Refractive

Guests Chad Hattrup & Todd Hollow-Bist, founders of Pathwise Leadership, join host Johnny G to discuss tapping into the unconscious for growth. Leveraging their backgrounds (both are experts in psychology and in adult learning), they share with listeners how to observe, respect, and befriend the unconscious mind, thereby embracing growth and living more intentionally and more skillfully. The episode covers a range of subjects, including spirituality, the power of curiosity, growth obstacles, and the difference between the subconscious and the unconscious.

Chad and Todd have helped thousands of leaders grow their impact through the work of Pathwise Leadership. Find more information at www.PathwiseLeadership.com.
To contact host Johnny G for speaking engagements or coaching services, email him at RefractivePodcast@gmail.com.

Jodie King is a successful artist who has made it her mission to empower others as they grow through creativity. She joins host Johnny G to discuss how creativity takes many forms- from art, to cooking, walking, procreation, exercise, and even just having a conversation. Jodie and Johnny dig into why creating feels so nourishing and how to lean into the deeply spiritual act of embracing your creative power- and trust me, you all have plenty of it. Jodie offers simple, practical tips for people who don’t see themselves as creative, helping them to get in touch with their God-given birthright: the role of creator. Learn more about how Jodie helps others leverage their creative power at www.JodieKing.com or check out her show, the Honest Art Podcast available on major podcast platforms.

To contact host Johnny G for spiritual coaching or speaking engagements, email him at Re***************@***il.com
For similarly-themed episodes, try Heal Yourself: How to Design a Joyful Life, or Find Your Genius.

Erin Diehl joins Refractive host Johnny G to discuss the power of perspective in creating a happy life- specifically that when I love me the world loves me too. Erin, an author and motivational speaker who uses improv to help people clear barriers and live authentically, shares her wisdom and experience with Refractive listeners. She and Johnny G discuss creating our reality, opening the heart, and the secret superpower for fulfillment: being of service to others.

Find Erin’s book “I See You! A Leader’s Guide to Energizing Your Team through Radical Empathy” at your favorite bookstore or online. Learn more about how she helps others to live joyful, powerful lives at www.itsErinDiehl.com

To contact host Johnny G for spiritual coaching or for speaking engagements, email him at re***************@***il.com or visit www.refractivecoaching.com

Find the episode transcript below:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Refractive. I’m your host, Johnny G. Today, my guest is Erin Diehl. She is a founder and CEO, author and improv expert, and keynote speaker. Through a series of unrelated dares. Believe it or not, Erin created improve it, a professional development company rooted in improv comedy. It pushes leaders and teams to laugh, learn, play, and grow. She’s a proud host of the Improve it podcast, which is a top 1% global podcast. It helps develop leaders and teams through play, improv, and experiential learning. Her book, an Amazon bestseller and top new release, is titled I see you, a leader’s guide to energizing your team through radical empathy. She’s here today to talk with me about the link between loving myself and living in a loving world. And I’m really happy to have you on here. Erin, thank you for your time.

[00:01:37] Speaker B: I am so excited to be here with you. I already feel a lot of alignment with you, so I am very excited for this conversation, wherever it may go. And I’m here to be of service to your audience. I love your vibes, Johnny. You got great vibes.

[00:01:53] Speaker A: Thank you so much. I don’t know if you could tell me. I don’t know if you could possibly offer a better, a better pat on the back than that. That really is. That means a lot to me.

[00:02:03] Speaker B: Good. Well, you deserve it. You deserve it. Take it in.

[00:02:05] Speaker A: So I wonder, you know, first of all, when I was doing some research on you and where we have alignment, there’s plenty of alignment between the two of us. But when I was doing that research and this idea of loving myself to find access to a more loving world, it just, like, all the lights went on inside of me, I was like, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. This is. This is it. This is it. And I wonder, like, what are your thoughts on this general topic? I mean, has this been something that you’ve already, that you’ve already contemplated over your own personal journey? Is this something that you found to be true for yourself?

[00:02:49] Speaker B: I mean, ding, ding, ding. All my lights are going on as you’re talking about this. Yeah, I.

So just starting from childhood, let’s go way back.

[00:03:00] Speaker A: Let’s do it, let’s do it.

[00:03:01] Speaker C: Let’s go.

[00:03:01] Speaker B: Go way, way back.

I moved a lot as a kid, and I was always that new kid trying to fit in, and it would always take a couple years. I moved several times, and then I went to college and I didn’t know a single person. So I’ve always had to readapt. And I think in that time period, I underlyingly did not know, but subconsciously created a belief system that I am not worthy.

[00:03:29] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:03:30] Speaker B: And I lived that.

I always had confidence in my. My higher self would come through higher than my ego, but that was still inside of me. Yeah, I’m not worthy. That still laid dormant, and it took a massive healing journey that I went through from about 2017 to 2022. Honestly.

[00:03:56] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:03:57] Speaker B: To get rid of that belief. And now I truly believe that I am worthy. And because I believe it, other people believe it, and because other people believe it, I’m able to impact their lives.

[00:04:16] Speaker C: That is.

[00:04:17] Speaker A: Listen, I’m just. I mean, I’m excited as you’re talking, because I had almost. Well, I had a very parallel experience to you. I started to do a lot of inner work as a result of twelve step programs. And this really kicked off for me in 2016, and it went until about 2021. So about the same length of time as you, really similar periods. And I have to tell you, this was for my entire adulthood. I knew that I had severe self esteem and self love problems. I went to therapist multiple times across my adult, and when he says, why are you here? My answer was, I don’t love myself, and I fear that I’m not going to be able to enter any kind of loving relationship because of that. And I need help. That was always clear to me. And the therapy was wonderful, nurturing. It was like a warm bath. I loved it, and it didn’t. It didn’t. It didn’t solve the issue, you know, not that it might not have, could have, maybe if I would have kept going, but it was really doing the inner work on a spiritual level to scrape out all of the, like, muck.

[00:05:55] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:05:55] Speaker A: Let it scab over and heal and then see what’s left.

[00:06:00] Speaker B: Oh, my God, I love that. Listen, I’m such a proponent of what you just said. I have a therapist, because I keep a therapist just for, you know, it’s like, I don’t want the car battery to die. I want to keep charging it.

[00:06:14] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:06:14] Speaker B: And I will say the same thing. There’s not a single person, book, journal entry, meditation, or human being that I can point to that healed me. It’s a combination of all of that, but more importantly, myself doing the work, and, oh, my God, Johnny, it has been life changing in so many ways.

[00:06:38] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:06:39] Speaker B: So grateful for it. Like, I. It sucked. Like, the process sucked, and the healing and the experiencing and all of it was horrible. But I also know that none of that would have led me to. To today, so I’m grateful.

[00:06:57] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:06:58] Speaker A: I don’t know if this was the case with you, but for me, it was so severe that I would walk in front of a mirror, like. Just, like, getting ready in the morning, just passing in front of the mirror, and I would stop and just. Just glance. And the words that I would hear in my head. And I don’t mean this figuratively. I mean, literally, the track that would play for me was, lower your eyes. Who do you think you are looking at? Like, it was just. It was such violent self disgust.

[00:07:32] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:07:33] Speaker A: You know, and the problem was that I was a people pleaser. I wanted. I wanted to be loved. And so I, like, I know that being around people who have a heavy spirit is draining. So outside, I’m trying so hard to.

[00:07:52] Speaker B: Be.

[00:07:54] Speaker A: Pleasant and joyful, but inside, it’s.

[00:08:00] Speaker C: Like, I hate myself.

[00:08:02] Speaker B: Oh, my God.

[00:08:04] Speaker A: Was that your experience?

[00:08:05] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Listen. Yes. We are so similar.

So I’ve been a performer my whole life. Since I was three years old, I was in dance or on stage in a play. Right.

I took that role in my personal life, too. I’m gonna entertain you. I’m gonna show up. I’m gonna be the person that walks in and the life of the party. And it was exhausting. It was physically and mentally exhausting.

[00:08:32] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:08:33] Speaker B: So the period of time from, basically, I started healing in 2017, I went through a massive infertility journey with my husband. We really could not get pregnant, which I now know is I had to learn to mother myself before I could learn to mother somebody else. But in 2020, that’s really when just poop, hit the wall. And I called that period of time my three p’s. And I’ll tell you what those three p’s were.

[00:09:01] Speaker A: All right, everybody get a pen. Get a pen.

We’re gonna do this old school style.

[00:09:06] Speaker B: Okay? So the first one was pivoting. Cause I’m sure, like the rest of the world, we were all improvising, which is what I do in my business, but my business was completely in person. We didn’t have a leg to stand.

[00:09:17] Speaker C: On for two years. Oh, wow.

[00:09:18] Speaker B: Not even this show started. My show started in April of 2020. Okay. So we had nothing virtually. So I have, you know, people’s insurance and bills and livelihoods on top of my chest. And on top of that, I am a new mom. I had a miracle baby boy after years of trying. So that led to my second p, which was people pleasing. I was giving everything to this child.

My mom at the time had had a stroke and almost died. So I was giving to my family, and she was in the hospital during COVID I couldn’t even go see her.

[00:09:51] Speaker C: Right.

[00:09:52] Speaker B: I’m a constant people pleaser who wanted to give to my team, to my clients, to my friends. So I was just giving in every area to everyone except myself.

[00:10:04] Speaker C: Right.

[00:10:05] Speaker B: Which led to the third p, which was pain.

[00:10:08] Speaker C: Right.

[00:10:09] Speaker B: I’m not talking about, like, ouch, I stumped my toe talk, like, tight pain. I’m talking about chronic pain that was in my back and shoulders, that would make me cry myself to sleep at night, that was undiagnosable by doctors, would withstand, like, chiropractic cracks. Like, it was chronic pain that lasted about two years. And it wasn’t until I was guided to read this book called when the body says no by this man, Gabor mate. And I realized that my body was holding on to all of these unprocessed emotions. The anger that I had from infertility treatments and the fact that I was the one having to go through all of this. The anger I had from feeling like I was left alone when my husband went back to work. And I was, you know, I was, who am I now? Who am I, this human being? The anger that I have from the pandemic, the fear that I had, this underlying root issue of I’m not worthy of people pleasing. Just. I was so mad. And so I started to. If you’ve ever seen the show on Netflix, Marie Kondo.

[00:11:23] Speaker C: Oh, yes.

[00:11:24] Speaker B: Yes. I took Marie Kondo in my brain. I had to go in, like, several different rooms inside of my brain, take out what no longer served me. Thank you.

[00:11:35] Speaker A: And then realize, does not spark joy.

[00:11:37] Speaker B: Yeah. This does not spark joy. And once I did that, I became this whole new person.

[00:11:43] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:11:43] Speaker B: I literally became this whole new person. I was, like, a homecoming to myself.

[00:11:48] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:11:50] Speaker B: And that kind of leads me to the journey that I’m on now as a new author and how I was even guided to read the book, because I really leaned into my spiritual practice during this time. Um, just gonna call it. I have very, very amazing spirit guides and angels.

[00:12:10] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:12:11] Speaker B: Around me. And I can share that story with you and your audience. Yeah, I would love to. If you’re okay.

[00:12:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I would love to hear it.

[00:12:21] Speaker B: Okay. Because this is wild. Like, this is just.

I haven’t told a version of this ever before, so I’m gonna share that with you.

[00:12:31] Speaker A: Okay. So we have an exclusive.

[00:12:32] Speaker B: You have an exclusive.

So, as I was finishing this healing journey, I was just on my phone, and I don’t really check Facebook, but I got a Facebook message from a loved one that it was on my husband’s side of the family, so I didn’t really know who they were, but I knew they were a past family member. So I told my family member, I said, you know, I’m gonna call her Susan.

Susan Facebook messaged me. How do I know her again? And my family member looks at me and says, that’s not possible.

Susan is no longer with us. She passed away two years ago. And I was like, okay, well, she clearly messaged me. It says here, hey, are you there? Are you there?

So I felt guided to meditate in that moment. And so that evening, I went upstairs, and I did a guided meditation to channel spirit guides. And through that, Susan came through very clearly.

[00:13:30] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:13:31] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. It worked. It worked.

And she brings in a person in my life who I’ve never met, but is very. I’m trying to keep my family names. Yes, of course, you know, confidential. But it was a family member who took their own life.

[00:13:49] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:13:49] Speaker B: Who was very close in proximity to who I am on my. My husband’s side.

And when I was going through this healing journey, I mean, I was very low. There were some very low moments.

My husband found me one day on the bathroom floor in a ball, naked, screaming, I’m broken. I’m broken. And literally, I couldn’t move. And it was like. That was like, the bottom. Bottom. But this loved one, Susan brought in another loved one. We’ll call her Sally. Okay. And Sally said to me, I was you.

I am you. I gave to everyone in my life except myself, which is why I took my own life.

And I want you to write this book and write it now.

And I will write through you.

[00:14:45] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:14:47] Speaker B: And so I truly was, like, shook, but also very in alignment with the assignment. And when I tell you that this book was something that flowed out of me, I truly mean that it was a beautiful experience. I would get up early before my house woke up. I would light a candle, get a coffee, sit at my desk, and just write. And I felt Sally with me the entire time.

[00:15:18] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:15:19] Speaker B: I also recently went to a medium, which I have never. I’ve been to. I have a clairvoyant coach, but I never seen a medium. And so I also found out through that conversation that I also had another friend of mine who took his life.

Help me write the book.

[00:15:37] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, my goodness.

[00:15:41] Speaker B: And it was just such a beautiful experience. And I’m sharing this with you, and I literally have full body chills because I would never have listened to my inner guidance system or my inner voice or any of that without this healing process. And so what it really was was this, I think, guided path of all these, you know, things I had to go through in order to become this version of me, to be able to give opportunities for people in the same position, give them tangible things that they can take home and do to help them love themselves more so that they don’t get in the place that I was at or my ancestor or my past friend was at. Because when we let our egos run wild, we just get ourselves into the spaces that really we don’t belong. And where we belong is like listening here and loving what we’ve been given because we only have this body once.

[00:16:46] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:16:47] Speaker B: So it was a really beautiful exchange, and I’m.

I was out of alignment after I wrote it. I wrote it in alignment. I got out of alignment again, and then I. It was like the universe just kept, like, knocking me, literally on the head, like I had a concussion, for real, for four months. That was like, no, you need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. And I feel the most aligned I’ve ever felt in my life because of that journey.

[00:17:18] Speaker A: Wow, that’s an amazing story. And, you know, listen, there might be listeners who have experienced what you experienced and more. And there might be listeners who are like, what this talk? And I don’t like. That’s, like, literally insanity. And here’s what I want to say. Here’s what I want to say.

[00:17:39] Speaker C: Right.

