEAKER_00:Um, I think you're hungry to go back to your roots.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like there's I don't know much about the spirituality in Ireland, but I do know that you have some deep, deep roots that I think are coming back and that you guys are waking up to and remembering.
SPEAKER_02:There's deep magic in us as a people, but there's a kind of there's almost a story to it. I'm not too sure how factual it is, but for me, it's my belief. Um, they say St. Patrick in Ireland, he converted the pagan king at the time away from magical ways into Catholicism. And he he did it on the Hill of Taro, which was like our our pagan center. And and St. Patrick is said to have rid Ireland from the snakes, the snakes being symbolic of magic. So it's quite an odd thing, and I think it's quite a sad thing that we celebrate St. Patrick. And St. Patrick is this guy that actually cut us off from our magical ways and our ancestral ways in that regard and and banished our magic. Um, but at that time, the magic never went. It was just hidden, and it was hidden in the women of Ireland. And I I love that because women, Irish women are magical, like they have this instinctual knowing, they have this kind of capacity that's never what I think is interesting is it's never on the surface. Uh, but if you scratch beneath the surface, if you have a bit of a deeper chat, everyone has a little bit of magic in them. And that's what I that's what I really love about Ireland that like you that there's the surface, and the but if you scratch beneath the surface, the magic's there. And in actual fact, there's a huge depth to it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I feel I feel that. And I I don't know why the Irish people are coming to me right now. Like it just seems interesting, you know.
SPEAKER_02:I always like, why is that?
SPEAKER_00:You know?
SPEAKER_02:And what you're sharing is that really it's a hunger to come back to their roots. It's a hunger to connect more with that magic to remember.
SPEAKER_00:To remember.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, because we all have that magic. Everybody, every almost every culture had magic until control kick over. The medicine women, the witches, you know, that were burned at the stake because of their knowledge.
SPEAKER_02:So, yeah, I I kind of poked at it a little bit there, but the idea that we're disconnected from our magic. We're disconnected from our wisdom, that we're more powerful than we know, but we're led to believe that we're actually a little bit more one-dimensional than we actually are. We're led to believe that we need others more than we actually do.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, we do need others though.
SPEAKER_02:Sorry, a like a dependency.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I know I get the like the benefits of community, absolutely. But like as in in problem solving and sorting things out, that we're less independent than we actually are.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, people want advice all the time. And I train myself and I train my coaches. You never give people advice, you always just lead them back to themselves. Because if I give you advice, that's just my story on top of yours. It's never ever objective. It's with my own past and my own traumas and my own hurts that I'm going to tell you what to do. So I never give advice.
SPEAKER_02:So when you're working with people, then what does that look like?
SPEAKER_00:They ask the question, what does that mean for you?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And like, what do you think about that? Like, this is for you to decide. Like, I can't, I can't, I can't help you with that. Like, I can only help you come back to you. And I think that's that's what I do for people is I don't write them a plan. I just get them back in their body, and then they're like, oh, I know what to do.
SPEAKER_02:So you talked about like on your journey journey to here in Bali, when really you felt almost this level of, let's say, betrayal from your community. And and so much so that you were considering suicide. And in the midst of that, you discovered a practice that served you so well. And so really what you're doing is you're saying, hey, look, this worked really well for me. It might what work well for you. It helped me come to terms with my trauma. It helped me relieve some of that stress from my body. It helped me reconnect with myself. Perhaps it might do the same for you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's just another tool. And everybody has their own, everyone has their own journey. But when the body says yes, you move towards that one, whatever one that is for you. Whether it be yoga, meditation, martial arts is great, you know, any anything that gets you in your body, any embodiment practice. I really shy away from telling people to go to the gym anymore, even though I'm a gym rat. I've been a gym rat my whole life, and I do it much less now than I used to. Because people, it's very easy for people to get on a treadmill with their headphones on, looking at a screen and running and being so disconnected. Think about how disconnected people are when they're working out. They're just just zoned out and they're they're just moving their body blind. Like that is the opposite of embodiment. So, especially people who are trying to find themselves again and more qigong, tai chi, any martial art, any yoga practice that gets you in your body. So when things come up, you feel it. Because most people have it's uncomfortable to feel things. And if we've never been allowed to feel things, it's like, wait a minute, what is that? Just like those women I would say, like, I felt like I was gonna cry, so I stopped breathing. Because whatever they've been suppressing for so long is so scary to them.
