Lessons Lived

#14 Lynn Burnett, Understand the roots of the issues you care about.

Lynn is a former high school history teacher and youth mentor.  He is the creator of CrossCulturalSolidarity.com & the White Antiracist Ancestry Project.

LYNN’S LESSONS:

1) Help build the world you’d like to see, with people you admire.

2) Understand the roots of the issues you care about.

3) Put your body into diverse spaces, and build solidarity across difference.

NOTABLE QUOTES FROM THE EPISODE:

If more people collectively across the country can understand all of that history, I think that we can move forward to build the kind of world that we want to see.

I feel like one of the key things to living a life that has a sense of purpose is to be able to wake up every morning and to know that there's something that you care about, something about the world that you would like to improve. You know, if we wake up in the morning and we know that we're working to make the world a better place, I think that that is a really positive feeling to have.

No community is perfect. This is something that I've discovered too. So I think if you're on a quest to find the absolutely perfect community, that might be something that you can never find.

I could say that was an experience for me to have; if I hadn't put my body there, I would never have had that specific type of experience of myself, which was a big moment of waking up for me. I was teaching incarcerated kids in Arizona and this is where I started teaching history because the issues that they cared about were all racial justice issues. And I found that to help them understand the roots of the issues that they cared about, I could help them understand those issues through history.

We have to be willing to ask the question, “Is it okay for me to be here?”

It's important that, when we're putting our body in an organizing space, the primary thing would be, “Is this something that we really believe in? Is it something that we're really committed to?” Then, it is a matter of checking out when the meetings are and asking how you could be a service, and letting people kind of direct you towards how you can show up in a way that they would appreciate for their group.

https://crossculturalsolidarity.com/

https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-white-antiracist-ancestry-project

Don't be afraid of Change

I was a bit of a troublemaker, I was always like cutting classes was hanging out with the wrong crowd, but it just felt good to me.

I really wanted to take a look at trying to do some sort of plant medicine to talk a third eye view of my life and what can improve or really face these problems that are occurring in my life that maybe at times I'm not so aware of.

All all the lessons that I learned through life, of sacrificing in order to find love or be in partnership was really not what the key ingredient is… it's to always follow your heart, follow your heart, stay in integrity

Don't worry about the world understanding you. It's about you understanding yourself.

So many people are in such headspaces or confusion. They're trying to understand their lives and they'll question yours.

Why wouldn't I want to just stop and like get to know who I am, every little bit of it and discover who I am and experiment with art or cooking or creation and you know, we were gifted this life and why? Why try to have everybody else understand it. Just be fluid in it.

If you can just follow your heart and know yourself, then you're going to be living a much more easeful and satisfied life.

Roop travels the world teaching athletes of all backgrounds how to use movement as a diagnostic tool and mobility as a tool to improve performance. "Everyone should have the ability to maintain their own body without reliance on others." Roop is a husband and father.

Yoni Shechter is an entrepreneur, business strategist, and technology expert, who is obsessed with optimizing systems, wellness, and longevity. Yoni is co-owner of MIA to SF, head of strategy & marketing at Primal Goods Co., and co-host of The Modern Cavemen podcast.

YONI’S LESSONS:

1) The obstacle is the way

2) Dream big and write it down

3) Have a routine

CONTACT YONI AT:

[email protected]

SOME QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

If you're not growing, you're dying to some extent.

When I'm calm and I'm fed and I'm well-rested, I'm building a more resilient self in thicker skin and also with more skills.

All those obstacles are the things that we're stressing out about in the day to day life. And it's just basically the obstacles-- I've got to take care of this shit, so I'm going to go take care of it now. Deal with it, then you're not worried about it.

A lot of times, some goals will be impossible to achieve in one year. If you think about five years down the road, you can think bigger-- what do I want my life to look like? Cause you know what, in five years it's actually possible. If I start working on it now, in five years I can actually get to this specific place.

What would my life look like in a bigger picture? Am I gonna have kids? Am I gonna have dogs? Am I going to live in a house? Am I gonna live in an apartment? Are we going to have one car or two cars? How many hours a day am I working? How many days a week am I working? Or a month? How much money am I making? ... We're talking about five years down the road.