[00:17:39] Speaker A: If you’re a listener who. Who has not experienced that type of, let’s say, that type of element in your own spiritual journey, here’s the key. The universe is a much more loving place than I ever gave it credit for. There is help around me all the time. Sometimes it’s in the form of a commercial I hear on television and a message that just makes me think of something. Sometimes it’s in a random phone call I receive from someone I didn’t expect to get a call from. Sometimes it’s a billboard, and sometimes it might be through being visited by the spirit of someone I once knew. Like, it doesn’t matter. The end result is. What matters is that, Aaron, you received this encouragement to embrace self love, and whatever the source of that nudge that you got, it doesn’t matter, because it seems to me like the end result to you is a very real impactful experience.

[00:18:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And it’s funny, I actually say I’m now living what I like to call the three P’s remix. You know, I changed it up a little bit.

[00:19:01] Speaker C: All right.

[00:19:02] Speaker A: Did we take out people pleaser? Like, did that one last.

[00:19:04] Speaker B: Yeah, people pleaser.

[00:19:05] Speaker A: Okay, good. We got that one out.

[00:19:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So now it’s, I live a life filled with purpose, which is knowing what I’m here to do, staying in alignment with that, having conversations like this, I know my priorities. They’re very much in check. And I now live a life of peace, which.

Something. I’m 40, almost 41. I literally, I would say, lived my life the first 39 years.

And, you know, who knows what it was like for me as a baby. But as I could remember, I lived it in a very different state, in a fight or flight nervous system. In a anxious nervous system.

And I have really reclaimed that. And I hope, for the next 40 years of my life, I stay in this spot.

[00:19:53] Speaker C: Yes. Good.

[00:19:55] Speaker A: So to move to kind of the next part of our conversation, um, and wrap this up. Uh, wrap kind of this section up. I mean, so we’ve moved from a place of painful self doubt, ego based snatching and grabbing and.

[00:20:14] Speaker C: And.

[00:20:14] Speaker A: And, you know, scrounging for scraps to this place of peaceful self love and acceptance. Okay.

In most situations. Right. That’s not my reality 100% of the time.

[00:20:28] Speaker B: So, yes, I’m still human. I’m still going to feel, you know, angst and angst.

[00:20:32] Speaker A: I’m fat in these jeans.

[00:20:34] Speaker B: Yes. Oh, yeah.

[00:20:35] Speaker A: I’ve just embarrassed myself in front of him. He’s, like, so annoyed by me, blah, blah, blah.

[00:20:40] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. I’m still human. Totally. But way different than I was as a human before.

[00:20:47] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:20:48] Speaker A: So, moving on to the second part, then. How do you see that journey as having made the world a more loving place for you?

[00:21:02] Speaker B: I think love attracts love, and so I loved before we. Here’s the word love again. I love before you. And I hit record today. You said, let me be of service, and you just literally inhaled and exhaled, and really, I felt that intention.

I’m a keynote speaker. Right. I speak in front of people all the time.

I’ll never forget when I spoke two years ago in front of an audience. I was like, I’m here to show them who’s here. And I’m gonna get my warm up, pump up jams on backstage, and they’re not gonna believe who’s gonna come out and greet them. Oh, my God. That keynote speaker flopped on her face and failed. But when I. Like, last night, I did a talk for Amazon. Actually, I was in DC yesterday, and I did a talk for Amazon employees, and I literally said backstage, all I want to do is be a vessel of love. I want you to spread love through me so I can share it with this audience. And that’s all I want, is. Is you to channel love through me so I can spread that to others.

[00:22:15] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:22:16] Speaker B: And it was a very intimate setting, and I just feel like everyone in that room felt bad at the end. And I always say at the end of every talk I do, if today brought you joy, if it made you smile, if it made you feel a certain type of way, my only ask is that you spread that to somebody else today, tomorrow, this week, because the world needs so much more of it. And so love attracts love, and you. You receive the energy that you put out. So I have to fill my cup with love. I have to fill myself with love in order to be a good parent, in order to be a good leader, in order to talk to human beings and help them find love, I have to feel it myself. And it is.

I find that when you lead your life from that place, you receive so much more than when you’re resisting and when you’re pushing and pulling and things feel very arduous. So it almost is this beautiful flow state that I’ve been able to get myself in, and that helps other people do the same, and it attracts that vibration to me. And so for me, I’m, like, living a life filled with love because I’m filling my cup first. Right.

[00:23:35] Speaker A: That’s the thing.

[00:23:36] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:23:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And that’s. That’s literally what my book is about. Like, that right there, that is the entire, like, if you were to boil it down into a paragraph, that is it. And you don’t. You can’t create loving environments if you don’t love yourself first.

[00:23:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.

[00:23:53] Speaker A: Listen, we hear all the time, we hear that the. That the common, like, societal opinion is that we’ve never been in a darker place. We’ve never, like, you know, been so divided and, like, it’s so, you know, we’re in some real trouble right now. You hear stuff like that all the time, and I.

Listen, I’m no longer in the arguing business, so I’m not here to contradict anybody’s perspective on that.

But that’s not how I experience the world, you know? And, I mean, listen, let’s go back to, like, medieval Europe and, like, let’s talk about which era I’d rather live in. Like, just, you know, technology aside. Like, I’m not trying to, you know. Anyway, whatever.

Listen, what I’m saying, though, is that I walk down the street.

I live in the middle of a densely populated urban area with statistics of high crime.

I live in the middle of Washington, DC.

[00:24:58] Speaker C: Oh, my God.

[00:24:58] Speaker B: I was just there.

[00:24:59] Speaker A: Yet I know. I heard you say that.

[00:25:01] Speaker B: I’m here.

[00:25:02] Speaker A: How dare you? So.

And no one has ever looked at me in a menacing way.

No one has. I’ve not been, like. I just have to say that I don’t ever feel threatened.

I don’t feel endangered.

Sometimes I get a little intuitive nudge that says, go this way.

[00:25:31] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:25:31] Speaker A: And I go that way.

[00:25:33] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:25:34] Speaker A: But, like, the fact is, like, I don’t live in a world.

[00:25:38] Speaker C: Well.

[00:25:38] Speaker A: I don’t watch the news.

[00:25:40] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:25:41] Speaker A: Okay. I stopped that. I don’t engage in politics other than basic research and voting.

[00:25:48] Speaker B: Yep. Yep.

[00:25:49] Speaker A: And the fact is, like, I don’t live in a world where people fight.

[00:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:25:55] Speaker A: Like, that’s not my reality anymore.

I believe that others believe it, and I believe that others are experiencing this darkness and this heaviness, and it’s real.

And I’m the one who held myself in the locked cell of that. And the minute that I just stopped holding the door shut, I walked into a different world by loving myself, by turning with in and giving space and respect and honor to my inner wisdom, by seeing my inner spark of the creator and recognizing it as magnificent.

All of the sudden, all the threats of the world have faded.

[00:26:45] Speaker B: So good. So good. I love that. And I hear you on that because you could live this life filled with darkness. Okay, listen, I have a communications degree. Do I really remember anything from it? No, but I remember. I remember one thing. This is, I had a paper on this, and it was called the cultivation theory by George Gerbner, okay? And it was basically, you cultivate your life by the things that you intake. So it’s like you watch the news and you’re filled with doom and gloom.

[00:27:17] Speaker A: And look, we’re bringing academia to refractive listeners, okay? So, yes, okay.

[00:27:21] Speaker B: I know, I know, I know.

[00:27:22] Speaker C: I love it.

[00:27:23] Speaker B: I love it. Truly. Like, that stuck with me. I mean, 21 years out of college and I remember that. And anytime, like, for example, 2020, when we were all stuck in our homes and we were glued to our phones and our screens because we didn’t know what else to do.

[00:27:38] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:27:38] Speaker B: My psyche could never have felt lower. Like, my inner peace was out the window shot. Like, I just. I had nothing but fear and doom and gloom in my. In my system. And it’s funny because yesterday was on the way to this event, and I was in an Uber, and he had the news, like, loud and proud in the Uber. And I said, sir, I’m paying for. I didn’t say I’m paying for this, but I’m like, this is my ride. And I was like, can you just. Do you mind turning down the volume or turning the channel? Because I just cannot fill my. My vibe with that because all it does is just permeate fear, cause controversy, it’s divisive. And I don’t want to live in that space.

[00:28:20] Speaker C: No.

[00:28:21] Speaker B: Because I lived in it enough. And I’m. I am of the same mindset of you. It’s. It’s a different world. I lived in Chicago for 15 years. I now live in Charleston, South Carolina. And it was funny, a guy came over to help us fix something in our house the other day, and I was like, yeah, I’m about to get on a plane to go to Chicago. He goes, oh, be safe. And I was like, that’s because he’s never been. And he watches the news.

[00:28:47] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:28:47] Speaker B: And I lived there for 15 years.

[00:28:49] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:28:50] Speaker B: And I was. I mean, yes, things happen. It’s a large city like DC, but, like, it is a safe space. I was surrounded by people who loved me and supported me, and I loved living there for. It’s because we just fear what they. We are intaking what other humans believe, and we’re getting a little opinionated opinions behind the facts that they’re giving us, and it causes such fear and toxicity, and I’m so over it. So I’m with you.

[00:29:21] Speaker A: No, are you, uh, listen, I talk about her on my podcast all the time. Um, are you familiar with Byron Katie?

[00:29:27] Speaker B: No, wait, no, I know Katie. Byron, but I don’t know Byron Katie.

[00:29:33] Speaker A: So, Byron Katie, she is a. She’s a. I’ll just say she’s a spiritual writer. I mean, that’s not really what she is, but she has books on that you would categorize as spirituality. And her whole, I guess her whole.

The whole essence of her philosophy is learning to love, falling in love with reality, and as one of the ways that she gets there she asked this question of who would you be without your story?

[00:30:09] Speaker B: Oh, my God, I love, I just googled as you were talking and I’m like, I want to know.

[00:30:14] Speaker A: She’s amazing, Erin. She cracked me open in my spiritual journey and like, she was like, miracle grow for my spiritual development through her books or what did her books?

[00:30:26] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:30:27] Speaker A: I also went to a retreat of hers years later. Like, actually just last year I went to a retreat of hers.

But her books, like, I first learned about her through the Oprah super soul conversations and where Oprah interviews different spiritual thinkers. And when I heard her, I was like, oh, I get, yeah, I resonate with this. I’ve never heard this before, but I’m here for it. So I went and read her books and whatnot, and I’m like, oh, yeah, no, no, no. This is what, this is what, this is what I want. Like, this is what feels right for me.

[00:31:03] Speaker B: I need, I needed a new, like, page turner that’s happening. You also said Oprah. And behind my, in my little podcast studio, which is a closet that I converted into a, I have a vision board directly behind me, and Oprah’s like, all over it. So you just said, like, all the things just went dang. And I am 1000% going to buy her books. Amazing.

[00:31:26] Speaker A: Listen, listen to the Oprah super soul conversation podcast episode. You’ll know. You’ll know in 30 minutes whether, like, it’s the right fit for you.

That’s my advice. But. So Byron, Katie, one of the exercises she had us do at her retreat, we were in LA and we went to Santa Monica and we were dropped off on the beach and we were given some really specific instructions. No money, no watches, nothing of value, no food, no beverage.

And you are to wander around the streets, the sidewalks, the beach, and you are to find individuals there.

Walk up to them and join them.

You’re allowed to say only four words. May I join you?

If someone says no, you follow the simple instructions and you keep moving. But if someone says, who cares? I don’t know. They don’t answer, whatever. Then you just sit and you stay open. You don’t speak.

And we were like, wait, what? Like, this is crazy. She was like, find people that you assume don’t have homes. Find people that you assume are high. Find people that you know anyone. Like, anyone. Find people on their lunch break, whatever, and just sit and just take the time to re meet the human race without your story.

[00:33:03] Speaker B: Wow.

[00:33:05] Speaker A: And what I’m telling you, Aaron, is that when I sat there without people thought I was a lunatic because I wasn’t. I would say, may I join you? I would sit. They would start to talk to me. And we don’t answer. We don’t communicate. All we do is look at them with love.

Not like, intense staring. We just. We’re present, but not communicating.

[00:33:26] Speaker B: That is fascinating.

[00:33:28] Speaker A: And let me tell you what happened.

People that we. And we’re doing this individually, we’re not as a group, like, we’re not like five people walking up like it’s one on one, right? People who you would assume don’t have a home offered us food.

People who.

People opened up and cried to us about pain they’re feeling over the relationship with their children.

It’s just these strangers that you think it’s unacceptable to go up and invade someone’s space like that. But no, there was no invasion. We asked permission, and then we just sat in love. And what we learned is that nobody was accosted, no one was disrespected. Some people were said, no, I want to be alone, and that’s fine, but, like, not a single one of. There were. I don’t know, there were, like 200 people who we went out and did this, and no one had negative experiences. We were brought to tears by the raw love shown to us by strangers from every walk of life.

[00:34:36] Speaker B: That is beautiful. Oh, my God. What an activity. How long did this last?

[00:34:42] Speaker A: 4 hours.

[00:34:44] Speaker B: Oh, my God. And then you just got picked up or. How did you get home?

[00:34:47] Speaker A: Yeah, there were buses. Like, there were buses waiting for us, like, at a certain place. And, you know, the thing is that. The thing is, what we learned is that, you know, we were, most of us, people who can afford to fly across the country for a nine day retreat in Los Angeles. Right?

[00:35:06] Speaker C: Like.

[00:35:06] Speaker A: Like, this is, like, very uncomfortable. And we all have lots of hard baked stories about who the people are that are just sitting around on the sidewalk in the middle of the day. And as we sat down without, despite our fear, despite our discomfort, but only with an open heartedness, those people loved us.

[00:35:33] Speaker B: I mean, yeah. You’re not bringing anything? No baggage?

[00:35:37] Speaker A: No, no.

But it required something of me. It required me to suspend my fearful, aggressive, pain filled, history based stories about others on. And by just leaning into love, those people gave me love, and I will never forget it. This one woman, like, she. I think she might have been homeless.

She, like, took my hand and walked down the beach with me. And just. It just. I just could not believe the random kindness and beauty of these people because people can sense innocence.

[00:36:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

What if the entire world did that activity, like, what a different place? Yes, we would be.

[00:36:35] Speaker C: Yes. Yes.

[00:36:37] Speaker B: Love that.

So, okay, this is similar, but not. But when I think about what you’re saying, it’s, like, real and raw and vulnerable. Vulnerable.

And so I use improv comedy to teach. Right. Everything I do is rooted in that. And I really believe that if the entire world could take an improv class, the world would be a better place, because there’s so many characteristics that make up a great improviser, that make up a great human. You have to listen with compassion. You have to think quickly on your feet. But it’s because you’re listening to the thing that the person before you just said. You have to have equal give and take. You have to be in the moment and be so present that you’re not planning ahead or thinking ahead. And that is like an improv based activity that she had you do because you’re improvising the whole time. And it’s beautiful. It’s magical, because what you’re witnessing is the real raw reaction of another human being to. To nothing but your soul, basically.

[00:37:41] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:43] Speaker B: So cool. I love that.

[00:37:46] Speaker A: I wonder, how did you arrive at the title of I see you for your book? Because, like, I really. I think that’s a really loving sentiment.