SPEAKER_02:That's right, not just that, but if you're in your body, you're out of your head, and if you're out of your head, you're giving your head a space to calm down, and that's what people might just might note around the meditative effect of exercise. You get to switch your head off for a little while, you get to relieve your head and it gets to catch up with itself, gives it a rest. And in the more you tune into your body, the more conscious you are in your body, the more you're giving space to feel and energy to that voice that might guide you on your way. And that that voice is your Christ consciousness or your inner guidance system.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, think of how many fit like fitness coaches coach people on body alignment and all this bullshit that's been made up. Like everybody is different. Big controversial situation. I know. Like, look at us like if I told you to like move the way I do, like, you know, that's not what your body has a different way of expressing itself.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting. That's one of the things I find quite challenging about Instagram is that so many people will share, this is the three-step solution that you need to know for life. And it's like, no, that's your three-step solution that works for your life. Disclaimer, it doesn't necessarily work for everybody's life. It may be worth trialing and experimenting with, but I find like oftentimes with the younger types that come to me, they're like, I just want the cheat sheet for life. What are the bullet points? What do I need to do? And it's very hard to say, no, everything that's out there is to take it with a pinch of salt and to take inspiration from. But actually, what it's really all about is you finding your own way, you finding your own path. And what is like I I that line, like get your body back into alignment. What's alignment physically for one body is perhaps that bit different for another body and another body, and what it's really about is just coming back into alignment for yourself rather than this universal ideal.
SPEAKER_00:Is that right? I would that that's my philosophy. Okay, your path is your path, and you gotta walk it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um I have a like a I have a very cliche podcast question, and I promised you I wouldn't ask these on this, but I have to ask you. I have this image of you, and like you are you at the very start of the podcast, you were like, I'm a free spirit. And then you said, Well, you weren't for your for earlier years. Now you are. I would say you're like a beast, like as a brand ambassador, as a free spirit. If you got an opportunity to go back and chat to yourself, and not around the triggering period of let's say COVID, a year before that, because I think that's the space that a lot of people find them in uh find may find themselves in now and listening to this podcast. They're like, hey, like I've done all the right things. Life is technically on paper pretty good, but there's something feeling a little bit off. If you got to talk to yourself in that position right now for where you are, what would the conversation look like?
SPEAKER_00:To trust everything. Oh, this is what this is what I've been really into lately. Whatever's happening in your life, choose it.
SPEAKER_02:So not to be questioning the shit out of it, not to be challenging it, but actually just roll with it.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Choose it. Whatever's happening, choose it with my like my my kids, you know. My like I can't make them change. And when my daughter's having a rough day, I don't want to deal. Like I don't want to deal with it because I'm already dealing with my own shit. But in that moment, I have to choose it. Like I'm choosing to get to her level, I'm choosing to be with her in this struggle versus give her an iPad and walk away. Well, you know what I'm saying? Like whatever, like it, or like being mad about it or frustrated, like whatever's happening in your life, choose it.
SPEAKER_02:Sorry, sorry. Yeah, to pull you back to one of the things you said earlier, you were like, I'm really in this yes space. I'm choosing life. And in that example that you gave with regards to your daughter, where you talked about like a friend asking, Do you like boys? And you were like, Oh, well, you could also like girls as well. There's this openness. There's like a, hey, you don't need to choose a certain path. There's actually an openness to whatever path is chosen. And so, yeah, because I feel we talked about kind of the different things that accumulate stress in your body, and one of them was this idea of like when you swallow a truth. But the other one that we didn't bring up is when you start resisting life and you you try to like resist the things that are coming your way. And I I'm a big believer that like if you try to resist things that are coming your way, they only start to get louder and heavier and more damaging. And if you only just went with them in their initial sense, life would have been all the easier. So I'm kind of feeling that that's a yeah, that's a big part of your practice too, is like cut the resistance out. Don't build up the stress as a result of that. And actually, life is easier when you just flow. Ah, it's about engaging with flow.
SPEAKER_00:Be the flow. We don't we don't go with the flow, we are the flow because we are the pulse of the universe.
SPEAKER_02:There was an interview I did a bit a little bit recently, and she it was a woman called Katie, and she talked about that idea that you know some people think life happens to them, the victims. Then people think that life happens for them, and that serves them to a point. And then, but another dimension beyond that is that life happens with them. It's a co-creation.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I never heard that. I love that.