So I've written down my stuff. My life plan is clear and allows me to do more of what I want to do, whether it be the movement practice, spending time with my family... All of those things that I figured out are very important to me. How can I make them happen? … Give yourself five years.

If you're in a routine, you're kind of conscious of things even though you're letting the routine actually help you not be conscious of what you have to do… You're able to be conscious of what you're doing while you're in it cause you're not worried about what's happening next.

Harold Plasterer has been a mechanic, dairy farmer, Ferrier (shoes horses), jockey, and blacksmith among other professions.

HAROLD’S LESSONS:

Don't take yourself too seriously

Don't get caught up in chasing money.

I started out at 12 cleaning stalls in a horse farm and learning how to ride. And from there I did any number of things in the animal industry. I've always connected well with animals, cows, horses, dogs... things like that.

It was like riding a thousand pound rocket with no stop and no go.

I would work two days straight without sleep, just trying to make money, just trying to succeed. And now I'm closer to the “out” gate than I am to the “in” gate, and I see things a little differently… I don't think anybody would write on their tombstone, “I wish I would've worked more.”

If I had to do it over again, I may have gone to college or a trade school or traveled… taken the opportunity to see the world a little bit before I got all caught up in the melee.

I've learned to open my heart. That's what the message is for me on this retreat. It's been over and over again. I feel way more connected than I've probably felt ever in my life.

Yasmen is a CrossFit trainer and Mobility Specialist at San Francisco CrossFit. She also teaches Pilates.

Find Yasmen at:

www.nayastudio.com

[email protected]

Yasmen’S LESSONS:

1) You're the only one in charge of your actions and thoughts.

2) Thank God for your failures, how we should thank God for ours.

NOTABLE QUOTES FROM THE EPISODE:

At age eight I was sent away to boarding school in India by my parents, and you were on your own, you don't have any mother and father to run to. If you made a mistake, or somebody, was bullying you or if you were homesick, you had to deal with all that at age eight. And my boarding school was pretty far away. It was three nights and two days on the train away...

At that early age, I learned not to rely on anybody else. If you failed, you failed and you had to get up, pull up your bootstraps and just do it again until you got it right. Whether it was academics or sports or relationships with your friends, all that took its toll on me.

Stop getting your knickers in a twist when something goes wrong… But what's the big deal? I mean, you're a human being after, all right? So you're not perfect. Nobody's perfect. Nobody expects you to be perfect. Most people want to be successful. Most people want to be loved and appreciated by everybody. But at some point, everybody makes mistakes. Everybody says things, not what they're supposed to say. Everybody can be mean at times.

I hear a lot of people don't want to take responsibility for when they make a mistake or they say it's not my fault--someone else did it, but then there's two problems. First of all, they're not taking responsibility. Second of all, they can't correct it next time.

The funny thing is if you're not afraid to fail, you're a happier person.

There's always somebody who's going to be better than you at something and the good news is you're almost better than somebody else as well.

My daughter was fast asleep in bed and I would just sit next to her and all that stress would just go away--there was a sort of a sense of happiness and a sense of wonder and a sense of peace and a sense of love that would come from just sitting and watching her sleep.

Sometimes you don't have access to the credit card or there's no money in the bank and if that's where you get your happiness for that instant gratification then you'll be devastated. So find it, find it within yourself, find that depth and happiness within yourself, excluding all outside factors.

I met Janet last year at an Ayahuasca retreat in the Sacred Valley in Peru. The changes that have happened in the past year are amazing. You’ll have to listen to the episode to understand the depths of pain she was dealing with prior to coming to the retreat in August 2018. She confided in me before the interview that now she wakes up happy every day! Her transformation is a testament to the power of these entheogenic plants we have available to us. Today, Janet is a lovely young woman who I am honored to call a friend. Thank you, Janet, for sharing your story.

LESSONS:

NOTABLE QUOTES FROM THE EPISODE:

He would kind of put me back into my place. It's just like, “What are you doing? You're showing vulnerability. People take advantage of people who are vulnerable.” And I started to believe that and that made me believe that the world was very evil.