[00:37:57] Speaker B: You do? Okay. Thank you. Because let me tell you, Johnny, my speaking coach, I love her so much. But she was like, that doesn’t tell me what the book is about. And I’m like, no, no, no, it does. Like, you don’t know what the book. What I’m gonna say in this. And then I went to my publisher, and they tried to change the title, too, and I fought so hard for this title.

There are a lot of books out there called I see you, but they’re thrillers. And so we added an exclamation mark at the end that sort of changed it up. And.

[00:38:33] Speaker A: Yeah, so it’s not so much like, I see you. I see you.

[00:38:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I see you. And it was. And then the subtitle had to really drive it home. So it’s a leader’s guide to energizing your team through radical empathy. But I just like, for me, what I use improv comedy for is really the vessel to make people feel like they belong. And that’s underneath it all. It is like this practice of belonging, of feeling seen, heard, and valued. And so it was just these three words that when you say them, it makes you happy, it makes you smile, it makes you feel something. And I knew I wanted the title to be a phrase that I would like. I would say to somebody, like, I see you, you know? And I always say, like, I see you, boo. You know, or something like that. And I wrote it. In almost every chapter of the book, I say something about, like, it was just so woven into the writing. And when I found my publisher, I was about six chapters in, and so they were like, well, just keep writing it. And then when they tried to change the title, I was like, it just won’t work. And I. The title for me is just everything. Like, I love it. I breathe it, and I feel like my. My friend made me this bracelet. She’s a swiftie. But it says, I see you. And it’s like my color teal. And it makes me so happy when I look at my wrist, it’s like, I see all of you, all of your flaws. I see you as the human being, not the human doing. And it’s funny you said that, because I’m so glad you love it. I love it. I knew that the people who connect with this work would love it. From a business perspective, I think it doesn’t. You know, they don’t think it sells the book.

But if you. You read it, it will. It will make sense. And if you know what I’m trying to convey, it makes sense.

[00:40:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, that’s lovely.

[00:40:38] Speaker A: If the listeners want to learn more about how you show up in the world, the services you offer, they want to learn more about your book, all of that. How would you direct them?

[00:40:51] Speaker B: I would just have them go to my website. It’s aarondeal.com, and it will take you everywhere. Instagram. LinkedIn is where I spend most of my time.

[00:41:01] Speaker A: Spell that for us, please.

[00:41:03] Speaker B: Okay, so it’s Aaron, Erin, and deal is spelled not like, let’s make a deal. It’s the german way. D I e h l. It’s Aaron deal.com. And that’s also my Instagram handle at. It’s errandeal. And it will take you everywhere to the book where you can find it. It will share with you how we use our work to help leaders in teams. It’s a pretty cool website. I’m really proud of it, too. Like, my team helped me build it, and it’s still. You know, it’s still getting things added to it as we speak. But it’s.

It’s. It’s like the thing that I have that embodies who I am now because my business website is amazing. But I feel like I’ve evolved even from 2020, when that was created.

[00:41:44] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:41:46] Speaker B: So it’s aarondiel.com. I would say go there.

[00:41:49] Speaker C: Great. Excellent.

[00:41:51] Speaker A: Why don’t we take this home? If you kind of had to cap off our discussion today. Around this topic of the world becomes more loving as I love myself.

What departing words of wisdom do you have?

[00:42:09] Speaker B: Okay, and I didn’t say this, so I don’t know who wrote this quote, but I love it so much and it’s kind of cheesy, but it really makes sense. If you can pretend that everyone you meet has a sign around their neck that says, make me feel important.

You will not only feel love because you’re giving love, you’ll receive it back.

And literally, we are the energy that we put out to the world. We become what we receive, what we are. So self love is the first step to living a life filled with abundance, a life that flows with ease and grace. And it’s such a better way to live. Like I wish, I wish my younger self could go back in time and actually, I wouldn’t change anything.

But I have lived both lives, and a life filled with freedom and flow is such an easier way because you just, you feel love at every turn.

[00:43:13] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:43:15] Speaker B: And supported. And you are supported. You just have to lean into it.

[00:43:18] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:43:19] Speaker A: There is so much beauty and support if we have eyes to see it.

[00:43:26] Speaker C: Yeah, that’s great.

[00:43:28] Speaker A: Thank you so much for bringing your experience and your story to the listeners today. It was really a beautiful episode.

[00:43:35] Speaker B: Oh my gosh, I love your energy. And again, you have such a great vibe. This was probably one of the coolest conversations I’ve had in a long time. So thank you.

[00:43:44] Speaker A: That touches me. Thank you everyone. I am just overjoyed that you tuned in for another episode of Refractive. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your energy into that. And you know, as always, as we go out into the world and we experience people just doing the best they can, never forget to aim your light. Take care.

You’ve been listening to refractive podcast and this is Johnny G. If you found today’s content uplifting, if you think it might make somebody’s day better, give it a share on social media, click like subscribe. All those things help to expand this podcast availability to new audiences. I’m a spy, a coach, and a facilitator based out of Washington, DC, but I travel a lot. If you think I can be of service to you or to your organization, help people get unstuck or move into their authentic power, shoot me an email. My email address is refractivepodcastmail.com.

Take care. Thanks for listening and aim your light.

Author Michael McPadden and host Johnny Guidry discuss the Spiritual Wisdom of Genesis. Pulling from his book, “Genesis to Revelation,” Michael shares his insights on how the stories in the book of Genesis are layered through with spiritual and metaphysical significance. He discusses his perspectives on heaven and hell, the creation story, Abraham, and more. He then weaves connecting threads through the Gospels and the book of Revelation. Join Refractive for an enlightening episode that encourages listeners to look closer at some of humanity’s most treasured stories in order to uncover rich guidance for spiritual growth.

Learn more about Michael McPadden and his book “Genesis to Revelation” at www.Michael-McPadden.com. To contact host Johnny Guidry for spiritual coaching or to book him for speaking events, send a message to Re***************@***il.com or visit www.refractivecoaching.com.

Episode Transcript:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Refractive. I’m your host, Johnny G. Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Michael McPadden to the show. He’s the author of Genesis to Revelation, Abraham’s Promise, finding Christ, and seeing God. Growing up in Virginia, Michael Dreamt one day of becoming a naval aviator. He reached that goal, eventually became a commercial pilot, and spent a satisfying career doing that.

As he approached retirement, Michael decided to spend his time doing something that was a bit more of a passion project, and he turned to researching not only the Bible and stories of Christianity, but also mythology in general.

Through this study and research, Michael published his first book, Genesis to Revelation. We’re here today to discuss some of his views on the messaging that is contained within the Bible and how it relates to a wider spiritual path of growth. This is an exciting conversation we’re going to have about what wealth there is in the Bible for those of us who are christian or non Christian and how we can apply this to living a better life, feeling a little more fulfilled in our time on this planet, and connecting in a deeper way, not only to our creator, but to each other. So I’m happy to have you here. Michael, thank you so much for joining me on the show.

[00:02:10] Speaker B: John, it’s a real honor to be here with you. I really appreciate you having me on, and let’s have a really good discussion today. Let’s provide a benefit for your audience. I’m really looking forward to it.

[00:02:21] Speaker A: I love it. When you and I first started to speak about how, I don’t know about your views, your understandings, the way you’ve absorbed the messaging of the Bible, I found that it really harmonized with how I see things. And one of the most exciting things for me that I’ve experienced over the course of this spiritual path that I’ve been on for the last, I don’t know, six or seven years, is that when I look at the mystical roots of almost any faith, they never argue with each other. When I look at the mystical roots of Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Zen. Right. When I look at Taoism they don’t argue with each other. They’re all saying the same things. And this has been something so comforting to me.

Having grown up deeply rooted in a traditional christian faith that unabashedly claimed to single handedly have the best path to God.

[00:03:35] Speaker B: The only path.

[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah. I never quite absorb that authentically. And I feel comforted that in my own research, I found that that doesn’t need to be the case.

[00:03:47] Speaker B: I agree 100%.

As far as the Bible and the study of the Bible goes, I kind of like that. If I could just take some time and give an overview of what occurred or what came out from my work, because I didn’t start with any goal in mind. I just wanted to learn like you’re talking about. I wanted to find out what is the truth. And I agree with you. I couldn’t agree more that these other religious traditions, spiritual traditions, have wonderful, profound statements of spirituality, how to live your life, what’s going on in our lives, to help direct us. And while the Christian Bible, or actually the Bible, just say the Bible, while it has some of those things in it, I always felt there was a lot missing. A lot missing. I would go to church and I would listen. I’m thinking, does this guy really know what he’s talking about? This doesn’t really jive with what I think things are or how I feel in my heart that something is. And so my first step was to study the New Testament. And I found some anomalies in the New Testament, nothing terrible, things like. So we hear that Jesus taught about eternal life. This is just an example. He never said that. He never used those words. He used Aeonian. And this is real key to understanding the message that Jesus left us with. He came to bring life to our life. So the word Aeonian means age. And the way the Greeks used it in the first century ad was age was the age of a man. So Johnny Giddy, for example, he was born on such a date, and he’ll die on such a date. And the time span and the life that Johnny lived in that time span was Johnny’s age. Okay? That’s exactly how the word was used. So Jesus said, I have come to bring you a onion. Life. Life now, not when we die. Life right now. So I saw that. I said, yeah, but you can read that anywhere on the Internet. People know this or the information is out there. It wasn’t stunning. And then for some reason, I was compelled to read Genesis, reread it. Actually, I’ve read it once I went, there’s no way I read Genesis. It’s boring. It doesn’t make it. It got a man and a woman. They’re naked. They’re hiding in a tree. There’s a talking serpent. I’m not interested. A little more background. I was trained as an engineer and a mathematician, and what I’m about to go into is mythology and reading the symbols within mythology. This is not engineer material. This is what’s so weird about, like, I don’t even believe in symbology, I don’t think, right?

[00:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:06:31] Speaker B: I start reading these myths, and I’m going, why am I reading this? Doesn’t make any sense. And all of a sudden, I’m reading Genesis one. I’m going, wait a minute. This is poetry. No, I’m not a literature guy, but I know poetry when I see it. These days are split in two. Every day has two parts to it. And then I thought, what was God’s name again that he gave to Moses at the burning bush?

So I go to Exodus. First thing I discover, and chapter three is like a long legal brief. You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. You just go to the very end where it says, God’s real name is, I am, and I become.

I am the consciousness within, and I become the universe without I am and I become. That’s our God. He’s dualistic. There’s no triune God. He’s dualistic. He’s consciousness and he’s material.

So are we, coincidentally, right? So I went, whoa, wait a minute. So now I go back to Genesis one. All of a sudden, you know where it says, let there be light? Yeah, it’s clear. Look, I don’t speak Hebrew, but I know how to read the rules for grammar. And when you translate the Genesis one, it says something completely different. It wasn’t, let there be light. God says, I am light. And the way the Hebrew reads is, let’s see, elohim. And Elohim said, elohim is the name for God. And Elohim said, I am light, and he became light. Get it? I am, and I become also. I said, whoa, wait a minute.

There’s, like, 50 times within Genesis one where God’s name, as I am and I become, pops out at you as a reader once you start looking for it. That’s what I did. I started saying, well, wait a minute.

If I know this now, then this changes Genesis one and how it’s supposed to be read. So the way it works is the first part of the day I am consciousness. Declares what will be. And the second half of the day I become, becomes those things. Okay, well, this is completely different. This is profound. Now we have a profound bible. Now we have something that, this is better than all the rest of the writings I’ve ever seen, because this is fantastic.

It tells us how God creates reality. Now, I can keep going on if you want, we could talk about that, but just as a brief overview. Genesis one tells us how God creates reality. Genesis two tells us how God and man, working together, create man’s reality. Genesis three tells us how we lost our connection to the creative divine.

Then we jump to the next chapters are all about the New Testament. We need a messiah. We need someone to come along who went to the other side, came back. Okay, this is how it’s done. This is how you can have your own hero’s journey. Then the next chapter is about the hero’s journey. Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey. We’re all on a spiritual hero’s journey, every one of us. There are 17 gates that we must pass through, and the very end is resurrection is the ultimate boon, as Joseph Campbell calls it. But it’s Resurrection, and resurrection is uniting with consciousness.

All right, so then that’s what the New Testament does. So Jesus teaches us how to pray and how to believe. That’s how we move ourselves further along the Path. Paul tells us what to look for. These are the gates of the awakening. As Paul understood, Paul was an awakened master. He knew what the gates were, and he tells us in his epistles what they are, what to look for. And then revelation is a very concise, it’s not concise, it’s a very elaborate. Hero’s journey starts at the beginning, when we hear the call across the threshold into the unknown land, and it ends with all of us, all of us as brothers walking into the holy city together.

A lovely story. And that’s what the Bible really is. That’s the story of the human soul, and that’s the Story that the Bible tells. There you go. I’m done. Look, I got it out.

[00:10:56] Speaker A: That’s quite the journey. And there’s so many different aspects of this we could talk about today. And I’m glad that you kind of gave us a bit of an overview of some of the high points. And I want to focus on the topic because you said something that I found very interesting when we were initially speaking together about how, in your view, the idea of heaven and hell, as we’re traditionally taught through dogma and religious traditions, seems to have really missed the point that you have a slightly different. Well, a very different understanding of what heaven and hell is. And I personally also have a very different understanding of heaven and hell than what I was taught as a kid in catholic school. And so I thought that this would be a really interesting area of focus for us because, well, it’s so central to the life of faith that so many of us were brought up in this idea of heaven and hell being the be all, end all.

And when I begin to look through it through different perspectives, it changes my entire relationship to spirituality. So I wonder if you could kind of walk us through.

First of all, what do you see as?

How do you define heaven and hell?

[00:12:44] Speaker B: Okay, so, first of all, that was a great question, by the way. I want your audience to understand that I’m not making any of this up on my own. I’m finding evidence of the Bible. If I found heaven and hell in the Bible, that’s what I would put in my book. I don’t have a horse in this race. No one asked for my vote. I didn’t get a choice. I’m here. I’m just telling you what the Bible says. So the metaphor for our lives is given to us in the days of creation. And God says he becomes the evening. He becomes the morning. He’s not part of the darkness of night. The darkness is the journey into the material world of egoism. See, that’s where we lose our divine connection by becoming egoic, and we all do this. This is eating from the tree of knowledge. And a lot of people understand. They say, they think that what Yahweh Elohim tells the man in Genesis two is that if you eat, he didn’t say that. He says, in the day that you eat, meaning we will all eat from the tree of knowledge. We will become a goic, and we’ll lose our connection to God. The journey is to reverse that. That’s what the spiritual journey, trials and tribulations. We end with resurrection for all men. I’m trying to make point here, okay?

And so the model of it is, we become the evening when we are children. Jesus said, for truly theirs is the kingdom of heaven. In other words, kids live in the kingdom of heaven. And unless we become like them, we won’t.

So they come in the evening, then they enter the darkness right around puberty. I guess it’s a transition, and it’s a process. You don’t become egoic overnight. You transition.