SPEAKER_02:But you actually just spoke exactly to that point.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's true. I believe that. Do you ever see Avatar? Yeah. I I I it used to be a homework in my teacher trainings for yoga. Like we watched Avatar and we could find the eight-limb path, we'd find all the yoga principles, and then one second.
SPEAKER_02:Please tell me you did not encourage them to watch Avatar 2. I did not.
SPEAKER_00:There was an alpha. So much garbage. I know, really disappointing because I waited so long for that. It was like the same thing, but in bloop in the water. Anyway, but I always remember that time where they take their hair and they tie into the tree of life. Do you remember that? And that to me is when we top into God consciousness. We hear the whispers of everything and we understand that everything is possible. You know, like it's all a frequency. And when we tune into a different frequency, just like a radio channel. You know, if we tune into country, we listen to country, but that doesn't mean classical is not happening at the same time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's all happening at once. Like there is, you know, we are you're we're co-creating with, and then if we open our frequency up by releasing all the heavy shit, open our frequency up, then we can tune into a different channel.
SPEAKER_02:That's what I felt you when you gave that note of like we are nature. Oftentimes most of us have forgotten about it. But we recognize, we feel good when we're walking through nature in a wild forest. Swimming in the ocean. And I kind of think if you want to really accelerate that, it's like, well, try taking some mushrooms in nature.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's the best. You can see the stars all connected, and you're like, you can't deny it. It's amazing. Yeah. Trees breathing.
SPEAKER_02:And there's a lot of times people will say, Oh, I had this epiphany-like moment. It's like, yeah, because you remembered who you were and you connected not just to your individual sense but yourself, but to nature as a whole. And there's huge wisdom in that. And what I took from that scene in Avatar, which I thought was really true, is like when they're cutting down trees, they're cutting out connection, they're cutting out wisdom that unfortunately to an uh to a naive eye is just unseen. But to anybody that's experienced that magic, you're like, oh, what are you doing? Like, what what are you doing? There's so much more here.
SPEAKER_00:Um Do you know plants can know that when you're coming home from two kilometers away?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think that's fascinating.
SPEAKER_00:It's crazy to me.
SPEAKER_02:Like, it's absolutely fascinating. I love that like more recently they've captured the heartbeat of the earth.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I don't know about this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that they've they've satellite scanned the earth and they realize the heartbeats is there's a heartbeat of the earth that beats every 26 seconds. Duh. I mean, it doesn't I mean it's not surprising. And there's a community in forests. So forests will look after each other. And if a forest is if a tree is suffering, the other far the other trees will support it.
SPEAKER_00:I used to, when I live in California, and this is one thing I miss more than I can't even tell you. I used to do mushrooms and go mo uh go snowboarding in the mountains and listen to music. Like it was my favorite. It would be like me and God hanging out for the whole day on the mountains with the crystals, you know, those snowflakes would become crystals. And then every time I'd be on the ski lift, like all the different trees, I could tell you which was the grandfather tree and which ones were the babies and which you could literally see it. It was like my favorite thing ever.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. It's quite an interesting guy. Have you ever heard of Alberto Valaldo?
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so he is a uh neurologist and a he studies shamanism, and he spent the last uh 25, 30 years in South and Central America studying kind of shamanic understandings and wisdom. And what he found was like this really interesting understanding where different tribes in the jungle would have this knowledge of the various plants that would solve certain ailments. And as he went from, you know, separated tribe to separated tribe, they all knew what plants to go to for what ailments without any kind of you know, without any microscopes, without any kind of idea. Not YouTube. And uh when he when he connected with all the different shamans, they all said, Oh yeah, the plants told us. We connected with the plants and they told us. I I I I loved that he he has a book, it's called Grow a New Body by Alberto. Grow in your body, grow a new body. And it it's all about essentially that there's certain foods that will disconnect you from nature, and there's other foods that will connect you all the more with nature, and not just nature, but that wider knowledge instinct and uh and knowing, and and so it's all about re-engineering your your uh your diet to suit and complement that. And one of the key things you keep going to the brain is with to cleanse the hippocampus, which allows your openness to new ideas and new ways of doing things.
SPEAKER_00:What do you eat for that?