My biggest getaway was adrenaline. Anything that gave me adrenaline, and a lot of that was risky behavior, like risky sex, a lot of substances. I would put myself in danger with the police doing crazy stuff just to see how far I can get away with things. That would give me the best feeling, especially if I was under a substance and doing risky stuff. It's just like I was on top of the world!

And at 15 was my first overdose and a lot of my family found out. It was a big shocker to them because they didn't even know I smoked (weed) at that time. They found out because I was in the hospital and this was on Thanksgiving. Anytime a holiday comes, I just picture that day where they were together at a family house and then them having to find out Janet is not going to be here because she's in the hospital. She just tried to kill herself. So I started to really hate holidays after that.

So 15 was my first overdose, and then 16 was my second, and third 17 and then I had another one… That was my fourth. At 18, I was fine. 19 I had my fifth and my sixth and seventh...

I started taking large doses of mushrooms by myself. The first large dose I took was 5 and ½ grams, and it was absolutely the most horrifying thing I've ever done at that point.

The last thing I remember was waking up 18 hours later and instead of me being this very scared, very depressed girl, after I woke up, I told myself there's a deeper meaning behind this. There's a reason why I keep on waking up.

I had to do the tough decision and tell my dad that I was going to stop school.

Hey, it's okay to say no. But a lot of the times, I thought that I was very selfish for saying no to people, I thought it was selfish. I thought it was a form of an unhealthy boundary.

If I am so easily influenced by people whenever I don't want to do something and they kind of pressure me into it, they are disrespecting me. They're not respecting my boundaries.

I need to choose what's right for me and you know. Anything else I need to just say no to it.

My biggest challenge from this lesson was to not feel guilty, not to feel guilty for looking after myself. Not to feel guilty for doing things that are beneficial for myself and omitting everything that's not doing me any justice, not doing me any good.

It's okay to think for yourself and decide for yourself. Time and energy are yours. So be responsible. No one else is responsible for how happy I am. No one else is responsible for how successful I'm going to be in life, whether it's, you know, physically, spiritually, mentally, anything. No one is responsible for that, but myself.

I started realizing by spending time by myself that I didn't like doing a lot of the things that I was doing pretty much my whole life.

It's such an empowering feeling. Learning how to be in solitude, be with yourself, know yourself, exactly what to be comfortable with yourself.

I grew up in the Soviet Union. I knew I was different. When I was 14, I read a book on female sexual abnormalities and learned a word to describe myself - a lesbian. I had to hide it from everyone because in the Soviet Union, lesbians were committed to mental institutions and gay man were put in prison.

From the age of 14 to 28 (when I came to the USA) I thought I was abnormal - not an easy way to live a life. It took a lot of therapy, psychology, human sexuality classes to understand that people like me just wired differently.

Until eight years ago, I was a hard, harsh, and somewhat rude person without even realizing it and attributing it to just being Russian.

My transformation began after I became a bodyworker and, eventually, energy therapist. Energy work melted my hardcore and unwound my sole. But, while my core was no longer hard and I felt unwound, the scars on my soul were still there and my unwinding was not complete.

Learning about the experiences of ayahuasca led me to believe that is exactly what I needed to let it go and evolve. After sitting in a few ayahuasca ceremonies I arrived to the place of love, light, compassion and humility. But my journey to amazing is still in progress and I can’t wait to evolve to a higher level of my being.

FIND ELENA AT:

www.elenahudan.com

ELENA’S LESSONS

1. It's never too late unless you're in the casket.

2. Take yourself into your own hands and one to let it go for about seven years. She's got a very interesting background.

NOTABLE QUOTES FROM THE EPISODE:

I came to the United States at the age of 28 and pretty much had to start on the bottom --so a dishwasher and night housekeeper in the hotel.

I can't squat-- Just every night, hey, 10 minutes a day I started to just lower myself down and tried to move my hips and finally started to feel better.

I took the first class, came home and told my partner this is what I want to do for a living. So by then, I'm 52 years old. In the Soviet Union, when you are 50 or 52, you're ready to retire. And so I'm with 52 starting a new career.

Continuously remake yourself. So it's never too late, never delay it, never delay. It's like whatever it is, people are afraid to make a reel stab at it because they are in a secure job. It's never too late. You just limit yourself and die inside because you have to do something.