[00:14:27] Speaker A: Wait, let me jump in here, Michael, because you’re referencing evening and morning and things and I don’t think that we’ve established what you mean by that. So can you go back and kind of lay some groundwork on what you mean by evening and morning? What are you talking about?

[00:14:43] Speaker B: Okay, so every day of creation, it ends. Okay, so first God declares what will be. Then God, as I become, builds. He doesn’t create. He builds in time the things of creation. So he declares that he builds, and every day ends with. And he became the evening, and he became the morning. Day 1234 and five. Right? Okay, so you have this picture of the light. I am light. So God is the light. He’s the sun in this metaphor. And so all the building and creating goes on during the day. And then it says, he becomes the evening, the fading light of evening, as we. His creation fades into the darkness of egoic existence. Okay, so we’re traveling, John, you and I, buddy, we’re traveling through the darkness together. Yes, but there’s light, and we’re going to the dawn. We’re moving towards dawn. And dawn begins the resurrection. So as you approach got. As you approach the end of your life, people who are older are so much more spiritual. And it’s because I think, I’m writing another book, but I have a feeling it has to do with the degeneration of the human brain that doesn’t allow us to be as egoic as we are when we’re younger. I don’t know. I’m guessing there, but basically the metaphor is evening, darkness, dawn, resurrection, back to God in the light.

[00:16:19] Speaker A: Right?

[00:16:20] Speaker B: Okay, that’s what you believe, right?

[00:16:22] Speaker A: Okay. Yes. And I want to wrap as we continue to move on.

This feels right to me, because.

[00:16:36] Speaker B: What.

[00:16:36] Speaker A: I believe is that we’re all sparks of the creator, and we’re all on an inevitable journey towards reunification with the creator. And that in order for me to experience reunion, reunification, communion with the creator, I have to.

I have to go through this ego experience, which, the way I see it is I’m like a gem that’s full of fissures and imperfections. And as I move through this and find love as my natural response to this gunk, rather than a lack of love ego. In response to the gunk, I heal the fissures one by one by one. And as I eventually become a perfectly clear diamond, right, without all of that ego gunk that I got in the darkness, I am then capable of reunification with the creator.

That’s how I see my journey of moving through the evening and back towards the resurrection. It’s heal. Find God’s love. And perfection in all things, not just the pleasant, not just the beautiful. And as I do that in heal, I become more able to see the light of God without obstacle, without blocking.

And I’m thus prepared to be in God’s presence more directly. And the thing about this belief that I really like is that I can speak to catholic dogma, because that’s what I was raised in. The Catholics are so close. This idea of purgatory, right, instead of this idea of, like, purgatory is this between world my soul goes to after death. Purgatory is now, like purgatory is the process of healing and cleansing and becoming again able to stand in the presence of God, unobstructed, because I have healed, because my energy has risen in quality, in clarity, in vibration, that I can actually withstand the presence of God.

Anyway, I just wanted to kind of layer my own beliefs on top of yours. And to me, they align very closely.

[00:19:41] Speaker B: They’re exactly correct. The only thing I would change from what you were saying is that you were saying that then you become capable.

You want to push those two together and say, as I get clearer, I do stand in the presence of God more and more. It’s not something. There’s no options here. It’s like, as you throw off your egoic chains, you become free. That’s what being in God is. And so Paul described it. He said, now I look through a glass or a darkened glass, but later, face to face.

That was Paul. Paul was brilliant. I love anything he wrote. He’s a brilliant man. But anyway. No, you just described what I did.

But you believe what Genesis teaches already, and you haven’t even read it. I don’t think.

Not the decrypted version. Right. Because these are myths. Now, let me take a minute to explain a myth.

[00:20:43] Speaker A: Okay.

Some people might bristle when they hear this.

[00:20:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So a myth. This is my definition. But a myth is any story, either fiction or nonfiction, that is written in a particular format. And I call it mythical literature. So when you write a story as mythical literature, it can be about a real person. For example, the story of Abraham.

I think you’ll like this. The story of Abraham is the myth Abraham. My book depends. Almost a lot of my book depends on the fact that Abraham brought the first eleven chapters of Genesis with him when he left sumer. So I fully believe Abraham was a real person. But his story is written as mythical literature to teach us a lesson. Here’s a story, quick and dirTy. So Abraham leaves Sumer, and he and his wife Sarah cannot have a child. She’s barren. And so Abraham really wants an heir. And so Sarah says, hey, go sleep with the slave hagar and let her bear you a son. So he does. And so Hagar bears Abraham’s first son. His name is Ishmael, but he was born as a bond servant because he was born to a slave. But then, miraculously, God raises something from the dead to living again, which was SaraH’s womb.

This is what we read in revelation. God raises the kingdom back alive again so that we can have this resurrection experience. So he raises something that was dead to life again. And Sarah becomes pregnant with Abraham’s second son, and his name is Isaac. And so Isaac is born to a free woman. So he’s a free man.

Ishmael, the first man, represents Adam, the man of bonDage, our ego. And Isaac, the second man, represents the man of freedom, which is Christ. So this is, in a nutshell, the journey of the human soul. We are born as Adam, but we resurrect as Christ.

Okay, cool. Pretty cool, isn’t it? I like that every story in the Bible is written like that. And I want to throw this out to your audience. Maybe some of them aren’t all that interested in pursuing a spiritual path or what I’m describing. If they’re interested in mythology, my book does a real good job of teaching how I’m doing this decoding. Anyone can do it if you know what you’re looking for. So you can take what I teach you in my book about decoding the Mythology, you go through the Bible yourself and decode it. There’s hundreds of these Things. I scratch the Surface. So all you sleuths, all you mythological, and you can do this. Like, I’ve decoded greek myths and sumerian myths using the same method. It’s just not that hard. You have to know they’re written in symbolic language.

That’s kind of an off thing. But anyway, GeneSis, all the Genesis stories are Myths.

All of the characters that you see are symbolic of other things, like the man and the woman. In Genesis, two people call them Adam and Eve, but the woman is a symbolic entity. She represents human self awareness. Yeah. So the fall from grace was us as consciousness, entering into human self awareness, creating our ego. The ego comes out of our belief system. That’ll be in chapter one. And the belief system is what locks us into ego.

When consciousness creates reality through believing.

But when locked into your belief system, in your egoic consciousness, all you can believe is what? Your belief system, right? Yes. Okay. Does that make sense?

[00:24:46] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:24:46] Speaker B: Oh, this is great. I’m so happy.

So all you know is Johnny giddy. That’s all you know? You live where you live, you eat what you eat. Your world is what it is, but you probably see it in your life, changes in yourself, affecting how your world comes to you.

I had to take a day off yesterday. I went snowboarding for the first time in ten years, so it was a lot of fun. And I was in such a good mood just for everything, right? And I get out there, and guess what? This is weird. Everybody else was in a really good mood, too, with me. Yeah, that’s okay. And I’m sure there are people who are giving me sideways glances for various reasons, cutting them off on the slope or something. I didn’t notice those people. So as we change, our world changes. But as we’re in Goic, we’re locked into the belief system and what it believes. When we free ourselves, it’s just us in our mind, and we can believe whatever we.

[00:25:47] Speaker A: Right. That’s right.

[00:25:49] Speaker B: That’s what Jesus taught us.

[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yes.

Okay, look, like you said, there’s so many rabbit holes I want to jump down. There’s so many quotes and verses that I want to go into, and we just don’t have time for that.

I’m like a kid at the candy store, and I want to try it all, but okay, I’m going to bring us back.

[00:26:14] Speaker B: Oh, heaven and hell. Let’s go to heaven and hell, because you did ask that question.

[00:26:18] Speaker A: I know you read let’s go to heaven and hell. So I want you to tell me, I want you to contrast for me, if this feels right for you, what your view of we’ll start with heaven is. What is your view of heaven, and how does it contrast with the view of heaven that we tend to be taught by christian dogma?

[00:26:44] Speaker B: Well, I don’t believe in that heaven at all. It doesn’t exist. Nothing exists after our death. Nothing. I’m not saying we’re going to nothing. I’m just saying when you’re dead, you’re dead. So that’s number one.

What Jesus talked about wasn’t a heaven. He talked about the kingdom of the heavens. While you live right now, we can experience the kingdom of the heavens like the children that I talked about earlier. But it requires some spiritual practices. The most important one is spiritual believing. You have to believe there’s a kingdom of the heavens, and you have to believe that you’re worthy of it. Knock on the door and it’ll be open. It’s that simple. You just have to change your mind and believe. That’s what Jesus taught. So let’s say I was going to write you a letter, and I’m one page Dear John, I can’t ever talk again, but this letter is for you to try and live your life by. There’s a heaven and hell. How much of that letter would you think if I really was your friend, how much of that letter would be focused on stay out of hell?

You don’t need to know a thing about heaven. Just don’t go to hell. We’re crying out loud. The Bible doesn’t even talk about hell. So if there was a hell, most of the Bible we about stay out of that place. We’re crying out loud. It’s terrible. So the jewish tradition in the first century was there was no talk of the afterlife.

When you died, the righteous and the unrighteous went to Sheol. Shiol is a hebrew word for grave, the beyond, the unknown. When they wrote a book called the Septuagint, which is the greek version of the Hebrew Bible, back about 250 BC, every time the editors would come across the word shiol, they replaced it with the greek word Hades.

So when Jesus and Paul talked about the unknown, death, things like that, they would refer to shield. No one knows what happens in shield. The righteous and the unrighteous go to the same place in this tradition, and that’s what Jesus and Paul taught. But the word they used was Hades. So every time you see hell in the New Testament, it’s Hades.

Did Jesus believe in Hades, the God Hades, or did he believe in the land called all that’s. They don’t exist anyway. That’s why you just don’t find hell spoken of in the Bible whatsoever when they talk about heaven. Heaven isn’t what these early translators tried to understand. They took their egoic minds and tried to take these spiritual ideas and put them into the physical. They couldn’t understand what it was to be in the kingdom of the heavens, so they assumed that what would happen is when you die, you went to heaven. But Jesus tells us what happens when we die. We go to paradise. We don’t go to heaven, we go to paradise. When he was on the cross talking to the thief, and he says, truly, I tell you, today, you and I will be in paradise.

Okay, so heaven and hell, no resurrection. Yes. That’s all Jesus ever talked about. He never talked about heaven and hell. Paul didn’t. It’s not in revelation. Revelation tells us, as brothers, we all walk into the city together, we all rise at the same time. Oh, there’s another rabbit hole we’re going to go down. Now, since I said that we all rise together, what that means is we are leaving different points of the axis of time that we live in, right? But we’re going to the same time together. So when you die and you get ready to cross that line, you’ll do it with your parents, you’ll do it with your grandparents, you’ll do it with everyone you’ve ever known. You’ll do it with Jesus, you’ll do it with Napoleon, you’ll do it with Joan of Arc, whomever. But we all are traveling into the eternal moment.

[00:30:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:54] Speaker B: Okay, so that’s why Paul says we all rise together in Christ.

[00:31:01] Speaker A: Okay?

[00:31:02] Speaker B: That’s why revelation says we all walk into the city.

[00:31:07] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. I’m here for that.

And when you say in Christ, are you referring to Christ consciousness, that perfectly crystallized united soul entity that is purely prepared to stand in the presence of the creator? Is that what you mean?

[00:31:30] Speaker B: Yes, but it’s more complicated than that. As you might have imagined, it’s not too much more complicated. So Christ is the creation.

Christ is the whole thing. It’s your birth, it’s your walk through life, and it’s your death. So the way John, the author of Revelation, puts it, he says, I, your brother John, or I, John, your brother. Ready? In the trials, the tribulations, and the kingdom, which are all found in Christ.

So our entire life is Christ?

Yes. We’re going to have Christ consciousness. That’s part of the blueprint. That’s how this works. Very simple. So you’re going through all this stuff you’re going through in life and the trials and the tribulations and the learning and the setbacks and all these things going on, but slowly but surely, you’re passing through one of the 17 gates, and as you pass through that gate, you have less to go, and you get closer to the purification that you’re talking about. Right? So you’re on track.

You don’t even need to read my book. You got all this stuff figured out.

Look.

[00:32:46] Speaker A: This is all I. All I. You know, all I really kind of have to say is that I believe that. That return to the creator is inevitable.

It is not something that I believe is to be earned through righteousness.

It is that there are these near infinite pathways to return to the creator, and every pathway returns to the creator eventually. Time is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether I dedicate my entire life right now to living in a remote monastic environment or whether I go on crime sprees, I do not ever impede my return to the creator. There’s no guarantee of efficiency and timeliness. But I can’t possibly get in the way of my return to the creator because it is, even from a physics perspective, it’s the return to zero. It’s the return to zero.

It’s the endpoint of entropy. It’s the beginning and endpoint. It’s the alpha and the omega. It is, like, unavoidable.

And we’re all along for the ride.

And this idea of an eternity in either a reward state of heaven or a penalty state of hell, it doesn’t fit for me.

[00:34:34] Speaker B: It doesn’t fit.

[00:34:35] Speaker A: And I don’t want to just willy nilly disregard the deeply held beliefs around this by millions and millions of people. Who am I right?

[00:34:49] Speaker B: Yet.

[00:34:51] Speaker A: When I look at the soul’s journey based on my discernment and based on what I perceive in the discernment of people whose journeys I trust, heaven and hell, to me, and I wonder if you’d agree, is simply the state of.

Let me see.

It is simply the decision to be aligned with this soul journey or the decision to resist the soul’s journey. As if I ever really could. And to completely devote myself to my ego’s definition of survival and security that is hell.

And complete surrender to the spiritual path as arranged by not Johnny, whatever. Not Johnny is heaven.

And the way that I can test this is that. Michael, I don’t know about you, but for most of my life, I tried so hard to do everything right. I tried to study, I tried to work hard. I tried to build loving relationships. I tried to establish my physical security and welfare. I tried to manage my finances. I tried to create peace in the world. I tried to be a good person. And yet, everything hurt. Everything was uncomfortable. And none of these things could I truly say I was successful even in my career, where I got applauded and promoted and recognized I had an unhealthy relationship with my egoic attachment to my career. So even that with pats on the back, wasn’t painless. It was painful because it was wrought from fear.

And so that is hell, to do everything right, quote right.

And still life is painful at all turns, as opposed to heaven, which is to say, I’m here, I surrender. I catch the wind like a kite. I go where the wind blows me. I’m here for the journey. I open myself up to receive all. I open myself up to be all. I open myself up to experience all.

There’s no room for stress in that perspective. There’s no room for pain in that perspective. In that perspective, the death of my child is not an obstacle to joy, as weird and revolutionary as that sounds. I know I sound like a crazy person, but I’m going to say it again. When I adopt the perspective that I am only here to surrender when things happen that I don’t like, it has no bearing on my potential for joy.

[00:38:23] Speaker B: Right, exactly.

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is life’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be suffering. It’s like, what? That’s nuts. But it’s true. We’re here because.