SPEAKER_02:Oh god, it was a very vegan-based diet. And to be completely honest, I'm what kind of carnivore y, so it didn't quite align with my diet. Um, but I I did, I try I tried it. Like for me, when it comes to diet, I I don't kind of subscribe to one ideology when it comes to diet. I think that there's different diets for different things. So, like if I'm having a bad day, the burger and chips and pizza is great because it numbs you, it helps you just move through.
SPEAKER_00:Can we just say it's okay to numb out by the way? Some people are like, oh, never numb out. And I just like I'm glad that you're like, Yeah, I numb out with that because we need we need that.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, I think the term like toxic coping mechanisms, you know, coping mechanisms, they get a kind of a toxic insinuation, but in actual fact, like you use them for a reason and they worked. It's just you've overused them, and perhaps there's what the toxicity is.
SPEAKER_00:But like, well, this is where the spirituality is like I never touch a drop of alcohol, I don't do anything. I'm like, you're boring, you know. Like that's and I I I bet you're lying, actually, because we need to escape sometimes, and you know, use it by rather than it use you is fine. I don't know. No, I I think people need permission to know like sometimes it's okay to smoke a joint.
SPEAKER_02:And I think the one-dimensional nature of, let's say, for example, say somebody who's only vegan. There's a lot of vegans with like superiority complex, which is just nonsense when you look into the roots of it. But vegan diet's great for being light. And a vegan, like for me, if I want to tap into that inner connection, a vegan diet's fantastic for me, but sometimes that gets a little bit mad, and sometimes I feel a little bit crazy, in which case a carnivore diet, a more meat-heavy diet, is very grounding. Yeah, I found I found myself much more grounded, clear thinking, focused, um, confident. Um, and then, for example, think if life gets completely on top and I have a really, really bad day, it's like, oh, now's a day for now's a day for a bold meal because it numbs, yeah, gets me to tomorrow. And generally speaking, I feel light. So I feel like our diet, when we understand it, can be very complementary to where we're at in life. And to subscribe solely to one is to cut yourself off from so much benefit in so many other areas.
SPEAKER_00:Um there's so many things that are very singular, you know, like do this, do that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, it's like you said, like what I heard from what you just shared there about alcohol, it's like, you know, when you're drinking every day, not great, but if you're having a drink every so often, it's gonna be fantastic. And to be fair, if you get if you overindulge, chances are you're gonna learn some hard lessons. And those hard lessons will stand to you then for going forward. So there's I I I love what I'm really taking from you is this like just own where you're at and and lean in. And and perhaps don't be second guessing and thinking there's a better route. Actually, if you just own the route that you're on, there's an enormous amount of wisdom to take from it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and have fun. It's too short. Life's too short not to have fun along the way. So it's a cosmic joke. Like plant medicine shows me this every single time I do any plant medicine. They're like, it's a joke.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, remember it's a joke. I kind of feel that's a huge thing. Like, you've taken the pressure, the weight, the seriousness out. I I love I to be honest, you alluded to it, but you're very successful. And I think it's really important because oftentimes people think, like, oh, you know, those free-spirited minds, it's easy for them to just say they're sleeping on a couch. And it's like, no, actually, I'm building up a bit of an empire around me. And I I don't I don't think sometimes people can see that no, you can you can have your cake and eat cake and eat it. You can live light free and fun and still financially do very well. Um, you don't need to sacrifice all of that to have the other. And I think that's a big misconception that's out there that unfortunately speaking has let's say undermined a lot of people's capacity and ability to have the fun that's so there for them.
SPEAKER_00:Well, wealth follows worth.
SPEAKER_02:Hmm, that's a big saying.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, it's like, you know, we every single cell in our body has an antenna, right? A telomere. It's an literally an antenna. It's about receiving. So the only we get out of life what we feel we've worthy of. Because we're just constantly receiving what the signals we're putting out, we're receiving it back all the time. So if you feel worthy of money, you will receive money. The money issues are usually a worth issue.
