Beyond the Belly takes you beyond the personal narratives in Belly of the Beast Life Stories to bring to life the wisdom found in the overall patterns of transformation.

For our first episode, I've asked master healer Artie Wu of PresideLife.com to join me to discuss the origin story and meaning of Belly of the Beast Life Stories.

Artie is a healer to more than 120,000 people throughout the world via PresideLife.com, and an advisor to both of my podcasts. He is a friend, and has been instrumental to help me develop these concepts and in helping me spiritually grow as a man.

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EPISODE SUMMARY

- Artie describes the origin of Belly of the Beast Life Stories from his perspective as a friend and advisor to David

- The meaning behind the term, "Belly of the Beast"

- Discussing the overall pattern of transformation using the metaphor of a caterpillar, down into her cocoon, and climbing up a butterfly

- Biblical story of Jonah and the Whale

- Modern examples of the Belly story pattern include Star Wars and The Matrix (films)

- The difference between grief and depression and why accepting the meaning of your pain matters

 

QUOTABLES

"And the Belly of the Beast really is an allusion to some call it 'hero's journey.' Some call it sort of transformations people go through over the course of their life cycles. And there are many ways to describe that."

 

"There's a natural shape of the transformation process in a person's life in a phase they go through in nature. And, you know, one metaphor that comes up a lot is that of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly."

 

"And I don't know if you've ever watched a video of a butterfly coming out of cocoon, it doesn't look like fun. It comes out. It's slimy, it's struggling. Sometimes a wing breaks. And it needs to sit there totally vulnerable for some period of time for its wings to dry out before it can even fly away. It's very precarious, dangerous, terrifying process."

 

"And we always put our attention on the rainbows and unicorns aspect of being this butterfly."

 

"It wasn't a metaphor that the caterpillar died, the caterpillar did die because it is gone."

 

"In the Bible story, [Belly of the Beast is] an allusion to Jonah and the whale."

 

"And one day, Jonah is standing on the shore. And this whale, this leviathan, comes up from the depths and swallows him. And so he's in the Belly of the Beast. But then the whale dives down underwater. Right. And the idea here is that when Jonah is down literally in the Belly of the Beast, he undergoes transformation. He's like, well, I'm gonna die anyway here. I don't know what happened. Everything I was afraid of losing -- I've basically already lost."

 

"And metaphorically speaking, at some point along your journey, a whale comes up and just literally takes you down. And the idea here from classical times is that You know, you get the call, and if you refuse the call, something will come up, grab you and drag you down anyway."

 

"And what's beautiful about hearing people's individual stories from Martha Sternbach (Season 1, Ep.1)  to like everyone else is that even though we all have a fingerprint, each fingerprint is unique. And to hear that, you know, the incredible stories that you've brought out in this first season, it helps us see the shape of our own fingerprint."

 

"In classic Star Wars, All right. the belly of the beast is the trash compactor in the belly of the Death Star. In The Matrix, for instance, or the belly of the beast is when Neo actually physically dies and then comes back completely transformed, knowing he has his powers."

 

"Like for instance, when we talk about the difference between grief and depression. Grief is when you've had a loss and you actively, willingly sit with it and just sit with the pain of a loss and you don't run away from the pain. You actively go down into the belly of the beast. You go down into grief, you go down into your cocoon phase. Depression is where you say, no, no, run away. Get away. Get away. Numb it with alcohol, numb it with drugs, with sex or whatever. And you keep running from this pain you know is coming. And eventually a hand comes up, grabs you and drags you down anyway. That's the difference."

 

TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE

https://inourbelly.com/beyond-the-belly-episodes/episode-1-origin-and-meaning-with-artie-wu/

RESOURCES

Artie's healing website:http://PresideLife.com

Preside Life on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/presidelife

@wu_artie on instagram:https://www.instagram.com/wu_artie/

 

SHOW RESOURCES

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