Okay, so in chapter three of Genesis, the man chooses the tree of knowledge, right? When he chooses the tree of knowledge, the woman comes alive as human self awareness and begins talking.

And then her children are the various manifestations of ego that we deal with in life. They never go away until we conquer them. They never go away. In revelation, it’s referred to as the beast with the mortal wound that lived. These are our expressions of ego and habits that we develop in our lives. Let’s say I can’t drink alcohol. I’m an alcoholic. I hate to say that, but it’s true. It’s like a failure for me, but I don’t really care anymore. I can’t drink alcohol. It’s terrible for me.

That beast that I created by drinking whatever I created, it was part of my life plan, however you want to look at it, but it’s still a beast, and it’s a beast that should be dead because I said I’m not going to drink anymore. But that beast is alive. I know it is. I know it is. It has a mortal wound, but yet that beast still lives. So we’re going through the darkness. We are dead spiritually.

You can’t have a greater hell than being dead, completely cut off from God, I don’t think.

But then we start to awaken, and then we leave hell. And that would be heaven? Yeah, I guess if you wanted to imagine the resurrection as heaven. There’s nothing wrong with that. But I just don’t use the terms because they’re fake terms in the New Testament. They don’t talk about some heaven as a place. There’s a kingdom of the heavens that we experience. That’s the tree of life. And then there’s Hades, which is the grave, the unknown. What happens when we pass? What happens? We don’t know. And so we don’t talk about it. I guess so. I don’t use heaven and hell particularly for that reason. They’re not really in the.

[00:40:42] Speaker A: If, as we kind of get to the closing of this arc that we’re talking about here, I don’t know if you would agree with me, and I certainly invite you to share your perspective on this, but I guess what I would encourage people to do is to go within, turn within, enter the stillness within, and ask yourself, how do you define heaven and hell? Read everything that you can. Read spiritual texts, listen to people who study this, internalize it all, and then come up with what feels right to you. Because if there’s anything that I truly believe, it’s that you already are.

You already know.

And the answers are in the stillness.

[00:41:34] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. And this is what Paul teaches in his epistles. He constantly. So one of the things they do in the interpretation of the New Testament, it’s very irritating to me, is that they misconjugate words sometimes or they’ll put wrong translations to them. For example, when Paul talks about gifts of the spirit that you received in Christ, he doesn’t talk about them as something that will happen. He says, you already have them. They’re already there. Like, you have already been seated with Christ in the kingdom of the heavens. That’s already happened. You haven’t realized it yet in time, but it’s there. It’s not something God has withheld. God’s done all these things. And so what you just said is just a reflection of what Paul taught, what Jesus taught, too. But the point is that, yeah, all these things that are supposedly waiting for us are already done. They’re just waiting for us to realize them in our awakening path.

[00:42:34] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:42:35] Speaker B: Everything that we believe or that we understand to be true about spirituality is found in the Bible one way or another. One of the things I do, I have a Twitter account. So what I do is I’ll go. And I have followed a lot of these Twitter sites that basically put out eastern philosophies. Good stuff. But I’ll read it, and then my response will always be where it says that in the Bible. Yeah, right. And so it’s just the way, it’s like, I’m not trying to say you’re wrong. In fact, I’m agreeing with you. What I’m saying is that all of these teachings are in the Bible, too.

[00:43:10] Speaker A: All align.

[00:43:11] Speaker B: If we just wake up and look at. Yeah, that’s it.

[00:43:16] Speaker A: That’s it. I love it. Michael, I really enjoyed doing a bit of a deeper dive here. I don’t know if I’d call it philosophical. I don’t exactly know how I’d refer to it, but it’s been a really nice deep dive. And if listeners would like to learn more about you, your path, your book, where would you direct them?

[00:43:38] Speaker B: I have a website. It basically is just going to direct you to Amazon to buy my book. But the book is genesis to revelation, and it’s by author Michael McPadden. It’s on Amazon Kindle, paperback, hardback.

I have a Twitter account.

It’s Genesis two, underscore Rev. Okay, yeah. And if I could leave your audience with just one thing that I would encourage them to do, and this is in my book, chapter nine. The book talks about prayer and belief and how it’s done. But if you could just take something away, believe me when I’m telling you that consciousness creates reality, and this is what Jesus taught. If you could just believe, you can do so. It’s so simple. And yet why don’t they teach that church? I don’t know.

[00:44:35] Speaker A: That’s it. I love that. The ultimate empowerment there.

[00:44:39] Speaker B: Absolutely. It’s all within us. We just have to make the choice.

[00:44:43] Speaker A: That’s beautiful. Michael, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us today. And I have deep respect for anyone who dedicates this kind of effort to his spiritual path. And as I said earlier, we don’t all end up following the same path, we don’t all end up with the same beliefs, we don’t all end up adhering to the same principles, but we’re all ending up in the same place.

[00:45:16] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely.

[00:45:17] Speaker A: It’s unavoidable. So I see you, and I’m glad to walk this parallel path with you, buddy.

[00:45:24] Speaker B: This is fantastic. Johnny, thank you so much for having me on. It really has been an honor and a privilege and I just enjoyed the conversation. I could talk about this stuff all day, but this has been great.

[00:45:34] Speaker A: Same here, everyone. Thanks again for tuning in to an episode of Refractive. And as you go out in your day, always remember to aim your light. Take care.

Mariko Sakai, aka Mistress Mariko, joins host Johnny G to discuss the spiritual side of romance and intimacy. Mariko, a coach and expert in field of relationships, intimacy, and sexuality, presents listeners with a hard-hitting question: are we REALLY willing to get honest about who we are, what we want, and how we can get there? Whether in romance, sexuality and intimacy, family life, or business, Mariko explains that our inner guidance has all the information we need to reach ongoing joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment. The map to find it is simply the willigness to love ourselves unconditionally and boldly embrace authentic living.

To learn more about Mariko’s work, visit her website at www.MistressMariko.com or find her on social media: @MistressMariko.

To contact host Johnny Guidry to discuss spiritual coaching, speaking engagements, or episode feedback, email him at Re***************@***il.com or visit www.RefractiveCoaching.com

Episode Transcript:
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Refractive. I’m your host, Johnny G. Today I’m joined by Mariko Sakai. She is a businesswoman, coach, thought leader, TEDx, speaker and light worker. She focuses on helping people wake up from societal expectations and reorient to a truly authentic life. She herself lives an alternative lifestyle. She’s a certified coach in sex, love, relationships, conscious dating, tantric intimacy, women’s empowerment and ethical bdsm. She’s trained in human design, EFT, co creative science, and she is my wonderful guest today. Welcome, Mariko. I’m so happy to have you here.

[00:01:29] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Johnny, for having me. It was an honor.

[00:01:33] Speaker A: And today we’re here to talk about your area of specialization, relationships, sexuality, and the rich personal growth and spiritual development that’s available to that part of our life. And I think it’s a really interesting topic.

[00:01:52] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. There’s so much here.

[00:01:56] Speaker A: Why do you think this was an area of focus that you moved into?

[00:02:04] Speaker B: Why?

I am not sure, but maybe I feel like part of the reason why. It has to do with the fact that since I was like a little girl, I always kind of identify as not fitting in.

I was not like a typical girl. It was more than just like a tomboy type thing.

So I feel like there is a part of me just kind of always aware of who I am, but not really feeling like I fit into like a typical girl box.

And also not wanting to. Growing up, not wanting to fit into that box as a way of kind of as a woman. Like growing up in japanese society, in any society, there is this sexism and woman should be this, a girl should be like that and a boy should be like this. And I never really fit in. But also I did not want to grow up to be an adult woman where I am lesser than men or like I’m less successful than men or I wanted to make sure that I am very successful in every way and don’t fit into this typical, kind of like a submissive or lesser role, if you will, for a woman so there is intentional. I was kind of a natural born, like a different girl, but also I want to be like this. There is a very clear picture of that, too. So I was always kind of aware of what society was expecting of me, but who I really am, and then just kind of always kind of aware of that kind of a balance or the misalignment between the two.

[00:04:18] Speaker A: It sounds like your coaching journey has a parallel to mine.

When I had, I guess, what I call a spiritual awakening, and that empowered me to stop living my life according to what I was taught, my life should look like. I was able to step away from my traditional career and instead do things that felt good to my spirit. I was able to change the nature of my relationships with people, walk away with individuals. That darkened my spirit, even if society says I had an obligation to be with them.

My spirit told me, no leave, and I did.

And as I felt the refreshment of living this way, I all of a sudden wanted to help other people feel that way, too. And it sounds like what you do for a living in helping people, especially in the niche of relationships, is an outpouring of your own journey and what you learn to help yourself. And now maybe you want to provide that support to other people on the same journey. Does that sound right?

[00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And then, so I attract the people who basically conform to the society’s expectations, and then they are successful doing it.

And I was very successful, quote unquote, as well. But then after a while, I realized, oh, my God, am I happy?

No.

[00:06:12] Speaker A: Right?

[00:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:06:16] Speaker A: How can I be so unhappy when I’ve done everything right that was, I had. Why am I unhappy? I did what I was supposed to. My job looks like it was supposed to. My relationships look like they’re supposed to. Everything in my life, I’ve architected it based on what I’ve been taught. Why doesn’t it feel good? It was baffling to me. It felt so unfair. It felt like I had to be so damaged in order to not enjoy a life that looked like it should be right.

And in reality, it was not right. It was somebody else’s right. It wasn’t my right.

[00:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And then that somebody else probably don’t exist.

[00:07:06] Speaker A: Exactly.

I love that. So I love that you’re on this journey, and I love that you dedicate your life to helping people arrive at that same beautiful realization as you did. So why don’t we dig right into this topic? It’s a rich one.

[00:07:23] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds good.

[00:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah. So one of the things that you mentioned to me is that you feel very passionate about inviting people to be honest with themselves about what they want and what they don’t want. And I have to tell you, Marico, this is a refractive podcast message.

I have one episode that’s literally called be honest with yourself.

And I have this message of, like, really respect what you want and what you don’t want and move toward it. I’ve talked about that quite a bit, so I’m excited to revisit this topic with you.

What do you mean by that?

How can someone get honest with themselves about what they want or what they don’t want?

[00:08:17] Speaker B: Yeah, this is actually quite difficult, I find, and I’m an honest person.

I’m sure a lot of people can relate to that. Like, well, what can I do? I’m already honest.

So in my experience, it requires looking in the areas that I was not willing to look at.

That’s where it comes down to.

And I became passionate about this, looking in basically shadow and then dark areas that I possessed, but I still possess, but I was choosing to not look at it because I’m a successful person, I’m a good person, and I can just kind of pretend these things don’t exist about me, right. And then, so I almost forget, like, I even have these things over here. But the reality is that I just kind of put them aside, try not to look at them, pretend that they don’t exist. That’s not part of me. No, I’m successful. I’m a good person here. So this is the way I live my life, almost all of my life.

And then I did everything that I know to be successful, right? I mean, I took all the training. I have a degree, I speak multiple languages, all of these things. And then I was still not happy.

I was feeling empty and I was feeling very misaligned about who I am, and I did not know what was wrong.

And then, so the reason why I became so passionate about and then the reason why this becoming honest with yourself can be hard is because you are most likely, and like, I was working so hard to be right, to have this great life become happy and successful and all of this.

And so intentionally, we are not looking at these areas, these shadow, dark areas.

And like I said, I almost forgot that I had these things.

And it kind of feels scary because we don’t look at these areas because I feel ashamed. I’m fearful that I cannot believe it’s part of me, right? So to kind of invite people to be honest, that’s really what I mean by look at purposely the areas where I’ve chosen to not look at, like turn the blind eye, pretend doesn’t exist.

[00:11:14] Speaker A: And so let’s apply this to the world of relationships. Because, listen, you and I, we could talk all day long about hidden rage or hidden greed or all of these kind of shadow sides. But if we’re talking specifically about relationships and everyone’s individual orientation towards relationship status, whether I’m someone that prefers being single, prefers being married, prefers being in an open relationship, prefers just dating, whatever that is. When you talk about getting honest with yourself about what you want and don’t want, how does that apply to my romantic life?

[00:12:00] Speaker B: That is a really big question. So I would say that it is such a core of you that these like love and sex and relationship.

[00:12:26] Speaker A: Because we’re spoon fed. Like we’re told, well, you’re not married in your late thirty s. I mean, something’s wrong.

That’s the quiet messaging. I mean, in some homes, that might not be quiet messaging, that might be direct messaging. In my home, that’s never spoken, but certainly in my society, it’s like, yeah, you’re single and you’re 42 and you’ve never been in a relationship. So what’s wrong?

[00:12:57] Speaker B: Yes, that’s right. Yeah.

Where I grew up in Japan, there is this analogy of for women, like, oh, woman, you don’t want to be a Christmas cake. Well, what does that mean? Well, after the 25, no one wants you.

Yeah, this is a joke, but it’s really harsh. And of course, my parents, fortunately, they didn’t give me that kind of a pressure. But how many people will choose to be in a certain relationship because they were told that’s what they’re supposed to do? Right.

And when it comes to sex, I mean, who told you how to do it, right?

[00:13:45] Speaker A: Yeah.

Nobody trustworthy told me how to do it. I could tell you that much.

[00:13:51] Speaker B: Exactly.

Who got a proper education about it?

Maybe just looking some magazine and porn.

That’s it.

Including myself. Until I got my sex coaching certification, I got a proper training about what is it? What is sex?

How to have it in the most pleasurable way. What’s the purpose of it? More than just a procreation?

No one’s learning this thing.

[00:14:25] Speaker A: No.

[00:14:27] Speaker B: Yeah. No one’s teaching it, no one’s seeking it. Right.

[00:14:30] Speaker A: Exactly.

My brain is just so full of thoughts around this. If we’re talking about sex, it’s like, well, if you don’t like intercourse, something’s wrong. Right. Or the other parts are just extra. Well, that’s not true. Some people are wired differently. Some people don’t like intercourse and they like another part of sex. And the fact is, when you say it’s time to get honest about what you want and don’t want out of relationships, we’re not just talking about the sexual part, like, we’re talking about fulfillment. Fulfillment for my romantic life. Do I even know what I want? Have I even stopped to look inside myself and say, I don’t want to live that way, or I do want to live that way, and here’s why I want to live that way. I understand why I want to live that way, rather than just taking spoon fed societal education that misaligns with who we are.

[00:15:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And I feel like because of the taboo labeling of sex, we don’t even properly talk about it. Right. So all we do, most of us, all we do is like, oh, I heard or read about this in the magazine, and this is probably how I’m supposed to be doing it. And I don’t get why this could be so fun, or I only know this one way.

Like you’re saying we don’t really think about what do I really want? We don’t even think about it. Do I want a partner? Well, if I do, how many or what kind?

I didn’t think much about that when I was young.

I thought that I kind of feel like I want to have children. I feel like that’s in my future, and I found someone who could be a good father of my children.

That’s different from I want a soulmate or I want a partner. It’s very different. But we do it because society says I should get married. If I want to do this, do that if you want to be successful. Right.