SPEAKER_02:Self-worth. I think it's at the heart of absolutely everything. Even with regards to accumulating trauma, do we feel worthy enough to stop in my little example of the date to stop and say, Whoa, I just tripped. That was a lot. Give me a moment. I just need to shake, I just need to get myself grounded.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The younger me would be like, Jay, act cool. This is a very luck, you know, this is a lucky moment. You're in the presence of someone super special. Cover this up. But absolutely now I'd be like, whoa, I need a moment. And I actually what I've realized is those oddities are probably the most attractive parts. It's when you're normalizing yourself and being like everybody else that you make yourself invisible. And I love the yeah I love the colour in life of of of what self-worth looks like in individuals. Yeah. Can I ask you a like a really simple question? What do you feel when you look in the mirror?
SPEAKER_00:I'm really proud of myself. When I look in the mirror I'm really proud of myself. I'm hard on myself, of course. Like I think that that that hasn't ever gone away I'm hard on myself. But I'm also I look at myself like wow you're still doing it you know you're still you're still giving in a world that can be harsh. You're still doing it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You're still playful. I'm still really playful. You're still light in a world that's constantly trying to harden us up. Yeah. Yeah. And so a smile comes on your face. It's a big qu like I I think it's a big question. What do you feel when you look in the mirror? Obviously it's variable but those moments where you check in with yourself and and to feel pride for the journey like to feel I I find for where I'm at that probably one of the hardest things is to stay true to that lighter side to keep your heart open to to keep that faith and that trust uh that surr surrender when so much is kind of challenging you to be pessimistic to be conservative so that's what you hold I'm kind of getting an idea of okay well what does Amory hold as hold dearest and really it's it's her truth. It's her playfulness it's her lightness and what does it cosmic joke it's a cosmic joke that's it. So life is here to be enjoyed yeah yeah and it's really not as serious as we make it out to be that's not to say it's not challenging as hell at times people are so offended by everything you know people are so triggered by everything.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm not saying I'm not triggered by things because I am of course it's the wounds that I haven't dealt with myself but you just can laugh at yourself. Yeah laugh at the oddities that you are like we are odd people. Like think about it we are like people are weird like let me just put this out there like the first time you have sex with somebody and they make a different noise you're like but people are weird like it's weird like we do these things and it's like that's oh oh you know like we're weird like and if you can laugh at it like just the complexity and the and just I don't know it's just hilarious to me.
SPEAKER_02:Do you ever think about how funny it is the the contrast between between the things that we think are normal and the things that we think aren't it's absolutely bizarre.
SPEAKER_00:Well that's the greatest thing about Bali is we live in a multicultural place where you people oh okay yeah do you do that? Okay, great.
SPEAKER_02:But it's like it's okay to eat this it's not okay to eat this. It's okay to do this but that's that's not okay. It's okay to dress like this not okay to dress fascinating. And yeah Bali is so freeing in that respect because you bring so many cultures together who all do so many different things that immediately speaking it brings a freedom of do you know what show up however you like you have to lose judgment because if you you'll be judging people all the time. So even that alone was medicine for where you were at yeah so I always say like nothing shapes you like your environment or the company you keep and that's kind of testament to it. Your environment is either impressing upon you how you should be or it's saying hey however you are is cool and acceptable the people around you are either overly concerned with how you are actually just setting themselves free and indirectly as a result of that giving you permission and safety to be free yourself as well. Yeah yeah Miss thank you very much thank you very much can I ask if somebody like yeah so somebody is on this journey like I'd love actually generally at the end of a podcast I'm always like you know if somebody feels a pull or a calling to reach out to you but if and I kind of was think we spoke once or twice to what that person might look like but what does the kind of the ideal person that you get to work with what do they look like? What do they feel like even if perhaps they might not recognize it in themselves right now but I think this is someone who just feels a little unsettled and they're not sure why.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Like I have everything but something doesn't feel right and I don't know what that is.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah I always say the best coaches they show up as the coach they really needed 10 years ago and and you gave that note of I did everything that I thought was expected out of me. I was working hard I had the nice house I had the nice job but I wasn't feeling good and if somebody is in that position that's the kind of that's the calling that's the person you love to work with.
SPEAKER_00:But they should first go to Burning Man. Yes and then Bally everyone needs to go to Burning Man at least once their whole world will change.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. All right I'm booking my tickets today. Okay I've bought my tickets actually what am I saying you're going this year? Yeah I'm going this year I can't wait. No I want to go. So thank you for the invitation. Um amory best place to connect with you on is uh Instagram. Lovely okay I'll leave the link thank you so much thank you for sharing thank you for holding space can't wait to meet your magical people yeah