So came home and told my partner, “Yes, I just became a massage therapist, but I don't think I want to do that. I think I want to learn more about Ortho-Bionomy”

Energy is energy, light is light, there is no bad energy.

My body was just made up all kinds of precious stones and I had to leave the room because my heart was expanding and therefore the universe wasn't big enough to hold my heart. And so I got helpers who were holding space for me and they just like, “Hey, hey, don't worry. The universe will expand to allow your heart to expand.

So I went to the source and it was a bright light and then I melted away.. And I had this feeling of melting, melting and the feeling of being in the womb. That was the happiest, the happiest time of my life that I can remember.

One lady came- she couldn't walk, right? 74 years old. She had very, very bad knees. She couldn't walk-- now runs, I mean runs! She can move so now she can get around. Wow. Just to be able to pick up the groceries and improve your life.

I worked with this guy who was paralyzed from a gunshot. 18 years old, he's paralyzed. And so, he lost 60 pounds. He improved himself and now at 20, he wants to become a physical therapist. Wow.

You have to take yourself into your own hands. Nobody's going to do it for you- they are certainly not going to do it for you. You have to take care of yourself.

Matt is an explorer in the world of health, seeking ancestral wellness in the modern world. He is a Yogi, student of movement under the Ido Portal Method, and driven to spend as much time creating a lifestyle closely aligned with our primitive roots. Matt is the Founder of Primal Goods Company and the Co-host of The Modern Cavemen Podcast.

 FIND MATT AT:


Primal Goods Company


The modern Cavemen Podcast 

 LESSONS:

 1)  Create balance in your live

2)  It's either a “hell yes” or it's a “no.” 

3)  You can't fill up a cup that's already full

4)  Don’t make your happiness conditional

 SOME QUOTES FROM THE EPISODE”

 When I was 14 years old, I got a freak diagnosis with cancer. I broke my back in a football game and during football practice got an MRI and the doctor's like, “You know, you have a compression fracture that sucks. You're not playing football this year. But also… there's this big mass in your chest…”

 I got really interested in making sure that something like that didn't happen again.

 I think the human body wants to be well, and if you put all these conditions to be well, it's going to be well… You start throwing the weird shit in there, I think the body will stray from that path.

 We stopped doing that like a couple hundred years ago and all this weird shit started popping up. That's been my main thing- to get back to that sort of “primal lifestyle” 

 One of the biggest things lately is getting uncomfortable. I'm so comfortable all the time and I think it's good for us to not be comfortable. So now I have to program in periods of discomfort; I'm getting in the shower and I'm taking a cold shower purely to be uncomfortable.

Your body's made to be able to manage those extremes and temperature discomfort. And if we never pushed the body to get there, then we're going to lose that capability.

 I mean every now and then we want to throw something on Netflix. We put on our blue light blocking glasses…People come to our house and are, “What the fuck are all these candles doing here?,” It's like , “You guys got some kind of ceremony going on later?”... “No, this is just Wednesday”

 Humans have been moving around since the entire life of our species... we had to...it's only now that we don't actually have to. You'd have to be like hiking through the woods, forging for shit and trying to kill some big animal--now you can just push this little buggy around at Whole Foods and swipe your card and it's there.

Hey, you are living in 2019… Sometimes my girlfriend wants to go out and have pizza for dinner. Sometimes we want to watch a TV show late at night and eat some ice cream.  Sure! And that's about one of the lessons: that you create balance.

What you see in the modern person, it's very heavily weighted on professional growth and financial growth-- It's at the expense of everything else...sometimes, I try to go the other way.

It's not necessarily a bad thing to be that way, but still give energy in these other areas. 

Take care of your health and spend time with people you care about. It's really about finding a balance between all these different modalities of life.

I find my creativity, new ideas, possibilities, new thoughts--all that stuff happens when I'm in these almost like, vacuums, where there's nothing else going on in my mind

You can't welcome new things in your life unless there's space.

I started Primal Goods Co. when I broke my ankle and I was in a wheelchair for three months and laying on the couch at my parents' house. I couldn't do anything else and I was just kind of sitting there bored.  The universe gave me that time and said, “You need to sit down”