[00:17:17] Speaker A: All right, here we go.

We’re in this swamp of other people’s information.

We can’t see because the water is cloudy. We don’t know what we want. We’re like, oh, no, I got to have a kid by the time I’m 30.

I got to get married. I have this right. We don’t even know what we want. We only know what we’ve been conditioned to desire. Okay. And so how do we see clearly? How do you help people to understand what they want at the most pure level?

[00:17:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So it is hard. It is challenging.

It really is. And so for me, that the way worked, like I said earlier, that it took me to look into the area that I was least willing to look at. That was the fastest way to do it.

[00:18:23] Speaker A: You’re willing to share with us what area that was.

[00:18:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So beginning of that, my journey was to actually go through divorce, which I had this strong conditioning. That’s not for me. No, I’m not doing it.

[00:18:38] Speaker A: Divorce is unacceptable.

[00:18:40] Speaker B: Exactly. That’s a failure. I’m not a failure, so I’m not doing it.

So that was one thing that was actually huge for me, that actually doing it.

And then he really had this feeling of. It was a mutual thing, but I was not going to initiate because I had this strong condition. It is wrong to do it, especially because I have children. We have children together.

And then. So once I looked at it and then did it in a way that I never thought possible for a divorce, I was like, oh, my God. And then it made me feel so free.

And when I say free, the.

It’s. It’s hard to describe how that felt. I felt for the first time, whole.

[00:19:41] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.

[00:19:43] Speaker B: And then I feel, like, whole. And then I kind of have this feeling like I used to feel this way every day when I was a child.

[00:19:52] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:19:53] Speaker B: But after a while, maybe I would say six, seven years old, I just gradually start to lose that feeling of whole and a being myself.

Divorce is just one big thing that just opened up.

It was like a lock of the jail that I put myself in.

And then. So I opened the key, but it really had this feeling of instead of trying to open the key of the jail, it was more like, I melted the jails away.

It disappeared. And then I was like, or like, it expanded. That jail expanded. Jail was, like, right here, just hugging my body, and I couldn’t move and I couldn’t feel. I didn’t even know who I am to just kind of, boom, expansion of the jail I was in. So there was a lot of loose bars and, like, oh, I can just get out.

[00:21:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s right.

Yes.

[00:21:10] Speaker B: That was the feeling when that happened. And then after that, I experienced so many other areas of the things that I thought wasn’t for me and then realized, oh, my God, I actually love this thing. And every time I experience something, I said, no, and then look into that and I’m like, oh, my God, I love it. And every time it was like a boom. It’s like a huge expansion of, like, wow, where does this. All this space that was available to me that I wasn’t aware of it, that feeling of, I guess that is the power of truth that is there, but no one can give it to me.

I’m the only one.

If I am really willing to look at the truth in that way, yes.

Then it becomes mine.

But it’s mine already. But I can’t use it.

That’s the power of becoming honest and then looking into those areas that you don’t want to admit about yourself.

[00:22:48] Speaker A: I’m the monster under my bed. There is no monster under my bed. I’m the one that’s waiting to get me.

I’m the jailer that’s holding me in my cell. There is no jailer. It’s me.

I love thinking of it as the only thing strong enough to cut a diamond is a diamond. No one can hold me back but me. No one has the power to hold me back but me. I’m the only one powerful enough. And so it’s one of the most beautiful things that I get to work with, with clients. And I know that you do, too. It’s helping someone open their eyes and see that there’s not a damn thing in the world that can stop you but you. And if you felt stuck, then the good news is there’s no one else that I have to go convince to let me go. It’s just you.

Only one.

[00:23:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. And it’s one of those things that a lot of people say, I want to be confident.

How do I become confident? I feel like it’s the same thing that I feel like that it’s really just you in the way.

I am in my way.

Go ahead.

[00:24:17] Speaker A: I was going to say, there’s this horror movie from the gosh, the title of it is escaping me, but there’s a babysitter, and she’s in the house by herself where the kids are sleeping. And she gets a threatening phone call.

And the phone call frightens her very much. And she calls the police and says, someone told me that they were going to hurt me and the kids that I’m babysitting, and I’m so scared. And the police says, oh, we’re going to go ahead and research that call. Well, the phone call comes back and they say, ma’am, this is the police. The phone call is coming from inside your house.

And she realizes that the person who is threatening her is already in the house with her and the kids. So it’s terrifying. It’s terrifying. But that’s a great analogy for I terrify myself.

The phone call is coming from inside the house. Right. You say, oh, when people want to be confident. Well, I’m the one that dared me not to be confident.

And it doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it means this is an inside job.

And it all starts with stillness. It starts with love. Stillness, love. That’s my experience. That’s my opinion. I wonder if you agree.

[00:25:43] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Stillness. And then I find that to be. It is much easier to experience the stillness when I’m not in a relationship.

Yes.

[00:26:02] Speaker A: There you go.

[00:26:06] Speaker B: Yes. So that’s another thing, right? Like this conditioning that we receive. Like, if you’re not dating, if you don’t have a boyfriend, girlfriend, something is wrong with you. Like for what, how long? How old are you? There is this thing.

There was a time. Well, let me think about it. Yeah. When I got married, I wanted to have a husband to start a children with. I mean, start a family with. But other than that, I actually don’t think I was in the need of wanting a boyfriend because people thought. But I know a lot of people do.

And I feel like that’s one of the examples that I’ve been partnered. I was married for 20 years and I have some partners, but I definitely don’t have the boyfriend or that type of partner.

And then there is actually, I really enjoy this and that there is definitely a benefit.

It’s not a benefit.

It’s more like, how do I call this?

Necessity.

This doesn’t mean that if you are a partnered in relationship, you cannot have this. But I don’t. But I feel like me as a person who have kind of adapted to be a married person and in order to adapt myself, suppressed myself, suppressed my feeling, my desires and then wants and not want. So in that context, I feel like it feels really good to be able to just really walk on myself, be with myself, be still with myself instead of asking someone to do that with me, which I think is an inside job.

[00:28:12] Speaker A: That’s right.

I want to turn this really practical for a moment. And I’m sure that you as well work on this with clients. But listen, we’re talking about relationships today. We’re talking about being authentic when it comes to the role that coupling or staying single plays in our personal growth and our spiritual development. And if you think, you know, what type of life you want, I want to be single or I want to be married. I want to be in an open relationship. I just want to date. Whatever it is. I want multiple partners, whatever the case is.

I wonder if, listeners, if you can ask yourself, do I know why I want what?

You know, this is such fertile soil to say, okay, I want to be married. Why do I want to be married? Let me just see myself clearly.

And here’s specifically how I will walk through it with clients. And Mariko, maybe you have other methods that you’d like to share. You know, it’s about saying, what are my values? And if you have not done values exercises for yourself yet, just go online, google it, and you can find lots of websites that have helpful articles or exercises on how to uncover what your values are. Spoiler alert. Your values are not things are not qualities, simply qualities that you respect. They are qualities that drive your subconscious response. They’re automatic reflexes. Okay? Everybody says, oh, my value is generosity or kindness. Okay, well, is your first reaction to situations generosity and kindness? If it’s not, that’s probably not your value. Maybe your value is adventure, or maybe your value is exploration. Or maybe your value is growth, or whatever the case. Okay, so do I know what my values are? And what are the fears that are subconsciously driving me? Am I scared that I’m not worthy? Am I scared that I’m not good enough? Am I scared that I’ll be abandoned?

Am I scared that life is going to pull the rug out from under me? And if these fears are playing roles in your life, then it is worth your time, listeners, to look at them with your open eyes and say, is there a correlation between my values and my fears and the type of relationship I want?

Not that you’re right. Not that you’re wrong. Let me just look. Is something pulling the strings behind the curtain that’s making me think I want x when if I were really free, I would want y? What are your thoughts on that?

[00:31:22] Speaker B: I love that. I love what you just said.

That’s a great approach. And I love that about the fear thing, because I find that I definitely feel like. And then I used that, the value thing, and then that’s actually when I became clear about that I was in a wrong relationship when I was married because the values were not aligned. But actually, your value. Mention of values really brings up a very good point where I was receiving so much advice about stay together.

Like, a prolonged marriage. Like a marriage is a failure if it ends. Like, the longer the better, right? So we have this conditioning constantly. So whomever I turn to, except for my coach, they come with this conditioning or underlying belief or the value that the. For marriage, longer the better, right? So all of the teaching I received, the great teachings to improve the marriage, improve whatever, always come, make it long, make it last long, that the better, that the longer the better.

But really taking a look at my values and comparing my then husband’s values, they were not aligned. And that was actually the moment where, oh, I actually am in a wrong relationship.

This is not aligned. This is why it’s not working.

So it is such a great point. And that you say that, and then it’s so important that people become crystal clear about what they value, what they really value as a person.

[00:33:35] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:33:35] Speaker B: And then to make sure that’s aligned with the partner.

And if it’s not aligned, I would say that it’s good that you found out about it and that you decide what you want to do with that.

[00:33:48] Speaker A: That’s right. Exactly. Yes.

Pivoting just a little bit. You and I talked about traditional male female roles as we were planning the episode. And this is not directly related to any type of sexual orientation. It’s larger than the topic of sexual orientation. But you talked about how there is such a missed opportunity for beauty when someone boxes themselves in to a traditional male role or a traditional female role. So if I’m a woman and I feel like I’m a naturally dominant person, I feel like I have to hide that and be submissive in order to be a real woman. Or if I’m a man, maybe I’m a naturally submissive man, but society tells me I’m defective, if that’s the case. So I have to always pretend to be a dominant man, or I’m failing at manhood. And I wonder if you have some thoughts on this beautiful, missed beauty that exists when we allow our authenticity to come through in our gender expression.

[00:35:01] Speaker B: Yes.

So what you just said, what you just summarized about the traits of human that is contrary to this society’s conditioning of the gender based roles, for whatever reason, that really hits me very close to my heart, because I myself identify as a very dominant and very masculine woman, but I’m also very feminine, but someone who was afraid to embrace my feminine because I thought that if I am too feminine, then I’m considered to be weak, inferior to men. And then if I wanted to be successful in the business world, that didn’t seem, like, advantageous for me. Right. So I hid that part intentionally all my life.

[00:36:07] Speaker A: You hid your feminine part, and you leaned into the dominant masculine part, and you hid the feminine part so that you would not put yourself at a disadvantage. Is that what you’re saying?

[00:36:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I did that intentionally.

And I don’t think people felt that I am a dominant or a masculine woman particularly, but I don’t think they felt I am particularly feminine woman either. And I always kind of really like the idea that I’m an androgynous person who is highly masculine and highly feminine. I’ll just be honest that it was very difficult for me to be me as a woman, me as a woman, powerful woman, but not masculine powerful, but the feminine powerful, because I did not know what that means.

And also, I was very aware of the fact that, like I said, I never really felt like I was a typical woman growing up, even a typical girl had a lot of male friends and my entire life.

And at the same time, there are quite a few men who are just really not feeling identified as just dominant alpha male, even if they are not a submissive per se. There are some people who really identify as a submissive, but even if they don’t necessarily submissive per se, there is this masculine conditioning of, like, alpha male. And then if you’re not dominant or alpha, then you’re not man enough. There is a lot of stories like this, and I feel like we receive so many of these type of things. And then for me as a woman, a lot of women who are powerful in the business world or in a professional world, if we are standing out, then we get this thing about, oh, she’s bossy.

And I don’t think men get this description of being bossy.

[00:38:48] Speaker A: Right.

[00:38:49] Speaker B: It’s what women get.

And then a lot of women feel terrified of called intimidating. I get that a lot. Intimidating woman. And then I got that throughout my life. And again, I didn’t really think too much of it, but I know some women feel very.

Take that description very personally, and then they don’t feel comfortable about that. So this constant comparison of what a woman should be if you’re a woman, the constant comparison of what a man should be if you’re a man, whenever there is a gap between what we are fed, how we should be with a gender role, we kind of not explore that part because it’s uncomfortable.

And so we just don’t go there. And then it’s much easier to just kind of say, oh, I just kind of be like this, wear a skirt and be a girl.

But, yeah, so after I get a training, I got this formal training to be a dominatrix.

And then, so when I did this, what was incredible to me is that the change in me, and also I’m able to see the beauty in people that I didn’t see before, that it is not because it is not about, let’s say, the submissive men. Submissive men is more beautiful than not submissive men. I’m not saying it, but it’s really more about really knowing who the person is. And then if that person is submissive, then owning it.

[00:40:54] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:40:55] Speaker B: And then just specifically me experiencing submissive men and then receiving their devotion and love as a dominant woman.

I don’t know how to explain this experience.

That experience really taught me what I’m offering as a woman.

That before this training, before this understanding, I probably would have felt very uncomfortable. No, I’m not that beautiful. I’m not that powerful. I’m not that sexy. I don’t think I was aware of what I had.

[00:41:45] Speaker A: Right? Yes.

[00:41:46] Speaker B: But because of this training and an understanding and interacting with people who fully own the submissive parts, I was able to fully own my dominant part, which I couldn’t do in most of my life.

And I thought, oh, my God.

So that was an experience of very unexpected way of accessing that power by assuming it. Yes, I have this. Yes, I will take it. I will receive your devotion, and then I will receive your worship. This is not something I could ever imagine saying people worship.

[00:42:44] Speaker A: Even just verbalizing, that can be shocking in our.

[00:42:47] Speaker B: Yes.

I mean, three years ago, I cannot imagine saying something like this. People worshipping me.

[00:42:55] Speaker A: Right?

[00:42:56] Speaker B: No.

I would have felt very uncomfortable because I didn’t feel worthy of such a thing. But I do now. Yeah, but it’s not because I changed. It’s because I realized that I actually have these things.

[00:43:12] Speaker A: Yes. There you go.

You hold space for your entire self, right? Because no one is. Well, I won’t say no one, but very few people are only on one side of the coin, right? I’m not only dominant or only submissive. I’m not only masculine or only feminine. I’m not only desirous of being single or only desirous of being in a monogamous marriage, right? Most of us fall somewhere in the middle on these continua.

And I think it’s important to say, if I were to look at myself, if I were to look at myself, like, on the continuum of masculine energy and feminine energy, I might fall on the masculine side, but really around 60 out of a scale of 100. I’m not an 80 or 90% masculine energy person.

And I think it’s important to really say, okay, who am I? What makes me tick? What are my motivations? What are my fears? What drives me? And can I hold space to love? What drives me? And we all know the stories of politicians or other notable people who were caught in these compromising situations where they were getting their needs met. That was in a way, that was off brand for who they said they were. It’s painful when we will not accept who we are, what we are, what we need, and then we have to skulk around like a little weasel to secretly get our needs met and life will punish us when we’re not authentic.

[00:45:07] Speaker B: Yeah.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you for saying that. And then I totally agree with that. And then that’s kind of when I kind of accidentally and then playfully put myself in a situation looking to these areas or my way of being or parts of myself that I never considered for myself, that’s when I realized that I was actually being punished. Using your words. Yeah, for not using the power that I have so abundantly.

But hey, I didn’t know. I didn’t know. Being myself and then really knowing who I am and expressing myself gives me.

Not like hiding or just secretly judging about it.

[00:46:05] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s it.

I think this has been such an interesting conversation, especially considering how rarely we’re willing to talk about things like this out in the open. So I want to thank you for bringing that gift to refractive and for sharing your wisdom and experience with us. If listeners want to learn more about what you do, how you help individuals live authentically, how can they learn more about you?

[00:46:42] Speaker B: Well, yes, thank you for asking. So I do a one on one coaching and then sometimes I create some group programs and workshops.

You can get more information about my work on my website.

So it’s www.mistressmarico.com.

And also I post quite a bit. Well, not quite a bit. I’m going to post more regularly on my instagram that my Instagram handle is mistressmarico.

[00:47:18] Speaker A: Okay, great. And that’s m as in Mary Ariko.

[00:47:24] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:47:25] Speaker A: Excellent. Thank you so much. What a joy to have you with me today. Thank you for that.

[00:47:30] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me, everyone.

[00:47:33] Speaker A: As you go out in your day and you meet all sorts of people who are just doing the best they can, I hope you can remember to aim your light. Take care.

You’ve been listening to refractive podcast and this is Johnny G. If you found today’s content uplifting, if you think it might make somebody’s day better, give it a share on social media, click like subscribe. All those things help to expand this podcast availability to new audiences. I’m a speaker, a coach, and a facilitator based out of Washington, DC, but I travel a lot. If you think I can be of service to you or to your organization, help people get unstuck or move into their authentic power, shoot me an email. My email address is re***************@***il.com. Take care. Thanks for listening and aim your light.

Deborah Eden Tull, lovingly known as Eden, joins Refractive with the message of embracing the shadow self. She encourages linsteners to see our inner darkness as sacred and perfect, a necessary part of the whole of creation rather than as a defect. Eden shares her journey of awakening, including 7 years as a Zen Buddhist monk and decades of leaning towards unconditional love, healing, and self-acceptance. Her book, Luminous Darkness, distinguishes between the evil, coloquially synonymous with “darkness,” and a broader concept of luminous or regenerative darkness. She discusses a range of impactful topics such as fierce compassion, moving beyond duality, the healing and sacred nature of darkness (physically and metaphysically), and the path to endarkenment, what Eden calls the path to unconditional love of self and of all.

For similarly themed content, try the following episodes: Whose Expectations Are You Trying to Meet? and Making Peace with Your Dark Side.

You can find Eden’s Book “Luminous Darkness” with a quick online search, it is a delight to read. You can learn more about Eden at www.DeborahEdenTull.com or at instagram.com/MindfulLivingRevolution.

To reach host Johnny Guidry for spiritual coaching, speaking engagements, or with any questions, send an email to Re***************@***il.com or visit www.RefractiveCoaching.com.

Thanks for listening and always remember: aim your light!

Dr Gary Lawrence, lovingly known as Dr G, joins host Johnny Guidry to review the harmful emotional patterns created by rejection experiences, and why we continue to put ourselves in the path of rejection. Dr G offers us a new, broader definition of rejection, including any number of painful emotional experiences and behaviors: agression, isolation, passive-aggressive tendencies, dishonesty, and more. He explains that we become dependent on these painful emotional experiences, and that form of dependence can develop into symptoms of depression, anxiety, violence, and extreme avoidance. A devout Christian, Dr G weaves in his own faith-based experience to explain that simply possessing faith and deep spiritual beliefs isn’t enough to break that addiction to emotional pain. Dr G digs deep into his knowledge and expertise to offer listeners suggestions for breaking these devastating patterns.

You can find Dr G’s book, Rejection Junkies online at his website, www.RejectionJunkies.com. While you’re there, you can also take the free quiz “Are You a Rejection Junkie” and learn more about how Dr G helps people break free from painful emotional patterns.

To contact host Johnny G for speaking, coaching, or just to ask questions or suggest topics, email him at Re***************@***il.com or at www.RefractiveCoaching.com.

For similarly themed episodes, try Spiritual Healing through Toxic Relationships or A Modern Look at the Sermon on the Mount with Rev Rich Tafel.

Best of Refractive: Host Johnny G shares one of his all-time favorite episodes, originally aired in May 2022. We spend so much of our lives scrounging and begging for scraps when there is a banquet laid out at the next table, and it’s been put there JUST for us. The truth is, we humans often trade our birthright of magnificence for a life of scratching and clenching and snatching and wishing. Fortunately, we have a treasure map built into our being, it just requires us to seek to quiet the noise around us and re-learn how to access it. Johnny G discusses how holding tightly to careers, relationships, and ideologies that no longer fit keep us small and block our light. He encourages listeners to remember that no matter how dark and rough and confusing life can be, there is one thing for certain: you already know and you already are.

For support on your spiritual journey, speaking engagements, or other questions, contact us at Re***************@***il.com.

Learn more about host Johnny Guidry at www.RefractiveCoaching.com or www.RefractivePodcast.com

Aim your light.

We hear about self love, and self care, but what about self like? Guest Alan Questel, author of “Practice Intentional Acts of Kindness” talks about the importance of learning to like yourself.

In this episode, Alan talks about his journey through life challenges and interpersonal relationships that led to struggles with how he saw himself. He shares how he has been able to heal those wounds and how to find the power to shift out of that painful way of life.

To contact Alan with questions, to find his book, or to inquire into how he helps people live a more loving life, visit his website: www.UncommonSensing.com

To contact host Johnny Guidry with questions or to inquire on coaching or speaking engagements, email him at Re***************@***il.com or visit www.RefractiveCoaching.com

For similarly themed content, try the following episodes: Telling Yourself the Truth; Surrender to Greatness; or Free Yourself from Limiting Beliefs

You know the saying: some people are a blessing when they walk into your life, and others are a blessing when they leave! Why do some people feel energizing to be with while others are draining? And more importantly, does it feel good to be around YOU? Host Johnny G discusses how to manage the energy you put out to those around you.

We end every episode of Refractive with the same phrase: “aim your light.” What does that mean? Can you enhance the experience of your fellows by simply entering the room? You absolutely can- and it’s not difficult at all. This episode reviews some practical methods for maintaining a natural lightness of energy and cleansing and clearing any heavy energy that you might be carrying.

For some more great ideas on managing your energy, check out this post from YogaBasics.com: https://www.yogabasics.com/connect/yoga-blog/clear-negative-energy/

For similarly themed content, try these other episodes from Refractive: Energy Work to Support Your Goals, and All About Reiki.

To contact host Johnny Guidry for questions, coaching support, or feedback, email him at Re***************@***il.com or visit www.RefractiveCoaching.com.

Transcript follows (please excuse any autotranscription software errors):

Ever since you can remember, you felt something in your chest telling you to move, to love, to speak, to try. Day after day, you pretend you don’t hear calling. Or maybe you dismiss it as silliness or worse. But it’s there ready for you. And it will wait for you as long as you need. My name is Johnny G.

And I invite you to join me on a journey of awakening as we dare to embrace our light. This is refractive. Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of Refractive. I’m your host, Johnny G. Today I want to talk about the topic of how to manage our energy. What does that even mean? What does it mean to manage my energy well?

Are there people in your life that you know that always seem to have what you would call as a good energy? There are people that it just feels good to be around. Why is that? Why are there some people who feel energizing or comforting to be around and there are other people who might feel taxing or draining to be around?

This is really at the core of what today’s topic is. I want to be able to show up in the world and have people feel that they are better because they crossed paths with me. Whether that’s through this podcast, whether that’s through the clients that I work with one on one who are trying to change their lives, whether that is the random clerk or cashier that I come across in a store.

This is really important to me. It’s a major part of how I try to live today. It’s not something that I do accidentally. It’s something that I try to do intentionally every day. And so I want to focus on this idea of having good energy. How do you get good energy? How did I get what I would call good energy?

And really, with that, I don’t intend to I don’t intend to brag or inflate my ego. But what I can say is that I get complimented on my energy a lot. I mean, certainly every week, sometimes several times a week, strangers, cashiers at CVS or someone today. I hadn’t seen this person in a long time and we crossed paths today.

And he told me that my energy was invigorating to him. That’s literally what someone told me an hour and a half ago. And it’s something that I value very, very much. I take it as a goal post that I’m doing something correct, that I am living my life in a wholesome, nurturing, healthy way. What I find is that the more I direct my living in a manner that is consistent with my values, the more that I live in a way that enhances love around me, meaning I don’t engage in garbage food.

I don’t engage in garbage activities that drag my my energy down. The more I approach actively soak myself in love through non fear based self-care, through wholesome activities, through pursuing joy, through spending time with people that I like being around. The more I do that, the more people notice, the more people verbally comment on my energy. It’s incredible.

I just I love it. I love it. I love it. And I am, as I often say in these episodes, I am not an enlightened being. I don’t live in a state of consistent enlightenment. And so what that means is sometimes I do engage in behaviors that aren’t so what’s the right word? I engage in behaviors that might bring my energy down.

Sometimes I do watch trashy TV. Sometimes I do let my lust or other instincts get the better of me. And when I do, people stop commenting on the light that I put out. So I base this not just on an idea, I base this on what I have observed. And I have a feeling that if you are listening to this podcast, you care about the energy you put out.

You care about how other people feel when they are around you. And so I want to share what I have learned on my path. Now, listen, I am not some guru. I don’t know anything about anything. There’s a there’s speaking of TV that brings my energy down. There’s that show Ozark and I watched it even though it was so heavy.

And there’s this character, Ruth, and she has a particular quote that I’m not going to say, but it makes me laugh. She says, I don’t know, blank about blank. It’s hilarious. And so when it comes to this stuff, I don’t know, blank about blank. All I can tell you is what I have experienced and what I have observed.

I also want to ask before we get into the content today, I want to ask if you have not subscribed to this show. I ask that you actually click the subscribe button on whatever podcast platform you use. If you have not left a rating and a review of this show, I ask that you do that. Of course, if that’s not something you feel like doing, I, I totally respect it.

But the more people that subscribe and the more people that leave reviews. It has nothing to do with money. I don’t get a dollar from this, but the podcast platforms take the podcast more seriously when they find that listeners like it. So reviews make a big difference in how podcast platforms might suggest my show to people who are doing searches for new podcast to listen to.

So I thank you in advance. Please leave a review. Please leave a star rating and please subscribe if you feel inspired to do so. It is how you can it how you can support this so that more people encounter the messages of these episodes. Let’s move right into energy management and just some background info. Now, you might hear this referred to sometimes as energy hygiene.

If we’re talking about how to cleanse our energy, how to manage what we put out in the world. I also want to address a concern that some of you might have if you come from a traditional religious background. I can tell you, because I went to Catholic school for kindergarten through 12th grade and I was taught a lot of Catholic dogma and tradition, and there was always warnings and concerns about the occult.

I recognize that a lot of you listening might come from a more traditional Christian background or maybe from a muslim background or from another religious faith that warns against engaging in a cult. But I want to also remind and I’m going to use Christian examples because that’s my background, that Christians do an awful lot of energy cleansing and energy management.

And I’m going to go through a list of traditions, behaviors, features of worship that are exactly intended to cleanse our energy. So my point is to say that what I’m encouraging you to do in this episode is not intended to be a cult behavior. What I’m encouraging you to do is to manage the energy you put out, and it all comes from intentions.

And some of the behaviors that we do are simply vehicles to channel our intentions. Right. When I light a candle, it is an act that is intended to focus my to focus my intention. If a priest likes incense in the mass, it is an act intended to focus the energy of that priest in this symbolic act. It’s all about directing energy.

So here we go. In Christianity, specifically in Catholicism, a part of the mass is that the priest washes his hands. Now, if you’ve ever watched it, there’s no soap. There’s none of that happening. It’s not a real washing of the hands. It is a symbolic sprinkling of water on the hands that is meant to be a ritualistic cleansing.

It is a it is an energetic cleansing. It is a symbolic cleansing. There’s the wearing of white garments by a priest underneath the charitable. The charitable is that big, colorful poncho looking garment. But underneath all priests wear a white garment. It is a an energy cleansing intention. It is a visual representation of the purity inside of the priest.

There is then these concepts of incense using oils, oils to anoint so many of the Christian sacraments and the Catholic sacraments use oils to anoint. There’s the idea of using ashes, which is not only a part of Catholicism, but other sects of Christianity. There’s holy water, blessing of holy water and sprinkling it on the crowd or anointing yourself with holy water.

All of these are meant to be visual representations to channel your energy into cleansing your spirit. That’s what this is about. That’s what we’re doing. We are setting intentions and channeling our energy to ask the Holy Spirit to cleanse us before we engage in some sort of act, whether it’s a mass or whether it’s a worship or whether it’s any other type of situation.

There’s the meditation on holy mysteries. So in Catholicism again, which is my particular area of some expertise. There’s the Rosary where each decade of the rosary focuses on some other holy mystery. And so and then by chanting, saying the same words over and over and over and over again, we cleanse our energy, we cleanse our brain, we cleanse our thoughts, and we prepare ourselves to receive the grace of God.

That’s the intention of saying the rosary. The intention of saying the rosary is not necessarily to pray for my neighbor who is having surgery tomorrow. The intention of praying for the rosary is to cleanse my thoughts and to cleanse my spirit of the worldly heaviness. And I do that through chanting and incantation and through symbology, iconography. There’s the calling on of the Holy Spirit, which is something a priest does many times during any mass, any Sunday.

The calling on of this this spirit guide to come down and to support us, to cleanse us, to help us make ourselves clean. In fact, there is a scripture quote during the mass where we say, and I won’t go into the origin of the quote, it’s from it’s from the New Testaments, from one of the gospels. Lord, I have not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.

In other words, cleanse me, cleanse me. I’m inviting you to help me heal. I’m inviting you to help me cleanse. There’s then the act of confession. The act of confession is not just a Christian act right there. There is a holy holiday in Judaism where you are confessing to wipe clean your year and start the year fresh. There is, of course, in Christianity, there are many, many different religious observations that involve confession.

The purpose of confession is to cleanse yourself, to cleanse your energy, to cleanse your spirit. That’s what this is about, right? It’s directing your energy. It’s managing your spirit there. My mother, in fact, had her local priest come in to her home and bless it. So blessing of a space. Blessing of a home. Right. So what what is the purpose of blessing of a home?

It is to wrap it in protection. It is to cleanse it from lower or heavier energies. That’s what this is about, Right. And so this is something that’s very real. It’s done today. It was done by my mother two days ago. There is fasting, which we know is not only done in Christianity, it’s done in Islam, it’s done in Judaism.

There is also it’s a fasting through all sorts of different religious observations. There’s fasting and Buddhism. And so all of this by denying a cleansing the body, voiding the body of food, we open ourselves up to to spiritual reception, to gifts, to a higher vibration. So this is a form of preparing ourselves, right? That’s why historically Catholics would not eat meat on during Lent because it was meant as a purification of the body in preparation for Easter, in preparation to celebrate, to welcome in the celebration of the resurrection of Christ.

That was the intention behind the fasting. Why do we give something up for Lent again? It’s an act of spiritual purification. This is energy management. This is energy hygiene. There is Jesus who went out into the desert for 40 days to prepare himself before his ministry kicked off in earnest. And so that again, that was that was that an act of physical cleansing?

That was an act of spiritual cleansing. There are silent retreats that people go on all the time. It is meant to be an act of spiritual cleansing and energy management. All of these are examples of Christianity using energy management to purify our spirit, purify our energy, and prepare us to better participate in the spiritual life. That’s what we’re talking about today.

So thank you for bearing with me as I went through this. I just want to put you at ease. I’m not asking you to engage in some sort of occult practice that is at odds. I’m asking you to go inside yourself and find out where am I inviting heaviness into my life, into my spirit, into my energy? Where am I inviting in the heaviness?

And can I proactively reverse that trend? That’s what we’re talking about today. So for this second half of the episode, I want to talk about simple ways to manage your energy. One of the first things that I’d like to reference. I first heard this from Eckhart Tolle, who is wildly famous. So of course, many of you may know more about Eckhart Tolle than I myself do.

And in his book, in one of his books, he talks about if you want to feel your energy body, if you want to feel your spirit, then just look at your hand. Look at your hand. And I want to invite all of you as you’re listening to just relax. Let’s relax for a second. If there’s any tension in your body, maybe you’re holding tension in your jaw or your shoulders.

You know, I clench my my pelvic muscles a lot without realizing it. So just feel. Are you holding any tension? Let’s just let it go. Just imagine all parts of your body just softening, relaxing a little bit, and then I like to do it with my eyes closed. I think it’s better. I think it’s easier this way. So I’m going to invite you to just close your eyes, and I want you to direct your sensory attention, your feeling, your sense of feeling into your hand.

And what I want you to do is I want you to kind of like maybe your hand is resting on your leg or on a table or on the arm of a chair. Can you feel the textures of whatever your hand is resting on? Now I want to challenge you. Can you feel the air around your hand? And I don’t mean wind.

I don’t mean the motion of wind. But can you just feel maybe the coolness of the air on the back of your hand?

Take a second. You can feel what your fingertips are touching. But can you feel what the back of your hand is touching, which is air?

What does it feel like?

Trust me, I’m going somewhere with this. I promise.

Now, I’d like you to feel through your entire hand. Can you feel if you sense inside your hand? Can you feel any type of maybe a slight tingling or a slight buzzing inside of your hand? Just some sort of subtle sensation.

This might take you a few seconds if you haven’t done this. So I’m going to be quiet for maybe five or 10 seconds. And I just want you to feel. Just focus in. Bring your attention to the inside of your hand. And can you feel any sensation of either movement or energy or buzzing or vibration?

If you haven’t, you might want to just press pause and just try. It might take a couple of minutes. This is now. This is a skill that we can learn. And there’s a reason that I’m having you do this actually says this is this is a part of your energy body. If you were able to feel that now, I want you to pick one of your feet.

And I want you to just feel into your foot. What are the sensations that you can observe in your foot? Just feel it. And then I’d like you to feel inside your foot. Sense inside your foot. You have nerves all through your foot. So I want you to actually intentionally bring your attention to these nerves. And can you feel any type of just a subtle, energetic feeling inside of your foot?

All right. Now what I’d like you to do is I would like you if you feel that that energy inside your foot. I would like you to direct that energy to move up your ankle, up your leg, through your torso, through your chest. Just feel it. It’s almost like a big, gentle jellyfish, just like a big bubble of energy that you can just feel if you you can direct it to move.

And this bubble of sensation, for me, it feels like it might be about ten inches, you know, eight or ten inches in circumference or so. And I just feel it moving through my through my torso, through my chest. I can feel it as it moves into my shoulder. I can feel kind of like the tingling in my shoulder.

Now. And I just move it down my arm into that same hand that I sensed into a moment ago. And now I sense my hand with that slight buzzing. Can you feel it?

Okay, so now I want to bring you to the next level. I want you if you can feel your hand buzzing. That’s where we left the energy. You don’t have to move at this time. I just want you to feel the energy in your hand. And I also want you to feel the energy in your foot at the same time.

Can you feel that slight tingle in your foot as well as the slight tingle in your hand at the same time?

This is a little bit more difficult to do. It might take practice or I’m going to give you another five or 10 seconds. All right. If you weren’t successful in feeling both your foot and your hand at the same time. I encourage you to practice this. Again, it’s a skill that you can build. The reason that I have you engage in this exercise is that directing your energy is as simple as feeling.

That kind of feeling, that sensation and moving it. Sometimes I direct energy into my body, like if I sense that someone that I’m talking to is is being loving towards me, I might actually I don’t know the right word. I guess. Suck in the energy of love from that person. It’s like receiving. It’s like it’s like opening up to receive the love of that person.

And sometimes when I’m with someone and I feel this urge to pour out my love, I actually beam my love from my chest to the other person. It’s like a solid column of light that beams from me to that person. This is me managing, directing my energy.

The next step on top of this, I personally like to use the the the imagery of my chakras. I’m. I use the chakras because it resonates with me. So I want to talk about cleansing the chakras and the reason I do this is because it feels good. It actually gives a positive sensation and I need to be able to direct my energy by doing it, which is why I had you feel your hand and had you feel your foot and had you feel both at the same time because it requires you to direct your energy in order to kind of cleanse your energy centers.

Now, chakra is just that. It’s an energy center in your body. And so there are seven chakras within the body. There are other chakras that extend above and below the body. And there are many, many, many other chakras and smaller chakras, energy vortexes and things that through other. But there are seven main chakras. Each chakra corresponds to a color of the traditional human spectrum of light.

So we start with red and red chakra is in your base. It’s right at the bottom of your spine and the color associated with it is red. And so when I want to manage my energy, if I want to have good energy, every once in a while, I’ll just be lying in bed or and I’ll be like, Oh, I want to make sure that I feel like I cleanse my energy that I like.

I’m only having good energy flowing through. And I’ll, I’ll imagine my, my chakra, that red chakra down by the base of my spine. And what I do is like, I imagine it like a large, clear gemstone and, and with little bits of cloudiness in, I just imagine the cloudiness fading out and it’s left with just sparkling clarity so that if I were to shine a light through that big gemstone, there would be nothing inside the gemstone to refract the light.

This is why I call the podcast refractive. So by cleansing that and all of this is just in my imagination, right? Is it real? Is there is that part of my body really a red energy? Who knows? I don’t know. I don’t know this. I’m not even sure if I believe that. I don’t know. What I’m saying is that this is an energetic practice that feels good.

It makes me feel lighter after I do it. It’s relatively easy and I get results from it. So, again, I’m not asking you to believe anything I’m saying. This is one method for cleaning your energy. So I imagine the red chakra, I imagine that it begins to sparkle with extreme clarity and I imagine that the glow of it expands far and wide.

It just shines out almost like a lighthouse in all directions from that part of my body.

Then I move up to my bellybutton and it just inside my torso, around my belly button is the orange chakra. And again, I imagine a an orange gemstone maybe the size of a grapefruit. I don’t know, a softball. And it’s a little cloudy. And what I do is I just imagine all of the impurities inside that gemstone fading out.

And what’s left is brilliant, sparkling orange clarity that shine out brightly like a lighthouse in all directions. So right now I have brilliant red and brilliant orange shining out for me. I move my attention up to my solar plexus. This is the area just behind the bottom of my ribs in there, yellow. And you pick whatever shade of these colors that you like the best.

Maybe your red has a tinge of purple to it, or maybe it has a tinge of orange. You know, for my yellow eye, I use kind of like a canary yellow. That’s my favorite. And I imagine this big gemstone kind of like a, you know, just a big, beautiful yellow diamond. And it’s a little cloudy. And I visualize it becomes very clear light passing through it.

It’s no interruption, it sparkles. And yellow light spills out for me in all directions, like a bright beacon. I move up to the center of my chest, around my heart, my lungs. And there I have the green chakra and I like to imagine the same green that you see in a rainbow. You know, that very, very vivid green.

It’s almost like the green of a really clear emerald. And there’s a little bit of cloudiness in that big gemstone. And I just clarify it. And right now I have an intense glowing red, orange, yellow and now green beacon of light that directs in 360 degrees all around me. I move up to my throat and there is my blue chakra.

And this blue chakra, it’s the color of blue again that you think of from a rainbow. It’s like a an electric blue. It’s an electric blue. It’s like a bright. It’s almost like a neon sky blue. And that that chakra just in my throat. It’s a little cloudy and I see the cloudiness just fade away and it becomes intensely bright, sparkling and clear, shining out in all directions.

I move up to the middle of my head, just kind of behind the eyes. In there I have an indigo chakra, and I didn’t know what Indigo was, but Indigo is actually it is a blue. It’s a deep blue and has just a hint of kind of like a purple to it. It’s a very, very, very rich blue with just a it’s like cobalt blue that has a hint of purple in there.

I have this big gemstone of that color and I’m just letting the cloudiness escape, leaving nothing but perfect clarity. And with all the others, it shines out. It radiates out intense light. And then lastly, just at the very tiptop of my skull, I have the violet chakra Violet, a soft purple, and I let the cloudiness fade away. And what’s left is the most beautiful amethyst color is crystal clear, and that violet light shines brightly in all directions.

Oh, and with just something as simple as that visualization, you have cleansed the energy in your seven energy centers. I don’t know if you feel better, but I immediately feel better. I feel better right now. And I was feeling good before this. And I feel, I don’t know, I feel healthier, I feel empowered. So let’s move on some more ways of cleaning your energy.

There’s just a few left that I’d like to share. Setting intentions is probably the most powerful thing you can do when it comes to managing your energy, to putting out good energy. So there’s a couple of ways. Number one, I like to have a morning routine, and in that morning routine, I think about my day. I think about what’s going to happen.

I ask for guidance that throughout the day I might be shown the right thing to do so that I can be of maximum service. I ask for guidance in any moments of doubt or confusion that I might be just nudged in the right direction. And if you don’t believe in God, that’s okay. You can set the intention for your intuition to give you guidance.

I asked to be shown how to best serve others. I asked that my thoughts. I asked that I get support in clearing my thoughts of wrong motives. When I say wrong motives, I mean dishonesty, self-pity, making myself of the victim or the center selfishness, you know. And some people, just like a priest does during the mass, also in their morning routines, like to light a candle and just enjoy, just sit in the peace of watching the flame.

Maybe there’s a meditation that like that you might like to do, or a chant, maybe there’s a lighting of some sort of incense or a scented candle. All of these are ways that you can cleanse your energy and start your day on a strong foot. I mentioned that using your intention is one of the most powerful things you can do.

But one of the ways that I proactively use my energy with other people, right? So not only do I try to clean my energy and have nice, clean, bright energy around me, but when I’m with another person, I proactively send them my energy. And sometimes it’s through a visualization like I might actually. I mentioned earlier that I kind of send out a column of light of love from me to them, that’s me directing my energy.

There’s a writer that I really like. She’s a spiritual writer named Caroline Macy. She talks about sending like a a host, like a just like a a sphere, a small sphere of just white light from you to them. It’s just a an offering of love. Sometimes I just use eye contact. I’ll make eye contact with someone who doesn’t need to be long eye contact.

And during that, I’m thinking, I’m sending you love or I love you, I love you. And I just look at them and just think that and that is sending that energy to them. It is a beautiful, beautiful way to interact with other people. And if you want people to respond well, to you, man, look at them and just think, I love you.

I love you for who you are. I don’t need you to be different than you are. I don’t need you to respond differently. I just love you and watch how people open up another tool that I use to cleanse myself when I’m feeling heavy. Because even though I do these things, it doesn’t mean that I always feel like when I feel heavy, I have a way to address that.

So if I find myself in a funk for some reason, sometimes it just sneaks up on me. I imagine that. I imagine my whole body right I sense into my whole body. Remember, we sense into into our hands and our but I sense into my whole body. It’s sometimes it takes me like 30 seconds to actually feel the tingling all over.

But I feel it from the tip of my head to the bottom of my toes. And then I test it out. Can I feel it in my finger? Am I, am I fingernail? Can I feel it right in the bottom of my butt when it’s on the chair? Can I feel it? Can I feel my nipple Right? Can I feel the tip of my nose?

Can I feel it all Tingle And when I have when I can feel that life, energy all over, all over. Then I just imagine this gray mist just leaving me, leaving that energy field and that gray mist is how I see the funk, the heaviness. And as that gray mist just evaporates off me, almost like. Like your breath on a cold day as it just leaves, I release it back.

I don’t hate that gray mist. I love it. Thank you for teaching me what you’ve taught me. And I release whatever can be released back to the creator. Thank you for this lesson. I offer this back to you. And I just, like, I just sit there in the visualization until there’s no more mist coming off of me. And what’s left just like that chakra clearing exercise.

What’s left is just crystal clarity. And as you probably know, when you take all of the the colors of visible light and you layer them on top of one another, you get white light. And so as the mist finishes leaving me, I imagine that my entire body becomes bright, bright, bright white light. And I just glow. I glow so strong that you could see me from the moon.

You could see a pinprick of white light from from, from space. It’s just beautiful, pristine, perfect, blindingly lovely white light coming out of me. And I feel better. And people notice. People notice sometimes when I’m in a situation that’s uncomfortable, maybe I’ll be on the subway and two people will get in an argument. I, I imagine that there’s a bubble around the whole subway car, and I just then I just pull the mist out of the subway car the same way that the mist evaporated off my body.

I visualize a bubble of light around the subway car, and I just pull proactively the mist out of the subway car. And this is my gift to the people. They’re in the car with me that their fear because the people around the two arguing individuals are uncomfortable. Right. They might be uncomfortable right now. And so let’s just pull that fear out.

Let’s just let’s just let that heaviness, whatever can be released, let’s let it release. And I just use the power of my white light and my love to just send peace to everyone, not just the two people who are arguing, but everyone, all of us. And it’s the way that I offer my energetic gift to all of the people around me in that car.

You know, I end every episode with the words Aim your light. And I hope that you now understand what I mean when I say aim your light. Because if you want to contribute to the world, if you want to be a light in the world, you can expand your impact by aiming, by being proactive about the energy you put out to others.

It’s about shining as brightly as you can, and that is your gift. That is your service to the world. And when you do it, your life will feel better. That’s my experience. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode today. Thank you for tuning in. And as always, my friends, aim your light. Take care. You’ve been listening to Refractive podcast and this is Johnny G.

If you found today’s content uplifting, if you think it might make somebody day better, give it a share on social media, click like Subscribe. All those things helped to expand this podcast availability to new audiences. I’m a speaker, a coach, and facilitator based out of Washington DC, but I travel a lot. If you think I can be of service to you or to your organization, help people get unstuck or move into their authentic power, shoot me an email.

My email address is Re***************@***il.com. Take care. Thanks for listening and aim your light.